Beets

Remember the Platonic ideal of a summer skirt?  Turns out it wasn't Platonic or ideal.  I did wear it a bit this summer, but I felt the fit was off--like it was too big or something. I think it is because I sewed the ban-rol elastic in the back at tension rather than straight across, which keeps it stretched out but retains elasticity, if that makes sense.  For those wanting to use ban-rol elastic, if you stitch across the lines while pulling it taught with the fabric, you will have to cut the elastic significantly shorter to account for the held stretch.

 I was also disappointed that the waistband started sagging after the first wearing and creased right in the middle, despite my using Ban-rol to interface.  I think it was the fiber substrate, which has rayon in it, but still.  The skirt ended up feeling sloppy and like a last resort item in my closet this summer. 

That said, I still love the fabric and find it a useful part of my closet.  Particularly after finding the black pepper skirt such a great addition this fall.  I put it away with my summer clothes, but in the "not sure I'm keeping this" part of the bin.  I wanted to figure out a way to make that skirt work.  I had done French seams throughout and wanted to salvage a nice make somehow. 

My constantly changing waist measurement means that an elastic waist is my friend these days, so I decided the best way to rescue the thing was to convert it to a fully elastic waist, ala the Free Range skirt or my embroidered Everyday skirt hack. In order to deal with the bulk from the yoked pockets, I made the seam allowance for the waistband facing a small as possible, and pressed rigorously before applying the elastic, again using the Elemental skirt application method.  The pocket openings are slightly small, but I don't mind as they are still usable.

I also decided that I wanted to use up that beet colored linen to make another dropped shoulder top, since they are so useful to me right now.  The least little bit of humidity in the air and I'm sweating profusely (thank you, hot flashes), and my stripey knit cotton shirts are not robust enough to hold up to that kind of abuse.  So I'm wearing these loose linen shirts on repeat right now.  

Through careful cutting, I was able to get this shirt and another Free Range skirt out.  Three garments/three yards of fabric--not bad!  I've yet to sew the skirt, but it is on my list; Juliana's Therapeutic Sewing for Stress Relief program is going strong.  Cotton flannel is on deck after I get through the linen pile.  

 

But back to the beet linen.  There aren't any useable scraps left except as piecework, although I'm very inspired by Rae's patchwork Cleo.  I've had in mind to make a crazy quilt from my scraps (and I may still do that!) but I'd try a more structured scrappy skirt like that. 

(Rae's post on fall outfits was also inspiring to me; maybe I'll post something like that as well!)  I wore these two outfits over the weekend, for what it is worth, although the yellow scarf only lasted through Liturgy on Sunday morning.  I did despair that actual fall weather was going to be a tease for the rest of my life, but these past two days have been delightful.  I might even put on a sweater today--imagine that!

The Platonic Ideal of a Summer Skirt

For the past several summers, I've been on the hunt for the right chambray for a summer skirt.  Denim is a little too heavy to wear in the heat, and I've been stymied in my attempts to find a chambray that has some decent drape to it.  Shirting weight tends to pouf weirdly and doesn't stand up well to the stresses of wear in skirt form (as my previous attempts at chambray skirts have shown).  

 

 

Last summer, I dithered over a light blue Brussels linen that was chambray-ish, but wasn't really the denim-y shade I was looking for, and ultimately passed in favor of a lavender color.  As with my marigold corduroy skirt, patience was rewarded, this year, as Kaufman has a denim color of Brussels linen that is perfect!  It is exactly the same shade as my one pair of shorts (rtw) and goes with everything. 

I made the Rose skirt hack again, and used Ban-rol in the front waistband for interfacing, and Ban-rol elastic in the back, sewing several lines of stitching over it.  It should be noted that Ban-rol elastic behaves quite differently when it is sewn over like that, and I don't really know why. 

 

It seems to become a bit looser or something. In this case, it doesn't matter, and the fit is really great, but just something to bear in mind if you use it for yourself. I think I used 14" of elastic in the back and measured the front interfacing to fit the length of the waistband piece.  The front waistband does still want to wrinkle slightly in the middle, but I think that is a function of the rayon content in the fabric blend and not much to be done about it.

I attached the interfacing and elastic slightly differently than in the past, using the technique I learned on the Elemental skirt.  Doing it that way did make things slightly more fiddly, but I also got a slightly cleaner finish, so there's that.  I also did French seams throughout, and like the finish very much!  I did have to think about it a bit more as I was constructing the thing, as the pocket bags required a bit of a think, but the insides are so clean and pretty (and hopefully more durable)!

 

 

It could possibly stand to be 1/2" shorter, but I sort of don't care right now.  I've worn it twice already, and am glad to add a workhorse to my summer wardrobe!

Sphinx Remy

I've gotten ahead of myself with posting projects this month.  I posted the Biking Red linen Remy ahead of this Sphinx one, even though I made them in the opposite order and have worn the Sphinx one several times already.  So it goes.

  

The first day I wore it with my Poppy Rose skirt from last summer, which weathered the season fairly well, and is now one of the more comfortable skirts I've made, owing to the waistband fiddling I did last summer.  It was an unusual silhouette for me, being volume on top+volume on the bottom, but it was hot and nasty that day, and I felt okay.  Not sure how I feel about the French tuck thing, though.

The weather is all over the place right now (it was over 90 degrees yesterday with a heat index of 93 or so and will be in the 50s tomorrow), so it is hard to know what to wear each day.  Last Friday, the city lifted the outdoor mask mandate (hooray!) but there is still considerable social pressure to wear a mask outdoors, and you still have to wear one indoors in most places.  It's hard to know what to do. 

I'm vaccinated and have had the virus, but I've been a diligent mask wearer as a public good for the optics of the thing.  But last summer was really hard to wear a mask outdoors and in all the time.  It was very hot and super humid all summer and I'm hot flashy.  And we have no central AC in our house.  Church was...challenging.  I've started wearing mine on a lanyard so I still have it handy if I pop into a store when I'm downtown or want to get on the bus. 

 

 

Anyway, my shirt.  This was my first attempt at view B of the Remy raglan, which includes a center seam and split neck with a button detail that I really like the look of.  It was much simpler to execute than I would have thought!  The seam finishes are neat and clean and the button loop was easy to make and apply.  I love buttons and have a small collection of vintage ones but don't have much cause to use them these days, as my style has moved away from vintage. 

 

It was also my first try pairing this pattern with linen, which is the recommended substrate (although rayon is also listed).  I do like it a lot, but it falls differently than rayon, as you would expect.  I also think that there is still some factory sizing in my linen, even though I prewashed and dried, so it will probably hang better with time. 

 

I did redraft the pattern before cutting this version, as I had cut my pattern down to a six, but decided that wasn't the magic size, so I graded up to an 8, and that seems to be about right.  (Although, I was a bit sloppy when I cut down to a six and the grade between the smaller sizes is pretty small, so it was actually closer to a four.  I do wonder if a six would be okay after all...but I'm happy with the eight).  I also cut bias fabric for the hem in addition to the neckline and I like that very much.  It is slightly cleaner than the turn up the pattern suggests and helps maintain the slight dip the hemline.

 

 

The second day I wore this top, I paired it with a RTW dress I bought last summer from Old Navy.  It was a rare new purchase for me, and I wore it a ton last summer and fall even though I generally dislike rayon knits.  I was never able to find a top layer for the early fall that looked right because there is a v-neckline and waist ties on the sides, but this seems to work!  And we all know this color combo is my jam.

I do like the top better with the more streamlined bottom, but I'll probably wear it with my Rose skirts too.  It is handkerchief weight linen, so it is very light and airy.  I've gotten a ton of wear out of the skirt and Emerald tops out of the same linen, so I think this will be an excellent wardrobe workhorse.

I had a button that matched the linen exactly, and had some cool detail on the face of it, but it was a shank button and only 1/2" across, so I worried that it would flop around and come unbuttoned constantly, plus  not really show up against the shirt.  This slightly lighter teal button is perfect!  I sewed the button on with my machine again and wowzers is that nice.

Sewing Mysteries: Interfacing for Short Waists

This is my Alter-It August post (in September!) as most of these alterations were accomplished last month, although I finished the final fix this past weekend.

It is my experience, as a short-waisted person, that waistbands Do Not Behave.  They roll, they wrinkle, they scrunch and fold.  I've spent considerable effort trying to make a better waistband.  Some sewists recommend narrow waistbands (3/8" or less), or faced curved waistbands that finish the top edge of a skirt or pants.  I find these are fine for certain styles and body types, but my style preference is an attached waistband, because most of my bottoms have elasticated backs, and I have a 10" waist-to-hip ratio on a good day.  (Most modern skirts are sloped on a 6-8" ratio and gape badly on me).

My go-to for a stable (ish) waistband is to make a 1" finished waistband with Petersham for interfacing.  (I had to look back through old posts to find the tutorial link, and it looks like I started using this method in September 2015!  How much has changed since then...)  The trick is to cut a 4" wide waistband, and make the seam the same width as the Petersham (1" in my case), and then fold over twice before top-stitching or stitching in the ditch to finish the edge.  That way you have no lines from a seam allowance, plus the extra layers of fabric provide some stability, particularly in heavier fabrics like denim.  

Alas, it does not entirely eliminate waistband rolling, and in lighter fabrics like rayon or linen, it doesn't help at all.  The fabric can't stand up to the combination of body heat and sitting right under my ribs.  I was pretty frustrated with my skirts by mid-summer, as all had rolled and creased waistbands that washing didn't fix, and by the end of the day felt schlubby and terrible.  I decided it was time to crack this monster and figure out how to make a better waistband.

Petersham I removed from two skirts.  One of these was after only a day or two of wear; the other was after several seasons of wearing.

I did some reading about what others have tried.  My experience with fusible interfacing has been a joke--it peels right off and scrunches into a heap at the bottom of the band on the inside, and sew-in interfacing hasn't fared much better.  My best experience has been to use quilting-weight cotton as a stabilizer, but that still wants to wrinkle a bit (see the teal skirt, above).  

Someone suggested using lawn (which is very tightly woven) in conjunction with Petersham, so I decided to try that first.  My lavender skirt had stretched out badly on the first wearing (do not use jersey to interface!) and didn't even fit me.  It was more than 2" bigger than any other skirt I owned.  So I unpicked the waistband, put in Petersham and a strip of lawn, and made the waistband narrower to accomodate the 1" Petersham.  It was okay.  It did stay put better than Petersham alone, and seemed better overall, but it still wasn't quite the fix I was hoping for.

Every time I've tried to tackle this problem, I run across a Thread Theory article about Ban-Rol, but until recently, wasn't able to find it in anything but huge rolls for many dollars.  I didn't want to spend that much on a big roll if it didn't work and couldn't find anyone selling it by the yard.  

Original 1" Ban-Rol

Sometime last winter, I altered a pair of suit pants for my husband.  He's had this particular suit for a long time, and the construction on the pants was quite interesting to me--they were obviously made with alterations in mind (I suppose if you are going to spend serious money on a suit, you need it to last through body changes!), and the waistband was interfaced with something that looked like Ban-rol.  There is a whole discussion to be had about longevity in clothing, and how to build in the possibility of alteration down the line, but that is a whole different rabbit hole.

This summer, I did another search and found The Sewing Place, which offers several different types of Ban-Rol, at a reasonable price, cut per yard.  It was the perfect way to try both the original Ban-Rol stabilizer, and the elastic version, which is used on commercially sewn elastic waistbands.  (I noticed it on a pair of RTW shorts this summer.  The waistband is both comfortable and sits nicely all day).  

I started with my red and orange skirts, as they were both ripe for change.  I added Ban-Rol to the front waistband of the red skirt (swapping the center box pleat for the more flattering side pleats while I had the waistband off), and inserted the elastic Ban-Rol in the back to see how the two things played together.  I stitched three lines through the elastic to secure it.  What a difference!  The skirt looks so much better now, and I'm much happier to wear it.  I also shortened it by 2.5" while I was at it, to bring it to the length of my other skirts.

With elastic ban-rol all around.  The fit is weird.

The orange skirt was trickier because the waistband is put together a bit differently and the fabric had stretched a bit while I was making it initially, so it was already limp and unhappy.  I first tried running elastic ban-rol through the whole waistband, on the theory that if it worked well on my shorts, it should make my skirt better.  

Elastic Ban-Rol.  I think in the future I will have to burn the edges to melt them, as the cut elastic loops that run through the white fabric want to poke out.  Just sewing over the edge doesn't seem to cut it.

It was very comfortable, but it also felt too big and didn't sit right on my waist.  I worried about it falling down (groundless, given my waist-to-hip ratio, but there it is).  So I pulled out the elastic from the front part only, and installed regular Ban-Rol into the front waistband, absent Petersham interfacing.  It is...okay.  

Hard to tell, but the ban-rol front plus elastic back is better.

Earlier this week, I unpicked almost all the waistbands on my summer skirts (including the new Nutmeg skirt, shown below) and installed Ban-Rol alongside the Petersham, and that seems to be the golden ticket.  The Petersham provides stability for the fabric (I mostly wear linen or a linen-rayon blend in the hot months), and the Ban-Rol keeps the waistband firm and stable.  All.Day.Long.  

I'm still working out how to best use the elastic ban-rol, as it is much more comfortable than traditional braided elastic, but it is also much stretchier, so all my metrics about length and fit have to be redone if I use it in the future.  It also seems to behave better with several lines of stitching through it, but that also affects how much stretch it ultimately has.  The best skirts I have at the moment are my Nutmeg and teal linen skirts, both of which have Ban-rol waistbands in the front and a few channels of 3/8" braided elastic in the back.  The other little trick I find with Ban-rol (at least for a retro-fit) is to sew the edges down to keep it from sliding around at the side seams and possibly poking through the top. 

Perhaps this will be useful to someone else!  Let me know if you have experience with Ban-Rol (either type) and how you use it.

Yarn Along: Life in progress

This post is a bit long, so I recommend some junky chocolate and a fizzy beverage--ha!

~knitting~

 I finished my movie theater scarf!  It turned out much better than I expected, and the second half of the knitting was very enjoyable to me.  The garter tab start was also new (I started this scarf before the linen one on the same pattern), and I like the finish it gives the top edge.  

  I decided to integrate several bands of different stitch patterns from a couple of other patterns, to make the bottom half more interesting.  I'm glad I did!  The scarf blocked out differently from what I expected, and I'm quite chuffed with the result.  

 It is lightweight and a nice size for my style preference.  (I did panic a few weeks ago, and started to pull it back because I thought it was coming out too big, but after I got it off the needles, I realized it was just fine, so then had to thread something like 400 stitches back on the needles and get myself back into the pattern I was on.  It...took a while). 

After that, I decided to start my Kate Davies scarf kit that I bought when it came out in the late spring.  I'm normally not one for lace work, or charts, but Kate has never let me down, and so far so good.  (Who am I??)  I swatched quite a few needles for gauge, and ended up picking one that produced denser fabric, but I think it will be more to my liking in the end.  I'm quite a tight knitter, and generally, I get gauge on the needle Kate suggests, but in this case, I had to go up to size 9 (from the suggested 6) in order to get gauge and I did not like the fabric. 

 The garter tab at the beginning looked terrible, so I dropped back down to 7 and that seems to be fine. (Although it did take me about five tries to get the thing set up correctly.  Word to the wise: there are way too many stitch markers recommended).  I realize my piece will be denser than the sample, but I'm okay with that.  I'd rather have a better yarn+ needle match, particularly when I'm working with a pattern that is challenging.  The yarn is so pretty!  The tweedy flecks are so nice, and the color (a bright strawberry red) is lovely.  I don't love how the yarn is spun a bit unevenly, and tends to break with high tension, but I'm trying to be gentle while knitting to avoid that.  

 ~reading~

I finished Why We Drive by Matthew B. Crawford and it was well worth the reading.  I wrote a bit about it here, but have more to say as soon as I organize my thoughts a bit better.  In the meantime, I loved this review of the book.   The main takeaways (at the moment) are that we are meant to live a fully embodied life, in the real world, encountering and solving problems that are not easily solvable, requiring us to dig in when the going gets tough, and to know what is under the hood of our lives.  Simply put, we should understand how to fix things, how to parse problems to find solutions instead of clicking a predetermined menu of options.  (And also, stop letting the tech people produce solutions to problems that they created, for which humans already have the skills to solve).

The State's efforts to produce legibility in the population generally do not benefit humanity, only the bureacucracy, and we should be very wary indeed of handing over our privacy and autonomy to a faceless, technocratic entity that doesn't care about us. (Crawford draws brilliantly on James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State, a fantastic book I read in grad school.  It has survived numerous book purges, it is just that good).  Rather, it is the human byways of life, usually roundabout, somewhat messy, and not in neat straight categorized lines, that we find humans working through the messiness of social interaction and getting along.  That said, I do think one of the main priorities of modern civil governance should be to maintain order and prevent anarchy, and that requires adherence to a legible set of rules and laws, and requires a certain level of corresponding virtue in the population to agree to live by those rules.

~sewing~

 Mostly, I'm altering things I made earlier this year to fit better or suit better, and fixing stuff from the rest of the family or making things for the house.  I'll do a dedicated post on my alterations soon, as I think I've cracked a mystery.  I've also been making underwear and am close to a long laundry cycle's worth.  I'll do a separate post on that as well.  

 I made a linen Rose skirt hack back in June that I was saving for September, and I made a point to wear it for the first time last week.  I had made it with my Mint Emerald in mind, but I think it will be a great transitional skirt for me.  My Spice Cake skirt just didn't fit my palette very well; I think this Nutmeg skirt will be a great strange neutral.  Besides, we all know how I feel about rust.  I took the Spice Cake skirt apart and will probably cut it down for Birdie sometime in the next year.

~watching~

Last month, I forgot to mention a great movie about the Cold War that I watched around the same time as Mr. Jones.  (If you haven't seen Mr. Jones, please do.  It's an important film).  

The other film I forgot to say is called Red Joan, and is the true story of a British spy who gave the Soviets the nuclear research to build their own bomb, and thus usher in the age of mutually assured destruction.  She wasn't caught until she was in her 80s.  In defense of Joan, she did it to prevent another Hiroshima-style disaster, as she felt that no one nation should have proprietary access to such a destructive weapon, and that sharing it with the USSR would level the playing field.  After all, they were Allies of the UK and US in WW2.  Judy Dench plays her as an old woman, but most of the story is set during the 1940s during the race for the bomb and is full of British character actors I enjoyed watching.

The latter half of August was hit-the-wall time for me emotionally, so I am rewatching Person of Interest, because I enjoyed it so much the first time, and it is easy to have on while sewing or knitting.  Michael Emerson is just brilliant in that show, and Jim Caviezel's character is such a treat--so complex.  I also find the issues of privacy and security raised by the show to be more pertinent than ever, and I'm struggling to know what to do with them.  Perhaps there is nothing to do but submit to the Borg of Silicon Valley, but vis-a-vie Crawford, I think there has to be a better way to exist with screens and technology.

~domestic~

I'm on a mission to lighten up the house, and to feel less oppressive to me.  Row houses can be dark since the windows are only on the front and back of the house, and we have a lot of dark woodwork.  I put some sheer valances on the living room windows, which helped that room feel much brighter, and then I decided to swap out hardware throughout the house.  The mission-style stuff I had picked 13 years ago annoyed me because it was noisy.  I went with cast iron (or "soft iron") handles and knobs where I could.  

It turns out that mission style hardware is pretty hard to swap, having non-standard size holes, and me not keen to drill new ones everywhere.  But I'm in the home stretch, finally.  I also did some things to brighten up the 2nd floor bathroom, and swapped out some fixtures that were starting to show their age.  My next project was to paint Piglet's bedroom, since it was one of two rooms that we skipped in 2016 when the rest of the house was repainted.  I went with the pale gray (Behr Silver Polish) that we used in most of the rest of the house and the room feels so bright and airy and fresh now.  I can't wait to put the pictures back on the wall, but it needs to cure for a month first.

 

The painting project was a bit more than I bargained for physically, however, as it was three days of physically intensive work in high heat and humidity, and then a fourth day of putting everything back together and cleaning up.  But it felt really good to move like that, and to get that project done.

I be hot.

Somehow I strained a tendon on the top of my foot, probably crouching for the cut-in at the bottom of the walls, so I spent the rest of the past weekend hobbling around, strapping my foot with k-tape, taking ibuprofen, and putting my foot up when I could.  It does feel better today, but I'm going to try and take a few days of quiet before tackling another big project (painting the bathroom cabinets...send help).  

Finally, we celebrated Dormition on August 28, and I actually remembered to take a photo or two--the bier is so pretty at the church, and I always forget.  (In fairness, I try to leave my phone at home, so I don't always have a camera handy).

 The church also has a plaschinitsa for the Theotokos (which is unusual).

 I made kuleyabaka again, this time making it a bit more "saucy" and it turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.  It was also a brilliant way to use up some fasting odds and ends.

 I picked a few herbs from the garden to bring on Dormition to be blessed.

Whew!  That was a lot for one post--congratulations for making it all the way to the end!

 Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!