"horses blouse" project

in which our plucky heroine thinks critically...

Put in a bit more time over the last few days on the horses blouse, which is almost done. The pattern draft comes together neatly, and the instructions are superb. (The untimely death ten years ago of Fred Bloebaum was a great loss to the sewing community. I particularly appreciate the inset notes in the instructions about various details and tips for construction or pressing or marking. The shawl collar construction worked very well, but I am not entirely happy with the shape of the finished collar (no fault of the pattern) but the wide spreading shape doesn't suit my face, and the grain of the collar means that the horses on the collar are once again tilted.

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I reshaped that part of the collar to a scalloped and curved edge instead. Fortunately I had not yet stitched the collar facing down, so it only needed my making up a template, turning the facing/front inside out, and re-stitching and pressing. I am remembering now that way back when I made this pattern before, I made several variations on the collar shape. What is interesting to me is that I am becoming much clearer on what styles/colors/shapes appeal to me the most*, often before starting on a project, or in the middle when it is still possible to change, rather than sewing up something only for it to feel subtly wrong. Not to say that I am immune to wadders, but rather that they result from sewing or fitting fail, and not from poor design choices.

...and, in the end, it is sort of a wearable muslin, in that (while it is quite wearable and will coordinate well with all my pinafores) some significant modification was needed, and would probably do a bit more before making it up again. First off, I cut the blouse fabric an inch and a half too long, despite shortening the pattern beforehand. I no longer do a turned hem on blouses that will only be worn underneath pinafores, as since the hemline always remains unseen, simply serging the hem edge gives a flatter and faster edge treatment that is just as durable.

Also, the mostly straight up and down bodice ended up needing some additional hip width, and rather than fit in some godets, which would be most annoying to finish the points and edges, I decided to whack out as long a rectangle from the remaining scraps as could be managed, sew repeating darts into the rectangle to curve it, and then cut a centered rectangle on the back of the already stitched blouse and inset the curved rectangle as a flared peplum. Definitely a non-standard alteration, but it echoes the square armscye and looks intentional. In the future I would also want to cut the sleeves at least an inch longer, which would have been possible had I not cut the front and back too long. Overall the pattern does give me a second option if a straight grain blouse front is needed, I love the square armsceye, and intend to do some more fine tuning the fit as well as experiment with collar shapes in the future.

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January SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	card for Bera	better light in workroom	bag to Goodwill
2	Awesome Sauce	improve dotted neckline	paper recycling
3	horses blouse	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	-	-	-
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

today's gratitude - wearing a self-made wardrobe leads to random unexpected compliments from (female) strangers. Yesterday while I was walking to the store a woman in a car stopped to compliment my Solbein lopi cardigan, and we had a little chat about knitting, before the light turned and she had to drive on. It is always women, and happens to me at least once or twice a month. I don't know whether that is because men don't notice clothing, or because they don't notice plump old women, or because of any of the other myriad complicated rules of gendered interaction.

* medium to low contrast patterns, subtle darkish colors, curved edges rather than angular, stripes, botanical motifs, and of course using my chosen color palette and natural fibers. Whenever I push the edges of these guidelines it is chancy how well I will like the results. The horses blouse is, I realised, borderline in that the print is actually quite contrasty in value range. I was seduced by the incredible charm of the Heather Ross ponies.

some Saturday snippets

in which our plucky heroine makes a number of steps forward...

Just found out this week that my friend Berengeria had a stroke. Apparently she has been in hospital, in the ICU, since November, but only recently transfered to a long term care hospital here in Portland and well enough that visitors would be encouraging rather than a danger. I went to see her Friday afternoon, after making this card for her.

Her husband Alail was also there when I arrived, and she was asleep, so we talked a bit until the nurse gave her some medication which woke her up. He can understand her speech much better than I could; the good thing is that she can speak now. It is hard to see someone so lively now laid so low, but I figure that the best thing I can do is continue to visit while she is there; I know how very tedious being in hospital is...

