American Sewing Expo day 1: I met Suade from Project Runway!!!

Highlights from the American Sewing Expo, Day 1:

The number one highlight was meeting Project Runway Season 5 semi-finalist Suade  at the Simplicity booth.  Yeah!!!!


I'm wearing Simplicity 2406 and Suade is wearing menswear from his SuadeSays collection.
I wish I had fixed my dress...

He is SO nice.  Greeted me with a hug, asked me what my name is, and we chatted about his tweets about last night's Project Runway.   We also chatted about his SuadeSays pattern line at Simplicity.  I asked if he'd mind a photo, and it turned out the Simplicity booth was already set up for that with the "SuadeSays" posters in the background.  A Simplicity rep took a separate picture and posted it on their Facebook page.  Then he said goodbye with a hug.  How nice is that?    He is the third PR alum I've met. Tomorrow morning I am going to a workshop of his, plus the lunchtime Simplicity runway show and Passion for Fashion tomorrow night.

I also chatted with some of the Simplicity reps; they are so nice too.  I just love the Simplicity booth as I am SUCH a Simplicity and New Look sewist.  One of their reps recognized me as the person who takes front, side and back views in the mirror and says I sew up a storm (though she's made 14 dresses this summer; I've made 7).  I told her last night I posted my 99th pattern review; which one will be #100?  Possibly one of these that I picked up today:



Simplicity has a line of hats; am I too old to wear this one:

Bibs and hats:


Here's the wristband for today; much better than a handstamp!


Vogue Fabrics has a booth; here's their Sophia knit section.   This is the GOOD, soft, buttery double knit stuff that I will have to order online when I get home...especially that heathered PINK.  I am wanting that pink something bad. 


Isn't this dress awesome?  It's one of the entries of a Passion for Fashion finalist (but not a dress they are making onsite as part of their Project Runway-style challenge).


I went to three classes today, one on zippers, Angela Wolf's class on denim topstitching and distressing (she is so entertaining, plus such great tips!), and a 3 hour hands-on serger class this morning.   Part of the class fee included the serger thread, which I totally wasn't expecting!  And it's Maxi-Lock thread too, in 5 colors.


Here are my samples.  As you can see, some are better than others!

But now I know how to do a lettuce edge which is something I've always wanted to learn.  After that, the instructor made us clip our serger threads and thread the machine from scratch.  I, however, was the only one who couldn't thread properly and the instructor said we'd have to move on so while everyone else learned rolled hem I was threading again.  LOL.  When I teach my software classes I know what that point is like, being an instructor, where I can't help students anymore, I just have to move on for the benefit of the rest of the class, and it was funny to be on the other side of that!

So tomorrow it's not just the sewing expo, just like last year the Gun and Knife show will be going on.  Guess my glue gun that I need for Sunday's class will fit right in.  Yup.

Be well and good night!!

The Mondo shirt in progress

Ok, I'm 4.5 hours into this t-shirt--(see my last post for details--I'm making a version of Mondo's Jackie O shirt)--I still need to hem it and bind the neckline somehow, though I seem to have lost the thin strip of fabric I was retaining for that purpose. I might do what Kristy recently did and iron on some interfacing at the neckline and then just fold it over, sew it and be done.

So I cut the fabric for the length of the shirt, and then cut that piece in half. Then I folded it in half and matched the stripes up on the cut edge. I used candle holders to keep the pattern piece down (it's a Burda cowl neck pattern from Oct 2005, but I'm not doing the cowl neck part). I didn't want pins to shift the fabric.

I put the corner of the armhole at the top of a black stripe--that was my "guidepost" if you will. Then I put the sleeve "corner" at the top of a black stripe too, that way everything would line up.

I had cut the sleeves as long sleeves, and at this point I was feeling very proud, and thought about not playing with the sleeves. But if I left them long like that, it would just be a striped shirt and not a Mondo shirt.




This is where I'm at now, though let me tell you, I took a lot of detours to get to this point.


