Saturday, June 29, 2019

A Birthday Fundraiser

I am interrupting our regularly scheduled (HA!) programming for a little public announcement.

I'm turning 60 in a couple of weeks (oy).  And, being a Facebook person, Facebook suggested to me that I create a fundraiser in honor of my birthday.

After pondering it, I decided to create one for Compassion, International.

We have sponsored kids in the Philippines through Compassion for a number of years; they really do good work with the kids, providing centers where the kids can go and be safe, be fed, get tutoring help...and, incidentally, learn about Jesus.  Compassion also has programs to help families, not just the kids, but the whole family.

And it hit me...reading about the atrocious conditions along our southern border...what if we could help the families where they are...and save them the long, dangerous journey to the border?

It felt..right...to me.   An answer to the 'What can I do, Lord?' prayer.    I realize there's a whole lot more involved and there is no simple, one-off solution to the problem, but what if helping one kid/one family made a difference to that one family?

So, we signed up to sponsor another child...a girl from Honduras, one of the countries from whence a number of the folks at the border have come.

I'm not trying to throw guilt on anyone or make some kind of political statement.  Just share the small thing.

If it sounds like something you might be interested in doing, you can visit  https://www.compassion.com/

No pressure.  Just sharing.

Now...back to the denim dress...which likely won't be done before midnight tomorrow anyway....

Sunday, June 23, 2019

I hate making muslins.

Really.  I don't like using fabric on something I'm going to throw away, ultimately, even if it's long-stashed fabric from the now-defunct dollar table at Wal-Mart.  That fabric could have been an nice shirt...someday, right?

I don't like taking the time to cut out a muslin, sew up a muslin, and pin up a  muslin to see if the alterations I made to the pattern are gonna work.

But do you know what I hate worse than muslins?

Wadders.  Garments that I had high hopes for but then didn't work.  Spending time on fabric that was NOT a dollar a yard, only to find that the garment doesn't fit/hang right.

So I'm making muslins of the whacked up McCalls shirtdress pattern.  I am dragging myself kicking and screaming, but I AM making a muslin.  I would be beyond stupid to just assume that all this pattern whacking is just miraculously going to work.  I mean, I took a bodacious front dart and rotated it into a princess seam.  Not a minor adjustment.

SO...I have the second muslin about half cut out; I need to get ON with it because I run out of June in a week....and this IS the June outfit.

Between what's left of tonight and then tomorrow after work, I'mma gonna be workin on the muslin.  Because I don't want a wadder. 

I recut the CF and CB from the original muslin, but the sides gotta start fresh....
And I want to make sure the pockets are in the right place.
And the combined collar is going to work.
And the sleeves are the right length.
Oy.

Friday, June 14, 2019

Denim dress (June Outfit) progress

Well, this is the pattern I selected as being closest to what I envisioned.  It's from, um, 2001 and LOOKS like there are some bodacious shoulder pads in it, to my eye, but shoulder pads are not called for in the pattern.

There is also a knee-length cutting line, so that's what I used (LOL...in hindsight, I realized that is the shorten/lengthen line.  But it worked).  Did a FBA on the pattern and threw together a quick muslin.  Now, the P/P patterns come with a 1" seam allowance on the side seams...and, as you can see, the largest size in the envelope is a 12.  Well, I haven't been a size 12 in a NUMBER of years, so I used a 3/8" seam allowance in stitching up the muslin and omitted the front and back waistline fisheye darts.

Well, firstly...that bust shaping has to go down about an inch.  And the dart was way too long.  So  I lowered it an inch and shortened it up.  Much better.  It doesn't seem to be too small, but I think one more inch of wearing ease would give me some breathing room.  So I'm going to add 5/8" to the side seams, which will let me increase the ease by 1" AND use 5 /8" seam allowances...much better for adding an inseam pocket.  Which you KNOW I will do.  And the shoulder seams are about 3/4" too long...which is common for my absurdly narrow shoulders. I do NOT have to do a square shoulder adjustment...the square shoulders on the photos were true square shoulders, I suppose.

