Hats

I made a passel of hats for Many Hands Gallery.  It gives me a chance to flex my right brain on several little projects at a time.  It's good for me to practice freeform sewing in quick-time; gets the juices flowing.

I don't know about you but I'm getting tired of the word creative.  But it's hard to come up with another way to describe what we do, right?  I just looked it up in Thesaurus, they didn't come up with any better words.

Anyway, off the point.  The point is, I got going on these little cashmere sweeties and had fun.  I use the sweaters that I can't use on larger garments.  And I also use colors that I don't think would work in larger garments.

I really had fun with this one.  But it took forever to make compared to the others.  These flowers are made with cashmere scraps that I stitched into with pearl cotton and added vintage buttons.  I swirled some...stuffed some.  I love all the color against the taupe background.  A few chiffon scarf scraps added in the background bring it all together.

Here's how I usually do my flowers.  I twist vintage fabric and silk scarves into little "rosettes".  More vintage buttons.  Gotta use them, I have trillions!

I over dyed this cashmere.  It was an off white that I dyed with green.  It's kinda camouflage.  The buttons are actually vintage mattress buttons.  You know, the coated metal ones that used to poke you in the butt?

This one is a tad "Miss Marple meets Little Lulu".  I can just envision the 50's coat that button came off of, can't you?  I think my grandmother had one.  The little striped bit is men's tie fabric.

This school bus yellow cashmere was given to me by a wonderful gal from Mendocino.  A hat is the perfect use.  Most of these fabrics were cut from vintage clothes.  The button is one I've never seen before, really unusual with some bas relief going on.

Heading back to the studio now to finish some sweaters.  More later!

Recent Sewing

Life hasn't allowed for a ton of sewing lately.  Guests, meetings, travel have all mashed together to keep me away from the bunkhouse.  But I'm back at it!  

I struck a pattern from a tunic my friend, Janet, was wearing last week.  I won't name the brand but it's one we all wear a lot.  I loved the assym lines and little drawstring at the hem.  I also love the funnel neck.  I cut it really wide so it wouldn't choke my drapy, wrinkled, very delicate neck…I used to wear tight turtle necks but ever since you-know-what I can't stand anything tight around my neck.  I know I'm not alone in this particular dilemma.

I used a fairly heavy knit I got from Marcy Tilton.  I've been asking myself why I bought it.  Seemed every time I went to use it the irregular stripes didn't work on the pattern.  But this time they were JUST what it needed to make the various aspects of the garment stand out.

Drafting top patterns has gotten so easy since I realized I could use the top part of a TNT tunic pattern for all of my new garments.  I don't bother to copy the new garment's upper part.  I just lay my TNT pattern on new pattern paper, trace the neck, shoulders, armholes and sleeves from the TNT pattern.  Then I lay the garment down on the paper, align it with the top and trace that part.  This time is was the lower body and the funnel neck.  Good 'ol masking tape comes in handy to tape all the elements together.

 This worked in one try.  I'm going to make this again and again, it's super comfy and I got lots of compliments the day I wore it.  Neve mind that I wore it BACKWARDS for the first two hours.  I finally caught sight of my reflection in a window and realized the little drawstring was hanging down in BACK!  OY.  No wonder the neck was feeling a bit tight, it was the back neck!

I'm sorry this is so dark.  I took the pics at the wrong time of the day.  Darn, because some of the details don't show up.  There is a lot of piecing of small pattern pieces you can't really see.  Maybe I'll take more and post those another time.

This vest was made with two grey tshirts I got at a trade show recently.  They are heavy men's shirts, just beautiful.  I've been wanting to copy an All Saint's vest I own for two years now.  This is the first go.  Most of the seams are on the outside, it has a big, drapy cowl neck and deep pockets that go down to the hem at the side.

I laid the All Saints vest over one of the tshirts and started cutting.  Then I draped the rest of the vest on my dress form, trying to follow the lines of the original.

This isn't truly a copy, it's very different from the original but I like it very much.  And I'm going to make more!

I'm working on cashmere hats and sweaters from recycled cashmeres right now.  I sell them at Many Hands Gallery next to the bakery.  Check out their website here.  I'll post them before I send them off into retail outer space.

Sunday Fun

I usually go to the bunkhouse on Sunday morning and listen to my favorite radio programs.  Foremost of which is Prairie Home Companion.  It's sort of my church.

Church used to be the flea market but when I turned 60 I just didn't need all that stuff anymore.  So now I make stuff on Sundays.

I was fishing around for something to make last Sunday.  I wasn't in the mood to create something 'big'.  I wasn't in the mood to make a basic wardrobe staple, which is usually my fall-back when I'm just not motivated.

I don't know why but I looked inside a cupboard I don't usually go to and bam, there it was.  A huge sack of garment labels I've been hoarding for years.  I take a LOT of labels out of clothes because I remake so many of them AND I rip them out of everything I wear because they're itchy.  I've always wanted to make something with them but never struck on the right idea.  Then, the right idea.

