stitching and planning...

in which our plucky heroine is busy with needle and thread....

This is what the completed repair on Tullia's dress looks like... all the various steps and processes together allow motifs like this to embellish clothing in a simple direct way, or in this case, transform a terrible gash into yet another bit of decoration

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Spent most of today stitching up the "popover tunic/blouse" experiment. It was not a success, as a design that looks well in rayon or silk or linen twill looks irredeemably bunchy in printed cotton. Not feeling like it is worth taking this experiment any further. Not sure it is worth seeing if I can re-cut the pieces into a different experiment... but will look at my patterns and see what may be possible. If not, this fabric can always become baby clothing for little Kestrel

On the other hand, I do have a venerable linen shirt jacket that fits sort of the way I would want a woven top to fit... and though the pattern for that has been lost for years, I could give it the same treatment with blue painters tape (as I did so successfully for the cropped pants) and create a new pattern that way... Hmmm...

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*My current wardrobe: note areas missing... The ideal is to have enough clothes to wear for a week before laundry must happen; to achieve this, there need to be close to eight in each categories.

#		KNIT TOPS	BLOUSES	DRESSES	PINAFORES	POPOVERS	SLIPS	PANTS
1		indigo/black layered	black floral	*	dark denim	inightsky batik	black knit embroidered	black
2		black bleach print	*	*	black corduroy	black/white batik	grey silk lined	grey
3		black/grey crow	*	*	black linen	multicolored	*	brown
4		black/grey stripey t-neck	*	*	black vertical pique	grey textured	*	light blue
5		black/white winter t-neck	*	*	grey corduroy	black sparkle	*	*
6		black/cream marled	*	*	brown twill	turquoise green	*	*
7		blue/grey stripey	*	*	brown/black	Japanese indigo	*	*
8		brown t-neck	*	*	*	*	*	*

There are an assortment of other garments and accessories on my list of fairly high priority projects. I really need a new swimsuit, the chlorine at the city pool keeps the water safe to swim in, but it does a number on fabric. My current suit is looking pretty shabby, and I am thinking about going back to this pattern (KWIK SEW Pattern 2690 Misses' Swim Dress 1998), with a few modifications...

I love me a skirted suit, but want to alter the pattern to have the skirt start at waist level rather than all the way up under the bustline. A skirt that only goes partway up the suit will stay put a bit better when actually in the water, the skirt as drafted looks lovely poolside, but when doing water exercise it flops about and gets in the way. I do have both some swimsuit fabric and suitable elastic, so this may move up the list

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	85" tablet weaving	overdye dress	bag to Goodwill
2	Byzantine scroll	bathrobe buttons	shelf and fan
3	x	bathrobe pockets	yard waste bin
4	x	pruning Yakima plum	dead rake head
5	x	Tullia dress	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

a necesary repair

This afternoon, hiding indoors from the bad air and the heat, I made a good start on repairing Tullia's dress...

This is the large right-angle tear, between the center front and the side seam pocket...  There is no way to simply mend damage like this to make it less visible, so instead, the idea she and I came up with is to add decorative foliage that will coordinate with the other embellishment. A sprig of vegetation can bend around the angle and allow the edges of the tear to be part of the fabric to be cut away, once the reverse applique is completed

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I've had lots of experience in the last few years using freezer paper for one of a kind stenciling; it gives a really crisp painted edge. The "plastic-y" side of the freezer paper gets ironed on to the fabric, where it sticks just enough to prevent the paint from oozing under the stencil

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Once the paint is fully dry, the freezer paper can be peeled away, leaving the motif clearly delineated, and ready for the next steps... Tomorrow, after I heat set the paint, I will be able to baste the kelly green jersey behind this layer, running stitch around the edges of the design, and finally cut away the centers of the stems and leaves...

a lot of North America is on fire...

in which our plucky heroine notices that the air reminds her of childhood* sorrow...

This morning, heading into another Hot Summer Day, the air quality here in Portland (158) is more than three times as bad as it is in Beijing today (51), though for different reasons:

So, instead of errands by bicycle this morning, I am going to focus on sewing, and planning projects that need attention, and stay indoors and try and breathe. I can only imagine how much worse it is for those closer to the fires, as it is pretty bad here.

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my current two sewing projects:
1. repair of the dress I embellished for Tullia... there is a right angle tear in the front, near the pocket on one side, and it will require some clever design work, and somewhat challenging stitchery. Fortunately we were able to acquire some more of the kelly green cotton jersey fabric that was used as the underlayer, so the repair will be unobtrusive as to color. It will be a three stage process, first doing a freezer paper stencil of the newly designed motif. That will have to sit for 24 hours before being heat set for permanence. At that point, the actual reverse applique can be completed, and the dress will be wearable again.

2. This charming VW microbus cotton print fabric will hopefully become a "wearable muslin" popover blouse, as I am thinking that some simple modification of my summertime popover dress may also work as a top to wear with my everday pinafores for the other three seasons of the year. This fabric has been on my stash shelf for years; the colorway, with reds and orange and yellow accents, is not a great match for my wardrobe, but I just couldn't resist the assorted tiny scenes, of people camping with their VW, the little popup campertops so like my own former bus, hippies with guitars, surfboards, children playing, and dogs running...

And, the blue and brown accents will loosely coordinate with my pinafores, so I hope I can transmogrify my TNT popover to also be a loose fitting popover blouse. Aside from shortening the pattern to blouse length, I intend to simply add some rectangular tunic sleeves with square gussets, just like my SCA clothing. As well, it occurs to me that cutting the pattern down the center front, adding button bands, and possibly even adding a collar will give me something relatively close to a shirt/blouse. It will be an interesting experiment.

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	85" tablet weaving	overdye dress	bag to Goodwill
2	Byzantine scroll	bathrobe buttons	shelf and fan
3	x	bathrobe pockets	yard waste bin
4	x	pruning Yakima plum	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

*I spent a huge chunk of my youth in suburban Los Angeles, when all year long the visibility was limited by smog. People forget, I think, how it was prior to the Clean Air Acts:

Smog-shrouded view of downtown Los Angeles, on October 7, 1968.
Herald-Examiner Collection photo courtesy of The Los Angeles Public Library