Breakin' Up is Hard to Do

Dear Plaid Flannel,

I know you wanted to get back together.  

I tried, I really did.  

But I really think it just isn't going to work out.  

xoxo

I ended up fixing the fit on the plaid flannel Frankenwashi today.  I'm glad I did it, because the fixes were relatively easy, and I did think, briefly, that they might have saved the dress.

Actually, I think they *did* save the dress, but I'm still not sure I want to wear it.  For the record, my alterations were: cinch in the back elastic about 1.5", take in the underarm seam of the sleeves about 1/4" (tapered out a bit more at the wrist), and bring up the hem 2".  

Nothing especially time consuming, and it does look pretty good with my L'Enveloppe from last year (which warms up the dress considerably as well).  Still pretty thin flannel, though.  The drape on the skirt isn't fabulous--I think this is probably shirting flannel, which would account for some of the problems I've had with it.

I look at the pics of the dress without anything over the top, and I'm like: meh.  Not so much.  (I'm wearing gauntlets that are really Birdie's legwarmers; I made them for her last year.  I'd probably wear my lava heather ones with this dress in the future).  That's actually one of my issues with this dress: I don't really have the right cardigan to wear over the top and I still think that the plaid is too much near my face.  I do, however, have a cream cotton pullover in my winter bin that might work.  Decisions, decisions.

It's not frumpy like it was, but it's not fabulous either.  But! I now think that the Frankenwashi might be a better choice for my printed flannels, because I do really like having the longer sleeves under a cardigan.  I suppose the question is: if I wear the other flannel dresses all winter with a cardigan over the top, does it matter what is under it?  I don't know.

Well, things to ponder.  In the meantime, I might throw this dress into my fall rotation...or I might not.

Oh, plaid flannel.  How I wanted this to work.

Update: I put a long sleeve shirt underneath and wore it out to get the kids from school and I think I like it!  Jury's still out, though.  Ask me again in December.

Dear Plaid Flannel...

Dear Plaid Flannel,

We need to break up.  We've had a good run, but it's over.  

It's not you, it's me.

xoxo

Sometimes a Frankenpattern works, sometimes it doesn't.  In point of fact, the actual Frankenpattern *did* work, it just doesn't look good on me.  Win some, lose some.

So, details: in late summer, I bought some very cheap plaid flannel from fabric.com with some slight misgivings, my previous experience with cheap plaid flannel being rather disastrous.  When it arrived, I was cautiously optimistic.  It washed well, seemed to hold its grain after, and I thought might actually work for the dress I intended, which was a woven M7353.

I set those plans aside when I attempted to make a different plaid flannel garment and had serious issues with keeping the fabric on grain.  In short, it was so difficult, I had to abandon the project before I even really got it entirely cut out.  I still don't really understand it--it was Kaufman Mammoth flannel, and I've never had much trouble with it before, and I was reusing from an earlier garment that I'd matched all along the side seams.  Humph.  

I also made an Everyday skirt out of some Kaufman Durango flannel (a checked plaid) that just didn't turn out.  I mean, it is finished, and the plaid matches, but the skirt looks really bad on me.  Really, really bad.  Not sure if it is the plaid, the heavy weight flannel, the colors in the flannel or what, but it was a complete disaster.

After all that, I wasn't in the mood to match plaid any time soon.

After my Washi successes, however, I wondered about putting the M7353 bodice on the Washi skirt, since I really liked how the skirt fit, and I like how the fitted dolman sleeves on the M7353 look.  I couldn't get the idea out of my head.  I figured since the dress had longer sleeve options, it had a reasonable chance of looking okay.

The combination also seemed like a great winter combination that could be warmed up further with additional layers.  I have some non-plaid flannel that I want to make a Christmas dress out of (I know, I know), but I didn't want to try a new frankenpattern on the good stuff, so I decided to start with the cheap plaid I bought in the late summer and set aside.  The colors of my plaid are lovely (a deep claret red, yellow, spruce green, and black), but as I began to work with it, I realized that it was very thin.  Very very thin.  Stark contrast to my snuggly Mammoth flannel.

I cut everything out flat, while watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice.  It was a good sewing companion that day.  I felt good about how the plaid matching was going, and was feeling a bit confident that I might even get a wearable dress in the end--for the win!

Except.  I had graded up the sleeves on the bodice another 1/4" from my usual woven adjustments, and I think that was mistake number one.  Mistake number too was making the back elastic a bit looser than on my previous Washi dresses (5" shorter than the back width instead of 6").  Mistake number three was the skirt length, which looked decidedly frumpy in this fabric.  