So I dumped out the bagful of labels and started sorting.  I wanted to use my favorites because who knows if I'll ever do something with the rest of them.  I had a blast.  So much fun looking at all of these labels.  Old ones, ones I've never seen before, don't know how they got in there.  But all of my favorite designers from Pringle through Dress To Kill!

You know you're doing the right thing when it all comes together easily.  And this project did.  It practically made itself.

I used a black dupioni for the base.  That's what I use on the collars I make.  Then I "shingled" the labels from bottom to top, making sure I didn't cover up any of the really cool ones.

I love it.  I might never wear it but who cares.  It will live in my studio and make me smile every time I lay my eyes on it.  Joe calls it a chicken.  He said, "There's chickens and then there's eggs.  You keep the chickens!"

I used a vintage button from my mom's collection.  I'm pretty sure it's jet.  

Everything we make should be this easy.  After I finished this...in about two hours!...I started a simple black tunic...a wardrobe staple...I'm back in the saddle!

Speaking of Vests

Ok, in my last post I told you that I love vests and talked about ones I had made in the past.  That got me thinking.  So I went upstairs to the closet and pulled out all of the vests that were there.  That didn't include all the fleece models that are put away for the warmer months.

I started this blog to document the things I make so that I can share them with sewing pals and have a "file" to refer to myself.   I hauled them all over to the bunkhouse, that's the little cottage next door I use for my studio space, and photographed them.

Here they are, in no particular order.

This is one of the rare short ones.  I drafted this pattern from my longer version that I talked about in the last post.  The fabric is a Fabrix rainwear in a rusty bronze.  The diagonal zipper works well and the little pockets on either side of the front are fun, if not too functional.  I wear this over a slinky steel grey rayon tunic with a huge cowl collar and fun sewn on colored patches that my pal Janet made and gave to me.

This fabric is kind of wrinkly which I like.  It compliments the smoothness of the tunic.

I got the pattern for this vest from another sewing buddy, Lynn.  We drafted it from a RTW, took it right off her back!  I love this pattern and will make it again soon.  It's great open or closed.  I won't make it from a crinkly fabric again though, too much volume for me in the you-know-where region.

Here is one of the remade cashmeres I've kept.  Several sweaters combine to make a really comfy winter vest.

This is one of those garments I've remade a few times.  I wore it once, figured out what didn't work, then added something, then decide I didn't like everything I added and whacked off some of it.  That gave me some interesting layers.

Here's a fun summer cotton vest in a taupe/grey.  I'm wearing it today!  I wasn't happy with the plain jane look when I first made it so I asked Diane Ericson for suggestions.  She had me add the gathering at the hem and the slit up the back.  Voila, it worked.  The collar is from Marcy's shirt pattern V8709.  I think it might be out of print?  I couldn't find it on Vogue's website.

This is another combined cashmere vest that I kept.  This goes with 99.9% of every garment in my closet.

This one is out of a mystery fabric.  I can't remember where I got it but you can bet it was probably Marcy Tilton or Fabrix.  It feels almost like it has a bit of wool but I know it doesn't because I'm allergic to wool.  It's self pleated, more in some spots than others, which gave it an unusual drape.

When I was cutting out the pattern I added some inches here and there and then pleated them up.  Again, the collar is from V8709.  I use that a lot.

Here's a crazy one.  I drafted this from a Rundholz vest that yet another sewing pal, Lisa, lent me.  This was just a stupid idea from the start.  There are zillions of pattern pieces all going in different directions.

I soon veered away from the actual pattern and just started nipping and tucking until the darned thing made sense.  I probably took away more fabric than I kept.

Terry, a DOL friend, sold me the fabric at last year's DOL SB, it's a heavy grey ponte.  It was perfect for this garment, she saved me.

You can't see them but the buttonholes are sewn at a diagonal, nice effect.

I call this my tortoise alter ego vest....like a big turtle shell.

This one I'm not quite sure about.  I don't wear it often.  I made it to use up some zippers from my stash and to make something that isn't grey or black.  But....I don't wear it 'cuz it's too bright!  Another rainwear kind of fabric from Fabrix.

 Here is a drapy shorty made from a slight boucle knit from Joannes in Santa Fe.  It started as a Marcy jacket pattern V8559...I think.  I really need to keep better records.  Hopefully this blog will help.

I added a panel in back because it was too short for me.  Worked great.

This one is another rainwear fabric from Fabrix.  I wanted a cargo pocket directly on the side of the garment.

Several years ago I saw a woman walk through a hotel lobby in Tokyo who was wearing pants with cargo pockets plastered to the sides, down low.  I loved that look and have been thinking of it ever since.

These pockets are a bit on the gargantuan side but I love this vest and wear it a lot.  My standby pattern but I raised the front hem a bit and used the Marcy collar.

