spottedroo

Sorry for the long radio silence.  David, Joey and I have been away at summer camp.

Or rather, we were teaching in the Neural Systems and Behavior course at Woods Hole, which is like summer camp for scientists, complete with nerdy songs and t-shirts, late night ukelele playing, morning lectures, intensive lab work, and a marathon weekend at the beginning where we had to set up a functional neurophysiology rig from scratch in three days.  It was a blast.

None of this would have been possible with my parents, who graciously agreed to accompany us and take care of Joey.  I’m not sure they realized quite how much laundry this would entail.  At any rate we were very grateful they could join us.

I’ve done a little sewing since we got back.  I finished my olive twill skirt (pictures soon) and I’m slowly finishing up a blouse I started before I left.  To be honest, I’ve mostly been thinking about fall sewing.  And buying fabrics for said fall sewing (bad roo!).  Since the weather’s been nice we’ve been taking Joey out for walks in the evening.  I started going to yoga again and taking Joey to a dance class for toddlers.  Which means I often want to collapse as soon as Joey is in bed.

Anyway we are having a great summer and I hope you are too!

Here are al the fabrics I want to sew up this summer.  (Plus a couple of tops from last year that I want to work with whatever I make.)  Is it all going to happen?  Probably not.

A few pieces I’ve already decided on and cut out: a Simplicity 3466 cowlneck blouse (previously made here) in cinnamon cotton voile, the Burda over-shirt in moss green poplin (although this piece of fabric kept insisting that it wanted to be pants.  It might have been right).  I also cut out the Burda patch pocket skirt in olive twill, and it’s even half sewed up!

But lots of pieces I can’t decide on.  The green linen has been made (in my mind) into flowing pants, several different dresses, and a top.  The charcoal cotton could be a blouse or a skirt.  The ITY print was supposed to be a dress and now I think will be a straight skirt.  Which leaves 2 yards left to do something with.

How do you decide what to make from a piece of fabric?  Do you buy fabrics with a project in mind or decide on a pattern later?  How often do you change your mind before settling on a project?

My sewing mind keeps wandering…  I keep thinking about these blouse patterns, wondering if I can add a slightly shaped collar to the blouse with the modified neckline.  Bonni sent me some great ideas about drafting the modcloth dress and now I’m eager to try those out.

And even though I know I have far too many patterns and far too much fabric to make use of I keep getting distracted by new things.  Does anyone else think the recent McCalls and Butterick patterns have been super cute?  I love a lot of their casual patterns.  How rooish are these two:

Last month I fed my fabric addiction by ordering swatches.  The pant fabrics I looked at seemed like they were going to pill on the first washing, but some of the knits were yummy:

I’m thinking about the dress above in the red and green flower print with a cardigan made of olive jersey. Item number 104 on my to-make list.

I enjoyed this recent post on the Sewing Lawyer’s blog about which self-made garments she loves and always reached for and which— though well made— often hang in the closet.  Inspired, I pulled out the self-made garments I wear most often. I think you’ll notice some themes.

The most obvious one is color.  Although I like the idea of bright colors, the things I gravitate towards all fall on a spectrum between sienna brown and slate blue.  Not surprising, since this is one of my favorite color axes to paint with:

There are other themes too. Wide necklines (boat, scoop, or cowl), cap or long sleeves, A-line silhouettes, few details concentrated near the neckline.  One thing that jumps out is how few skirts and pants made it into this group, although I’ve sewn a good number of them.  Some are in too nice fabrics, some are too bright, some are cut too straight for biking to work, and many were made just after Joey was born and no longer fit.  I’d like to make a couple everyday skirts and pants in workhorse fabrics, but its hard to find casual bottom-weight fabrics I’m excited about.  Believe me, I’ve been looking

I do have a piece of olive cotton twill I think would be good for this and I’m trying to think about a pattern.  I love the lines on this one, although from the pictures it looks like its proportioned way too big for me.  Maybe I can scale it down to fit me.

David gave me a gift today: a full afternoon to play in the studio with no obligations.  I decided to take Myrna’s suggestion and play around with my favorite of the blouse patterns: Burda 10-2009-105.

The first thing I did was just to cut it up.  I pinned up the hem, sliced off the sleeves, cut a rounded V into the front and widened the neckline by 1/8″.

I think the result is not bad.  I like the fit and feel of this better than the New Look blouse and it has a similar feel to what I was going for.  But I wanted to try a few more variations.  What if I added a little fullness and gathering to the sleeves, converted the front dart and back pleat to gathers, added a standing collar?  I’m not going to show you the result because I’m too tired to take a picture but I think the answer is: not an improvement.  Parly because the result falls a little too far on the feminine side for me, and partly because (as I now remember) i have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to manipulating patterns.  I tried to rotate the front dart to the shoulder but it turns out that the Burda dart is very clever and hides a sizable horizontal dart inside:

That’s why the fit of the blouse is so lovely and I have no idea how to keep that shape and maintain the length of the hem and side.  (Does anyone have any ideas?)  For now, I’m leaning towards making the cropped version of the blouse shown above (as well as the original version) but I’d still like to figure out how to rotate that dart to the shoulder.  Mostly because I would love to be able to draft this:

(Image from Modcloth.com)

Regardless of the result it was a fun and energizing afternoon.  Though I missed my boys sorely by the end of it.