These are all things I can theoretically change--I could take in the sleeve seams, cinch in the elastic, take up the hem, etc.  But the other two problems are a bit more intractable.  Number one is that the flannel is really too thin to be useful on its own in cold weather, and that was the whole point of this dress.  Number two is that the color combination looks really really bad with my skin tone.  For some reason it reads brown on me, and brown is generally a bad idea.  So I'm not sure it is worth trying to fix any thing on this dress, given that.  I know, I could add layers, put my burgundy L'Enveloppe over it, add a cowl, break up the plaid near my face, yadda, yadda, but that starts to get fussy.

In truth, I haven't decided what to do yet.  I was so appalled by how bad it looked on me, I took it off immediately and put it out of sight.  I think this is one piece that Stasia would say: let it go.  But maybe I'll try it on again in a few weeks and reevaluate.  In any case, I couldn't bear to take photos in it, so hanger photos it is.

In the meantime, I wanted to document my mad plaid matching skillz (*snort*), particularly in this fabric, which was SUPER hard to work with.  I don't recall working with a harder fabric than this, and that includes rayon bemberg.  It went off grain constantly, the plaid lines weren't really completely straight, so matching was very difficult.  

Still, it was a good experiment: a chance to try something new and do something hard, and I'm glad I tried it. I think I'll just make a regular Washi in the "good" flannel.  (The "good" stuff has a washi tape design and there is something in me that gets a kick out of the idea of making a Washi washi dress).

Basics: Navy Knit Dress

Oh look, another M7353.  I've actually worn this dress four times already and washed it at least twice, but just got around to photographing it today.  I guess that means it is a roaring success!

I mean, you really can't go wrong with a basic navy knit dress.  I've missed having one in my closet since my old one got too big and shabby last year or the year before, I forget right now.

I used Kaufman's Laguna jersey, which is the same line as my red Pascha dress, so I was reasonably confident about how it would work with this pattern.  In a word: splendidly.  The Laguna line has a fairly wide color range, but I wish there was a burgundy and a deep olive green, because those are the two colors I'm missing right now.  I had knit dresses in both colors last year, that were too big by late spring and not really my style any longer, so I let them go.  I might just make a burgundy one from the Shetland flannel line, as it will work for color and warmth in winter.

(Outtake: what happens when you turn around too quickly for the self-timer!)

I love how soft this fabric is, and how comfortable the dress is.  I can't really say enough good things about Laguna jersey.  I did shorten the skirt a bit on this dress, as with the fusion dress, and I still think it could go slightly shorter, but I'm not going to mess with it now.

The scarf was a recent Old Navy find and I love it.  Sometimes white doesn't look good next to my face, but this scarf seems to work.

Pocketeses!  I've said it before, I'll say it again: these are the best drafted inseam pockets I've ever worked with.  I'm thinking of using them on a flannel washi dress for winter.  (Actually, I'm thinking of Frankenpatterning the M7353 bodice to the Washi skirt for this dress, and using the pockets from the M7353.  I'm not sure it is going to work, but maybe I'll do a quick muslin to check before cutting into my flannel).

In sum: the perfect three season dress.

And for your amusement, I present this, by Birdie:

I especially like the caption--ha!

Fusion Dress

Today: the Fusion Dress.

 I have been obsessed with this fabric since Art Gallery released the collection in the spring, and while the price was a bit dear, I bought it this summer, because I was afraid (correctly as it turns out!) it would be sold out by fall.  I ended up getting it at Hawthorne Supply Co. (formerly Hawthorne Threads) as they had the best per/yard price.

It behaves just like every other Art Gallery jersey I've worked with before, and was a good fit for my beloved M7353 pattern.  It was nice to make this again in a knit--it had been a while!  

Took me a bit to wear it, though, as we were kind of stuck in the armpit of the weather system for most of September and the first 12 days of October.  Thankfully, it has cooled down a LOT and is now pleasant and lovely October weather.  

The color is a bit difficult to photograph accurately (and truth be told, I missed my optimum lighting window this morning because of public bus issues and had to make do).

The most accurate photograph is the one at the top--the background color is a sprucey green, and the centers of the flowers are a deep saturated red-purple color.

As a happy accident, this necklace from ThredUp was a perfect color match.  I like them together very much.

No construction notes except I made the skirt slightly shorter (2" of length added, instead of 2.5") and I could even take it to 1.5" for a future iteration).  I guess I like slightly shorter dresses right now. The hardest part of the dress was thread matching, because it isn't quite green and it isn't quite blue. 

