Last day!

We performed a massive cull on mostly-done coloring books and extra pens, and managed to get EVERYTHING into 2 large + 2 small suitcases, 2 adult backpacks, 1 small duffel and the girls two small backpacks.  I didn't get to keep the tall rubber boots I bought in Cornwall.  :(  They're just too big, and I do have a pair at home that are perfectly good.  I'll survive. 

Over the past week we stayed in a hotel near Birmingham (great pool!!!!) one night on our way to 3 nights in hostels in the Lake district (Ambleside, then 2 nights in Eskdale).  Oh my goodness, I can't say enough about Eskdale.  I could have gone there for all of our trips - we didn't see even the smallest part of what was there.  One of the mornings the girls impulsively wanted to walk the fairly steep hostel path up a hill - this, the day after Jeanne had announced that she didn't like hiking any  more.  So proud! 

Hadrian's wall (we went to one of the old forts) was also very nice, although we didn't spend very much time there.  The girls loved dressing up and then getting to walk around the whole area in the dress up clothes.  Jeanne is thoroughly out of princess mode and gravitates towards the "gentleman" and "warrior" clothes at all of these places now.  She still likes the pretty embroidered Alabama Chanin item I made for her, and wears it almost every other day - but I think it's because it just comes right below her hips and isn't a dress that restricts her movement at all.  Whereas, Miriam lives in the hold smocked lawn dress I made years back for Jeanne - it's below her knees and DEFINITELY gets in her way.  But she loves it.  Just today she realized that I made it and looked at me in awe. Ha.  :)

In about half an hour we leave this last hotel (Glasgow is also lovely and worthy of at least a week!) and head out to the airport.  Then, Reykjavik, then Chicago.  I suppose my Fantasy Friday wish today is that there aren't any major travel disruptions!

Fantasy Friday: Colors

We are almost out the door!  All the trash and recycling is out, the packet of school work that came home was lovingly examined and then regretfully recycled (after some pictures were taken, of course), the kids have been dropped off for their last day of school/daycare.  My office here actually looks clean and tidy!  We're trying to use up all of our Nectar points - not sure if we'll just use them on our remaining Sainsbury purchases, or if we'll go for that Pizza Express deal.  Dinner for tonight involves the last set of leftovers.


So - not a huge amount of fabric shopping!  I did get tempted by some beautiful reversible jackets at a local shop that sells handmade embroidered cotton garments from India.  They are beautiful, but I had my daughter in tow and she reminded me that we had no more room and told me not to "go crazy".  She's six.  She's the one who is crazy.  Nyah.  I comforted myself by purchasing a little hand mirror from the Cath Kidson shop to keep in my bag as a memory of our time here.

There has been an interesting thread on the Stitchers Guild page about finding colors, so I did spend a little down time on that.  I'm pretty neutral between cool and warm, perhaps a little more on the warm side.  I always vaguely thought I was an "autumn", but then was confused as I seemed to be finding a lot of good-for-me outfits in clearer navy and green than I'd thought worked for autumns (i.e., not grayed, olive ones, but kelly and grass greens).  See? I stand by my green assessment. 

It turns out that since I last checked on such things (somewhere in the nineties) they've introduced all sorts of "muted, soft" and other terms.  At some point I gave up, but did construct a chart of sorts to guide me in my fabric and clothing purchases.  The goal here was to just see if there was some color range I was "missing".

And there is.  I'm not wearing much of that column on the right at all, and I don't think I've ever worn the oranges!  I'm not wearing many light versions of any color except white, and I found on this trip that the bright white polyester blouse I'd made looked terrible on me.  Not a huge surprise there - I should be going for off-whites, or at least somewhat transparent whites.  My beloved navy is still in there, as is brick red.  I'm not going to start buying my suites in brown.  I get that it goes well with my coloring, but I find too much brown depressing on me unless it's in a luxurious, soft fabric like a corduroy or squooshy sweater.  I'm intrigued by the idea of a forest green suit - you don't really ever see that except for sometimes on redheads, and you certainly don't seem them in the stores!  But perhaps I'd just look like I worked at the park service.  I'm definitely sticking with the mustards - they make me happy.  I have a great mustard ponte I bought while here that is waiting for me in my office at home.  It'll be a work sheath, probably in my TNT Simplicity pattern.

