spottedroo

I hate waiting.

So rather than sit around a feel achey, I thought I would do some painting.  These are some flowers that David got me.  Aren’t they pretty?

I had the idea to make this painting a bit flatter— like a print.  But it didn’t really work out.  I put too much detail into the flowers and failed to decide where the light was coming from.  So it looks like a description of some flowers rather than evoking how they feel.  Oh well.  It wouldn’t be an experiment if it worked every time.

Also, why do I feel like no baby is going to show up and I’m just going to be large and hurt-y for the foreseeable future?

Or…those that can, sew.  Those that can’t, draw.

The pieces of my sister’s dress are done and waiting for a fitting.  So what to do in the meantime?  I don’t have a mannequin of myself as I used to be shaped but I did come across a little croquis I had made.  So here I am trying on my fall sewing ideas:

Most of the skirts have been on my list for a long time.  The blouses ideas are new.  I don’t think I own a single woven blouse.  I never bought them ready-to-wear so it never occurs to me to make them.  But I became obsessed with one of the blouses in the “clown” section of the August Burda (here shown in brown polka-dot), and then I went online looking for more blouse/shirt fabrics (always dangerous).  I found two I liked on sale at FFC and then remembered this wrap-shirt pattern from February’s issue.  What do you think?

More things I’ve posted about before.  I like how the drawings let me try something out without going to the trouble of making it.  For example, I was worried that the second outfit would be unflattering.  I think that figure-wise it works but that it does make me look like a stewardess on a far-eastern airline.  Also, it became clear from the drawing that it has to be worn with heels, which I wear…once every never.  On the other hand I was worried that the Kwik-sew blazer would look too formal.  But I think it’s really cute in the drawing.  So that’s moving back up the list.

I also tried on the six (gulp) jackets I’ve been thinking about making:

My favorites are the gray motorcycle jacket and the orange one with the poofy collar.  I really like the white one as well but it looks an awful lot like last year’s November jacket.  As predicted the long blazer is too formal (though still oddly tempting).  The houndstooth is too fitted and I can’t figure out what I would wear it with.  I’m still not sure about the Hikaru jacket.

So there you go…a year’s worth of sewing in one afternoon.

Is it totally obvious that I stopped going to work on Monday?

Our baby is due on Sunday.  As the doctor informed us, that means he could arrive at any time between now and three weeks from now.  Last week we asked the nurse if she could give us odds.  Maybe a nice probability distribution.  What should we expect in a totally normal pregnancy?  But she insisted that there was no way to know (which makes you wonder why they bother doing the exams in the first place.)  Disappointed, we turned to another source of information: gambling.

David’s lab has a pool going about when the baby will show up.  25 people entered and their guesses form a lovely Gaussian distribution centered two days after the due date:

Since this is Price-is-Right rules we figure that means the most likely date is three days after.  Also, you’ll notice that no one went with the due date itself.  (Although my mom and my sister have informally entered bets on that day.)

On the other hand, a hurricane is supposed to hit Boston late Friday.  So that’s probably when he’ll decide to show up.

Remember how I said I was done with sewing empire-line dresses for the summer.

Well I lied.

But, it’s not a maternity dress, and it’s not for me.  It is for someone I love dearly, and for a very special occasion, which means I’m going to feel particularly awful if/when I fail to pull it off.

You would think, given that I’m…er…supposed to have a baby any day now, that I would have picked something where I’d have at least some idea of what I was doing.  But where’s the fun in that?  So this is my first ever complete pattern traced from a Burda magazine, my first time sewing anything more complex than a scarf with silk chiffon, and, oh, we decided to redesign the back of the dress as well.

Here’s the concept drawing.  The pattern is the chiffon sundress from the July Burda (07-2010-120), but with a full length skirt to make it more formal and straps and a gathered panel in back rather than the plain back in the original design.