The scarf was another happy ThredUp find, and it is a reasonably good color match to the centers of the flowers.  I'm wearing a lot of scarves this fall--I seem to latch on something each season and wear it constantly.  I guess this is the scarf rotation.

I did a big try on over the weekend, which made for some major culling.  I'm feeling pretty good about how my clothing stands at the moment, as well as how future projects will fit (I have about one dress per rotation planned through summer).  I've reduced the total number of pieces I have by quite a bit, and am curious to see how it works out.  I used to have about 85 pieces total, and I'm sitting around 65 currently (including planned makes).

I've been having a bit of a think about what it is to be healthy, as I've gotten pretty hung up on the number on the scale.  I had a bit of an epiphany last week when my mom was here, as I realized that while our scale numbers are close to 40 pounds different (she is skinny!), our clothing size is very similar.  The difference?  I have a lot of muscle mass, and always have, always will, and muscle weighs more.  (I've always known that, and knew I was densely built, but somehow, having the comparison of my mother, who carries her weight similarly to me, but isn't densely built, was eye-opening).  

I'm not sure what healthy looks like for me. I've always measured health by the scale and measurements and BMI, and I'm no longer confident that they are good measures to go by.  I get 10,000 steps in most days, my CBC numbers are in the normal range, and my A1C has been normal for a few years now, and my waist measurement is below 35" but is that healthy?  I'm not sure.  I've got this ideal in my head (along with a particular scale number and measurements) that I can't quite seem to shake (but I do feel that I'm on the verge of being able to do so).

I'm not quite to anything definite yet, but I will say, I'm feeling better in my body, and learning to let some things lie.  I don't want to be the woman who is always on a diet, always trying to lose weight, trying to look a particular way, constantly obsessing about it all, but neither do I want to be a poor steward of this vessel.  I'm getting there.

Washi Dress

Ta-Da!  

I finally made a Washi Dress!  I present: the Fern Meadow Dress.

The fabric is Cotton+Steel, and it is wonderful.  I'm not generally a fan of metallic accents on fabric, but on this fabric, they are very subtle and lovely.

I'm a longtime fan of Cotton+Steel anyway, and it was so great to make something out of their midweight cotton again.  This pattern is drafted for it, so it was a perfect opportunity to go back to one of my first fabric loves: a great print in a mid-weight cotton.

I made a straight large, no adjustments other than to add 2" to the skirt and lengthen the bodice by 1/2".  I also used a casing+elastic in the back instead of shirring, because I like it better, and I think it will hold up better to heavy wear (one pattern review said that her shirring gave out after heavy wearing).  For the record, I used 6" less than the width of the back at the bottom shirring line, and that was just right.  It also meant that the elastic casing and the front waist lined up perfectly.

The tucks are super flattering without being maternity-like, in my opinion.  I felt so good in this dress the day I wore it.  Cute and comfortable and just great.  I like the inseam pockets, but I think I might use the M7353 pocket on a future dress since the construction keeps the inseam pocket from flapping around in the breeze.

Another happy face.

The cap sleeve construction is very clever, and I like the clean finish that you get if you do it the way Rae suggests.  I did omit the neck facing because I find facings evil, and used plain bias to bind all the edges, as is my custom.  Much better!

I did muslin the bodice before making this, to check the darts and consider whether to make it with 3/4 sleeves or the cap sleeves or sleeveless.  I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to fuss with the darts at.all.  I always have to lower and shorten them (due to my chestly hound dog ears), so it was nice not to have to mess around with it.  

I liked it so much, I immediately made another one from some Denyse Schmidt fabric I found on etsy for a steal.  (What can I say?  I'm nothing if not predictable).  I used to make a lot of dresses from her fabric, but sort of forgot about it once I got into Cotton+Steel.  It was nice to rediscover it--I love this print so much.  The greens and yellows and grays are perfection.  

My apologies for the less-than-stellar photos.  My mom was here for a week, and I sort of had to grab them with my phone one morning after a school meeting, and it was indoors.  The yellow scarf didn't photograph correctly, but it is my Chinook from two springs ago.  I have in mind to make another soonish.  This scarf is getting quite an outing this fall--it goes with a lot of my fall things this year, and is just the right weight, since it is cotton+linen.

See that fabric?  Delish.  Later that same day, I found a rayon/cotton yellow cardigan at Old Navy that matches perfectly; I also have a several warmer cardigan and pullover options for when the weather gets colder.  Yay for options!

