Dinner in the City!

So, getting on with news on this fantastic trip...tonight several sewists who regularly blog or post on Stitchers Guild or Pattern Review got together for dinner. Can you imagine that we found enough to talk about for 3 hours that it seemed like 15 minutes? It was a great time.


At dinner, from left Carolyn, Robin, me, Mardel, Claudine, LindsayT, and NancyK

Click on their name for links to each blogger.

It's late and I'm really tired, and I've got class again all day tomorrow, so I'm just going to leave you with this teaser pic and tell you that more pics will be coming and that you can probably read more from each of these amazing women.

Go see Mardels blog to see what she's doing in class. She's going to be writing about the muslin process she's going through. I can tell you, it's been really interesting to watch.
Don't know if Robin will be blogging tonight at all about the coat process.
Meanwhile, I've finally gotten my jacket cut out and have started the underlay process.
I hope to get to posting about the process tomorrow.

Thanks for all your thoughts and input on friendships that you've developed on the net.

It's all about the muslin

too late at night, working on the next muslin

Ok, there are a myriad of posts to be written about this fabulous trip.
Tonight, ... it's been a day and a half, and all I'm going to do is post some pics about fitting the muslins.
First, working on the pant pattern for Cidell.
After 3 muslins and a few alterations, I'm thinking we have a pant pattern that will work so that MissCelie can make pants, which BTW, she IS tall enough to wear!!! Hear that MissCelie? I mean, how on God's Green Earth are we to deal with a MissCelie's Pants when all MissCelie wears are dresses?
And, speaking of wearing dresses, isn't this chic?

Date: Wed November 18
Robin of "A Little Sewing" picked me up at Cidells' and then we made the 11:44 AM train to NYC. Not without a little drama - guess who left Cidells house with the cell phone locked inside? hmmm? Yeah, well, moving on.
We had a wonderful time chatting a mile a minute. As we were about to get off the train at Penn Station the man ahead of us turned around and said "It isn't any of my business, but are you going to a knitting contest?" We both laughed. "nope, but we are going to a sewing seminar"
So, go ahead, and look over at Robins blog to see what we did as soon as we left Penn Station. Pictures notwithstanding, I'm not the only one leaving Mood with a stack of fabric.

Then Mardel got in.
dinner (or is that drinks?): I think Mardel is my twin of a different mother and it took until recently for us to find each other. We are having such a wonderful time.

Date Thurs Nov 19
More on muslins, this time it's fitting in class
Kenneth King pinning the sleeve onto my jacket muslin
look at his jacket - isn't it just fabulous?
Kenneth King fitting the muslin on Robin while Mardel looks on.

The class is Sit and Sew given by Kenneth King and Susan Khalje. Both are excellent teachers, both are talented at garment construction, and both are contributing editors to Threads Magazine. Both are also personable, and a lot of fun. We'll be blogging about this over the next few days, but I can already tell you, if you can swing it, it's worth it!

interlude at lunch time - the requisite picture with Kashi -(and see who's there to show me arou d Kashi's?

Me, Kashi, Carolyn (diary of a sewing fanatic)

Don't even ask, 'cause I'm not saying. Except that I will let you know that Kashi has some of those incredible Japanese cotton engineered prints left....

And, to cap off an excellent day, an excellent dinner with great friends.


So I leave you with this thought.
This is an amazing age, the age of internet. I've met face to face several friends this trip. And I use the word "friends" deliberately. These are women I've "known" through their blogs and through various message boards - principally Stitchers Guild and Pattern Review, and then private emails and eventually telephone conversations.
These are friends who're as important to me as many people I've known IRL all my life.
These are women who share my passion - sewing and fiber arts - but more than that, they share various life experiences that are common to us all. And we have become friends. Who would have thought that through the medium of the written word on a public medium that one could form lasting and important relationships?
These women are my sisters and friends. I'm grateful for their friendship. We've come a long way baby.

You're reading this blog, therefore, you're connected online. Have you formed friendships that you feel are important to you through this online medium?

It's been a FUN day!

