Meme from moving hands. All dates approximate …

Thanks to everyone for such lovely comments on my green dress! I’m enjoying wearing it. The next one is in the works, I’m basting darts at night, a few at a time, so that it doesn’t get tedious.

So, on with this meme thingy.

Ten years ago - I was in Year Eleven. Does anything interesting happen to anyone in Year Eleven? Am I too young for this meme? I wanted to be Vivienne Westwood, or a famous chef.

Nine years ago - I was finishing high school, planning a new life, making myself clothes and quilts so that I’d be ready. True story. Life in the country was … safe … not what I was after just then. I wanted to be Jean-Paul Gaultier: it was about this time that The Fifth Element came out.

Eight years ago - I moved to Melbourne to start an arts and creative arts degree. I was excited to be living in the city around lots of likeminded people. I particularly liked my Clash albums and my ripped fishnet tights I took up the guitar and drove my floormates, one of whom had perfect pitch, nuts. I wanted to be Joan Baez.

Seven years ago - I think? it was this time - I love that I can forget the date - that my Mum got sick and started a year’s worth of intensive cancer treatments. She’s done with that, by the way. I was trying to balance that with study. I became a vegan (unrelated).

Six years ago -I was planning a Brilliant Career as a sculptor, making lots of costumes and sets, and went travelling to New York to study art for a while. I wanted to be Andy Goldsworthy.

Five years ago - I set up a new share house with a lovely friend, Rebecca, and we read many books. I started to feel sure that literature and writing were going to be more important in my future than art. Back then, I felt as if I had to choose. I wanted to be Virginia Woolf.

Four years ago - Was a dark year full of deadlines and self-doubt. Moving right along …

Three years ago - I was happy to be over the last year, and writing about food and poetry in a newly started Master’s project. I spent a lot of this year drinking wine and reading Marvell in parks with folks who read Continental philosophy. I stopped being a vegan; it was all just too hard. I still wanted to be Virginia Woolf.

Two years ago - I was learning to love the single life after a couple of false starts, learning to teach and to speak French. I was starting to put heart and soul into that Master’s project. I got the last line of one of those Marvell poems (’yet we shall make him run’) tattoed on my foot, and I still love it even though it’s a bit wonky.

One year ago - I was a ball of stress, but life was exciting! I had my first piece of non-fiction writing accepted. I was back from France and Asia, just out of the Master’s for which I’d worked ridiculous hours … I didn’t have an income to speak of … but then I met the Masculine Quilt Advisor. Nuff said. I gave up trying to be Virginia Woolf and started trying to be me. Not sure exactly what that means yet, but I’m sure I get more fun out of pretty dresses, romance novels and pop songs than poor Ginny ever did.

Last night, around 7pm - this isn’t in the meme, but I’m putting it out there anyway - I called work ‘done’ for the day, ate a delicious honey soy chicken made by the MQA, who lives here now, and went off to run a bath and read a Novel of Popular Appeal. Later, or on the weekend, I’m going to finish the dress that I’ve started thinking of as ‘The Very Hungry Dress’. Life is good. Excellent meme!

 

Green Dress Mark Two (Warm Jersey Edition)

This one is put together from a kimono-sleeve 1953 dress pattern (Simplicity 4448). This is the first time I’ve tried making anything from a real vintage pattern (rather than a reproduction) and I was a little worried. Also, the pattern really isn’t built for a stretch jersey. Happily for me, it all went together quite smoothly.

Some notes: the cutting directions are wrong, and omit an essential piece (facing c). I put 2″ extra in the waist, as per usual, but it was totally unneccessary. 1″ would have been entirely satisfactory. I’m going to put that down to a style change which has modern waists sitting higher than their 50’s equivalents.  It needed an extra button, and would maybe even benefit from a third.  The pattern was also far more complex than I’d expect a shirt dress to be: four darts in the back and six in the front, with some tricky side fastenings. I also had to put another dart in the centre back, just because I’m built that way. After finishing, I cut the hem as it was sitting 3″ below the knee (dowdy!) but I do think this is now a little on the too-short side.