So that pretty well takes care of the fitting.  Except, I now have a short fat bust dart, which I believe will be nigh impossible to press without a dimple at the end.  So I've pretty much decided to convert the dart to a princess seam.  And cut the front double instead of using a front facing.  If I want to sew the facing into the princess seam ala Loes Hinse's techniques, I will need to create a princess seam on the back as well, so I can  just do the center bit and sew in the collar before sewing the princess seams.  Thinking on that one.

But I've a bit of styling I want to do differently, besides just adding the side seam pockets.  I want a shirt tail hemline, with the back a wee bit longer than the front.  And possibly cap sleeves.  Gonna pull out a shirt tail hem to copy for the bottom...and I may find a cap sleeve to copy or I may just play with cutting the existing sleeve down.  All decisions that will be made on the fly.

So, that's my sewing project for this weekend...finish hacking the pattern.

Friday, June 07, 2019

What worked!

Hey, y'alll, I'm finally feeling not-so-jet-lagged after spending a week basically working and sleeping.  There is a MOUNTAIN of laundry to be done, so whilst the machines are running I thought I'd give you a little rundown of the wardrobe I took with me to Israel.

Once I had everything packed, I realized I pretty much just took black and white, with a pinch of denim/chambray.  I took white tank tops, black tank tops/sleeveless knit tops, and some black-and-white striped tops, both sleeveless and sleeved; my journey home top was the black and white stripe T from the April wardrobe.  My 5-pocket Lands End yoga pants were the airplane pants, and I took my gray denim jacket for those chilly over-airconditioned planes, and it was a good thing to have when I got up before dawn to take sunrise pics in the Judean desert as well.  I took 3 long sleeved white shirts to wear as sunshades; I had a fourth shirt but it needed a tank top, specifically under it as it was a gauzy pull-over and I messed up and wore the tank tops with the button up shirts.  So the gauzy shirt rode there and back.    I took a pair of jeans and a pair of denim crops, but the best thing I took were the tencel gauze pants that I made back in 2003...Let's see if I can find a pic...
Bingo!  The photo from 2003.  When I was considerably smaller than I am now, but those pants are so blousy that they still work (elastic drawstring waist helps!).   The desert breeze flowed right through.  I was wishing I'd had about 4 pairs of pants from similar fabric.  The final pair of pants that I wore was the ponte pants I made for January's outfit.  They worked on the last day of the trip, where we were primarily in a museum and riding in the bus back to Tel Aviv.  I changed in the airport.  I have a lightweight wool challis scarf that I sealed in a zip lok bag in my carry on so I could pull it out if I got chilly; that worked much better than those silly polyester knit blankets the airline provided.

I took shoes for the airport that were easy on/off and had adjustable straps to allow for swelling; I had two different pairs of tennies that I alternated in country.  I took some sandals, but I ended up not wearing them because I didn't want to worry about sunscreening my feet (why didn't I think about that before I packed them?)

One pair of earrings that I wore all the time was the only jewelry I took.

So, yeah, I didn't really look fancy, but I stayed reasonably cool (there was ONE day when I was borderline uncomfortably hot), had no problems with sunburn (thank you 50 SPF), and managed to keep the load to my small suitcase, a canvas carry on that I did not have to gate check when they announced they were gate checking all wheeled bags for the connecting flight, and a backpack.
The hat packed great and held its shape wonderfully.  I need to remember to go leave a nice review on Amazon, lol.

I've been posting pictures on Facebook; I made the album public so I think you can see it by clicking on that link; if you click on the pictures you can see the running commentary. It was an amazing adventure and I still have a lot of personal processing to do.

And laundry, lol.

Tuesday, June 04, 2019

12 Months 12 Outfits - June assignment

Here are Janice's picks for June over on the Vivienne Files;   she's still sticking pretty closely to what she chose last year.  A dress, a tote bag, earrings , a bracelet and sandals.

The dress is an accent color in all but one of the wardrobes.

I am thinking...I got a chunk of Tencel-blend denim chambray earlier this year to make culottes, but I used some stash fabric instead, so...that denim-chambray could make a shirtdress that would double as a duster.

That's what I'm thinking.

I'm going to dig through my patterns later this week and see if there's something that will do.

One dress.  Surely I can make one dress before the end of the month....