Can I tell you how much fun we're having?
And what a delightful person Cidell is?
So, about today:
First, We had breakfast. I'd have gotten pictures but I was too busy eating.
Then we had a measuring session

Then Cidell left to go to work for the AM. I found out that I hadn't underlined all of the houndstooth, and not only that but I failed to bring the rest of the batiste with which I was underlining the jacket. Oops.
So I started my muslin for the brown jacket. And I got to use Cidells PINK rotary cutter - woohoo.
not only that, but I spent more than a little time looking through the Bunka books and the Pattern Magic books she has. Great Stuff!

Then Cidell came and picked me up and we proceeded to go to A Fabric Place, aka Michaels retail store.
Michael is wonderful in person. I introduced myself and he immediately knew me from being an internet customer. Renee turned to me in surprise and exclaimed "you buy enough here that he KNOWS you?!?" LOL, um... I plead the fifth, but in my defense, Michael immediately piped up with the fact that they know all their customers.
I found the underlayment that I needed for the jacket as well as some lovely lavender cotton shirting to go with the purple passion project items. In addition, that RPL that Sherry sent out the email about last week - great stuff.
We also caught up with a friend, Leslie, and went to have snacks.
Then we returned here to make a bit of progress on a pant pattern for Cidell. Because time was getting short, we decided to go immediately to altering a commercial pattern.



Time for dinner. Three of us went out to a wonderful restaurant - Woodberry Kitchen - and the came back and realized we hadn't done the requisite picture session. This is what you get after some good food and wine.


Click here for more pics. Tomorrow it's time to stitch together muslins and to make use of the Bunka books for the bodice draft.
See Cidells blog for more ...

Today, it's Baltimore

I'm coming to you today from Cidell's.
We're working on fitting a pant pattern for her and some general other stuff.

AND I'm about to start on my muslin for the Sit and Sew in NYC given by Susan Khalje and Kenneth King that I'll be joining along with Mardel and Robin.

At the sit and Sew I plan to get help re-fitting this jacket.
I began this project too long ago to recount and got distracted for reasons I can't quite remember. Anyway, I fit the muslin to myself, cut it apart and used the muslin as pattern and cut the houndstooth. Then I mounted the houndstooth onto the underlining - and that's as far as I got. Now I've lost 25 lbs, and have been exercising to the point that Anything fit to me as far back as 2006 will no longer work. I really want this to work. So, today I'm basting it together in the hopes that Susan and Kenneth will have some fitting magic that will let me finish this jacket. I'd like to wear it to Katies graduation next month.
After getting it fit I'll take the project home and finish making it there.

Because I have a project in mind for this class. And I lugged all the materials with me. And I've had conversation with Kenneth King and he's going to help me to sew with the fur. I've never sewn with fur before.
The project proposal:



So, look for a post later tonight on Cidell's and my Adventures of this coming afternoon.
Cidell has graciously agreed to document the whole pattern drafting and fitting process. It'll be fun!

On the Road....and Sew Baby!

After packing, before getting on the plane on Thurs.
Pattern: Vogue 1035 - Alice and Olivia. Love the draft. This is the second time I've made this pattern, however these were cut back in the Spring, and I needed to recut and take in and take in, which distorted the line a bit. I finished these last week amid my sewing frenzy.
Fabric: A silk herringbone from Fabric Mart that wrinkles like the devil. These did not travel well. Heck, look at them just after packing, they did not fare well in the wearing just to pack.

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Coming to you from Atlanta GA this AM. Unfortunately, due to technical problems, the pictures I wanted to upload will have to wait til this evening, Please check back. Good stuff in store.
For this week, I'll be playing "Where's Waldo" as I plane and train hop. As I said in an earlier post - time to meet some more of those sewing bloggers....

And, on to regular programming:


I bring you an interlude:
Sophie of the big brown eyes, my favorite big girl niece, this is for you.

insert garment pics


Pattern: SewBaby Twirl Top and Pant
Made as a class sample for a class I"ll be teaching at The Quilted Fox in February.
The pattern is simple and goes together beautifully.

