Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin Song

Happy Halloween!!!  This has been a quiet holiday for us.  No costumes (unless you count my cat-ear headband) and no parties (my Halloween-obsessed friend R is trying to sell her condo so no annual house of horrors).  However, we have engaged in some festive (and when compared to R's, boring) decorations.

We've also done up our porch for the trick-or-treaters with a variety of pumpkin artwork.  Here are our makeover candidates.

As if our kitchen wasn't orange enough already.

Here's Mr. flyskim designing his masterpiece.

The puking pumpkin was not my idea.  We can blame that on Mr. flyskim.  I carved the pumpkin on the ground looking horrified.  Because I really am, a little. 

 And here we have my haunted house pumpkin (thank you Martha).

We'll light them all up tonight, lock up the cats and hand out candy by the fistfuls.  I'm hoping the weather holds. Few things are worse than trick-or-treating in a rain storm.  Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderfully spooky Halloween.  I just need to put a second sleeve on Vogue 1193 and hem the skirt and sleeves.  I have great hopes of wearing my new dress to work Tuesday, so look for the post.

The Hungry Skeleton

 

 Last night, Mr. flyskim and I had our annual Halloween dinner at La Calaca Comelona in Southeast Portland.  This is, hands down, my favorite restaurant in Portland, and we don't eat here as often as I'd like.  This is the one exception I make to my boycott of spicy food, and I've never had a bad meal here.  From the moles to the enchiladas Morelianas (regional to Morelia, chicken and potato based and like no other enchilada you've ever eaten) to the chile relleno, everything is fresh and wonderfully made.  (Can you tell I'm not a food critic?  No descriptive abilities whatsoever.)  The old menu used to warn you that you were about to enjoy authentic regional Mexican cuisine (southern and central) and that you would not find burritos on the menu.  The restaurant is filled with pictures of Frida Kahlo and Day of the Dead images.

La Calaca Comelona means "The Hungry Skeleton" and, according to the restaurant's website, it "celebrates the traditional spirit of the dead that playfully makes its way into Mexican culture."  So, perfect for this time of year.  There is also an annual Day of the Dead Dinner on November 2nd with a fixed menu.  We've never attended, but I hear it's a blast.

Mr. flyskim would not let me take a picture of my meal (Levanta Muertos or Wake the Dead, a yummy combination of chicken, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, black beans and rice), so here's a picture of Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo. 

What Were the Judges Smoking?!?

Because it had to be some pretty good shit.

MONDO WAS ROBBED!!!

I'm a veteran watcher of competitive reality television, and I don't expect a show's judges to agree with me even a part of the time.  (Ask me how many times I've correctly predicted the outcome of America's Next Top Model.  Twice.)  But I always hope that the decision will at least have some basis in logic (high expectations for what is essentially a game show, I know).  But nothing can explain this except for drugs.  I mean, how else can you justify handing a large cash fashion design prize to someone who created what was, when it came right down to it, high-end Chicos wear?  I know that a lot of women love Chicos (T, I'm looking at you when I say this.  And, oh yes.  Hi Mom!), but not me.  

These were not wearable, on-trend clothes.  I for one have no desire to wear granny panties, boxy jackets and pleated pants, and if this is truly where fashion is going, thank God I sew.  Project Runway and Lifetime?  I wash my hands of you.  Marie Claire?  You are dead to me.

Let me say right up front that I love my job.  Really.  It's interesting and involving.  I have great co-workers.  It gives me someplace to dress up for otherwise I would live in jeans, and it pays me.  For doing something I really like.  So it always surprises me that I get so excited when I have a few days off.

Starting this morning, I am officially on vacation for the rest of the week, and Mr. flyskim is off work starting tomorrow.  We don't have anything planned other than pumpkin carving, a little baking and watching scary movies.  I'm going to be hard at work on Lady Grey (I'm just starting to pad-stitch the hair canvas onto the second front collar) and hope to have the shell put together by the end of the weekend.

I've also been fitting Vogue 1193, and I should have a progress report in the next couple of days.  I'm kind of at a loss about how to alter the skirt because of the pleating (blast you multi-sized patterns that break at size 12), so I'm pretty much winging it. 