So this one took a lot longer than the wrap dress. No big bickies: I’m really just testing in order to use it again in this fabric:

Do you recognise it?

 

Flowers for (and from) Susan

I finished stitching my ten swap fabrics into flowers. Hooray! Time for a photograph!

I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I posted. BF and I have Been Through An Ordeal with Netspace, our apathetic internet ‘provider’. After a week on dialup, we caved, and the blog is back.

In more interesting news, I also made a dress from a 1953 pattern: I’m wearing it now. I’ll get BF to take a picture tomorrow, and write the post that should have been today’s.

BTW: I’m also returning to ‘Masculine Quilt Advisor’. BF is such a blah name for a person I happen to quite like.

 

Treasure!

Would you like to see the pretties? I have 30 of them now, though they’re not all sewn together. Work has been all-absorbing for a while (this is a good thing), and the new edition of Vic Quilter has taken some time to get ready. Jan (co-editor) and I had to learn how to use Publisher and it seemed every guild and their dog had an article that needed re-formatting and printing. The magazine has a tight deadline - it’s a new thing for me. Whether I’m trying to have my own writing published or editing other people’s work, I’m almost always dealing with the academic press. Deadlines are vague and mysterious in academia, and it’s not at all unusual to wait six months for a response, have another three to edit your work, and then first hold your printed article a year or so later. The process is frustrating at times, but it also allows time to think and to edit very carefully. It feels odd to make quick decisions and to field and make urgent phone calls.

It’s nice to have a hobby for the end of the day:

Susan’s swap fabric arrived today from America, and I’m only sorry that the sunlight has gone and I haven’t got a better picture to show off all the pretty colours. Thank you so much, Susan! I hope your aquas get to you soon. I’ll post another, better photo when these are nicely stitched up. I don’t have any of these fabrics, and I love them all - although I think the purple swirls are my favourite.

 

Block Fifteen: Jane Stickle A5

A simple one today. Jane used colour patches for the four corners of this block. I didn’t mean to make it differently, I just … forgot … somewhere between printing the pattern and cutting the fabric. I didn’t notice until I went to find the block number for this post. Oh well, can’t be helped, and nor can the fuzzy points. I was paying more attention to films this weekend than my sewing.

On that point, have you seen Salaam Namaste? If not, go down to your local Indian spice shop/DVD outlet, and get it. It won’t cost you more than a few dollars for a double feature. It’s set in Melbourne with a mixed cast (Bollywood stars, Australian and Indian born Australian and Indian actors in every combination, cast members’ wives and boyfriends, and others such as Tania Zaetta as an adorably histrionic love interest). The script flicks from Hindi to broad Ocker and back again without a hitch. It does come with subtitles. Plus, you get to meet an Indian Crocodile Dundee and his hilarious blonde girlfriend, and this film deals with some pretty big problems with honesty rarely seen in Bollywood, or Hollywood. There is a whole lot of eye candy, so don’t be expecting honesty in terms of the house these characters can afford - it’s in Lorne, anyway, not Melbourne - or the wedding scene on the beach, in bikinis.

Love a bit of pop on the weekend.

Patches in this block: 29

Patches so far: 383

 

Fabric Swapping

I’ve signed up for a few swaps recently, and they all seem to have come due at the same time.  Here are some vintage sheet fat quarters, some green fat eighths, and ten aqua 6″ squares all bundled up and ready for posting tomorrow.

The psychology of swapping is kind of interesting: after all, we could be much surer of getting the perfect fabric if we all just went out and bought it.  I think the magic of a swap has much to do with the thrill of the package on the doorstep, and the excitement of the unknown.  Oh, and the possibility of making 450 hexagon flowers, all of them completely different.  Mahahaha.

So, I’m here to tell you, that if you have colourful fabric and you want something new in your collection, send some comments my way.  6-7″ squares are great.  I am perfectly at my leisure … and I have a lot of green and blue.