The instructions call for stretch chiffon and linen jersey.  I used regular chiffon and an RPL doubleknit for the lining (both from Gorgeous Fabrics).  On top of the pattern tracing and chiffon I didn’t want to have to fight with jersey stretch/weight issues as well.  Plus the wedding is in October, so I thought a slightly thicker fabric would work well. The doubleknit is great for supporting the chiffon but it does show through in kind of an ugly way if you make normal seams with the allowances tucked inside.  So after some experimenting I made the arm- and neckline seams like this:

First I cut the seam allowance off the doubleknit.  Then sewed the chiffon to the wrong side 1/4″ from the edge.  Then I turned the pieces inside out so that the chiffon wraps around the edge of the doubleknit, enclosing the stitches and the raw edge of the chiffon.  From the front it looks like this:

Even David was skeptical when I said back in July that I was going to make my sister a wedding dress.  And continued to be skeptical when I didn’t get started on it till the beginning of August.  I’ve been working on it verrrrry verrrrrry slowwwwwly (yesterday my big accomplishment was cutting out the skirt pieces) and here’s how it looks today:

So I think the odds of it getting done are improving somewhat.  Whether it will actually work when she comes up for a fitting is another issue (for example, it is not at all clear from the instructions whether the pattern assumes cross-wise or length-wise stretch and if so, how much).  I did cut 1″ seam allowance on the sides and my plan is to make up the front and back and wait till she’s here to sew them together.

Or maybe I will just send her out with a credit card and instructions to find herself a backup dress.

While David is never anything but supportive of my creative endeavors, I tend to greet his project ideas with what can best be described as bemused tolerance.  So when he proposed to make brandy from the bumper crops of pears we found in Vermont last fall, I said “That’s nice sweetie,” and assumed we’d be dumping the 8 gallons of cider after they’d sat in our fridge for 9 months.  Despite my lack of enthusiasm he managed to pull it off.  And it smells amazing — sweet and spicy and just like fall.

Bravo monkey!  Keep proving me wrong.

My parents came to visit this weekend and brought a surprise.  They’ve been staying at our family house up in Vermont (aka the family attic) and my mom came across a package of my grandfather’s baby clothes.  So what was the well-dressed austro-hungarian jewish infant wearing circa 1901?  Check it out:

The details are amazing.  Look at these tiny pleats:

Here’s another one.  Apparently babies at the time also came with hats, but they were considerably more lacy, and had fewer ears:

Now you might wonder, why do we still have my grandfather’s baby clothes?  Especially given that he was born in Europe and came here when he was a kid.  Well, apparently I come from a long line of pack rats.

Last week we saw our friends Michelle and Bart up in Maine.  Michelle was amazingly generous and loaded us up with baby stuff— I think we now have more clothes for the baby than for us.  At one point she held up a lion costume and asked me if I wanted it.  I said I thought our baby would be too little for it come Halloween.  Oh no, she explained, one of the best parts about having kids is you can dress them up in ridiculous costumes at any time.  And she proceeded to put her son Spencer in a giraffe costume.

I have to admit that this aspect of parenthood hadn’t occurred to me before.  But I am pretty excited about it.  Also about all the hats with ears.

Cute photo by David, of course.

I have jacket fever.

I am so done with sewing empire-line maternity dresses.  I am so done with 95° + humidity.  I am so ready to sew a bunch of fitted fall jackets and skirts with funky linings and lots of detail.

Yeah, I know I already posted a fall sewing plan with more garments than I could hope to complete.  Guess what?  Here are some more!

First up, a version of the Burdastyle Hikaru jacket with chest pockets àla Elaine’s version in espresso cotton sateen with an olive polka-dot lining:

Next, a motorcycle-style jacket (Burda 7735) made from the same gray cotton I used for the bag in the previous post, and an olive floral print cotton lining.  (I admit I had my eye on the print for a while but couldn’t figure out what on earth I would make from it.  The idea of using it for a lining came directly from the pouch project.)

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the collar on this one but after sketching it out I kind of like it.  Belt might be a bit much.  We’ll see.