What I love about this pattern: It's printed on tissue paper and is multi-size, yet each size is printed individually. No complicated deciphering of which line to cut, no tracing in order to preserve the next size in the envelope. This, IMO, is especially valuable in a pattern designed for a toddler where you are likely to want to use a pattern multiple times and sew more than one size.

Fabric: A selection of quilting cottons. This outfit calls for 1 yd of the primary fabric and then 1/3 yd of 4 coordinating fabrics.

Follow up to Knitting from Japanese patterns

First, the excuses: it was dark when I was finally ready last night for a pic or two. Dark this AM when dh left for work, Dark when I got home from work.
Pics will come, someday, I promise.

Meanwhile:

LisetteM asked:

• I have a couple of questions about the Japanese knitting patterns. First are the sizes small? I recently read an article about a Japanese RTW line of clothing which only goes up to a size 6.

All you have to do is look at the schematics to determine the size. I tried on a bunch of the designs at the trunk show at Kirkwood knittery, and I have to say that the only thing that was consistently small were the sleeves. The diameter of the arms were really small. At least the patterns designed for the Habu yarns tend to be really goemetric and square, so they're sort of "one size....". Which means, If I felt they fit me, then they would be huge for the majority of the Asian population of women. I'm not exactly a small woman.
I do find that many of the Japanese patterns are written in one size only.

• Second, are the Japanese knitting patterns different enough from the more easily available and easy to comprehend american and european patterns that gets you excited to go through the extra trouble?

Some are, some aren't. I have the books I got because I wanted the pattern for Am Kamin, and for the oak leaf pullover. To my knowledge there is nothing like either one of these patterns written in English.
And regards reading Japanese patterns, Kim, (knitinbrit) offered up these links:
Here's the book - Clear and Simple knitting Symbols

Very helpful!

I have found a lot of great info online. Have you checked this link out too?
How to Read Japanese Knitting Charts


BTW, if you haven't read Kims' letter to Dear Santa aka Cute Guy, then you should - it's hysterical.

And my own Cute Guy - probably has H1N1
Guess who's sleeping in the guest room tonight? - no silly, not him. ... I won't put him out but oth, I don't really want the flu at this point.

****************
Just a thought, Have you met, IRL, any of the bloggers that you regularly read or correspond with?

I've met Kim. Time for us to get together again actually.
And I've met several other knit bloggers, including Jae, Lorraine (no longer blogging), Elizabeth, and I don't exactly remember how many others. A few, certainly. Oh, I've actually met the infamous Franklin, of Panopticon fame. Jae even came to stay with me on the boat this summer.

But, I think I can say without exaggeration, I've never met another sewing blogger. I talk regularly on the phone with several, but I've never met, in person, any of them.
I'm an idiot - I've met Summerset. Totally slipped my mind when I wrote that - but we got to meet in a fabric store! and then had a lovely lunch. She was on her way to Paducah to show one of her art-garments. Summerset, I apologize for my memory slip. It was wonderful.

Time to change this, time to meet more sewing bloggers?

sample sample sample

Moving on to the next items in the purple passion project, this morning I'm deciding on treatments for the front of yet another skirt.

I know, all are pics of the same sample. Trying to get good pics. Sometimes it really helps me to see it in pictures to see what's working or not.

I used the patch method of making a bound buttonhole. This fabric is lightweight and the patch method is good for light-med weight projects.
But I'm thinking that
a. the lips are too wide. This whole buttonhole was marked on 1/4" wide overall, and is only 7 stitches wide. (Yes, I count stitches on my buttonholes - it's 21 st long by 7 st wide). Next one I'll make 6 st wide. I'm using a 1.5mm st length.
and
b. that I like the contrast piping for the front edge of the skirt, but I don't like the contrast for the buttonhole. It's just too much!

What do you think?

see how the stitching line is one stitch above the marking? Next one will be one stitch below the marking.






Hopefully later this afternoon I'll nab the hubby and we'll do a photo shoot of the finished garments. Productivity reigns here at Fiberarts Afloat.