Patrones 252, #9 Sportmax Blouse

When Cidell loaned me her Patroneses (which always makes me think of a Patronus from Harry Potter), the first--and perhaps only, now I think about it--project she pointed out she was in love with was this blouse. I smiled and nodded and thought, OK, that's kind of weird.

But then the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. Something about the drama of the sleeves was calling to me, and I traced it out.

I bought the pinstripe fabric from Kashi when I was in NYC for the Mermaid Parade in June (here's the other fabric I got on that trip--this is the third project from that haul, which isn't *too* bad). I didn't really have a specific project in mind, just knew I wanted shirtings because I never have any when I want them. In fact, though I have yards and yards and dozens and possibly hundreds of yards, I never have what I want when I want it. But my fabric buying habits are a story for another time. Anyway, I got the fabric home and decided it would be perfect for this pattern. So I let it age. For months. And then finally picked it up.

It worked up pretty quickly and easily, as quickly as a blouse does at any rate. Blouses are a huge timesuck for me. I don't know what it is. The collar? The placket? The buttonholes and buttons? It always takes double the amount of time to sew that I estimate, hours and hours more than it seems like it should. I don't know why that is, nor why I keep making them! This is the third one in the past few weeks.

I like to find the designer reference Patrones uses for its designs so I looked at Sportmax's Spring 2007 RTW show (in case you did not know, as I did not, Sportmax is Max Mara's bridge line, or RTW line, or something--I should really learn the definition of all the types of lines). Oddly, there doesn't seem to be one. For all the other Patrones projects I've done, it's been a direct copy of a runway look.I looked at the other shows and it didn't come from an earlier season. I found a blouse with a drop shoulder and full sleeves, but they aren't gathered at the hem, at left. And then there was a dress with full sleeves gathered at the bottom, but the shoulder was at true shoulder and they're longer than the sleeves on Patrones's blouse, right. A mystery.

What's slapdash about this project? Probably the buttonholes. I'll admit it, I kind of just didn't want to have to wind a new bobbin of the light blue, and I wanted to use up the dark blue. I genuinely did intend to have the color blending and the bright blue buttonholes on the reverse, but it was kind of born out of laziness.

So Patrones's instructions are not models of clarity. There's the minor problem that they're in Spanish, but my Spanish is OK and having worked with so many of them by now I know a lot of sewing vocabulary (though I can't pretend there aren't still words that mystify me and elude translation). Perhaps the kinder descriptions would be "zen and spare" rather than "short and useless." Below is a direct translation (or as direct as I can get). As you can see, it leaves a lot to the imagination:

Patrones 252 #9
Sportmax Blouse

Number of pattern pieces: 5 (from 15-19)

Fabric: 2 m of 1.4 wide fabric in striped cotton

Cut:
17 Blouse front (cut two)
16 Blouse back (cut on fold)
15 and 15A Sleeve (cut two)
18 Cuff (cut two)
19 Collar (cut two on fold)

Construction:
Sew front and back darts.

Sew shoulder seams.

Pass a double gather in the sleeve cap and sew into the armholes.

Sew sleeve and side in one continuous seam.

Pass a double gather at the ends of the sleeves.

Apply fusible interfacing in the middle of the cuffs on the wrong side, iron, fold right against right, sew the short end, turn, and sew to the end of the sleeves, tightening the gathers and forming a pleat at the middle of the cuffs. Turn cuffs.

Fold the front placket and secure with a backstitch.

Apply interfacing to the wrong side of one collar, iron, and unite the two collars right against right. Sew the upper edge to mark A. Trim the seam allowance a little, turn and sew one layer to the neckline to mark A. Turn the layer opposite. [It’s not noted but assume here you hand stitch the other layer in place on the inside.]

Make hems, sew buttonholes, sew buttons.