Now for the boo-boo.  This mistake taught me never to cut out patterns late at night.  The lighting in my studio is not the best and I cut part of this on one side of the fabric and part on the other!  You can clearly see it in this photo but thankfully in real life it's not so noticeable.  And, hey, I might have done it on purpose, right?  Who should know!

So there you are.  Now you can see how important vests are in my life.  And these are only the ones I could lay my hands on at the moment.  I have tons of RTW vests in every weight and fabric.  Almost all with pockets so I don't have to wear a purse.

Another Vest

I'm obsessed with vests.  They're my go-to sewing/design project when I want to make something I KNOW I'll wear.

I've made them out of fleece; big drapy ones that I wear in the winter.  I used to embellish them but now like them a bit more austere. You can see a few by clicking on the Vest page.

About four years ago at Design Outside The Lines I fell madly in love with a black vest Marcy Tilton bought in Paris.  I keep hoping she'll do a Vogue pattern from it.

Since then, I've played around with drafting vest pattern.  My standby is 3/4 length, has a zipper and four pattern pieces; front and back top and bottom.  I change it up by adding drape to the bottom and then pleating or darting above the hem to make it even; gather the hem in the back to make it pouf; change the collar, you name it.

I love working with rainwear.  I have a big pile of pieces in my stash that I have mostly gathered at Fabrix in San Francisco.  They are so cheap there it's a no brainer.  Last week I picked up two more pieces...for $2.39 a yard I always get three yards.

Here is a vest I gleaned from Marcy's summer dress pattern here.  I tried on a lightweight black version she had redrafted from this pattern at DOL Sisters this year and loved it.  I saw that others have made it into a vest as well in Marcy's summer dress design competition, see them here.

I tried it in a taupe Babette rainwear that I got from Marcy.

I love all the details in this pattern.  Especially the collar.  It stands up perfectly and it's not too high.  I'll use this collar in other garments.

The vest seemed really big, even after my pal Jenny Freedman helped me tissue fit it.  I had to take inches out.

The only other thing is that since this pattern has a lot of fullness it will be better made in a not-so-stiff fabric.  I keep looking for these fabrics that are like rainwear but lighter weight and probably not actually water resistant.  That would be fine, I'm just looking for that particular crisp, techno feel and look.

Here is Marcy's tutorial on the changes she made to turn the dress pattern into a vest.  It was in her March blog.  I used them all and they worked well.

I'll keep making vests, they work so well in my Central California Coast climate...not to mention I'm 64 and need sub-zero weather to even THINK about wearing a coat.

Men's Shirts into a Vest

I can't seem to get away from using thrift store men's shirts to make women's garments.  It probably has something to do with my need to use what I already have.  And, I had lots of pieces left from the dusters and vests I made for Karen Melfi Collection in Santa Fe.

I've had the pleasure of selling some of my garments in this wonderful shop over the last couple of years.  I send them mostly things made from men's shirts.

I also sell redesigned cashmere sweaters at Many Hands Gallery here in Capitola, right next to my bakery.  I'm starting a few of these garments tomorrow and will post them before I send them off to find new homes.

Being able to sell some of the garments I make has been great because I can't wear everything I want to sew.  I like sewing for it's own sake and love to make things I know someone, somewhere in the world will love to wear.

I used to sell to two stores in Carmel for years but both have sadly closed their doors.  The shop owners would tell me stories about the women who came in from different countries and buy a sweater.  Just to think about someone walking around 3000 miles away in something I made gives me a hoot!

Here's a little vest I cooked up out of my current favorite color, orange.  I paired it with a subdued taupe Babette top that I think gives it more....what's the word....dignity?  No, that's too lofty.  But it does ground it a bit, I think.

Here are a couple other angles.

What do you think of this pairing?  I loved Sham's (at Community With Fabric) recent post about what to wear with a garment she had just finished.  I think feedback like that is so valuable.  Here it is without anything underneath.

Maybe all it needs is a little lightweight white tee?  Or maybe I should sell it!  Feedback gladly accepted!  Now out to pick the gazillion zinnias in the garden!

As Promised

If you read my last post about the shirt I made from Lynn Mizono's V1274 pattern you will remember that I promised to send along photos of Helen Papke's jacket interpretation.

Two sewing pals sent me photos they had so you can see why I love it so much.  Huge thanks to Sharon Coker, a longtime DOL attendee and travel-mate for the close up shots and to Steph Rich who has a very cool design/sewing blog.  Check it out here.  I've never met Steph in person but I've known her through her posts.

Above are two photos of Helen at DOL Santa Barbara 2012 modeling for Marcy Tilton who had them on her blog following the retreat.

Close ups provided by Sharon.  I'm so happy to have these.

In the photo above you can see one of the back options of connecting the two side "tails"

Now you see why I (and many others) channel Helen when we sit down to design something.  She's fearless and hugely talented.