Sewing Chatter

So the photoshoot has happened and the results are currently being edited; later, hopefully, I will put up the rather overdue series of posts showing the output of the last, erm, year’s creativity. It really doesn’t seem that much now that I’ve boiled it all down, but personally I reckon that it isn’t bad going given that
a) I sew slowly. I’m still a beginner!
b) I lack concentration in a big way and rarely manage to sit at something for hours on end.
c) I have to make a muslin for everything that I make because I have yet to find a pattern which fits me straight out of the envelope without any alterations.
d) University! And not having a sewing machine at such! And being away! Sewing clothes really isn’t that portable a hobby, unfortunately, and while I dream of popping into John Lewis in Newcastle and coming out with my own, brand-new, shiny and technological machine, I fear that isn’t going to happen any time soon. What with saved up money I could probably afford it – that isn’t the problem. It’s that every time I half think about it, my Mum resists fiercely, saying that it wouldn’t be appropriate to have at university, and that I would spend too much time sewing compared to not enough time working. My argument is that if I used my free time more productively at university, I’d feel better about doing said work and get less bogged down in myself. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think that fourth year is the year to perform such an experiment. One year ’til I leave.

I have, however, been learning a lot over the past year, even if I have been simultaneously lamenting my lack of practical doing. I am a member of a wonderful, wonderful site called Pattern Review, where people post pictures of garments that they’ve made and (as one might expect) review the patterns that the said garments were made from. Among these reviews, and among the blogs that some of them link to is a wealth of information and experience that I have found both fascinating and thoroughly informative to read. Granted there’s nothing like doing it yourself to really make you learn, but the internet has been acting as an excellent gap-stop while doing it meself just hasn’t been possible. I also find it fun and inspiring to see what other people have made – after all, one the key satisfactions of making things is sharing the results with other people!

Primarily aimed at Fi (after her recent comment on one of my Drivel Space posts), but perhaps of interest to some of you others, here are some of the sewing blogs that I follow: [If you are the owner of one of these blogs and have followed the link back here, erm, hi! I'm Lucy, and I'm one of your lurkers! But I do like following what you've been sewing and I hope you take that as a complement :-)]
- Two On Two Off
- Subversive Sewer
- Sew A Beginner
- Amanda’s Adventures in Sewing
- Fehr Trade
- Assorted Notions
- Miss Celie’s Pants

Recently, I’ve also found yellow warbler knits, needled, and potentially Knitting the Blues as well (- thank you, Fi, for those last two).

Anyway, I should get back to the photos. Sorry, Flix – more freaky faces coming up!

Power Cleaning

After a large number of years with a rather cumbersome vacuum cleaner that didn’t actually clean much, Mum finally gave in earlier this year and purchased a rather whizzy replacement. I currently in the process of trying to use it to hoover my bedroom (- I say trying because even the instruction manual has left me stumped as how to get the extender tube out).

It is both lightweight and incredibly efficient at transforming the colour of our carpets. I have discovered that it can, however, get a tad overenthusiastic…

The cleaner after I had persuaded it to relinquish its afternoon snack

The State Of Things

Stash

The problem with me and projects (of any description) is that I’m terribly good at starting them enthusiastically but considerably less good at actually managing to finish them, even when the said projects really don’t require that much finishing. As such I have one lot of bodice facings and two hems to sew before I consider it worth persuading my brother into donating some of his time to a small photo shoot. Excuses excuses. I know.

In lieu, then, and in the spirit of Fi’s latest post, I am going to show you some photos of fabric which has recently come into my possession because it makes me happy, at least!

The first set of fabrics were passed on to me at the start of the summer by a neighbour whose mother was clearing out her attic in preparation for moving into a home. The neighbour knew that I’d taken up sewing, so very kindly passed it on in the hope that it would be put to good use.

Here’s one lot. The colours are mostly darker than that in reality but they are clearer to photo like that. With the exception of the black suiting material (second from bottom), they’re all thick, wool-type material. I say wool-type ‘cos I don’t know exactly – the chances have got to be that they’re polyester composite or something of that variety. Even the suiting material is thicker, albeit a bit coarser than some, and if there’s enough of it then I envisage making a skirt out of it for when I am required to look smart In The Real World. Either way they’ll probably all end up as outer garments because as well as being of a more suitable weight for that, most of them would be pretty itchy next to the skin.