A Wine Gift Bag with Pocket

The Sew Mama Sew blog did 30 days of handmade gifts in November, links to all kinds of tutorials and gift ideas for the sewist (here's the compiled list). It was a really fun read and there were lots of ideas that sparked my interest. I especially appreciated all the generous people who have posted tutorials. So when I found myself needing to create a wine bag, I thought I should spread the wealth.

After law school I clerked for a judge (two judges, actually) and he recently celebrated his 20th year on the bench. I didn't want to get him any tchotchkes or dust collectors, so I figured a nice bottle of wine is always appreciated. This occasion called for heartfelt words, not a scrawled signature on one of those little cards with a punchy hole threaded through a drawstring, so I puzzled a bit about how to attach a real card to a wine bag. I thought of punching a hole in it, but that's just not classy. Then I thought of a pocket. Of course!

This method works only with fabric that is attractive on both the right and the wrong side. Jacquard was an easy choice here.

Start by measuring your wine bottle against the fabric. I ended up with a rectangle 24" long and 13" wide. This should work for any standard bottle of wine. If you have champagne or a magnum, you'll need to do custom sizing. My pocket ended up a little tall, so I could have shaved an inch or two off that, but it was totally fine.


Next, fold up what will be the pocket based on your bottle size. Mine was 9 1/2 inches from the raw edge of what would eventually be the pocket.


Mark the pocket foldline.


Turn the pocket and top edges under. I did about 3/4 of an inch, and double folded them to hide the raw edges. They need to be hemmed on the opposite sides from one another--the pocket toward the wrong side and the top toward the right side (or vice versa--it doesn't really matter).


Now stitch along the pocket foldline you previously marked, with the finished pocket edge wrong side out.


Once you've stitched the foldline, you need to sew the side seam. I did a French seam so it would look all nice. To do so, fold the pocket up along the seamline, wrong sides together (so the bag looks as it will when finished). Make a narrow seam along the side, and finish with a zigzag. Next time I make this bag, I will sew a ribbon into the side seam at this point for tying around the neck of the wine bottle. I had a hard time keeping the ribbon in place on the finished gift.


To complete the French seam, turn the bag wrong side out and stitch the side seam again, encasing the raw edges of the first seam.


Turn the bag right side out and voila! Slip in your wine bottle, tie with a ribbon, and tuck your card or gift into the pocket. I was worried that having the pocket seam along the bottom might make the whole thing unsteady, but even with my thick jacquard the wine bottle stood up just fine.


If you want to make a little gift to go with the wine, it's easy to make little wine charms with ring-sized memory wire and beads. Memory wire is really hard on cutters, so use old ones if you have them.

How to Dye Your Eyebrows

There was a thread on Pattern Review about redheads and what colors are flattering. I'm not a real redhead, but I play one in my life so I read it. It turns out, not surprisingly, that not all redheads can wear the same colors. There was also a fair amount of discussion of eyebrows and what to do about them for those of us who get a little help to justify our fiery tempers. I never would have thought of dyeing my eyebrows until I went to get my hair cut several years ago and my hairdresser told me to hang on a minute so she could get the dye off her eyebrows. I figured if a trained professional said it was OK I'd give it a shot. It's great! It makes a huge difference in my face when I remember to dye them, as otherwise my eyebrows are clear (I'm a natural blonde).

**REQUIRED LEGAL DISCLAIMER** I am not a doctor or a cosmetologist. There is a danger from dyeing your eyebrows. Be careful, and dye at your own risk. I am providing this information for free and have no liability for anything you may do. Also, this will only work for dyeing your eyebrows darker; I don't know how to lighten eyebrows.

So here's how you do it.

You can either go to Sally and buy professional products (my choice) or just buy a box from the grocery store. At any rate you need developer, dye, an eyedropper, something to mix on (I use a yogurt lid), some q tips, and some cotton pads or balls.