Recently I’ve had the urge to make button down shirts and blouses.

I have no idea why.  I own only a single button down shirt, which has been worn once in the past five years.  But maybe because I’m feeling more “caught up” with sewing (at least, I don’t feel under pressure to sew something just to have something to wear), I want to try something new.  Since I have no idea what I am looking for in a button down shirt, I decided to make a muslin.  Or three.

What impressed me working through these patterns was how different each one wore and “read.”  I used to think all button down shirts were the same: button front, collar stand, collar, cuffs, but each of these has a very different feel.

My favorite first:

This is Burdastyle 10-2009-105.  I love this pattern.  The fit is just right (the only alterations I made were to shorten the sleeves and take one inch off the front hem.)  It’s shaped but not too fitted.  The shoulders hit at just the right point and are neither too droopy or too square.  The collar is great.  It frames my face nicely and feels comfortable to wear.  I’m envisioning wearing this as shown here: open, as a top layer.  Maybe with tabs to hold the sleeves up.  Love it.

Second muslin:  Burdastyle 01-2011-108.  Meh.

I was thinking of these soft plaid drop-waist tunics I’ve seen around, like this:

I thought I could adapt this unfitted dress pattern by adding a waist casing.  But when I made up the muslin the pattern felt very finicky.  The collar seems too wide and low.  The sleeves and shoulders are bulky.  It feels very old-fashioned, which I guess is the idea, since the pattern was part of a “vintage” spread.  On the left is how I thought of wearing it originally (tunic length with a dropped waist).  I think it works better with a higher waistline and might be passable as a dress (if I made it longer.)  But it doesn’t feel like something I’d reach for, so I’m not sure whether its worth sewing up.  Maybe if I took some width out of the sleeves and collar.  Or maybe if I used a different pattern like this one.  Or maybe this style just isn’t for me.

Third muslin: New look 6407.

This is another attempt to copy a blouse I saw on someone else and liked but again I’m not sure if it works for me.  The blouse I saw had a standing collar and short gathered sleeves.  So I used the collar from view E and the sleeves from view D.  I like the neckline and the standing collar.  I’m not sure how I feel about the shape and sleeves.  I worry that a blouse that’s too fitted makes my hips look wide and I’m self-conscious about anything that might make my shoulders look bulkier.  And there are issues with the fit.  Here I’ve taken in the back with a narrow horizontal tuck but I’m not sure how to do that on the finished pattern without a CB seam.  It also needs at least a little less fabric in the bust.  Not too much or I won’t be able to move.  This kind of very fitted blouse seems tricky to get right.

Here are the fabrics I was thinking of using.  The moss green poplin for the long-sleeve over-shirt, the light plaid for the gathered tunic, and the dark gray stretch cotton for the New Look blouse.  But maybe I should just make them all into the first shirt.  What do you guys think?

Back in January I made a plan to sew four knit dresses.  In my mind this was going to take one to two months.  In reality it took four.  The last two, in particular, I thought would go quickly since I’d made both patterns before.

I think I ended up over-thinking this one.  I was worried about how the weight of the pleats would stretch out the neckline so I first made up an interfaced facing piece that was far too stiff and showed from the front.  Then I tried an interfaced binding, which was again too stiff.  Finally I just went with a plain binding, exactly how I made it the last time.

The other thing I kept fiddling with was the pleats.  On the envelope it looks like the center pleat hangs straight down but on the pattern itself the center pleats are angled so the fabric opens up making an unflattering line directly to the hips.  I tried adjusting them to get  straighter line but I’m not sure it made much difference.

Despite all the mishaps I think it’s a nice dress and a good match for this print.  I haven’t worn it as much as the chevron one (which I’ve worn 3 or 4 times already) but I think it will get more wear as it warms up.

The open studio preview is now up!  Check it out here.

If you can’t make it to the show, but are interested in buying a painting, email me or leave a comment and I can send you a price list.

Cambridge Open Studios is coming up this weekend.  If you are in the Boston area please stop by!  I’ll have paintings up for display and sale and my friend Laura has promised to make cupcakes.

Because I worked on both abstract and realistic pieces this year I wasn’t sure what to call the show, or which painting to highlight for the poster.  But this title was rattling around in my head, and seemed appropriate for a year in which I played with new media, pushed myself in abstraction, and tried to bring my abstract and realistic styles closer together.  Recently my more realistic pieces have all centered around transportation.  Train stations, highways, airports.  I find these places evocative and it doesn’t hurt that they align with Joey’s interests.

Here is a preview of a few pieces that will be in the show.  I’ll put up a complete catalog later in the week.

Think colors are hard?  So does Joey.