And lastly, I'm working on two skirts for my sister-in-law as a birthday gift.  Yes, her birthday was months ago, but she hasn't called it in until just recently.  Muslin fitting on Sunday.  Must be ready.

And as we head into fall and winter, I'll leave you with my greatest hope for this La Nina year.  Our street knee-deep in snow.  Okay, maybe only ankle-deep from the look of it, but I remember we had to walk in the street because it was packed down, unlike the unshoveled sidewalks.  I took these pictures in December 2008 while walking to the local dive bar with Mr. flyskim for lunchtime gin and tonics and greasy burgers.  That was a good day, and I hope to have another like it this year.

If At First You Don't Succeed . . .

Your cat will eventually have to take matters into her own paws.  Or she would if she had opposable thumbs.  So, Lady Grey.  I'm still on the front.  I would be making significantly more progress, but I've had to redo everything at least three times.  At this rate, the left front is going to be ragged before I've even started on the right.  That's when Pip decided that someone better learn how to tailor, and she's been hard at work studying Tailoring:  The Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket from cover to cover. 

I think she needs more light.  Wouldn't want her to strain her eyes and ruin her night vision.

In order to avoid my problem with my seams being too stiff and supported and thereby turning my coat into a geometric shape, Pip has determined that I need to do a combination of sew-in and fusible interfacing and that I need to fuse the whole front and then apply hair canvas to the collar only.  So, I'm plugging away.  I didn't fuse the whole front at first and figured the hair canvas would provide enough support, but I forgot that the girlie spent a little time this weekend tenderizing it for me, so I have to undo the pad stitching that I've managed, fuse the rest of the collar and give it another go.

So, I'm off to rip the front apart.  Again.  I hope to have this all worked out by tomorrow, so that I can move on to the right front before the left front gets too spoiled from all of the attention.

Panic Is Really Just a Challenge

So, I hate buttonholes.  This is probably because on my machine, you need to constantly adjust the stitch length to get the buttonhole even, requiring multiple samples prior to sewing with the risk of still getting it all wrong in the end.  So, needless to say, after putting in so much time fitting my Lady Grey, the last thing I wanted to do was mess it all with wonky buttonholes.  Enter the bound buttonhole.  While this would have to be done pretty much first thing on the garment, I would be able to avoid a temperamental sewing machine and trying to duplicate all the layers (fashion fabric, hair canvas, interlining and lining) that tailoring requires in order to test the buttonhole multiple times.  The catch?  Never done one before, and I'm not the neatest finisher.  But I decided to give it a go with the aid of some scrap fabric and Gertie's excellent tutorial.

Here's my sample attempt.  I didn't feel like changing the thread that was in the machine from putting together my muslin, so I just went with the red.  It went pretty well but for the glaring exception of doing the final stitching on the outside of the garment, resulting in a messy, uneven box of stitching showing on the front of the sample.  However, the button fit throughout beautifully.  I rechecked the tutorial and figured out what I was doing wrong.  Now. I probably should have made another sample, but I didn't want to.  Lazy and wanted something that looked like actual sewing NOW!!!  Here's the finished buttonhole on the actual front piece.  And my pretty, glass button.

Please forgive the cat hair.  It's par for the course when you've got a cat sitting on your project as you're taking the picture.

And here she is doing her quality inspection of the uneven basting of the hair canvas to the side front.

I had to redo this multiple times.  I'm working with a really smooth fabric, and it seemed that no matter how few threads I picked up when basting down the hair canvas, I had puckering on the right side of the fabric.  By the end, I only picked up a single thread on each stitch, and my basting stitches are seriously close together because of it.  This is the point where I gave up and decided that it had to be good enough because there was still puckering on the front, and I couldn't pick up fewer threads.  There's just nothing less than one.

I later found out the trick was to iron the pieces after the basting was completed.  Completely cleared up the problem.  So, now I'm ready to attach the hair canvas to the front piece and shape the collar.  However, I first have to get another yard of hair canvas because I didn't get quite enough the first time and get 3/8-inch twill tape.  I should have followed my gut and got the twill tape in every width the store had, but no.  I actually thought about it and chose logically and couldn't have been more wrong.  I'm sure I'll find a use for my two yards of 1-inch twill tape sometime in the future.  I don't anticipate this taking particularly long now that I've figured out the secret to getting rid of the puckering. 