Developer comes in different numbers and I know they somehow correspond to whether you're dyeing lighter or darker. I just don't know how they correspond. I chose 20 Vol because it's in the middle. It works fine. Make a small puddle on your lid; you really don't need much. It's thick and it helps to use a q tip to get it out.



I have an eyedropper whose sole use is hair dye. I recommend you get one too because it's really hard to pour the right amount. Drop dye into the developer so that they are in equal amounts.

As you can see, I'm a fan of the L'Oreal Mega Reds line. For my eyebrows, I use either light intense copper (shown) or a mix of light intense copper and medium intense golden copper. If you have darker skin you might be able to use a darker color.



Mix up the dye and developer using a qtip until it thickens. It only takes a second. You actually don't need to make as much as I did, I don't know why I mixed up such a big batch. This would have done 3 or 4 pairs of eyebrows. Once the dye and developer have been mixed they lose their potency really quickly, within a couple of hours. So you have to mix up a new batch fresh each time you color.



Here's where technique comes in. Using a q tip, apply the dye to your eyebrows opposite the direction of hair growth, and apply only to hair. Do not get it on your skin. Clean up any that gets on your skin with a q tip. If you are nervous about getting it on your skin, you can put a thin layer of petroleum jelly such as Vaseline on the skin around your eyebrow to create a protective barrier. I don't bother with this, though.



You can see here that while I have loaded the hair generously with dye, it doesn't go all the way down to the roots and touch my skin. Hair dye will color your skin. It fades after a couple of days, but you'll look really funny in the meantime if you don't take precautions.



My fine blonde hairshaft takes 13 minutes to dye. This is about half the time it takes for my whole head to dye (well, took, I've switched to henna for my hair which is 2 1/2 excruciating hours in a plastic shower cap--but the color is so much better and so much less damaging that it's worth it). Don't leave on your eyebrows as long as on your hair--try half at first and see if it's enough. I made the mistake of dying for 25 minutes the first time I tried it. I had cheeto caterpillars on my face.



When your time is up, wipe off the dye first with a dry cotton pad. When you've wiped off as much as you can use a damp cotton pad to clean it up the rest of the way. No need to use soap, but unlike with dyeing your whole head it's ok to wash that day--you don't have to wait three days to wash your face!



Immediately after you remove the dye, they're pretty bright. It will tone down quickly (usually after several hours).



And voila! Matching hair and eyebrows. Nobody will ever know your secret.

Cooling My Jets

After my frenetic sewing of the past few weekends, I needed a break this weekend. Even though it was a three day weekend for me, I still wasn't quite ready to face up to a big project.

Not that I did nothing, of course.

I made the cloth pads in the previous post.

I finally turned a dress that didn't fit into a skirt. I couldn't bear to take a before pic of the dress because it looked *so* bad on me. I got it from a discount store that was going out of business somewhere between 7 and 9 years ago. It was in Austin where I went to law school, and my sister still lived in Austin because she was with me when she bought it. I'm pretty sure it was before she had kids so that makes it 9 years ago, but she moved away from Austin 7 years ago so that's the most recent it could have been.

It was a beautiful dress; the top was very simple sleeveless (but not spaghetti straps). For that reason it took me many years to decide to make it a skirt. It was such a pretty dress that I didn't want to "ruin" and knew I should give it away so somebody could enjoy it. But finally I realized that in order to fit into that dress, "somebody" would (1) need to be at least 4 inches taller than me for the torso scale to be right; this one isn't hard as I am only 5'1", but (2) have a 25 inch waist at the outside, preferably 24 inch, *and* (3) have a 34-36 inch bust, with a B cup minimum. There are very few somebodies like that out there, and the odds that one of those somebodies would be shopping at the thrift store rather than, say, being plied with drinks at the nearest bar seem very slim and so I decided I could keep the dress and make it into a skirt. When I bought it, there were lines of embroidery floss across the bottom but in the front only and they were gaudy and hideous (I expect the reason why the dress did not sell at the original price of $78). I took those out when I first bought it. The gray is actually silk organza, though the underskirt is acetate.