And while we’re at it, here are a couple new Burda envelope patterns that showed up online this week.  Thankfully I haven’t bought either the patterns or the fabric for these yet because there’s no way I would get to them and I don’t know how wearable they’d be for me anyway.

These long fitted jackets were everywhere on my favorite Korean clothing site a couple years ago.  I love this style but (a) the largest Korean sizes are too small for me and (b) I can’t really pull off anything that looks like a suiting blazer.  Ah well.  Nice to know I could make one in my size if I wanted. Here are a couple of pics from the Korean site that I liked:

Also, I think I’m on a motorcycle jacket kick.  I love this one too.  Probably wouldn’t look as nice on me as on the skinny-legged model but how cool would this be in a plaid houndstooth?  Much nicer than the blouse-y version in the upcoming August Burdastyle:

Ok, and now I will admit that against my better judgement I went ahead and started muslining the Hikaru jacket.  Yes, I know I’m 7 1/2 months pregnant but I reasoned that I could try it on open and most of my fitting issues are generally with the back.  I cut a straight 40, which is a size up from what I used to cut on top, and made it up without any alterations (except to shorten the sleeves by 1/2″).  Nice pattern!  Now I see why everyone raves about Burda’s drafting.  Anyway, here it is:

I realize now that I have no idea if it will be flattering or not given my current shape.  I like where the seam lines fall on the back on the 40, although I feel like the shoulders are falling off of mine and maybe it could come in a wee bit at the side seams.  I can’t tell if the shoulder thing will be fixed by stiffer fabric and maybe some shoulder pads or if I should shorten the shoulders a bit.  I’m considering making the following alterations and forging ahead

• shorten shoulders by 1/4-1/2″
• take in side seams at the waist by 1/4″
• slash and spread the base of the back peplum by 1/4″ on each side

Alternatively I could save my fabric and wait till I have a shape to fit it to.  What do you think?  Am I crazy?

Being a person of roo-ish persuasion, I am always on the lookout for a quality pouch.  In San Francisco there were a number of women who made and sold beautiful funky hand-made bags at street fairs and I would always drool over them and make David wait around while I looked at all of them and finally conclude that they were out of my (grad student) price range.  So it’s kind of odd that in the year-and-a-half since I started sewing this is my first attempt at making one myself.

I used the Burdastyle Diana Bag pattern, modified as described in Johanna’s review by cutting an inch off the sides of the main pattern pieces, and replacing the darts at the bottom with a single long rectangular side-and-bottom piece.  In her review, Johanna mentions that it took her 10 year old daughter “a few hours” to make this bag.  At pregnant-lady speed, it took me a week and a half.

To be fair, a good portion of that time was spent fretting. After seeing Johanna’s charcoal gray linen version, I had my heart set on gray.  I even had the perfect color fabric— some cotton lycra I picked up last summer— but my fabric was fairly thin and stretchy and there was no way it would hold up as a bag exterior.  I thought about interfacing it but knew I didn’t have any interfacing sturdy enough for this bag.  Then, after a day or two I had an inspiration.  Hmmm…what do I have around the house that could be used to give structure to a messenger bag?

Can you believe there was a time that the only thing I bought at fabric stores was canvas?

I used wonder-under to fuse the gray cotton to some heavy-weight canvas I had lying around.  The result was perfect: the color and texture I wanted on the outside with enough substance to hold up under daily wear.  (Ok, I also fretted that maybe I used too heavy a weight of canvas.  I think somehow I wanted this not just to be a pouch, or my first pouch, but the perfect pouch.  That slowed me down considerably.)  I was worried that the heavy canvas would be difficult to sew but it was surprisingly easy.  It stayed exactly where I put it, pressed well with steam, and gave a nice shape to the bag.

Overall I enjoyed working on this project.  Working on a bag reminded me a lot of working on a jacket— my other favorite thing to sew.  There was the initial thrill of pairing outside and lining fabrics, the joy of seeing a 3-D shape emerge from the sewing machine, the fun (if nerve-wracking) details like interior pockets and topstitching, and the total nightmare of trying to get the lining to go in smoothly.