I really really wanted the long sleeves, with a big 5.5 inch vertical cuff. I even made a sample:


But I messed up, folks. and then I was out of fabric. A real "make it work" moment that led me to the 3/4 sleeves with a 2.5 inch vertical cuff. I think it looks better this way. During Mondo's final critique, Michael Kors said when you do crazy prints (not that the stripe is all that crazy) you need some skin to break it up. I think he's right. The long sleeves would have been too much.

Here's sort of what it would have looked like; at this point I had messed up the cuff of the long sleeve and had to add another wedge to the cuff, so it was all misshapen and not as crisp and clean as I wanted it. But even if it was crisp and clean, there's a lot going on there. Getting circus-y....


Ooph, I can't look at stripes much longer today...I probably won't work on this shirt more til next weekend.

Good night!

How long should a neck binding be?

Ok, the jacket really wore me out. After Project Runway and the whole "oh my gawd Mondo didn't win" aftermath, I thought I would make one of my favorite pieces he made this season (and also something that I actually would wear), the Jackie O homage striped shirt. What I especially love about it is the vertical stripe "cuffs".

This meant actually finding striped knit fabric, which I found over at fabric.com. The site says this fabric has a 10% shrinkage factor, but I think it's more around 25%. The fabric feels great, and the white stripes aren't see-through. Excellent. I always think it's a bit scary to pay $10+ a yard for fabric but so far it has always been worth it.



So the fabric on the right will be for the Jackie/Mondo shirt, which I will make with the Burda cowl neck pattern, which I made this spring and have worn pretty much once a week this fall. Instead of using the cowl, though, I will make a self fabric binding (though with Mondo's shirt, it looks like maybe he used a facing or maybe self lined the shirt? Hard to tell from the pix on the Lifetime site (click on "side" to see the full shirt). My question to you is how long should this binding be? (below you can see the neckline under the cowl; pretty nice shape and not too wide or anything):



I found this article on Threads.com that says the ratio of the binding to the neckline is 3:4 or 7:8 depending on stretchiness (in the "tips for a neat round neck" section). I was also thinking of measuring some shirts I've made to see what their ratios were as well.

The fabric on the left will probably be made with that New Look pattern (the middle shirt). We'll see.

I really wanted to sew the Mondo shirt tonight, but after the first wash and seeing how much the fabric shrunk, I thought it was best to wash and dry it again in case of further shrinkage. So while that was doing its thing, I made two pairs of undies using the elastic from sewsassy.com. So there's another pair of cherries undies, and a pair made from remnants of fabric that I've had for ages; it features little bears baking cookies and muffins. I used Antoinette's make your own undies tutorial again. Highly recommend! And thanks Antoinette for recommending sewsassy!



I then went through my fabric and refashion pile and found a lot of possibilities for all of that elastic!

I'm most excited about the Princeton Environmental Film Festival t-shirt...but I don't think it's ever been washed! and I've already washed all my light stuff for this week.

Oh! and the Fitting and Pattern Alteration book arrived this week. This is a birthday present from my mom. When I was at the ASE I went to a seam fitting workshop by Lorraine Henry and she held this book up. I assumed that she was an author, so I didn't write down the title. Turns out she wasn't an author. So when I tried to find the book online I couldn't. But then Peacock Chic wrote about Lorraine's class from another conference on her blog and there was the book, yeah! I'm not sure how I would have found it otherwise.


Good night!

I am woman hear me roar

Project Runway resources:
Entertainment Weekly's Project Runway tagged articles, including interviews with the auf'ed contestants and recaps, are fun to read. The interview with last night's auf'ed contestant is especially good.

Tim Gunn's blog includes extended workroom critiques and Tim's honest opinions of the judge's opinions.

Helen Reddy:
Len wanted to know today if I knew "I am woman hear me roar". My response was "yes, Helen Reddy". How do I know that? I have no idea, probably from my mother, who liked to sing little songs around the house when I was little. Then I thought about Bryn Mawr, which made me think about how my women's college education didn't come with mandatory lessons in women's history. Why not? I think it was because we were supposed to choose our own curriculum. Hrm.