I also turned a bunch of Fashion Fabrics Club swatches into a trivet.

I am not a quilter, but it seemed a waste to throw away all those precut little pieces. I didn't have any batting or old towels or thick fabric to pad it with, so it's a trivet rather than a potholder. After visiting the Gee's Bend quilt exhibit with Cidell, I was a little inspired. I don't like the rigidity of the patterns (no big surprise), but there were some beautiful free form quilts with just a bunch of pieces sewn together that I really loved. So I've been toying with turning some of my natural fiber scraps into free form quilt-ish items. I think I may part with a towel to make potholders.

I was supposed to be cleaning, so naturally my eye was attracted to unfinished projects. Finishing projects is cleaning, right? It's a slow way to clean, but slow and steady wins the race. I enjoyed Sarah's article on sweater reconstruction on PR a while back (December? I think--I would link to it, but only PR members can read back articles. I am a member so I can look it up if you are too and are curious.) One of the suggestions was to turn a sweater into a cardigan by cutting up the center and crocheting the cut edges to finish them. I have some nice sweaters I'd like to alter, but I wanted to start with a cheap one.

This sweater is from the girl's department of WalMart. Girls' tops fit me well across the chest (le sigh), but the sleeves are a little too short and the tops can be a tad too short. This one was just too short to wear as a sweater. I carefully cut up the center and crocheted the sides with embroidery floss (all six strands). I did three rows of crochet. It was unfinished because I ran out of floss on the third row of the last side. I had bought more, but hadn't picked it up again until yesterday. It will be held together with a button (from my FM 4 lb bag, natch) glued to a bar pin. So it will look buttoned, but it's actually pinned. Quel clever, no? This project took me only about 6 months to complete. I'm sure the rest of those sweaters will be altered in plenty of time for winter. ::rollseyes::


All this crocheting put me in mind of a type of bracelet I make, so while I was on the phone with a friend I worked this one up.

The stones are from a friend, whose aunt sent them to her. I *believe* they are very low grade Peruvian opal. The pic is a bit dark, but in person they are whitish green, with some darker and some lighter. It's a very organic bracelet and because I did so many stones on it I think it might be too much for my somewhat freakishly small wrist. But since I made it to fit me I don't know if it will fit anyone else. My source for 28 ga sterling silver wire is artbeads.com. From these two projects you might believe that I can crochet. I cannot. To call my crochet skills "elementary" would be an untenable social promotion like putting the football player who can't read into the 11th grade so he can stay on the team. I can do chain stitch and then single crochet or whatever it means to do chain stitch while catching the previous chain stitch. That is all. My mom is an amazing crocheter. Maybe someday I will have her teach me. She has tried in the past, though, and it never took. I learned my crochet "skills" from the internet.

Today I met up with a friend at the Renwick Gallery, part of the Smithsonian (and therefore free admission!). It's part of the Museum of American Art, though located near the White House, and specializes in craft. I can't believe I had never been there before! I think a lot of the exhibits are closed, but I liked what I saw. There is a large gallery called George Catlin's Indian Gallery. The artist traveled through the American West just before the Trail of Tears to try to document Native dress and culture. The paintings were much more sensitive than I would have expected--the artist did not seem to be after novelty value or caricature. There was not much by way of craft, unfortch, but there are some a-mazing glass pieces and some trompe l'oeil furniture that was really incredible.


