Loose threads

A few miscellaneous observations:
1. Elizabeth and I completed our first project together. As promised, it is a suede cover for a birdwatcher's book for my brother. I stitched it together with silver metallic thread--what a bear to get through the eye of the needle!--and appliqued (glued) a bird on the front and a cat on the back. I'm pleased, despite the raggedy stitching (still working on Elizabeth's thread tension and my minimal skillz), and despite the fact that my brother, being color-blind, may not see the contrast between the green book and the tan applique. But then, color-blindness makes birdwatching a challenge as well, so there's a symmetry there, at least.



2. Two nits to pick. First, "loath" is an adjective meaning reluctant, as in "I am loath to butt in and correct people when they misuse this word." "Loathe" is a verb meaning "hate" or "abhor" or some such, as in "I don't say anything when people mix "loath" and "loathe" because I loathe the kind of busybody who has to correct every mistake they hear.

Second, I was going to complain that when gentle, well-meaning people say they've been "trolling" the internet looking for something like parts for their vintage sewing machines or just the right fabric for a pretty shrug I have to believe they mean "trawling"--fishing, not trying to start a flame war. However, I find that I am completely wrong about that. Both "trolling" and "trawling" are kinds of fishing--the former with a line and bait and the latter with a net. I only learned that while double-checking this post. It's a good thing to be loath to correct people whenever I think they are in error!

Library of Congress, Artist: Frances F. Palmer (1812-1876); Lithograph: Currier & Ives

3. I find I have 6 followers on this blog. Since for neurotic reasons I haven't told anyone I know that I have this blog, that means 6 people who are not my mother think it might be worth reading. Thank you very much! However, I haven't signed up to follow blogs (except by putting them in my ever-burgeoning blog roll) and I don't display my "followers" because I'm skittish about my online identities and the startling places they seem to turn up once I let go of them. I know I'm delusional if I think I can control the circulation of anything I say on the internet, and I try to follow the New York Times rule (don't write anything, anywhere, that you couldn't live with in a Times headline) but Google and Facebook intimidate me.

She Sews!

Maybe I was a little hasty in giving Elizabeth a name--it is a little creepy to bring a new pet into the house, give it a name, and then dismember it/her and spread its/her guts all over the house. And filthy guts they were!


But all is well and, I hope, forgiven. Elizabeth has been rewired, degreased, regreased, oiled and reassembled and now stitches smoothly and quietly frontwards and backwards.

Next up: stitching up a leather cover (from thrifted coats) for a birdwatching book for my brother. And decorating it with a stylized cat, my brother being a serious cat person. Or is that inappropriate for a bird book?

Meet Elizabeth, My New Old 15-91!

I admit to being a Craigslist junkie. I don't buy much, and I sell even less, but I love poring over ads for what folks want to get rid of. I'm also a sewing blog junkie, especially those like Spare Time and Male Pattern Boldness that include a lot of sewing machine porn. So my two addictions collided on Friday when I spotted an ad for "Vintage singer sewing machine 1940's - $25" just a few miles from home. Not much information--nothing about whether it worked, for example, or what model it might be, but it came in a cabinet with a chair. Here's the photo:

Now, I learned to sew on my mother's black metal Singer and remember it fondly. I'm also buying up old suede coats at Goodwill with the idea of cutting them up and making book covers, bags, vests, etc., for which an old Singer straight stitch--especially a 15-91 with its all-geared drive--would be just the thing.
I've learned how to identify old Singer models and could see that the tension dial on the left in the photo meant this was likely a 15 of some sort. For $25, including the furniture, most likely it wouldn't work, but it was a pleasant drive to find out. As it turned out, the machine belonged to the seller's grandmother and had been stored away by her late mother. The mother's house was being cleared out, and pretty much anything the seller didn't want was going for $25. I was still wrestling my new treasure into the car when another buyer pointed out to the seller how much more she could have gotten for this machine, bwah-ha-ha!

The serial number indicates that my 15-91 was built between April and June, 1953, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where my mother was born and grew up. I shall call her Elizabeth.

Fabric Shopping in LA's Fashion District

I spent half of November on jury duty. Despite being a lawyer and law professor, I was empaneled on the jury in a medical malpractice case tried in Downtown Los Angeles. This is the third time I've served on a jury in the 17 years I've been teaching law; plus once when I was a practicing lawyer I put in 3 months (once a week) on a federal grand jury. I love sitting on juries--observing trial techniques (or lack thereof) to enrich my teaching, and then being astonished and impressed when the non-lawyer jurors start to deliberate. I forget how warped my perceptions have been by my legal training and experience.