Weekend:
I had a great time in Austin and San Antonio, but now I have a whole weekend stretched before me with pretty much no mandatory tasks to be done. YES! I am definitely sleeping in. This is the last weekend of sewing for the stash contest, so I want to finish off the pj top I started 2 weekends ago.

My latest injury:
When guys would talk about pulling their groin muscle, I had no idea what that meant. Now I do. Just another failed body part to add to the list.

Bon weekend everyone!

Temp office and Burda Oct 2005

I have a temporary office now!


With a door!



and a view!!



To compare, here's my old cube:

In a few months, I'll be back in the hallway in a (different) cube, but til then I'm enjoying my office.

In other news, I finally found the Oct 2005 issue of Burda World of Fashion on ebay last weekend. It arrived today! I've never looked through an issue of Burda before...




So I can make the cowl neck top! I might make it this weekend. Looks like tracing this pattern is going to be an adventure. It's my first BWOF. The top is very simple so I think it's a good choice for my first Burda.

I was inspired by the Selfish Seamstress version of it.

Just watched last week's Project Runway....here's the Tim Gunn quote of the episode: "You should feel so proud of what you've achieved here."

I'm more proud of you than you'll ever know

Tonight I watched PR from last night. I'm fearing that CH might not make it to BP with her stomach bug and all. And, of course, they way they edited it.

But let's start from the beginning. Each season, I LOVE the episode when Tim visits everyone at home and meets family. Others have made the observation that Tim spends more time with CH and gives more meaningful advice to CH than to the other contestants. Maybe it's edited that way, but it just seems to be the way it is.

Loved his outstretched hands and him saying "I love a kitchen" in a way that sort of signified he might not be entirely comfortable with the idea.

Loved Tim wearing a full suit and tie--and apron--to make southern biscuits.

Loved his critique of CH's collection.

Love the mutual respect they have for each other.

Loved their goodbye--in the snow--and how Tim said "I love you" to CH.

Oh, the snow--it really was filmed so long ago.

Oh Tim, I love you too. Come live with me!! Tell me that you are more proud of me than I will ever know!

So right now I'm Team Carol Hannah.

Exactly a year today Pete and I flew to Hawaii. I'm feeling so gosh-darned sentimental about the whole thing! It's kind of funny that it's raining as much right now as it was the night we landed in HNL--kind of like this steady, urgent NJ rain.

Lots to do this weekend. Am planning on knocking it all down. Will finish up Pete's pjs. I think they will fit, he just normally wears really big shirts for sleeping. The pj pants are cut from his favorite pattern and in the correct size so that part will definitely fit. I love lsaspacey's idea of contrast bands on the sleeves. I might do that!! If the shirt doesn't fit, I'll wear it as is, as I too sleep in large shirts.

You know what I loove about having my blog? Being able to say whatever I want and no one telling me that I can't say it!

I went to the gym 3x this week, had no acupuncture and no chiropractic, and somehow I'm still standing and not in too much pain. Woo!

Good night!

Friday evening

Thanks everyone--my rib is getting better (again) and it didn't hurt to breathe today. woo!

I had such a bizarre dream this morning. I went to urgent care and signed in. The receptionist asked, "would you like an MRI today?" and I said, "excuse me?" and she replied, "Would you like an MRI today? We have the MRI machine now so you can have an MRI today" and I was kind of incensed and said, "I wish you had this back in the spring!!!" And then I woke up thinking I would like an MRI of my knees.

Len and I had a good conversation tonight. I admitted that I went back to the gym, and he wasn't upset at all. He just told me to take it easy. (He seemed to already know that I went back to the gym, but I'm not sure how he knew...) He is still really enamored by my coat and asked me a lot about it. He had seen it last week already, but I told him how I added pockets last weekend and he seemed really amazed by that and was asking how I did it, like he was really interested in knowing how it all it put together. I'm not sure I've ever had a non-sewist ask in such detail about a garment I made. We also talked more about when he was hit by a car, how it changed his life, etc. It was really great little conversation. I then hit the gym and went to groove class. I took it really easy. We'll see how I feel in the morning.

Tomorrow I take my car in for service and they're letting me have a loaner car for the day. I'm guessing it's going to be $$ if I get a loaner car. I think it needs a brake job. I'll just be glad not to wait in that waiting room with CNN blaring on.

