I am so tired today. We had our team Christmas party last night and although it wasn't a late night, it was past midnight by the time I got home. When the alarm went off this morning, my eyes hurt because I needed more sleep. I think I hit snooze 4 times.
That said, I am in a good mood. Here are some things that make me happy today.
Tiramisu arrived! It was wonderful to see the package on the dining room table and know what was inside.
It is Friday, that is enough to make me happy.
My drive to work was awesome, 38 minutes from driveway to parking lot is a record for this client.
We have no plans tonight, I can have a glass of wine and relax.
We have no plans on Sunday, I think we'll spend part of the day getting our Christmas tree.
Yesterday, someone noticed me babbling a bit and asked if I had coffee. I mentioned this to Mr. Lina this morning. He lamented that I've become a little more adjusted to caffeine and rarely sound like a little kid explaining a day at an amusement park to her grandparents. It made me giggle when he mimicked the little kid (including puking after too much funnel cake and rides). It's not often I'm laughing that early when I feel so tired.
I've signed up for Rdio and am now listening to music at work.
I love Jamiroquai. I know it, but sometimes I get listening to a lot of folk/independent music and time passes without listening to Jamiroquai and when I listen again, it's like falling in love all over again. I almost caught myself singing along yesterday (not a wise choice in cubicle-ville), I love how it makes me feel.
So here is a little Jamiroquai, hopefully it cheers up your Friday as it has for me. Cosmic Girl is my favourite song. In an interview, Jay Kay talked about this particular video. They were still working on ideas for the video and the girl he was dating at the time was asking who his "Cosmic Girl" was going to be, kind of hinting it should be her. To side step that, he made it about his car (he is a petrol head as they say on Top Gear). The purple Lamborghini is his own car, the crew crashed it once loading it from his home to take it to the location in Spain. They bought another (keep in mind, only 3 were made like this particular car), it was also damaged with precision drivers. In parts of the video, there is no front windshield to the car.
I have a lot of things swirling around at the moment, it's time for a list.
I had a new roller coaster dream last night, but on the plus side
I did not wake up
I did not sleep walk
I was not stressed out in the dream
We were using the speed of the roller coasters as wind while having my picture taken, weird I know.
Particularly when it became apparent it was kind of a log ride so there was water involved.
My mom's cousin's husband had a stroke on Sunday and I came into work to read an email about it. He means a lot to me so it took a bit to swallow that news. I get the impression that although they know there will be weeks of therapy, they are still in the midst of testing so not a lot of firm answers at this point.
I like dark beers because of him. I helped him with the statistics for his PhD. As payment, we would go for a late lunch and we split a pitcher on an empty stomach. I was usually pretty tipsy before my lunch arrived.
Sonohystogram is going to have to be postponed, my period has arrived. 76 day cycle and it picks 4 days before my sono to come to an end. If it started Monday that would have been perfect, but no, now I have to change it to sometime next week, I think they aim for day 6-11.
Overall though, it's good to have it here, my breasts can return to normal and we'll blame my eye leakiness today on hormones.
And if I don't have to go for the sono on Saturday, I can either help Mom with the craft show or help my mom's cousin.
Hospitals take care of sick people, there isn't much I can do outside of visit (and I gather he is tired so visits may be too much just now). But the immediate family (typically) need help so they can do what the sick person needs. In this case, their daughter is the same age as me and she is autistic and dependent on them.
So this cousin of mine, let's call her Beth. She's awesome, we have a good bond. We even have a not so secret pass phrase (which comes in handy when she needs to regulate and settle down). I've offered some respite time so the wife can do what she needs to do without wondering what mischief the daughter is getting into.
Beth memorizes movies and quotes them back, using their dialogue for her conversation. If you watch movies with her, she pulls out props ahead of the dialogue, "You dirty rat" will result in a plastic rat appearing out of a toy box. It helps to know the movies she has seen recently to get her context.
For example, my pass phrase is "Yes, no, I don't know. If that isn't a true blue miracle, I don't know what one is".
Not everyone has a pass phrase and those who do have a phrase of their own.
Now the first half is said in a silly sing-song voice with side to side head actions. If she says that, I have to say the rest, and vice versa. It's like proof that I am me.
She also loves my Strawberry Shortcake dolls and is generally trying to manipulate them out of me.
Perhaps you could have a garage sale and sell your old toys. You would tell me when you have a garage sale wouldn't you?
Do you play with your dolls, Sera? No? Toys need to be played with. I would play with them.
Every single visit to my parents she finds them. I don't even know where my parents put them last but somehow Beth does. Then we have to check that they didn't "disappear" into a pocket...
I have taken a few more steps with the Burda dress, but last night was bowling so not as much as you would think, the back is joined and it has a zipper.
I really did a good job on the invisible zipper part.
The spot below the zipper, well, the seam ripper and I got to be good friends.
Stellar Parenting made me leaky. I love her posts to her daughter. I must remember the line "You were worth the wait" when I feel impatient. One day I will feel like that.
Okay, I'm feeling a little more sorted out now. Thanks for following along.
I think this Burda project is going to require time, but expectations of small amounts of progress for the time spent. It's a bit of a learning curve to sort out where to look for, well, everything.
Mr. Lina is sick, just a cold, sore throat, whatever. I left him to video games last night and thought I'd tackle the dress I mentioned yesterday, 118A (B being the shirt version). I pried back the staples and pulled the pattern pages out and started to unfold them. I had a Jaws moment.
My goodness those paper sheets are huge. I was already expecting a crazy eye chart of lines, but wow, that is really impressive. I don't like marking patterns directly, but I don't see how you can find the right line to trace without making it stand out more. So I got my highlighter out and was about to start when I realized I have no idea what size I am in Burda-land.
So I pulled out my measuring tape. This was not fun at all. I guess my belly was full of cabbage soup goodness, I am well aware I'm a little heavier than I was, but I had to check that waist measurement twice. It turns out it was crazy bloating because this morning my waist was 2 inches smaller. Crazy. I'm still not sure what the "best" size is for me because I'm all over the map and heading more to their plus sizes (but I want the regular size dress!) so I'll be adding generous seam allowances and a FBA.
I had my pink highlighter in hand, patters are opened to Page A as directed. I find piece 4. It's small. It's not suppose to be small. I find piece 3, it is also small, and is suppose to be small but it doesn't look quite like the layout diagram. Piece 1 and 2 are large so it's hard to see what the heck they DO look like until I've marked them in pink. I don't see the very distinctive V shapes that will create the single side gathers. The magazine refers to piece 1A and I don't see a 1A. I was very confused.
There is a shirt version (118B) of this dress (118A). Fehr Trade pointed out the difference in fabric between the "tweed" dress to the shirt. The shirt has a metallic quality to it and seems stiffer. So instead of a soft side gathers, it looks kind of wrinkled extra fabric at the waist. I also think it's a little tighter across the bust than what is ideal.
I find the fabric description of "techno gabardine" a bit amusing. Is it best used for light switch raves?
Anyhoo... back to the enormo-pattern sheet that just fits on the dining room table when folded into 4 so I only see Page A. I look up the shirt pattern in the book and it says that pieces are on Page B, not Page A. So I do a little origami to get page B facing up and sure enough, I see the V's, I only have one small piece, I have a sleeve, I have darts. But I'm not that trusting. I figure maybe there is something else wrong or a reason the shirt/dress are different, someone else has probably figured that out. Google to the rescue!
So I send a special thank you to Allison C who already made it up twice and confirmed the misprint. Doesn't she look awesome in this pinstriped version? I also learned that I'll need to be sure I pick a fabric that has a fairly dense weave because the front skirt ends up on the bias and it's causing her problems with the cranberry version.
I have also decided that since I have to piece 1 and 1A to make the front of the dress (and it's really wide), my usual tactic of using parchment paper isn't going to work so well. I like parchment paper, it's easy to see through and I don't have too many complaints about not folding or tearing, but it won't tape together well. One of my clients is near Ikea, I have read other people using their kids paper for tracing. Any thoughts?
I am feeling rather thoughtful, but it's not organizing into the broad strokes just yet. I have started a few extra paragraphs to this post but it's not... flowing. It's too detailed to be sortable, too long to be a bullet list. So we'll start with a few details and maybe this week I'll gain some perspective. I know there is something floating around in my head.
In my last performance review, I stated that I enjoyed teaching and it was something I'd like to do more of. I sure am getting that opportunity, but it's wrecking havoc with my Mondays. They should be spent on ad hoc projects or administration stuff, meetings with my manager, that kind of thing. Lately my day seems to fill with meetings, the small spaces of time are filled teaching someone something and I get to 5pm and realize I still have my own work to do. Sigh.
I am enjoying the time instructing others. It's refreshing to see our data through new eyes and appreciate my own knowledge. The one guy I'm working with is like a 24 year old puppy, so eager to make us all happy and show us how much he can do but you just want him to sit for a bit. Working directly with people like that is good for me, it keeps me focused and productive. I don't leave feeling useless like I did a few months ago. Still, I worked quite late last night because I needed the quiet to focus.
The dinner with my family went... okay. Mr. Lina found he couldn't look at my SIL and hung out with my brothers playing on very old gaming systems, like Super Nintendo, possibly even breaking out the Atari. My SIL parents were there and they made things awkward at times. I spent most of the evening avoiding them as they fawned over their daughter and talking about the baby or being grandparents or whatever (English is their second or perhaps third language so none of this phrased particularly tactfully but I get it's not intentional). My other SIL (the one separating from Scot) was there and I'm still not sure who knew what. Scot waited until Clone was out of the room to ask Mr. Lina if he knew, so I'm suspecting Clone didn't. She said things about her new apartment around my mom so maybe they know, but Mom never said anything that confirmed that she did or did not know. It was a very strange evening of keeping track of who to say what to. I managed to stay sober and I didn't cry. That's a win.
I did spend an awful lot of time in my sewing room this weekend. ElleC graciously added McCalls 8098 to the "orange stash" I won in a giveaway. I thought it might be nice in the silk noil. The catch is that my bust in my (now favourite) retro styling bra is 44". The pattern is for a 32" bust. That's some serious grading/FBA to do. My waist was about 10" off, hips 8" (as much as I have a round bum and like pants for curvy girls, sewing emphasizes I'm not a pear). A LOT of flat pattern measuring was going on all weekend, figuring out my size, the pattern size, the ease, where I needed the extra inches and how much to add. So, I am making progress, I spent a lot of time in my sewing room, but I don't have much to show off beyond really bad bust darts. I'm hoping fresh eyes will see how to fix that particular problem. The left side looks pretty terrible as I remember. The worst part is that the dart was fairly large and I trimmed some of the extra fabric, so just moving it up is not so easy. Let's file that under "learning the hard way". Last night it was too late when I got home to really do it justice, hopefully I'll do better tonight. Mr. Lina is golfing tonight so I have the evening to myself.
I absolutely adore the term unsolicitation, compliments that are not prompted, particularly (perhaps exclusively) for self sewn items. I received several this weekend at the wedding I went to.
I actually had a hard time deciding what to wear. I have a RTW red dress that I've worn once and would like to wear again, and my first version of Lekala 5432 in black swiss dot with salmon-ish satin underlay. I was doing a reading at the wedding, I knew the bridesmaids were wearing chocolate brown and flowers would be in fall colours including red. I don't like wearing straight black to weddings, but I thought with the pink satin, it would work out okay. I put the option to Mr Lina, he picked Lekala.