Anyway, we were summoned at 10 one morning but after we jurors had sat around in the hallway for a half hour or so we were told we would not be needed until 1:30. So I hopped a bus down to the fashion district which, despite living in Los Angeles for 25 years, I had never seen.

What fun! I'd way rather wander around Santee Alley and Maple Ave. than plod through Disneyland again. These crappy cell-phone pics don't do it justice, but I'm posting them anyway because I FINALLY figured out how to liberate the pics from my phone!



I marched bravely into Michael Levine and was completely overwhelmed.



Eventually I got my eyes to focus and managed to buy some grey rayon-poly doubleknit, with which I plan to make a suit or dress to hang in my office to change into after I've cycled to work or when I've forgotten to dress up, and some yummy gold, rust, black and metallic stuff for a dressy-ish T.



AND to find my way back to court to sit in judgment with my peers. (Defense verdict at the end of the week.) A good day.

The Sound of Music?

I like to visit other people's blogs. In fact, one of the primary purposes for keeping a blog (for me) is to keep track of blogs I like to visit. I also like to click "next blog" on blogspot blogs, which usually drops me into craft and sewing blogs I've never seen before. What I don't like is my laptop bursting into song when I don't ask it to, particularly when I am in public (or worse, at work), but really any time at all. It would be one thing if I were surfing blogs looking for my favorite musicians, but why should I expect a sewing blog to start warbling at me? Annoying.

Anyway, not much sewing here. Can't complain--when DD visits from graduate school she lights up my life but takes up my sewing space. Did manage to stitch and serge up a slip cover for my workroom couch.
That involved about a half-mile of straight serging along the raw edge. I feel much more comfortable with my serger now. The wine helped.

My able assistant William is also becoming more comfortable with the serger. (I don't offer music, but I'm not above throwing in a picture of my cat when I've nothing to say.)

Beginning Again

I used to sew pretty well. There have been times in my life when I made my own clothes because I couldn't find the look I wanted in stores, or to save money, or for the sheer satisfaction of creating something. I don't remember finding sewing or fitting to be particularly difficult--I just picked a size, cut it, and followed the directions. No muslins, and no wadders.

These days, however, sewing scares me. Partly, I think, because it is more difficult to fit a lumpy "petite large" than a trim 7 or 8, and partly because thanks to so many wonderful sewing blogs I now know how much I don't know. But the only thing to do to overcome my fear of failure is to dive in and fail, and learn from my mistakes. Which are many.

Here is Opus 1: Very Easy Vogue 8587 in a silky polyester print from JoAnn.

Things I learned making this top:
1. Consider the compatibility of fabric and pattern: A large print may not be the best choice for a garment with a seam down the center front.
2. Understand the garment before stitching it all together (if necessary, read the instructions). At one point in this process the top turned into a Möbius strip--no matter what I did it was always inside-out, and sometimes the neck opening disappeared into another dimension altogether.
3. Look in the mirror once in a while. This top is nice and comfortable, but DS, in whose eyes I can do no wrong, remarked that it made me look pregnant. Not that pregnant is a bad look ...

Opus 2: Butterick 3030 in cotton T-shirt jersey from JoAnn.

Things I learned making this top (which I just finished this morning):
1. Make a note of the length, width and composition of a piece of fabric before stashing it. Yes, I could just measure it to see how much there was, and I sort of did, but I seem to have missed it by a foot. I wanted to make a tunic but only had enough for a short top. The old adage, "Measure twice, cut once" only applies if both measurements come out the same--if they don't, measure a few more times, I guess.
2. Pay attention when people say the high bust measurement is the most important number for choosing a pattern size. I made a Large to make sure the top would fit around my upper arms and tummy, and wound up with a neckline wider than my shoulders! Maybe it also stretched out while I was working on it?
I made this top with the facing called for in the instructions but I guess this was unnecessary for the knit I used. Maybe I can remove the facing and put a couple of darts in the neckline to keep it from sliding to my elbows?
3. I enjoy working with this knit fabric.

Off to try again.

My Magic Pants

Above are my magic pants. I bought them at Goodwill a day or two before I left the US. They would have been $6 but someone cut the left pocket clean out of them--I don't know why and I don't want to know why--so I got 10% off plus another 10% off for being old. I stitched up the missing pocket (sewing connection there) and off we went. I've been traveling now for about 5 weeks. These pants are magic because they dry overnight. Even when it is raining outside (which pretty much it always has been). They are lightweight. I can be persuaded that every color goes with them. Yesterday I barfed on these pants just a little in Bruges (due to over-enthusiastic coughing due to a two-week-old cold. See comment about rain, above.) I wiped them down and they dried in an hour, then I washed them out last night and they are dryly covering my butt as I sit in them and type in Berlin. Magic pants.