The other bag contained much lighter weight materials. There were two or three white/ creams cottons, which while fairly unremarkable will be useful nonetheless, if only with which to make muslins (tester garments). There was some beautifully soft stretchy cream stuff, texture not dissimilar to that of flannel, which may become a top in its own right but which is probably destined to provide a lining for something else.

And then there were the three fabrics pictured on the left. From top to bottom: a cream polyester, with sheeny lines in it; a cream/ off-white textured material which feels a bit like linen; and some simple, printed cotton in a pale grey-blue. I envigase making shirts/ blouses out of all three of these. Provided they work out, of course, I’m quite looking forward to actually looking smart in something for once! I’ve realised that the reason that I never do is that my clothes don’t fit properly – the waistline, bust darts etc. are always in the wrong place so it looks worse than if I had tried to wear something looser and more casual.

Then finally, for the minute, are the following three absolute beauties which I picked up from the remnant basket (!!!) for a total of £11.80 at my new favouritist shop ever, the UK branch of an Italian fabric business. What you can’t convey about fabric through photos or words alone is how it behaves – its weight, its drape, its precise texture. That’s the difference between fabric qualities, and that, I’ve come to realise, is what sets expensive clothes apart from their cheaper imitations.

Well let me tell you, these fabrics are divine. Absolutely divine (, darling)! The brown stripy one (colours closer to the lower shot) is medium to heavywweight cotton, and has textured stripes going across at about 30° to the grain, giving it a lovely ridged feel and creating slight colour variation in the stripes. The cream backing is incredibly soft to the touch, and I should have enough to make both a skirt and a suit jacket from it, should my skills ever progress that far!

The cherry-coloured fabric is cotton. It’s a soft, thick, close-woven cotton with its grain on the bias, making it ever so slightly stretchy in one direction, as is the third fabric, the pale peach and baby soft knit which I have my eye on for converting into a jumper dress if I can modify some patterns accordingly.

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What I really love about fabric, along with its textures and colours and shapes, though, is its possibilities – it’s potential to be sewn and crafted and all manner of things created from just a flat sheet of material. My Dad has rather patronsingly remarked that this new hobby of mine must be rather theraputic. Even though I slightly resent him putting it in those terms, perhaps he’s right :-)

What We’ve Lost

I’ve just come back from a short babysitting job – a nearly-six year old, a three year old, and a nearly-one year old while Mummy went to a concert and Daddy was not yet back from work. I didn’t have to do a huge amount as all three children were in bed, although I did supervise the nearly-six year old when he called out that he “needed a weeeee!”.

What I had forgotten about small children until relatively recently is just quite how endearing they are. Sure, I go gooey about toddlers in cafés all the time (rather to the disconcertment* of J), but in terms of small people who I come across on a regular basis, there are only now a couple who occasionally cross my path – and I very rarely have to pay full responsible attention to them.

What tonight really reminded me of is just the magic and enthusiasm of still being young! How real pleasure and excitement can be derived from a cuddly flower toy, how school is fun and can you ask me some sums?, and the glory of a playpen filled with brightly coloured balls. When you’re that age, everything is just so easy and simple, or it seems it from an older perspective. Knees are bashed and toys are scraped but you’re best friends by 7 o’clock when Mummy comes to put you to bed. Bedtime stories are aplenty – currently residing on my floor, waiting to be wrapped for T’s three year old, are copies of ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ and ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’. The Big Bad Mouse who lies in wait for gruffalo pie is enough to give anyone the shivers if you turn the lamp down low!

And yes, I know that I’m talking about the lucky ones, and yes, I know that there are children out there who don’t receive that magical childhood and all the rest of it. But even for those children who are less fortunate, I just find myself in love with the pure, uncomplicated humanity that they carry with them. I often think it’s something that adults could learn from.

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Mathswear

Inspired by Flix’s chemical jewellery, I did a little Googling and found these beauties:

Earrings inspired by hyperbolic geometry (as discussed on the site to which the image links)

String parabola earrings on sale at Etsy

Möbius strip earrings? Je pense que oui!

