Garment Design: Gourmet Edition

I did break down and make myself this
sleeveless maternity dress, even though I
was 8.5 months pregnant at the time.

I'm doing the thing right now, where I'm delaying making nice things for myself because I feel the need to clean my house first, and then I don't want to make anything for my body in this size, and feel like I should save that silk noil until I've lost a bit of chub. Which is why I don't sew enough clothes for myself.

But while I was obsessing over this false choice, I hit upon a metaphor, which demanded to be blogged. So here I am, to talk about Garment Design.

Sewing for your family is like cooking for your family. Buying clothes off the rack is like buying processed, ready-to-eat food. Hey, we're all busy moms, and mouths must be fed, bums must be covered, right? (Sometimes, if you're going to a really nice store when a cheap one would suffice, it's like eating out. And that's just something you have to do every now and then.) With the decline in teaching the art of sewing - why, school systems, did you ever banish Home Economics? - people turn to off-the-rack as the staple of their wardrobe, and I really feel like this is negatively affecting the nutritional content of our dressing habits, so to speak. There is a diminished ability to express personal style, the quality of off-the-rack clothing is usually fairly poor, and changing trends can make shopping a nightmare for the choosy wearer, or one with "special dietary needs" (i.e. a larger, curvier figure, or the opposite).

This is me just making stuff up

Next comes sewing your own. Here's where I start to sound snooty - the culinary equivalent of sewing from a pattern is baking a cake from a cake mix. The patterns are designed to end up just like off-the-rack clothing. That means that they are all drafted to fit a b-cup bust size, among other drawbacks. Some will have those helpful recipe add-in suggestions on the box, such as how to alter a bust-line, or lengthening and shortening lines. But unless you've trained yourself in pattern alterations, they're not going to be very personal.

It turned into a wedding dress for my sister, which was
supposed to look like it was stitched  out of leaves.

What I mostly do is like cooking from a good recipe book. I mix and match my patterns, taking a sleeve from here, a neckline from there, use a tiered skirt instead of a straight skirt, and I lengthen everything, like I always add extra butter to my food. Sometimes I'll improvise a pan sauce, drafting a new piece or slipping in a pocket, replacing the zipper with buttons. It gives a wider scope for my ideas to take shape, and it also cuts down on the number of patterns I have to store. If I really want to make something again, I'll start by drafting my FrankenPattern onto muslin, which clips together with a big safety pin and doesn't need to be pinned to your fabric when cutting.

OK, yes, that is a zipper. I made two ball gowns in one day,
all right? I had to take a short cut.

Every once in a while, when I want something really unique, I'll just make it all up, such the Zuko costume for my son. My daughters attend an English Country Dance once a year, which requires (well, it's "optional", but we're us) Regency Era Dress, and since authentic patterns are hard to come by, I look in my Patterns of Fashion reproduction manual, and drape the patterns right there on their bodies, which is loads of fun. True cooking from scratch.

The final option is Thrifting, which I consider to be the equivalent of foraging in the wild, or growing your own food. I'm bad at all of those, so I'm just going to give it a passing nod of utmost respect.

Tune in next time for a pompous discourse on sourcing your ingredients.

I finished my Shawl!

OK, I have a bit of time now. I finally finished the lace stole/shawl/scarf thingy, and I LOVE IT. It had a life of its own, as all art projects do - it doesn't look like the picture in the book, and I had to change some things as I went, but that's the fun of it, after all. Where's the adventure if it all goes according to plan?

The big thing that made me laugh at myself while working on it was this: all along, I knew the pattern said "work lace chart 31 times." Anyone see the problem here? I imagine at least some of my readers will. As I got closer and closer to the 31st pattern repeat, the more that number, Thirty-One, grated on my nerves. It's prime. It's all pointy and angular and weird. It's not Thirty, which is a nice round number, nor yet Thirty-Two, which is an elegant power of two, and twice the square of the first square. But Thirty-One was what was writ. What's more, I ran out of my second ball of yarn at almost precisely the halfway point, and I only had four, so I worried about lengthening it. But I knew in my heart that that prime number would bug me every time I put it on.

Teresa agreed to model for me.
Isn't she pretty?

So after careful row counting, I decided to bump it up to Thirty-Two. There I was, practically *finished*, but I had to add the extra pattern repeat, for the good of my soul. And the good news is, I had plenty of yarn left. I'm using it to make tiny crocheted snow flakes, because it is sparkly.

The other thing of it, now, is that I have nothing I can wear with it. So this blog is going to have to move away from the Knitting Department and into the Garment Design and Construction Zone. I want to make something navy blue, maybe. It's tricky - a dark color will show up the lace best, but as I discovered over and over (but I guess never really *learned*, since I kept doing it) while knitting, black and mohair aren't a smart combination. I looked like I have a very affectionate long-haired cat.

I began this stole just before Ash Wednesday, which was March 9. I finished it yesterday, so it took me 72 days. In between the start and the end, I also made two hats and a baby sweater. (here's a photo or two of the second hat. It's baby-sized.)

I'm alive again!

PS - if you want to see the pictures in more detail, you can click on them to view them in a full-size slide show.

Sunday Inspiration (more of other people's writing)

Just a little something I embroidered
a few years ago - my daughter taught
me a few stitches so I could do this.

This week was filled with photocopying and camping, so I didn't even get to complete a single pattern repeat on my lace, not even while watching TV. So I'm going to refer you, again, to a post by someone else, this one about the importance (for homeschooling mothers particularly, but for everyone else, too) of nourishing your own interests, continuing to draw inspiration from your culture.

This post took an hour to write, because I was called away so many times. Thus goes many a "quiet" Sunday afternoon.

About Knitting

Knitting is the newest tool in my beauty box. I tried when I was a kid, but my work kept getting wider and wider as I went. It wasn't until I was teaching my own child how to knit with rainbow variegated yarn that I saw where I had been picking up stitches - there, right in the middle of my yellow stitches, was a loop from the purple row below! Now I had the Key!

It was still a while before I realized the versatility of my newfound skill. It could be functional:

(but really, really boring to make - 
those last hundred hours couldn't have gotten any slower. 
I still can't believe I finished the whole thing!)

It could be whimsical:

(that's a pig.)

It could be cosy and comfortable, yet decorative and full of flair:

(I haven't yet made the match to this, so you only get to see one.)

Depending on what you choose to make, it can be meditative, engaging, challenging or consuming. It's handily portable. Hand knit items make great gifts. Beautiful yarn feels wonderful in your hands. You can work a bit at a time. And you're spared the crocheter's constant agony of people asking "What are you knitting?"

I use Knitter's Pride "Dreamz" polished wood needles (hey, I didn't name them), because they feel really nice, and stay put in my work, unlike aluminum needles. Also unlike aluminum, they don't have an irritating clicky noise - I think of aluminum as the Plastic of Metals. Ew. Using circular needles keeps me secure in the knowledge that it will be really, really hard for curious little fingers to pull the needles out of my work and ruin everything.

These days, besides a small piglet-in-process that I carry in my purse all the time, I am busily exploring a new dimension of knitting - airy soft and whispery delicate:

This is a lace stole from this book, which I've had for years and years and always wanted to try. The yarn is a mohair/silk blend - it's very hairy - with a bit of silvery sparkle just for fun.

So far, I've made about seven major errors. I recount at the end of every other row, and I've gone back and unpicked a few times (the yarn is too hairy to rip back, so lifelines are useless), but mostly I just mark the spot and correct on the next row. And you know what? It Doesn't Show At All.