I am reliant on friends for pictures for the most part, Mr Lina took the picture on the right, but that's the only picture of the dress we have. We were both busy chasing after our friends toddler (and taking pictures of her and the bride) and neither of us thought about taking pictures of each other. I've tried to crop out my friends from this group picture for their privacy. At least I have two angles from pretty much the same moment.
So, unsolicitations. I got compliments from several of my friends and while they know I like to sew, this is the first real dress up wear I've made so they wouldn't expect me to have made it. I actually wore this for New Years, but only the bride and groom were at that event, it was a new dress to everyone else. One of my friends thought it looked worth about $500. I love her, I think she's spent too much time at Coach outlets to believe her on that estimation. Far better than the ignorant coworker comments that Sewing By The Seat of My Pants got from her little children's outfit (not to mention all the stories in the comments). Perhaps part of the difference is we are just accustomed to paying more for formal attire than children's clothing. Who would blink at a party dress price tag around $100? $150? $200? I wouldn't depending on the dress (although as the price goes up, the likelihood of me actually buying it goes down). Another friend complimented the colour, that it fit in well with the bridesmaids and looked perfect while doing the reading. She asking if I had the wedding party colours in mind when I bought the dress. It was a nice specific compliment that resonated true.
Looking at the pictures has me realizing I really should wear better undergarments. I can tell where my nylons end at my waist, a little smoothing would be good with such a shiny fabric. The two bottles of wine consumed at OCFF the night before and dinner at the wedding were likely not helping with the tummy control situation either. That's okay, I danced and danced for the rest of the night, I got my exercise in.
Oh it's going to be a long day here. So far it's off to a good start with a decent commute, but the to-do list is long and it needs to be done today. I'm going to ramble a bit to clear out the cobwebs before I focus on work.
In cleaning up my sewing room, I found two UFO's. One is from Stretch & Sew 1595. It's a pattern I have inherited from my mom. The pictures on my pattern are a bit different, but it's the same pattern as this:
I made View C without the shoulder ties in early 2010. I get a lot of compliments on this dress at work. The neck as drafted is really high and the facing huge, I cut it lower. I made a belt from 5" elastic that I put over the elastic waist. Here is my first version of it with a tie belt from another top. The other change is that I cut it too short forgetting it would drape, there is a 2" tube to make a bubble hem at the bottom. It's a bit lost in the print but it moves nicely. Sorry the picture is so small.
I cut out another version, a geometric print in blue, brown, white and black. The issue is the neckline. I guess I tried cutting it lower, then it kept going off centre. I remember putting it to the side a few months ago, I haven't quite got back to it. The back of the neck wasn't sitting right, it's still not quite centred, the facing was driving me crazy. Well, I futzed around with it last night, cut off the annoying facing, it's going to take some creative work to make this right. I did not find the solution last night.
I guess part of the issue is that I don't love the fabric. It's nice, but brown/blue just isn't that exciting the way purple is so putting it to the side was easy. I'm also debating about making it more tunic length and making it a casual top rather than a dress for work. The lower neckline would be okay if I do that. I was talked into buying tights when shopping with a friend in March. I have yet to find a way to style them that I like. My tops just aren't quite low enough for me to feel comfortable in the outside world.
The other UFO I'll talk about separately, but the issue here is the opposite. I love the fabric, it's from my mom's stash from the 70's I guess and I'm afraid of screwing it up further.
Well, that's enough stalling, time to get stuff done.
I really do want to make the focus of my blog about sewing. There just seem to be a few things going on lately that aren't sewing. So here is what I will be sewing:
1. Lingerie for the bride. The bachelorette is on Saturday so that needs to start tonight. I think I've done more than enough thinking, it's time to get to cutting. I'm hosting the party so time needs to be allocated for house cleaning too. I went to start on this and realized I didn't measure her under bust. Silly me.
2. Rooibos. I missed the sew along, but that's okay, we all sew at our own pace. I have traced the bodice pieces, but not the skirt/pockets. I want to do a muslin of the top half, I'm mostly worried about how it fits at the bust. This is the fabric I have in mind. It's pin striped on one side and plain on the other. The colour is a bit redder than the picture.