The Case of the Vanishing House Plant

Believe it or not, this ragged little piece of greenery is apparently a hot commodity.

This morning started out much like any other.  The alarm went off way too early.  Mr. flyskim, who is the sole reason for the early alarm thanks to his after-work volunteer gig, lazed around in bed while I got up and fed the cats, had breakfast and got ready for work (i.e. watched some music videos, checked out the new arrivals at Anthropologie and hunted for spoilers for tonight's episode of Glee).  We were leaving the house when I noticed the theft.  Someone (you know who you are and I hope you're ashamed of yourself) stole the plant off our front porch.  I know this might not seem like much, but I've led a pretty sheltered life aside from being held at gunpoint that one time when I was working at the Gap, and I felt pretty violated.  Surprisingly, more so than when my car went temporarily missing five years ago.

First, I swore up a blue streak (I never swear), and then I threatened to walk the neighborhood in search of the missing plant.  No, seriously.  Ask me about what I had planned the time I thought someone was peeing on our hydrangeas.  What?  My college roommate killed my fish (the ironically named Poisson) by dumping vodka into its fish bowl.  I realize that I was a little rigid and more than a little pretentious when I was 18, but who wasn't?  And that fish did not deserve to be pickled no matter how unbearable I was.  I've been a little possessive and paranoid about my things ever since. 

Anyway, Mr. flyskim was appropriately worried because I would totally do this.  Okay, I totally did do this.  Sort of.  I took the long way home from the bus stop and checked out every porch along the way.  Yes, my Nancy Drew sleuthing skills are still razor sharp.  And there it was on the porch of the house two doors down.  Which just supports my theory that the plant was just too heavy to steal in the first place.  Or someone what playing a joke.  Whatever.  I've reclaimed it, and I'm supergluing it to the steps tomorrow.  It might not be much of a plant, but it's still alive and green after a month in my care, and I like it.

Oh, and we've been getting a little last-minute summer here in Portland, and our garden is finally producing tomatoes.  I suspect there'll be more than we can deal with, and there's a lot more squash on the vine as well. We've replanted our potatoes for an early winter harvest, and we have a couple of peppers ripening.  As you can see below, we've had a pretty good year garden-wise. 

Hyde has temporarily forgotten that cats do not like tomatoes.

So, still working on the fitting issues for Lady Grey.  I've almost got it figured out, and I'll have more muslin details in the next day or two.

What A Difference An Inch Makes

So remember in my last post when I thought I'd figured out most of my Lady Grey fitting issues in my pattern fitting?  Me, too.  Well, I made a muslin using these pattern adjustments, and that brought me back to reality pretty quickly.

So, here's the front, not looking too bad when you take into consideration the bad right-sided lighting.  What would Cher Horowitz say?  Oh, right.  Total Monet.  Looks fine from a distance, but up close?

See that vertical fold at the shoulder?  No supposed to be there.  Also, major gaping at the neckline.  And then there's the back.

Vertical lines in the center back indicating that the back curve is to much for my very upright back.  Easy fix to take this in 1/4 inch.  But what I couldn't figure out was what was going on with the shoulders and the armscye.  (Aren't you glad that I figured out it wasn't an arm scythe?  That would be messy and totally negate the need for sleeves at all.)

So, same vertical creasing as in the front, but I can tell you from having worn this that the armscye was restrictive and while I had good range of motion, I had a difficult time taking the muslin on and off.  At first I thought that I needed to decrease the shoulder and tried that adjustment, but given the problems with the tight armscye and putting the muslin on, taking out material didn't seem logical in the end.  So I decided to take the drastic step to think about it for a while.  And to consult my Fit For Real People (FFRP) book. 

The first thing I came up with was to see how the muslin measured up to a ready-to-wear coat that I feel fits me well.  This coat is very similar to the Lady Grey in that it is a wrap coat with a large-scale collar and has arm princess seams, so I thought this would be a good comparison.  I measured the back of both the coat and the muslin at the bustline and, shocker, the coat was 1 1/2 inches larger than the muslin.  So the creasing you see in the picture above isn't because the shoulder is too big.  It's actually too small.  I had thought of this at first, but FFRP shows broad back lines as horizontal pulling, and that threw me off.  Also, I had been treating the edge of the back pattern piece as the center back, but this piece is not sewn on a fold.  It has a seam, so my first pattern fitting was off because of this.