Are we all excited for the Tim-visits-everyone-at-home episode next week? It's my favorite epi of the season!! And just how many times did Tim use the word "staggering" last night??

What is tipping them off??

Thanks for your comments on my last post re: the mystery Simplicity shirt.

Antoinette, thanks for your guess! I checked it out, but it's not the right shirt. Thanks too for your Kreativ Blogger award. :)

Lsaspacey, great idea, it's actually pretty similar to Simplicity 2892 view A, but in knit fabric, and with plain short sleeves instead of elastic ones, and without a pleat on the CF seam.
This is the Butterick disaster pattern, according to SPRers. The shirt I'm thinking of doesn't have nearly so many pleats. Even though the Butterick drawing looks like the shirt is fairly fitted, the SPR reviews are saying that it's a gigantic tent.

Trust me, next time I like something I see in the SPR gallery, I'm favoriting it!!

I wore the aqua Simplicity 3835 shirt today to work. Immediately one coworker eyed it over and said, "Did you make that?" Another said, "That's a cute shirt. I love how when Project Runway returns, you get back to sewing again." Hmmmm...interesting observation, though there really isn't a correlation between the two. Even my acupuncturist said, "Did you make that shirt?" As always, I wonder, does it look home sewn??? What is tipping them off??

The sleeves fit really perfectly this time! I wasn't aware of them. They are great now! I could imagine lengthening the sleeves to make them 3/4 length, any more than that and the ties would wind up in everything (like your meal while eating, in the sink while washing hands, etc).

I love the fabric too. While there are a lot of great cotton prints, they get all wrinkly. I don't like my clothes looking wrinkled. This fabric was in the linen-look section. It's poly-something. Maybe poly-linen? Could that be right? Even though the sleeve ties are right below the elbow, they don't look crinkled at all, after a day of wearing. I'm definitely going to buy more of that fabric with my birthday money!! There's a New Look pink shirt (6831 view E, but with a knot instead of a bow, and probably without contrast bands) with my name on it!!

I know I'm getting better because some people are starting to annoy me again. How funny is that?

I think I'm going to sleep well tonight. I can feel the acupunture coma starting to set in...

Say my name, say my name

If you want to hear Tim Gunn say your name*, then this is for you. It's actually very cute. And it's free through step 3!!

*Note, for some reason if your name is "Pete" it doesn't work!!

The answer's in you, somewhere

Look at what Pete did: he drew all the Hawaiian islands in Gimp, and then made our mock table name cards. He included each island's nickname.


Here's a close up of Maui (The Valley Isle):

They will undergo further refinement.

I had more parts of our invitation printed at the drug store just to see what they look like. They are pretty amazing!!

We're going back to the Waterview/Riverview on Saturday to figure out which room we want to have the reception in. They have a choice of three rooms and the one we like the best (has a great view of the Marina, is on the second floor, has an outdoor balcony for our guests to hang out on, has a real 70's style bar (even though I don't drink, I think it looks cool)) is actually the smallest room and holds 120 max. My second favorite room has a view of the marina, but is on the first floor so it's not as good, there's no balcony, it doesn't have a real bar (they just set up a makeshift one in the corner) and it holds 150. The third room has no view, no cool bar, but it does have a lot of windows, is relatively light, has an indoor balcony, and holds 250 people, so there would be plenty of room for everyone and everything (including our table of pix that we paid for on trips, a table for pix of people we wish could have been there (hello Pop Pop in his Hawaiian print shirt--would've fit right in!)), and of course a gift table, table with the place cards, and an area for photo ops with cardboard Elvis.

Unrelated:
I love this quote from Tim Gunn:
"Part of what was so unshackling was the whole aspect that when you're studying art or design, the answer isn't in the back of the book. The answer's in you, somewhere."
LOVE that.

Oh, and my horoscope today was about how I need to rest and relax. Woo! I have NO doctor's appts next week at all! Tmw I go to the physiatrist to talk about my knees. I will ask for the MRI but I'm pretty sure access will be denied.