I was also not surprised to see that light lemon yellow is not in there - I have a dress I made out of that color (accidental purchase, actually) and it makes me look half dead.

In terms of fantasy, the new fabric.com offerings this week included a set of eyelets, which I'm always drawn to this time of year.  Not going to happen, though.  They also had some paisley printed techno scuba, which is a bit more tempting.  This color would work, but I am afraid that the shine might make it look too nonprofessional.

Fantasy Friday

I'm up to row 63 in my filet crochet tablecloth project, out of about 180 total.  Need to do about one row a day.  It's getting big enough that it's hard to twist around when I get to the end of a row!

New Vogues are out, with a bunch of incredibly boring dress patterns and some interesting options that I might actually sew.  I can't figure out if this would work for me at the office - I want it in that exact color - I also want her hair color, though.

But the one I really got interested in was Vogue 1517.  I've been trying to select a jacket pattern to do Alabama Chanin-style, something that I could wear open or closed and that would be work-appropriate.  I think the lines of this one are really nice - I hadn't thought of one with a zipper, but this would be easy to modify for use with snaps.  And, let's be honest- zippers are good for Ithaca weather!

I'm imagining it with a darker tone-on-tone knit with one of the larger-scale floral stencil patterns, and with the pattern just breaking at all seams in a random manner.  This somewhat goes against my desire for pattern matching, but it's what AC does in all of their jackets and I'm starting to like the look.  Probably won't go with beading on this one, although I'm tempted to do that in my next top.

Fantasy friday, plus so many loose ends!

I have no madras plaid garments this year! 

In the past, I've really liked to have something to wear that falls into the "Tutti-Frutti" color camp - deep berry pinks and oranges with lime green.  The other thing I'd like to perfect is a wrap top - not a dress like was used in a bunch of sew-alongs this summer, but a top that is meant to be worn with a tank.  Vogue 8646, shortened, would fit the bill.

I like the waist shaping that you get with a wrap top, but the low-cut that requires a snap or a pin?  Nope.  I don't like it.  I currently have two long wrap dresses in my closet, and I do love them, but I am sick of the wardrobe malfunction potential and/or obvious fix.   So, in the future, I'm just going to always plan on wearing them with a camisole underneath.  Perhaps I should jump in with both feet and always plan on making a coordinating cami at the same time? 


Parents are visiting, meaning that I can't work at all on my filet crochet tablecloth.  So - I finished everything else.  Blue knit skirt with the snapped cotton seam thread?  Fixed/redone.  Final missed motif on the AC-style embroidered green skirt?  Embroidered and snipped.  White cotton/silk smocked nightgown?  Smocked.  I'll take pictures over the weekend.


So.  Twiddling my thumbs.   Almost.  I've planned yet another Alabama Chanin-style project, this one with the goal of making a tank that is really wearable.  More details in my next post!

Fantasy Friday

This week, I had two fabric.com items that stuck in my head, in part because of all of the lovely, large-scale floral sheath dresses I've been seeing on other blogs.


This one could be really beautiful if the fabric felt nice in person.  It has a bit of a pixellated feel to it, which makes it seem more modern, and the colors are just gorgeous.

Poly/Cotton poplin print

This one is black/white, but somehow has a similar feel.  It's cotton/lycra, so it has stretch and might work for a sheath dress if it had the right weight.

Cotton/Lycra stretch shirting 

I think they'd work on a dress that didn't have too many small pieces, so that the large scale prints could be showcased.  Here's a test with McCalls 6465 for comparison:

Fantasy Friday - Wales!