Anyway, I took watercolor classes for a couple of years with some girlfriends, and near the end of our classes our teacher suggested I incorporate fabric into my art. I did a piece in class that I really loved and then started saving fabric scraps. Which grew and grew into a monstrous collection and it had been two years since I was supposed to make them into a collage so I decided it was time for them to go in the trash. But first, I figured I would give myself one last chance to do a collage, hoping to be inspired by my visit to the Renwick. I convinced my friend to do it with me and so I finally made a fabric collage. My theme was textures. You can see why I am a crafter, and *not* an artist. Those years of classes were a bit torturous to me (I did them with girlfriends because we wanted to make sure we'd all get together at least once a week). I can't do art, never could, never will be. By this I don't mean that I am not artistic or cannot appreciate or create beauty. But not on paper, canvas, wood, or any other flat surface. The tomato soup I made from farmer's market tomatoes came out much better than the collage, so at least the afternoon was not wasted! I also made some white bean, quinoa, shiitake, and spinach soup to bring for my lunch this week.

I feel pretty relaxed, but I won't be able to sew next weekend. Saturday will be an all-day bachelorette winery canoe trip (don't ask), and Sunday will be recovering from the all-day bachelorette winery canoe trip. I am saddened by the upcoming loss of my weekend.

Menstrual Madness!

So, there's a thread over on PR on the Miscellaneous board right now about "alternative, reusable menstrual products." This is a topic near and dear to my heart, so I'm going to go ahead and get all TMI on your ass.

I <3 cloth pads. That's right, I said it. I am not a hippie dippie (well, i am a vegetarian who uses cloth pads) armpit-non-shaving pagan moon goddess. I'm a bougie yuppie (except for the vegetarianism, cloth pads, walking everywhere, etc. etc.) with a cute wardrobe and conventional grooming habits. What I'm saying is, there's room for cloth pads in every woman's life. It doesn't have to be a political or a feminist statement (though for me it is both), it can just be because they are so much freaking more comfortable than plastic disposable pads. They are more absorbent, too, believe it or not. Three layers of cotton flannel lasts three times as long as a disposable pad before it needs to be changed. And, hello! So much cuter! Check out the adorable ones above, made for a friend who is curious to try them.

I didn't start using them until I had a washer/dryer in my own home. I will exempt anyone who doesn't have that luxury from my request that you just consider it for even a split second. I will also exempt you if you have a really heavy flow; mine is light enough that I don't have to change during the workday so I don't have to carry a used pad around with me. Everyone else: just think about it.

I rinse them out and let them dry after use, and then wash them whenever I'm doing laundry. They don't smell bad or do anything scary while they're waiting for the wash.

They're really easy to make and so much more comfortable than disposables. No chafing! No inadvertent bikini wax when the adhesive catches you! No crackly embarrassing sound when you walk! No landfill-filling! (Ok, that last reason is kind of hippie dippie, but that's ok by me.)

If your first reaction is: Ick, I get that. When pads are being demonstrated on television they use blue liquid because OMG MY PERIOD IS SO GROSS!!!!!!! I WANT TO DIEEEEE!!!!!! But try to have a second reaction. Why is your menstrual blood soooooo disgusting that it has to be mummified and hidden at the bottom of the trash can and thrown to the unspeakable depths of the landfill? Do you take that much care with the tissue you use to sop up the blood when you stick yourself with a pin when sewing? Probably not. Blood is blood. Menstruation is normal, not shameful or embarrassing or gross or a terrible, horrible thing that happens to you every month (easy for me to say, I don't get cramps when I'm on the pill--if you get cramps I'll give you the terrible horrible bit).

To make, just trace around your favorite brand of pads, cut out three layers of flannel, make wings, zigzag, flip over and zigzag from the other side, add velcro, and voila! In wearing and making them for a couple of years I have learned that (1) the wings need to be long compared to the length of the pad to keep them from riding to the back of your underwear when you walk, and they need to fasten at the front and the back of the wing, not just in the middle. Someone on PR suggested using corduroy for the bottom layer to stick them more in place, and for people with a heavier flow you can use PUL for the bottom layer. (2) When fastened, the wings need to be slightly narrower than the pad to keep it from crumpling up inside your underwear. (3) You can use velcro if you round the edges of it and overlap the two velcro pieces *exactly* when you put it on.