Selfishly helping the world

I’m pretty sure anyone reading my blog already reads the Selfish Seamstress, but just in case:
If you go to her blog and click on the link in this post, purchasing a lovely (and perfectly snarky) Selfish Seamstress item will donate 30% of the proceeds to the Red Cross.  With Elaine’s generous matching offer, this makes a 60% donation.

(Edited to show what I bought, 'cause it's so cool.  I went with the one that actually works for everything, not just sewing.  I plan on keeping it on my desk at work, where it will be highly useful.  I added a by-line for The Selfish Seamstress because I like to give credit where credit is due.  The Selfish Seamstress has updated her post to say that anything you by through her blog link will result in a 120% donation to the Red Cross.)

Compulsion

So this weekend I headed out to Hancock Fabrics.  I didn't really plan on it, but let's just say I really needed to get out of the house for an hour or two and without a specific place in mind to get out to, I thought "What the heck... Vogue patterns are on sale".  Yeah.  It was a real arm-twister for me.

Actually, I don't typically do Vogue patterns.  Generally speaking the styles are not suitable for my figure (or lack thereof).  I was mostly interested to see if there was any winter coating on sale.  I am in desperate need of a new winter coat.  But I figured I could take a look at the Vogues while I was there, which I did.  Because despite owning four years' worth of Burda World of Fashion, which should be called Burda World of Coats and Jackets, I figured it couldn't hurt to just take a quick snoop at Vogue's coat offerings. 

I'm so glad I didn't make that "use up all the patterns in your stash before buying more patterns" resolution.  Um.  I didn't, did I?  No.  I didn't.  I'm pretty sure.

I liked these:

 

I bought this:

I am a coward.  I just couldn't cope with cutting straight into my hoarded wool melton and fitting and tailoring a whole coat... but I didn't think any of those pretty vintage patterns would really lend themselves to my Grand Plan of making a "muslin" (which I will then wear for five years) from polar fleece.  Well… maybe the third one but it would be a bit squirrelly.  So.... boring old tent-coat it is.  I'm making the version with the flat collar.  My only hope of a saving grace on this is that I will hem it shorter than I normally do and therefore I might actually look more stylish than I normally do.  That's the Plan anyway.

Having proven my cowardice at the pattern table, I headed for the wool section to see if I could talk myself into buying a cheap enough wool to make a vintage coat after all, without having some sort of sewing seizure.  I say I went to the wool "section" but "micro-area" might be a better description.  Our Hancock's normally has about 5 wool selections a year, some of which have been there for three or four years as far as I can tell and at least half of which are in shades of lavender and baby pink.  Apparently they think people only make coats for 4 year old girls.  This may in fact be true.  Regardless, I do not want a baby pink coat. 

However.  Since early this autumn they have had one really fab piece of fabric over in the sad little wool section.  Since I have at least four pieces of pricey but unused wool lolling around in my stash I have studiously avoided buying anything over there, but last autumn this piece screamed "Take me home with you!"  Only my steel-like hardened heart allowed me to ignore it's pleas and cries.  Until Saturday.  When it shouted, "I'm on SALE, you heartless woman!  HALF PRICE, for crying out loud!  What, are you made of STONE??"   Well, fine.  I put it out of it's misery and bought 3 yards.

Except I have not one clue what I can make out of it.  It's got black and white wool yarn attached mysteriously (i.e. I haven't bothered to see how) to a synthetic jersey knit.  So it's fluid and drapey but also, you know, wool.  I can't wear wool next to my bare skin, so it's got to be an outerwear or layering  item (even though it would make a totally funky sheath dress or something if you were inclined towards the slightly off-beat).

This type of pattern is probably what it should be made into:

Due to it’s apparent popularity in European pattern magazines the past five years, I personally own at least five patterns of something like this.  And you constantly see this type of garment showcased in "plus" sized magazines and catalogs all the time, so presumably this is a good plus-sized garment.