Cap sleeves again.  My muslin experiments told me that I would hate this dress with inset sleeves, and I'm glad I went the cap sleeve route with both dresses.  I can layer them with a shirt underneath too, I think.

Elastic waist casing, no changes from the first dress, nothing new about the construction except that I finished the bias by hand because I ran out of matching thread.  I used gold bias for just a hint of color around the edges.  I will probably go back and machine stitch the hem at some point, because it catches on the buckles of my boots constantly, but it is okay for now.

Another happy face! The cardigan is a thrifted piece from ThredUp and has cashmere, cotton and wool in it.  It's a really nice weight for the cooler weather.  I've not worn this style of cardigan for a long long time, and it is nice to come back to it again.

I have to restrain my impulse to Make All The Washi Dresses right now, but I know that I really only need two this season.  It feels good to find a wardrobe staple pattern, though, particularly since I'm over the Dottie Angel frock pattern at this point.  My M7353 is a good one, but it is nice to have a couple of options.  

I'm starting to feel a bit better in my skin (just a bit!), so that is helpful as well.

Talking Tuesday: How to Stop Time

I mentioned yesterday that Matt Haig's book, How to Stop Time, had some rare jewels of wisdom and keen observance toward the end of the book. I thought I'd share one here today.

"[The 1920s] was an age of noise, and so suddenly playing music had a new importance.  It made you master of the world.  Amid the accidental cacophony of modern life to be able to play music, to make sense out of noise, could briefly mad you a kind of god.  A creator.  An orderer.  A comfort giver.

...

But there was a sense of something tipping out of balance.  The times seemed out of joint.  There was too much decadence.  Too much intensity.  Too much change.  Too much happiness juxtaposed with too much misery.  Too much wealth next to too much poverty.  The world was becoming faster and louder, and the social systems were becoming as chaotic and fragmented as jazz scores.  So there was a craving, in some places, for simplicity, for order, for scapegoats and for bully-boy leaders, for nations to become like religions or cults.  It happened every now and then." (201, 204-205)

One of the gifts of being an historian is having a long view of things. (It can also make a Cassandra out of you, but that's another story).  You realize that most of what happens in the world has happened before, a thousand times before.  It is the way of things. 

I will say too: history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.


Quotes taken from:

Matt Haig, How to Stop Time. Canongate Books: Edinburgh, 2017.

Yarn Along: October

~knitting~

Quite a lot, actually.  I seamed up my Major John Andre sweater, and am now knitting the bands.  The set in sleeves were slightly strange--I've never worked with a sleeve cap that is shaped like these are, but overall it was okay.  The bands are not taxing, but it is a lot of stitches per row, so it isn't going especially fast.  I can't decide whether to add a button hole in the middle (plus a big button) or just plan to use a shawl pin if I want to close it.  My goal is to wear it next month, as the weather here is just starting to slide into fall.

I also finished my Autumn Hitchhiker!  No mods to the pattern; I just knit a ball of Berroco Sox self-striping yarn until I got to the end of the ball and bound it off.  The colors are kind of hard to capture in a photo--they are deep saturated autumnal hues.  It is wool, so a bit warm for now, but I think it will be nice once things cool down (hopefully by the end of the week!)

There are two Boneyard shawls on needles, because I have Shiny Object Syndrome.  I started the Garnet Heather one weeks ago, but cast on another in some hand-dyed Chinook that I've had for several years.  There is only one ball, so the shawl will be whatever size the ball knits to!  

The color variations on the hand-dyed are very subtle in person, and I'm hoping that the color isn't too close to my skin tone to wear near my face.  It is a sort of terracotta color in real life.  I like this pattern a lot, as it has enough interest to keep me going, but isn't too taxing to work on while doing other things (i.e. Knit-flixing).

I finished knitting the Peacoat Triangle Cowl in July sometime, but just got around to seaming it this week.  I still have to put on the buttons (decorative, because I made the pattern a bit shorter than called for owing to lack of yarn!)  

Buttons are my jam, and I have a lot of them, but I can't decide which ones to put on the cowl.  I had some tone-on-tone ones that would be super versatile, but slightly boring, so I'm more or less between these rust ones (from my 1934 Practicality Dress):

and the butterscotch ones.  

They are both from the 1930s.  I'm leaning slightly toward the butterscotch, but weigh in with your favorite in the comments!

~reading~

I finished The Eyre Affair in mid-September, and started on Matt Haig's How to Stop Time, on the recommendation of a blogger I read.  Fford's book was great, and I bought the next one in the series.