And a rather gorgeous yet I-dread-to-think-how-expensive necklace with fractal patterns

I must admit, it’s the Möbius strips which would win me over!

Orthoses

Those who have known me (or indeed ‘known’ me) for a while will know two things about me – that I have a long-term back problem, and that I have real difficulty in finding shoes to fit.

The former of these issues has been ticking away in the background over the past few years. Every so often I find something that improves my day-to-day flexibility and pain threshold, which on the basis that prevention is better than cure often turns out to be well worth it. Such an inspiration came a few months ago when, as seems to be the case with so many such inspirations in life, I was standing in the shower – on this occasion, observing my feet.

My feet have always been a source of frustration to me. They are longer than average (as one might expect given my height) and narrower than average, the combination of which makes it nigh-on impossible to buy shoes at all, never mind nice shoes. They are funnily shaped. They pronate when I walk and point in when I stand still, something which my parents have loosely commented on for many years now.

But it was while standing in the shower, on a day when my right hip was twinging and my whole spinal cord seemed to weigh down on its base, that I experimented. I deliberately changed the angle at which I was standing, first turning my feet to point in a outward V shape, and then slowly rolling onto the outsides of my soles. The difference to my posture was palpable (, especially once I’d moved the shower head out of my head’s way in the new, taller posture).

Anyway, to cut a long story short I finally visited a podiatrist last week and have been told (after a rather amusing session in which I was required to change into shorts and walk barefoot for aeons up and down a waiting corridor) that I need orthoses – i.e. moulding supports in my shoes. Alas there is not room for them in my current trainers (having had to buy a size 8 and that), so I was bid to go shop!, and come back with something suitable. Needless to say my heart sank at this… until I came back with these:

I love them. Put simply, I love them! I am praying and praying that they will be deemed suitable for medical adaption. They certainly fulfill all the criteria on the checklist I was given. They’re made in black and brown – I was already to buy some brown ones when the customer service assistant informed me, “Oh, we don’t do the brown ones in size 9.”. Typical. But they are beautiful nonetheless, have lovely soft furry stuff at the back of the heels, and are exactly the style of shoe-boot that I have been coveting for some time.

And you know what? They currently don’t fit because they are too deep, and too wide for my narrow, pronated feet with high arches. But hopefully the orthoses will take up that extra room as well as providing support – and will do in future pairs of shoes. I may have killed two birds with one, very efficient stone. Fingers crossed!

The Shell Seekers

Instead of lamenting all the posts which I intend to write and haven’t written, I am merely going to leave you with a short book pointer.

This, Rosamunde Pilcher’s ‘The Shell Seekers’, is a beautiful, beautiful book. I for one will be seeking out more by the same author. It is lovingly told and excellently written with real depth of character. It essentially follows the life of sixty-four-yr-old Penelope and her family but does so without being trite or overly sentimental as the descriptions on Amazon have a tendency to make it sound. It is gorgeous, light-hearted, easy to read without being trashy, and I thoroughly recommend it!

(Especially if you have an eighteen year old sister who is intent on reading Literature with a capital L for all she’s worth. I couldn’t agree more, Fi and Jenny.)

Draft- Lecture Larks

24th October 2008

Alternatives to listening in lectures, as observed of late….

- having a note conversation on the, or rather a, Christian perspective on masturbation

- playing 4×4x4 three-dimensional noughts and crosses

Who said Maths was boring, eh?

Draft- Rotterdam (Or Anywhere)

28th September 2008

“And everyone is blonde, and everyone is beautiful…”

This is the line that always jumps out at me from the Beautiful South song. It pretty neatly sums up how I feel at Durham at times. I walk into a lecture room or the library or wherever, and find myself looking about me and wondering, ‘…but where are the fat people? Where are the ugly people?’. And for all the confidence that I have built up over the last two years, I am taken straight back to the me of school. The tall, chunky, geeky, awkward person who sits on the edge of the group, trying to feel included but somehow always saying the wrong thing (or in extreme cases of stress losing grip on the English language altogether). The boffin, one of the Maths kids. The only person not to be wearing jeans on ‘Jeans for Genes’ day. Wasn’t my fault I didn’t own any.

I’ve got better, don’t get me wrong, and after the initial heavy culture-shock