So, I made a full back adjustment of 1/2 inch per side.  I didn't do the entire 1 1/2 inches that the muslin and the RTW coat were off because my Lady Grey fabric is much thinner than the fabric my RTW coat is made out of.  Also, patterns tend to grow once they are put into fabric.  I then measured all of the pattern pieces at the bustline to see what the finished garment would add up to and got 43 inches.  My full bust is 37 inches, so that gives me 5 inches of ease at the bustline.  FFRP says that for a lined or unlined fitted coat, you need 5 1/4 to 6 3/4 inches of ease.  So, that's pretty good.  I might still add some more width, but I want to make another muslin first.

The shoulders still looked a little wide, but FFRP says that your shoulder seam should be at the tip of your shoulder for a fitted garment.  On the muslin, it is for the most part.  Front's a little off, but that's not too dire.  Also, if you notice, my shoulders, while broad, slope an inch, maybe two.  I wasn't originally going to use shoulder pads, but one of the example photos in FFRP showed a jacket fitting in fabric, and the shoulder seams looked almost exactly what I was trying to achieve, and they used shoulder pads.  So I caved.

The last adjustment I made was to take a 2 1/4 inch tuck out of the lapel tapering to nothing at the armscye.  This has mostly fixed the gaping problem.  Here's the front tissue with all of my new changes and with a shoulder pad.

The center front is now at the center front without pulling.  However, if I add more width, it might be to the front piece.  I'll know after putting the next muslin together. 

Here's a close up of the right shoulder.  It might still be a little broad, but I think that it's better and hope that this translates to fabric.  Shoulder pads.  Who knew?

I'm standing a little sideways, but the shoulder looks better, and I can tell you that I don't feel like the pattern is pulling as much.

This is a close-up of the shoulder (I am the queen of stating the obvious).  I think that the shoulder pad trues up where the shoulder seam should fall.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

I'll be putting together another muslin this afternoon.  The only changes that might be needed after that are a little more width through the bustline if needed, a larger tuck to the front lapel and scooping out the bottom of the armscye if it's still a little binding.  Hopefully, I'll be ready to start the actual construction on time.

Don't It Make My Green Coat Blue?

I spent a good part of yesterday doing an initial pattern fitting for my Lady Grey coat.  If you remember, I originally planned to make this out of a green wool flannel, but after reading Gertie's great interview with pattern designer Sarai of Colette Patterns, I decided that fabric was too thick for my first project of this kind of complexity.  Also, topstitching.  It was the monthly 35% off weekend at Fabric Depot Friday and Saturday, and I picked up a positively pettable lightweight navy blue camel, along with the rest of my coat supplies (everything except for the sleeve heads; still need to find those).

And I had the perfect lining fabric already in the stash.

Anyway, I've completed a pattern fitting, and so far, I'm pleased with how things are going.  I started by cutting out all the pattern pieces and ironing them flat with a hot, dry iron.  I then marked all the seam lines and taped the curved seams on the side front pieces, the neckline and the arm scythes to help them withstand the fitting process.  In pattern fitting, you're always supposed to start with the back because you won't know exactly what you need do to the front until the back is done.  Here's mine with no alterations.

Droopy drawers!

I'm lucky that I generally don't have to make a lot of changes to the backs of garments to make them fit properly.  However, since I've never made a Colette Pattern before, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I was pleased to discover that other than needing a smaller size than in the Big 4 patterns (always a plus), my standard adjustments held true.  I cut the 10 because my measurements are almost identical to that size, and it was a good fit to start out with.  You can see in the picture above that the side seam is not aligned properly, but I just wanted to see what I was working with.  You can see a little rippling at the armhole.  This is because I have a slightly round back (but don't we all?  Darn computers!).  If I'd bother to have taken a picture from the side, you would be able to see a slight gap in the back part of the armhole about 3/4 of the way to the shoulder seam.  But other than that, it looks pretty good.