Arghh!!

That’s where the other half of the time went.  I swear I put this lining in (and tore it out again) about five times.  You see, the lining I had my heart set on was also cotton-lycra and every time I started sewing it stretched, while the nicely fused exterior didn’t.  I also forgot that the lining sits inside the bag and so has to be smaller than the bag itself.  Finally in frustration I (1) took each of the corner seams in by 1/8″ (1/4″ off each corner for an inch total off the total circumference), (2) sewed a strip of non-stretch cotton to the edge of the lining before turning it under:

(3) hand basted (!) the lining in place:

And got it to go in reasonably ok:

Raaaaar!!

Oddly, the upshot of all this has been a fierce craving to make more jackets.

Stay tuned for more unrealistic sewing plans.

This is another version of Burda 8071.  I made the princess-seamed version last year (view A).  This is the gathered-bodice version (view C).  I kept the back skirt piece (extending it to maxi-length) and did the slash-and-spread thing on the front piece to make room for the belly.  I have a feeling I’m going to be making one of these every summer.

This dress took a lot longer to make than I thought it would.  Partly that’s because I decided it was high time I got more professional with my seam finishes and pressing (more on that below).  And partly because…third trimester is kind of kicking my ass.  I breezed through first trimester with no nausea whatsoever so I can’t really complain.  But for the past three weeks I’ve felt sick and dizzy anytime I (a) stand, (b) sit for an extended period of time, or (c) lean forward.  Oy.

So sewing has consisted mostly of 10-20 minute bursts of activity, interspersed with 20 minutes of lying down.  (Ok, yesterday one of those 20 minute periods somehow turned into a 2 hour nap.  I don’t know how that happened).  Cutting was even worse, given that I lay out my fabric and cut on the floor.  I tried kind of leaning to one side to cut but it was still cut one side—wait 5 minutes— cut another side…etc.

Work has been about the same thing except that I try to limit myself to one 20 minute break per day.  I feel kind of embarrassed sneaking off to the conference room to lie down.  Actually I mostly feel embarrassed about the whole thing.  Every lab I have worked in since college has had at least one pregnant woman in it, and every one of those women has worked pretty much up to the day she delivered.  So I feel totally lame when I can’t power through my experiments or leave early because I feel awful.  There are also lots of stories that circulate about how quickly different women came back after having their babies.  Usually I’m pretty good about not letting lab machismo (or…er..feminismo?) get to me but for some reason I keep feeling like I’m not measuring up.

None of this should reflect badly on my lab, which has been awesome in every way.   My boss reminded me the other week to take care of myself first.  My lab bros carry stuff for me and drag the heavy outdoor chairs over for me at lunch.  And David has been fantastic, making me protein breakfasts every morning, packing my backpack with snacks and drinks, and taking over what little cleaning he wasn’t doing already

Anyway, back to seam finishes.  I tried a bunch of new-to-me things this time including stabilizing the arms with fusible bias tape (awesome), and using french seams (great for this ravel-y lightweight rayon):

Also for the first time I left the iron on and running while I sewed, so I could press each seam as I finished it.  Actually I pressed a lot of things into place before I sewed them and…wow, did that make a huge difference!  I was always reluctant to fire up the iron so I would save up a bunch of pressing then try to do it all at once.  But this just looked so much better.  I think I may have to change my ways.

Other design changes I made:  As with the princess-seamed version, this bodice was designed absurdly low.  I added an inch and a half to the top of all the pieces.  Instead of a side-zipper, I put elastic in the waistband.  First I gathered the bodice and sewed it with a zig-zag to the elastic:

Then I gathered the skirt front and sewed the skirt to the bodice.  I’ve been finding my gathers behave better if I keep the gathered side down (against the feed) and leave the elastic on top to slide under the presser foot.  Finally, I found that center front drooped a bunch.  I should probably have moved the elastic up, but being lazy I just sewed a horizontal tuck in the bodice front.  Good enough for pregnant lady clothes.