Tonight we leave for a quick weekend holiday to Wales, seeking some of the family history on my husband's side of the family.  We are single-handedly keeping airBnB in business, I'm sure!!!  We've got another one the following weekend with MY side of the family, over on the Gower peninsula. 

So....perhaps I'll get to see some old wool mills?  I'm hoping.


I've stopped obsessing over more printed dress projects, since I think I'll have enough with the two I've already purchased and the 2 similar dresses in my closet to have a pretty substantial dress wardrobe for the next few summers.  The item that came up in Fabric.com that intrigued me the most this week was just some interesting solid color wovens, like the Kaufman Manchester Metallic shown here:

When I get home in about 6 weeks, our major home goods need is an update of the table linen situation.  We've been using a set of heavy cotton sateen napkins from Crate and Barrel for over a decade now, and they are shrunk and faded and misshapen beyond what is civilized.  They're also the only set where we have enough for a dinner party!  We have 4 or 5 of a few others, including some useless satin ones.  I think it's time for me to just cut up some squares and hem a set of 12 or so white napkins so that we are set. 

For tablecloths, we are lacking in the extended-table realm, and that is what I was liking this slightly metallic cloth for.  This one is only 45" wide, so it'd have to be seamed, but I've done that with nice success with some linen/cotton home dec cloth in the past.  I actually prefer *more* seams, like 3 parallel strips, instead of having just one seam down the middle.  That gives you a bit of a built-in table runner look and appears more intentional, somehow. 

Alternately I could just get a bunch of the quilt backing fabrics that are increasingly available and interesting.  They aren't just the dots or swirls of the past!  I'm really liking the following one (it has a bunch of other colors, too):

More plotting

I'm in love with the cabbage-y and chrysanthemum-y Kaffe Fassett prints.  I already have a ridiculous full dress that I made last year, but now I really want more.  Here are my mock-ups using Butterick 6066:

I'm not sure why I'm even pretending that I'm not going to go and get 2 yards of each after this post.  I've also been eyeing some french terry to make an Alabama Chanin jacket like the ones from last season (simple chicken scratch embroidery on french terry).  Something like Simplicity 2508:

Or perhaps in the new "lace" pattern they have in the spring.

Fantasy Friday

I'm going to hop on the bandwagon of having a "theme" for posting on a certain day.  One of the things I've been doing is stalking fabric.com's "new arrivals" section.  I know that there are many other good sites, but the fabric.com site still wins in my book in terms of a clean interface with easy search capabilities.  I know that I'd love Mood in person, but their web interface is so clunky and slow that it isn't fun to browse on. 

New arrivals is fun, since you get to see the progression through new types of fabric that are being developed (double gauze's everywhere, all of the ponte's/scubas, printed panels) in response to current trends.

So, today, I found myself staring at the 2nd offering that came up - a bunch of cotton lawn that contained the following 3 plaids:

These are MY colors.  And they're plaid!  But not flannel or quilting cotton - they are a "very lightweight" lawn.  I just kept going over them in my head - they remind me of the YSL Mondrian dress, which was reproduced very nicely at http://fabrickated.com/ysl/ a few years ago, although the plaid obviously goes against some of the spirit of that garment.  I think that this is calling out to be a color-blocked....something.  I don't like wearing pastels ALL summer, and this could be quite a statement piece, particularly going into fall.

For instance, my tried and trusted Simplicity 1277 would look pretty interesting with these fabrics on the bias:

Or Butterick 6016.  2 color looks best on one side, but perhaps I could use the red on the back bodice?

I don't know- this would be fun to wear, perhaps not to iron!  It'd depend on the quality of the lawn a great deal, and on what I underlined/lined it with.  I lived in cotton dresses last summer, so I could imagine actually wearing something like this.

I miss my sewing machine!  7 weeks and counting.