3. Bras. I have made quite a few and really only had one that I liked and then the front clasp broke. Most have ended up with too much space at the upper cup. I'm a D cup, but the fullness is not across my chest. Here are the patterns I have at the moment (with the Rooibos fabic behind them):
Elan 510 - The only front clasp bra. So far this is the bra that worked out best and I bought it because it's hard to find a front clasp for a 38D in RTW. I've had fails from not pre-shrinking the satin and wouldn't go around by the time I was done. One of the first versions I didn't realize that seam allowances were not included. On something as fitted as a bra, that's a HUGE difference.
Elan 645 - I've made one up, and I like it, but again, too much fullness to the upper cup to bother with straps. I think with some tweaking it has a lot of potential.
Kwik Sew 2101 - Oh my this was not designed with my breasts in mind, you can fit a fist between my chest and where the straps meet the upper cup. The one version I made of this fits my MIL well, at some point I'll finish the straps and send it to her.
Kwik Sew 3166 - well, this is more corset/bustier than bra, but so far I've chickened out. I'll make it eventually, but probably not yet. I need some functional bras before I make Mr Lina happy.
My parents go to Florida for February. Two years in a row now I have bought a whack of stuff at Sew Sassy and shipped it to them to save myself the customs fees. I bought all of my bra patterns from them.
4. Sencha I will make Sencha work. The one that did work fits my work wardrobe well and it's been fun on the weekends too. I'd like to try version 2.
5. Whatever suits my mood. :) I come up with these goals and lists and generally make half of it. Either something else comes up (which reminds me, Halloween is not in that list) or I just don't feel the passion to do what is on the list.
I feel pretty fortunate that the size that Lekala have put up for their free month of patterns is pretty close to my own. I download like a fiend, but the directions really suck. That said, the notches line up, the clothing fits and once I've figured out directions that work for me, it's not so bad.
I have made Lekala 5432 a few times now. First was a party dress for New Years Eve. We were hosting a handful of friends, it was casual, but it's my house, I can wear what I want. And I wanted to wear something I made.
It's form fitting, and with all that gathering at the bust, I didn't have to do a FBA, just added a little length to that piece. What I didn't anticipate is that I'm short, the darts in the front and back bodice aren't quite at the right spot, the waist nips in while my hips are going out. My first try on of the dress you could see EXACTLY where my thighs ended. Not pleasant. So that dress has seam allowances that are truly miniscule to give me a little more wiggle room.
Speaking of wiggle room, Mr Lina really likes the back view of the dress. I think it's more evident what he likes when I'm walking. My best invisible zipper ever is on that dress.
He took pictures with a flash and I don't really like how they look, but I do like how they show off the swiss dot overlay on the crepe backed satin. So ignore that water spot and look at the fabric. Isn't it pretty? I had both fabrics in my stash and put them on top of each other and thought it might work. Left them draped over the guest room bed for a couple of days to be sure. The satin on it's own is too... rosey or something, I bought it on clearance for next to nothing. The swiss dot was used for an outfit for the third bride of my university friends so this was truly stash busting that probably cost less than $15.
Not sure what that spot is centre back, but look at the fabric.
I have since made this up in a knit and a woven rayon/linen, both I wear to work. The knit version doesn't have a zipper and I added elastic under the bust to keep it snug there. The rayon/linen wrinkles like crazy, but for a hot summer, it's good work wear. It will transition through September well with a little sweater. I made it a little looser through the hips/bodice, summer is not a time for snug clothing. I also put a lace godet at the kick pleat of the black version. It seems to work.
Anyone who is more talented than I am with shifting zippers may want to move it to the size. You need the opening at the waist, but the neckline doesn't need opening, it's actually tricky to zip up because of the elastic at the neckline, it's hard to pull it taught to pull the zipper.