 

I Want to be Erin McKean When I Grow Up

Those of you who know me know my addiction to streamed TED talks. Every year these guys get a bunch of the world’s most fascinating people, from art, medicine, architecture, even juggling, and get them to talk/juggle/play for 18 minutes. If you don’t know TED, for heaven’s sake get yourself over there now and fill your brain and your broadband account with a sugar high of TEDdy goodness.

Ok, so one of my favourites on TED is Erin McKean, who spoke last year on the job of a lexicographer. Erin is the Chief Consulting Editor for American Dictionaries at Oxford UP, and also edited an edition of The New Oxford American Dictionary. She also blogs about words at Dictionary Evangelist.

So that’s great, because she’s talented and young and funny and still manages to take her son roller skating on the weekends. How awesome can a person get?

Much, much awesomer. Because, on a very different plane, I’ve been reading A Dress A Day, possibly the world’s funniest fashion blog (all about vintage dresses and dress patterns). For weeks. And I finally realised that Funny Dress Blogging Erin and Cool Dictionary Geek Erin are the same disturbingly hyperactive amazing person!

Listen to Erin talk about finding new words for the dictionary. And then waste what’s left of Sunday watching TED. You know you want to. Bring the family.

 

Onward and Outward for pinsandthimbles …

I found a pattern for a BF coat.  What do you all think, does it look sufficiently Darcy?  Clearly, it’ll need some pulling in at the waist, but I don’t think I’ll need to alter it at the shoulders or collar, and that’s the important part.  Care to weigh in?  How would you alter it?  It’s been tricky to find a Regency pattern that isn’t for a dress coat (the kind that the men wore at all times, which stops at the waist in front).

In other news, I’m the new co-editor for Vic Quilter, the quarterly magazine for our state guild.  I’m sure I’ll have much more interesting photos to show you from now on!  If you’re from Victoria, and especially if you’re planning on coming to the Quilt Showcase in July, please introduce yourself.  I don’t know too many people in the guild yet but I do want to.  I’m really looking forward to this job and I think it will be a lot of fun.

 

Should have seen this one coming …

When BF and I were a new item, he was very nervous about letting me fix his clothes for him, because he was worried I was doing ‘women’s work’ for him.  He preferred to pay a tailor himself.  Go, feminism!

Now that I’ve pulled out the machine and finished the green dress, he’s come to me with a screen capture:

He wants me to make him Darcy’s overcoat.  No: he is pining for Darcy’s overcoat.  Exactly like Darcy has, but in black.  He tells me he’s wanted one since the BBC series first came out ten years ago.  And I know he needs a coat of some kind because I watched him shiver in his suit and shirt at a funeral last week.

What could be easier?

Has anyone made a coat before?  Does anyone know where to go for tips and tricks?  I’ll need to seriously alter a modern pattern, because I haven’t been able to find a repro pattern to match.

Is this ridiculously ambitious?

Help!

 

She’s All Grown Up

Made with Butterick B5030 in cheap-and-easy cotton, so that I wouldn’t cry if it didn’t work. It’s marked ‘easy’ and it goes together very neatly indeed. It would have been even easier if I’d remembered to adjust the facing strips to match the 2″ that I added in the torso and the 3″ in the skirt, but altogether it’s a simple 4-5 hour dress. Next time, I’ll make it in warm winter stretch fabric and leave the collar off. I used press studs at the waist, plus two at the bust line because it did gape a little: that’s more the fault of my long thin bustless top half than the pattern designer. Next time I’ll also attach the belt to the dress, or add belt loops.

The most interesting thing about this project was that I found myself doing all the things my Grandma told me to do, back when she was well and young and teaching Tiny Me how to sew. She insisted on every baste, pin, notch and chalk mark. At the time, I wanted to cut - to hell with the consequences! - and get a garment done immediately. I’d wait till she was out of the room and get the scissors out without pinning the pattern, or sew when it said baste. She’d just make me do it again. And again. And again.

Suddenly, now that Grandma’s not able to sit with me and tell me off, I do it all. Right down to trimming the last possible millimetre off the collar and belt points before turning them out: that wasn’t in the instructions, but it should have been. Thanks, Grandma. The collar points look ace.

Waste not, want not: