Necklace embroidery

After the success of the embroidery on my white linen blouse, I decided to work out a design for the collar of my Biking Red linen blouse.  It is a color I generally like, and have made several garments from it, but I was struggling to want to wear it for whatever reason.

I decided on a more delicate scheme that repeated all the way around the neckline, using a motif from another pattern.  My original color scheme was all shades of bone and off white, but I was sorting colors for another project and the dark green seemed like a good fit with the others.  While sorting colors, I realized that in embroidery, subtle is better than bold in terms of color.  I think that was one of my mistakes with the sage Remy.  I was trying to perk up the color since it washed me out, but perhaps a more subtle color scheme would have accomplished the same thing and I would have liked it better.  Or not.  I dunno.  

The embroidery on this one is all two stranded, as opposed to the white one, which is mostly three strand, with some six strand work on there.  So that one is much denser.  I like the more subtle look of this piece for the scale of the embroidery.  

I worked on this piece while at my parents' in June; it was a nice size project to have along, and since I finished it before I left, I was able to wear it too!  I started the third project on the way home from that trip.  The third one sort of grew exponentially, so I've only recently finished it.  

In any case, I've worn this blouse a bunch of times since finishing the embroidery, and it was definitely the right way to perk it up.  It bears saying, however, that I'm not super eager to repeat that motif again any time soon!

*Obviously, these pictures are from June, as my garden is currently in the jungle stage!

Leave No Craft Behind

That is to say: Embroidery.  Specifically, embroidering clothing.  It's not my first go at the craft; I did some embroidery on clothing back when I was experimenting with early 20th century styles.  And then there was the Remy I embroidered in May to try and make it more wearable (spoiler: it didn't work and I still don't like it).  

The upshot of the failed Remy was that I was inspired to embroider other garments, particularly blouses, for summer.  I planned out a white blouse with a big floral collar, adapting a hoop pattern for it.  

The color scheme in the pattern sample was close to what I wanted, but I made a few color swaps to get the screen colors rather than the actual colors, which were much duller in person.  It is a little bit more purple-y than peachy now, but it suits my palette well and I'm happy with it.

The wagon-wheel roses were quite fiddly, and they do mean I have to hand-wash the piece, but it isn't a big deal on such a small blouse that is linen.  The experience did make me decide to avoid wagon wheel roses on future clothing, however.  There's only so much hand-washing I want to do.

This was my first project using a stick and stitch printable stabilizer for the pattern.  It is brilliant--you print your design on the printer, cut it out, stick it on the fabric and stitch, then wash it out.  

Much better than my old tissue paper method, and even better than the iron-on transfer method, as it isn't limited by what you can find in iron-on transfer.

I love how this came out and have worn it a bunch of times already (shown here with my agave linen skirt, but it looks great with the beet linen and the sage linen as well).  I immediately started another project and planned out a third, both finished now (stay tuned!)  While I've done a bit of knitting this summer, the embroidery hoop has my attention at the moment.  What garment can I embellish next?!?  Idle hands and all that.

Hinterland

I've been putting off this post because it feels like a failure.  I made the popular Hinterland dress earlier in the spring, and I really wanted to like it.  I did!  

But I just felt like 1995 was calling and wanted its dress back.  

It may have been my fabric choice--the Indian block print cotton was perhaps the wrong thing for the pattern, and a solid color may have felt differently, but who knows.

I think I cut a 12 on top and an 8 on the bottom, although I could have gone with a 6 for the bottom.  I didn't want much volume in the skirt and that seemed okay.  I will say that the bust *just* fits and I'm barely a B cup.  The pattern is drafted for a C-cup, and the 12 should have given me at least three inches of ease all around.  It's not tight, but there isn't a lot of extra room in the bust area.

I cut a faux button placket because the print seemed to need some breaking up.  I interfaced it with knit interfacing, which was about right for the fabric and structure.  It was a good experiment, and the buttons were a perfect match, but the whole dress was just not the right thing.

The good thing to come out of it was a decently fitting bodice block with inset sleeves that I can use to make a 3/4 sleeve button down woven top at some point.  

I did end up adding gussets under the sleeves for better range of motion and comfort across the back, and I think I did a forward shoulder adjustment (more on that in a future post).  

I did take it partially apart and remade it into a two piece ensemble for Birdie, who is thrilled with it.  

I changed out the buttons for yellow ones and she likes that very much!  I think it picks up the yellows better.  I could stand to take it up slightly more in the shoulders for better fit and may try to do that this week.

One of the side effects of all her health issues is that she can't tolerate binding around her middle, so she wears all her bottoms below her belly.  The peplum top is a good style for her in that way.  It does mean all her skirts look off in the hem (lower in front) and I realize I could hem it differently to make it look better, but she wears these clothes so briefly it hardly seems worth the effort.  But maybe I'm just lazy?  

In any case, I'm glad she loves the outfit, and that the fabric will get good use.  After several not-wins and sort-of successful remakes with sewing projects (about which more later), I was starting to feel rather wasteful.  I'm still purging the house and going through stuff, so there is this tension in me about stuff-usage.  I always have that to some extent, but it feels particularly acute right now.  I'm trying to let it go and take my own advice to get rid of things that I'm not going to get to any time soon.  It is tempting to hang on to everything because I could theoretically make use of it at some point, but I just don't have the space for what if projects.  The kids are home all this coming week, so we'll see how much I get done!

In garden news, look at my cute baseball-size watermelon! I'm thrilled to see it grow.  I put up additional trellises this week to support the expanding watermelon and cucumber vines and moved two potato plants into another planter since the first two seemed crowded.  Just have to keep hilling them now!  Fingers crossed for a good harvest.  

Talking Tuesday (on a Thursday): Wild and Wonderful

This week, I heard Psalm 53 chanted in Aramaic.  (It the language spoken by the Jews at the time of Jesus; it is nearly extinct, but there are a few places in Georgia that still speak it).  I can't even describe the sound or the wild place it conjured for me.  There are some definite affinities with Georgian music, which has similiar tonalities, but this is beautiful even beyond that.  Listen to the end; it is worth the time!

Interchange

Mix-n-match wardrobes are a useful thing as they tend to avoid things like closet orphans and the like.  In my observation, however, as with capsule wardrobes, these mix-n-match pieces tend to be neutrals in white, taupe, gray, or black.  Not really my jam.

Setting aside the fact that those colors make me look like death, they just don't suit my aesthetic.  But I do try to make pieces that work within a palette so that most of my closet goes with everything.  And although I didn't set out to make a mix-n-match set, I ended up with a nice one!

When I was deciding what to make with that Indian block print voile I bought last fall, I went back to the same etsy seller to have a browse.  As you do.  In browsing her shop, I found a few more prints I liked and bought dress lengths of three of them since the shipping was free and the price-per-yard was good.  

Admittedly, I don't wear prints like I once did, but I liked the hand of the fabric and thought it would be cool in the heat.  (I guess that means I'm no longer a printy-utilitarian and have turned more straight utilitarian).  

On the screen, the print looked more violet and green, but it turned out to be that lovely beet-purple and green turquoise that are in my color palette.  By the time I got to sewing this fabric, I had made several dresses from new patterns, and hadn't really found a dress pattern that sang to me, so I decided to make a two-piece set that I could wear as a dress or separates.  (As an aside, I seem to keep trying to find a magic dress pattern and mostly failing--I had one spectacular win this spring--but I just don't reach for dresses much outside of Sunday mornings.  Maybe that is a sign I should stop looking?  I dunno).

I made my simple woven tee pattern for the top and the Free Range skirt hack for the bottom.  My only complaint is that I have to wear a slip with the skirt because it doesn't hang well otherwise, but that is minor.  I've tried to make things that don't require slips because the nylon just makes me hot, but the voile is thin enough that it is okay.  

The print top goes very well with my beet linen skirt, and after wearing the matching 3/4 sleeve top as a two-piece dress a bunch, I sort of wanted a short-sleeve version for the heat.  The Peppermint wrap top I made in the fall didn't fit me by the spring (and frankly, wasn't a great fit for me style-wise), but I couldn't figure out how to reconfigure it to make it wearable.  

I tried a bunch of things to restyle it but to no avail.  I ended up unpicking the entire top twice before giving up and deciding to make a pieced simple tee, which was what I really wanted anyway.  I wasn't sure I'd like the finished piece, since the piecing is very, uh, piecemeal (ha!) but I do! 

I've worn it a lot since finishing it. It's a bit hard to see in the photos, but I did some decorative top-stitching to make the piecing look more interesting, so there is a wide zig-zag down the center panel, and two triangles that radiate out from the side panels. It looks good with the voile skirt and several others in my closet, but I also like it as a two-piece dress with the beet skirt. So 4+ outfits out of everything! (Plus using up almost every scrap of that beet linen--super happy about that).

In other news, the water pipe that connects our house to the main is broken and we have to have a major plumbing repair this week.  The water department shut our water off on Friday morning and we had to wait until Saturday afternoon for the plumber to make a temporary connection to our awesome next door neighbor so that we can have water until the main fix is accomplished.  I'm very grateful to have discovered the leak when I did, since it came in under the front steps in our basement, where there is little to damage.  I don't go back in that corner often but had to retrieve something from back there when I noticed the standing water (almost 3" in the corner!  The floor slopes slightly toward the street so it pooled at the front of the house under the steps by the old coal access).  

The upshot is we now have an outside bib on the back of the house--something we've talked about doing for years but never got around to--so I'll be able to water the garden much more easily once this is all over.  My awkward hose-attached-to-kitchen-sink-running-out-the-back-door setup was getting a bit old. 

While the wheels of the water department churned a bit slowly, once we determined the issue and who was responsible, we were able to find an emergency plumber right away. They are working on the permits and will hopefully fix it all this week.  Thank God for small mercies!  On reflection, I do think that pipe has been struggling for some time, as our water pressure is greatly improved with the neighbor's water, and that pipe may be the original one from 100 years ago.  

But enough about that!  Our berries are producing well (although the blueberries are still immature) and I'm still fighting the good fight against the aggressive birds.  Double netting has helped, but I still lost two berries yesterday to the thieves.  The summer heat has arrived, so I'm trying to keep up with watering but trying to avoid waterlogging the strawberries--such a careful balance!  The watermelon has a tiny watermelon on it, about the size of an olive, plus another nascent one, so we'll see what we get.  

The plumbers have just arrived to start breaking up the sidewalk, so off we go!

Workhorses

At some point in the late spring, I realized that my warm weather uniform had become a linen tee and linen Free Range skirt hack.  I find the woven tees a lot cooler in the disgusting heat, and the linen skirts are an easy addition.  I have a few regular knit T-shirts I'm wearing, but mostly these tees are my go-to.  So I made a few in May and have been wearing them nonstop since. 

This version is my favorite. The linen top is Abyss handkerchief linen, and while I was unsure about the colorway (I have a complicated relationship with navy), it is a much richer and more interesting color than it photographed. The hand of the fabric is almost buttery, and it is one of the nicest linens I've worked with.

The pattern is my super-Frankenpatterned simple top.  It is a blend of the Sorrel dress bodice, the Portrait blouse, and something else that I can't remember at the moment.  The 3/4 sleeve piece is from the Carson dress, but I'm probably going to redraft it sometime soon because I don't love how the sleeve head fits onto the grown-on sleeve cap.  It's a fabric-efficient pattern; I can get 3/4 sleeves with bias binding out of one wide yard, and this cap sleeve version can be cut from 1/2 a wide yard, but no bias binding.

The agave linen I used on the skirt goes with almost everything.  It's a great strange neutral.  I squeaked the skirt out of 1 yard, cut extremely carefully.  There were fumes of fabric left.   

It's been pretty hot the last little while here, so I'm extra grateful for these workhorse pieces!

Wellerman Remy

Almost the end of June and I'm still catching up from May!  That will probably be my song and dance all summer.  The hours of the day just seem to slip by me; I'm pottering in the garden, doing some deep cleaning and culling on our many bookshelves, getting the kids to and from camp, making meals, doing the dishes, laundry, etc.  It all adds up.  

Some critter (or bird, maybe) got into one of my strawberry plants overnight and ate all three partially ripe berries, plus a few more that weren't even fully grown, but left all the other plants alone (including a ripe strawberry on a lower placed planter).  Part of me thinks not to bother about it, because we share the planet, but part of me thinks that there are plenty of other places to dine in the neighborhood besides my plants, so go along somewhere else! This restaurant is closed!  None of the critters around here are the least deterred by cayenne pepper and the birds aren't scared off by the shiny CDs hanging around the planters.  Maybe I need to cut up some pie tins?  Anyway.

This make was one that I wasn't sure would suit me, but actually, I kind of love it.  I felt really great in this outfit, and the boots kind of made it for me.  

This is the gathered sleeve view of the Remy Raglan, a free add-on that I believe is now included in the pattern. I've been wanting to try it out for a while now. My primary concern was that the volume would overwhelm me, or that the sleeves would be in my way all day long.

Unlike other gathered sleeves, this one is loose at the cuff, so I knew that part at least should be fine.  I can't stand tight cuffs.  I found a length of linen on the doggie bag section of Fabrics-Store.com in the Marlin colorway, and while I was a little unsure that the color would work with my palette or tone preferences, it was cheap enough to use it as a toile.  

It turned out to be a really gorgeous shade of purple-y blue.  It looks more Delft-y to me on the website, which was why I was concerned.  Sometimes Delft shades are fine on me, and sometimes they are just blah.  I was concerned that it wouldn't go with anything, but it goes with my beet linen skirt very well, and my Purple Violet Squish skirt hack, plus my black pepper Free Range skirt hack.

I think it would also go with the dark denim skirt I thrifted and altered, but haven't tried them together yet.  I managed to squeak out one more wear out of this blouse over the weekend but I think now it will need to wait for fall weather.   

Not much to say about construction.  I made my usual size 8 (although I might have added a tiny bit on the side seam allowances; I can't really remember right now) and made the sleeve as directed.  The cuffs were pretty easy to make, and the gathers weren't too pesky.  (After making two dresses that had a LOT of gathers in them, the cuffs on this seemed easy.  I'll blog those dresses at some point). 

I'm not sure I'd make another one, because I think one statement sleeve blouse in my closet is enough for me, but maybe not?  I could see trying it in a really drapey rayon challis or something like that.  In any case, a highly successful make!  Who'd have thunk?  

Off now to attempt to impose order on chaos--ha!