(Saying that, they also tend to showcase things like housecoats, weird bib-front shirts in ugly prints and, my personal favorite, caftans.  So I am definitely willing to consider that these people do not, in fact, have a flippin' clue what looks good on anybody and the whole drapey-cardigan thing is just a joke along similar lines.)

Unfortunately this type of garment is most decidedly Not Me.  It is very much My Mom which makes me tempted to donate this fabric to her except that every single offer I've made to sew a garment for her has been (politely) rebuffed, which causes me to think "I'm not wasting that awsomely fabulous fabric on her".  I'm selfish like that.  And it leads me to something of an impasse.  What can you make from a drapey-wool-jersey-knit-backed fabric?  That won't make you look like a deranged 400-pound yeti?

And so after ten thousand words, you now know that I am the proud owner of a piece of fabric that I have no earthly idea how I will use.  Again.  It's a gift I have.

I Heart Hearts

TLo is rapidly outgrowing everything I make for her.  Outgrowing in width, that is.  I'm pretty sure she hasn't actually grown in height for at least two years.  That kid is a midget.  A very round midget.

Now, I'm not complaining about her size out of meanness or to be judgmental (because obviously that would be crazy-hypocritical).  I'm complaining because fitting her is rapidly becoming like fitting a beach ball.  Seriously, have you ever tried to put a rubber band around a beach ball?  Now picture trying to make that beach ball a pair of jeans.  Ack.

So poor little TLo wants a new pair of jeans, which I will make for her this week after I finish making a muslin of my new winter coat.  In the meantime, because I actually kind of sort of maybe a little bit was feeling guilty about not making her any pants at all this year, I made her this cutie-patootie skirt.

An offering to assuage my (sort of) guilt.  A consolation prize if you will.  I had a feeling the large quantities of flowers, ruffles, ribbons and general decoration would make her happy.  I was pretty sure the heart-shaped pockets would push us into "O.M.G.   I love it!" territory.  I was right. (Ah, children.  They are so predictable.) 

I used the Ottobre 1-2009 #19 "Hertta" skirt.  Now, my Finnish is significantly worse than my German or even my Ojibwe (which is to say, I speak no Finnish whatsoever) but even I could figure out that "hertta" was probably in some manner cardiac-related.  I was right (I figured this out through the ingenious use of google-translating... oh Google, you make us all look so smart).  "Hertta" = "hearts".   Shocker, I know.

I'm not sure how well the photos have come out.  The colors are robin's egg blue, sky blue and a sort of salmony-pink.  I'm pretty sure I cut this as a size 110, which I was hoping I could get away with due to the gathered nature of the skirt. 

I did have to make a change to the pattern to accommodate the Beach Ball effect.  The pattern calls for gathers in the yoke of the skirt to fit the waistband.  This would have made the skirt impossible for TLo to get on, so I extended the waistband to match the ungathered width of the top of the skirt and omitted the gathers.  The elastic took care of the rest. 

Oh yeah, that was my other change.  Instead of elastic all the way around plus a drawstring, I did my usual method for drawstring garments.  Which is: cut a piece of elastic to about 3"-4" smaller than the child's waist measurement.  Sew a finished string tie (however you're making those) to each end of the elastic and thread this through the waistband (this assumes you've already made buttonholes or something for the ties to go through).  If your elastic tends to slip, you can bar-tack it at the center back, but I didn't need to do that in this case.  Just be sure that your drawstrings are long enough to tolerate being pulled into the casing of the skirt by the elastic, which will happen.  I learned that lesson the hard way.  Which explains why when my mother asked me, "What's up with those really long ties on that skirt?" I just shook my head sagely.  Better too long than too short.

Too bad I didn’t think to take a picture of that method, huh?  Doh!  Oh well.

Awww.... such a happy little beach ball dancing in the pantry.  With a packing-tape bracelet.  And some serious clothes-matching issues. 

I heart hearts.  Good thing I heart weirdos, too.