Here's the back after the round back adjustment.  You can see the small tuck I've taken in the shoulder seam, and I've added that width back to the seam where the sleeve will attach.  Other than that, the back looks pretty good.  It reaches the center back, and the side seam is perpendicular to the floor (although you can't see that with my arm in the way like it is).  You'll have to trust me, and I'll remember to take side pictures next time.

Yeah, not my best side.

After the back was under control, I could check the front out.  The first thing that I did was lower the fullest part of the bust on the side front piece 1 1/4 inches.  Seriously?  I've been professionally fitted for bras.  The girls are right where they're supposed to be, in between the elbow and the shoulder.  So what's with the boobs placed right under the chin?  The only people I know who are that perky are still in high school.  Which, now that I think about it, actually might really be a statement about who I know.

Boy, do I look happy.

Once the fullest part of the bust of the pattern was actually at the fullest part of my bust, I could see that the center front of the pattern didn't quite make it to my center front.  You can see that the front edge of the coat isn't straight, and while this isn't actually meant to be straight as drafted, it's supposed to be straighter than this.  Also, as I'm holding it in place, you can see the pattern pull across the body.  So, I started the whole process of an arm princess full bust adjustment.  Because Colette patterns are sized for a C cup, my adjustment was a lot smaller than it usually is.

You can see from the pattern as adjusted that I cut the pattern from the bottom up to the bust point (mine is 12 inches down from the shoulder seam) and then angled to the arm scythe.  I also slashed the pattern from the side seam to the bust point where there would usually be a side dart.  I spread the long slash 1/2 inch which lengthened the left side of the pattern piece.  I adjusted the right side for length before filling that long slash with pattern tissue.  Then from the fullest part of the bust, I slashed to the bust point again and closed up the slash made previously at the side seam.  This small slash was also filled with pattern paper.

Once all this was done, the front piece also had to be adjusted for length.  This was easy and involved cutting on a straight line and adding in 1/2 inch of length and truing the front edge.  Because I also slightly increased the front bust curve, I was also supposed to add some length to the front piece princess seam, but because I only added 1/4 inch to that curve, it didn't turn out to be necessary.

So, here's the front as altered with the collar turned down and in place.  See how the front now hangs much more smoothly?  And you can sort of see how the side seam is in the right piece.

I'd like to say for the record that I'm so glad that this isn't going to be a paper coat, because, wow. Wearing the pattern?  Not cute.

Oh, Manny. 

Since I featured the girl cat in my last post, I thought I'd give the little man some time as well.  Hyde is my sewing buddy.  He loves the upstairs bedroom that I've co-opted as my sewing room and will spend hours sleeping under my sewing table so long as I'm there.  Sadly, I suspect this has to do with Hyde's love for sewing tools rather than a devotion to me as he has discovered some of his favorite toys in the middle of a project.  That black strap that he's playing with?  Rigilene boning.  I was using this to support a high-waisted skirt when he got a hold of it.  He loves it so much, I don't have the heart to take it away from him.  Luckily, it's not very expensive, and he's spent more time playing with this than any cat toy we've bought for him.

Autumn is a Mosaic

My stylist in action.

Finally!  A finished object!  A dress to be exact.  This is my version of Simplicity 2369.  I made View B but with the front wrap from View A.  The fabric is this beautiful ITY jersey that looks like a mosaic that's been sitting in my stash since last summer, and I think it's a great match for the pattern.

My legs aren't gray.  They're tights.  Lavender.  It made sense this morning.

I was thrilled at how easy this came together, particularly the raglan sleeve.  What a fabulous thing not having to set in a sleeve is, not that you really worry about that with a knit anyway.  The instructions provided were great and easy to follow, although I sewed the sleeves in flat and then sewed up the bottom seam when I finished the side seams.  I made a 14 on top and graded out to a 16 at the hips, but I could have made a 12 on top.  As it was, I found this a little loose in the 14 and had to go back and do some hand sewing to take some of the fabric out of the front wrap piece.  (There was no way I was picking out the serged seam.)  I also added a fourth pleat to the front wrap piece where the tie attaches to take out some of the volume.
 

That's it at the bottom.