I wasn't impressed with Haig's book at first, but the last third has some real jewels of wisdom and keen observation about the role of history in society.  My main complaint about the book is that a) it is told in present tense, which I find grating, and b) the flashback sequences are told from the point of view of the present, as how a person would tell a story about the past, rather than being told in real time.  (So, for example, when he meets Shakespeare for the first time, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, he reacts to them as a person of the present time, with the weight of history on those figures, rather than how he would have reacted in the moment).  

The Awakening of Miss Prim has been on my to-read list for several years now, and I received a copy for my birthday.  I started it last night and am enjoying it so far.  It is, for lack of a better description, Benedict Option in novel form.  And it is delightful.  

I still haven't finished The Kremlin's Candidate--I read a bit in it, and then I get tired of it (I have some issues with Jason Matthewes' writing of modern Russia; he seems to be stuck in the late 1990s with regards to life and politics) but I do intend to finish the series.

Ponchik is currently obsessed with these two books:

She always has to read the U page on the ABC book--ha!  The other book was a gift from a babysitter several years ago--it is a super cute story.  

~sewing~

I finished my two knit dresses for the fall rotation, both M7353s.  The first is a basic navy blue knit (I've worn it twice already, but haven't gotten photographs yet!), and the second is this lovely Art Gallery jersey from the Splendid Fusion line.  I'm obsessed with this print and color combination this fall.  I'm looking forward to wearing this dress.

The next project on the queue is to finally make a Washi dress.  I bought the pattern ages ago, but haven't wanted to fiddle with fitting the bodice.  When I was making Dottie Angel frocks all the time, the Washi seemed too similar to bother with.  Now I think it is different enough to warrant giving it a try.  The silhouette is actually more similar to the M7353, but is drafted for a woven, so I'm curious to try it, as sometimes the M7353 doesn't work as well in wovens, even with my mods.

I bought some Cotton+Steel fabric to test it out (I don't generally keep enough fabric in my bins for a rainy day.  Almost everything in there is already allocated to something else).  I'm thinking of making it sleeveless and wearing a long sleeve shirt under for cooler weather, or a gray cardigan over in warmer.  I might also just put on 3/4 length sleeves.  If it works, I have in mind to make a flannel version for winter.

Oh, I almost forgot--I finished my other fall make: a heavy weight corduroy skirt in a cider color.  I'll take proper photos of it when the weather cooperates.

My other project is to remake one of my 18th century petticoat skirts, as I turned the gold one into my marigold linen Everyday skirt.  I have another length of gold linen (less marigold, slightly more brown) waiting.  I'm to give my 18th century clothing presentation again in January, so I have to get it done before then.  At least those skirts are pretty fast to make, probably a morning's work.

~watching~

I re-watched the first six seasons of Inspector Lewis during September, because it felt like a cozy blanket during a chaotic month.  I'm generally over police procedurals, both British and American, but this show is less about the case of the week and more about the interplay between the main characters.  (I especially like watching the development of the relationship between Lewis and Dr. Hobson). 

My husband and I started watching Broadchurch last week, and I had to turn it off about 20 minutes in.  The pilot episode features the murder of a kid about Piglet's age, and I just.could.not.even.  The acting is great, but man, the subject matter was dark.  We switched to Fawlty Towers instead. 

I'm also making my way through the final season of The Americans--I have about three episodes left, and I cannot wait to see where it lands.  I have a bunch of links saved from people who dissected the finale over the summer, and I'm eager to read them all when I'm done watching.  That show is excellent, excellent, excellent.  They got so many details right, and I love that the Russians speak Russian on screen.

Robert Redford's (supposedly) last film, The Old Man and the Gun, did well at the festivals last month, and I'm eager to see it.  I also found some Tiny House videos on YouTube that I've been watching as well--I find the efficiency of small spaces interesting--it is my IKEA downfall. 

A friend told me about The Miniaturist and that looks interesting as well.   

And finally, unrelated.  We have this icon of St. John of Kronstadt that was in a fancy case with a metal riza, and it has always been difficult to mount on the wall because of the way the back of the case is made.  For a long time I've hung it on command strips, and that was fine, but last week, one of the command strips came loose in the high humidity, and the case fell down with a rather dramatic thump.  There was no major damage (just a bit of ding on the wooden frame), so I reglued the strip and rehung the icon and it promptly fell off again last night and the fall quite damaged the wooden frame.  So I took the icon out and will just hang that. It is going to take some doing to fix the frame, and I need some additional supplies and patience to do it.  I do wonder if St. John is trying to tell me something, leaping off the wall twice in a week's time like that.

Joining with Ginny for Yarn Along!