I did a lot of hand basting for this dress.  Although the fabric pattern is small and busy, I still wanted to at least have all of the little tiles sort of line up.  I was satisfied with the end result, although if you get too close, you'll see that it's a little off.  I tell myself that if someone is close enough to inspect how the pattern lines up on the seams of my dress, they're either (a) my husband, in which case, he's not going to notice; or (b) some crazy stalker, in which case, I'll have more pressing problems than just a little bobble in my pattern matching.

You'll have to excuse this picture not being very clear.  There's just something about the word X-large and a picture of my backside that I don't want getting together.

I tried a new way of hemming the bottom.  I did a very narrow zigzag which looks like a straight stitch but still has some flexibility.  I put in two lines of stitching close together to mimic the look of a coverstitch.  The biggest problem was the bulk at the seams.  My machine didn't handle them well, and the stitching went all wonky on the first seam I reached.  The others are fine, but I couldn't sew straight for this seam to save my life.  It's the side seam on the right, and I'm trying to figure out how much this bothers me before I commit to fixing this.  I might just leave this as is so that later, I have visible proof that I got better at this.  Assuming that I get better at this.

Wow.  Not pretty.  I still really kind of suck.

I really like this dress, and I'll get a lot of wear out of this.  The colors are perfect, the fabric is soft, and the dress looks great under a cardigan for those days when the office heat isn't being all it can be.  I do want to make a version of this with the sleeves from View A in the future.  Maybe out of a solid. 

Bonus shot of the beauteous Pip.  Because everything is more aesthetically pleasing with kitties.

All in all, this was a great success after my run of mediocre glorified t-shirts.  Next, it's the start of my Lady Grey coat.  I've got all of the pattern pieces cut out.  Tonight, I'll prep them for a pattern fitting.  Then, on to the muslin.  I'm going to try the method outlined by Gertie in her post from this morning.  I hope to be posting regularly about the whole process.

"The Home of Our Governor and Other Decent People"

I know that I have been a little lacking on sewing content lately, but that's because nothing's worked out the way I planned.  I have one dress that still needs to have the lining finished and another that has turned into a muslin because of a problem with the fitting of the bust.  I've got it figured out, but I'll need to re-cut the whole dress to make it work.  However, I worked all weekend on a new pattern and just have the hem left, so I hope to have something pretty to show off before the end of the week.

Until then, here's how Mr. flyskim and I spent part of our holiday weekend.  Walking around Northeast Portland.  Irvington, to be exact.  We took the first half of Walk 4 from Portland City Walks by Laura O. Foster.  According to Ms. Foster, the title of this post is how the Irvington neighborhood used to be described in the first decade of the 20th century.

But for me, Irvington will always be the neighborhood where I lived when I first moved to Portland.  I'd like to say that I remember it fondly, but this is where I studied for a major licensing exam and where I spent nearly six months looking for work afterward. 

This is my old building.  I had the crappiest apartment in the place, because that was the only way I could afford the area, and between being right next to the metal security door that people slammed all night and day, the laundry room at the end of the hall and the carpenter ant infestation, you couldn't pay me to ever move back.  

But the area is beautiful, and the homes are sometimes breathtaking.

This Queen Anne is a stunner.

I don't think we have enough stuff to fill up even one floor.

This home isn't made out of stone.  It's actually cement.

We checked out a few home sale flyers, and, well, I was going to say that I nearly had a heart attack, but I'm very aware of what homes in this area cost, so it wasn't a surprise.  However, it did raise the question (again) of how people out there afford these homes.  Particularly people in their 20s and 30s.  Do people really make that much money?  Or are they spending every dime that doesn't go to utilities, gas and food on their mortgage?  I bring this up because we know no one like this.  None of our friends are rolling in cash and none of our friends are house poor either.  I know that there are people out there who bought before the neighborhood exploded, but I'm not talking about them.  I mean the people out there buying today.  It's a favorite topic of mine, and I don't think I'll ever get a handle on the answer.  People who can afford houses that are substantially more that we can afford will continue to astound and amaze me.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a couple of things that I thought were particularly interesting.  First, bushes.

This is what I hope our hydrangeas grow into someday.

Second, a fully-plumbed tree.  I think this is where the Keebler Elves must spend the winter.

Any ideas of what this pipe was or is for now that it's a part of the tree?

So, that was our Labor Day weekend activity.  I'll be hemming later tonight, so I have great hopes for my wadder streak turning around.