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Started the first steps for my Athena blouse, stitching the sew in interfacing to the reverse side of the facings, and in time to the reverse side of the back yoke I've added to the blouse, as a way of giving some additional width to the back, which is an easy way to give greater mobility to woven tops. Additionally, the plain white sheeting will help keep the patterned fabric facing from showing through the center front as shadow horses.

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Since there is only a few jars of Awesome Sauce left on the pantry shelf, it is time to take some of the frozen tomato, already packaged in 400g quantities, and make more; there are enough in the freezer to make two full batches, enough to share with my next door neighbors who also love it, and who share their tomato harvest with me in the summertime.

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For some reason when I first put the saffron linen gown together, I only guessed at the measurement of Larry's neckline, which turned out to be a not very good guess, and it was not quite large enough. I had to carefully remove the front binding, recut the neckline, and then add a new binding. Now he will be able to pull it over his head without having to remove his eyeglasses and take out his ponytail first! I will have to add "measure neckline" to my notes for future sewing (embarassed)

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oops, must need fix this... . . . now fixed!!

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January SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	card for Bera	better light in workroom	bag to Goodwill
2	Awesome Sauce	improve dotted neckline	paper recycling
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	-	-	-
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

today's gratitude - today was comparatively warm, and in the damp gap between rains, I managed to get to the library on my bicycle to return the books due tomorrow. Being able to still ride my bike, and to use it to get around the neighborhood, never gets tiresome. I intend to keep using it as local transport as long as possible.

a less than auspicious start

in which our plucky heroine is quite distracted by pain...

Some of the time I just plain hate my endoskeleton. This is one of those times... and, adding injury to insult, not only has my SI joint decided that it isn't going to cooperate with the rest of my body, screaming at me with every change of position, but yesterday morning while eating breakfast I bit my tongue. Hard. Like bleeding into the porridge spoon. Never done that before. Looked at it afterwards and it seems not to need medical attention, but hurts, because tongue tip! One friend suggested that this, rather than being an inauspicious start to the new year, is instead the last of 2019, adding an extra smack of unpleasantness just because it can. Here's hoping that 2020 brings better things to all of us!

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Started on my next personal sewing, with this treasured fabric, light blue cotton with horses in various shades from dark brown to creamy white. I plan to make a blouse, using LaFred's Athena Blouse pattern. I will need to alter the pattern to fit me better, as the last time I made it was over fifteen years and umpteen pounds ago.

The Athena blouse has an interesting square armscye, and as I recall has sort of dropped shoulders and a loose fit, so quite different than my current TNT blouse pattern, which has a bias cut front, set in sleeves, and a peplum lower half. However, running the print on the bias would look odd; diagonal stripes, or florals, are no problem, but I felt that horses standing diagonally all down my front would not do. Hence my need to re-fit a pattern that allows the blouse front to be cut on the straight of grain, an easier task than entirely redrafting the front of my TNT pattern. And this will (hopefully) give me a second TNT blouse pattern, subtly different than the other...

I was worried that there might not be enough yardage, until I realised that my own short stature meant I could shorten the pattern pieces rather a lot. I first measured the other blouses I've sewn, to get the ideal length, and then laid out the pattern on the fabric... just enough! Really glad, since that Heather Ross fabric has apparently become very "collectable" in the intervening many years it has been aging on my shelf... The fabric pieces, together with thread, chosen buttons, and a piece of well washed white sheeting (sew in interfacing for the front edge and the back yoke), all go into a tote bag as a sewing kit for this week whenever I get a bit of time.

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I also set up the two lamps that were my gift to myself and to the house this year. The tabletop plant light is quite sturdy and simple, and once I acquire some planting pots*, will soon be working hard keeping the kitchen here at Acorn Cottage in fresh herbage. I plan to grow arugula and cilantro, and to pick up a basil plant at Trader Joes. The plant light + tray + plant pots will fit neatly atop the clothes dryer, where there is also a convenient electrical outlet. I wish that there were more outlets in the kitchen.

The other lamp was an LED/circular magnifier for use when working on small projects (enameling, metalwork, and scribal arts), the combination of better lighting and magnification will be most helpful, in a way that my eyeglasses are not. There must needs be some rearrangement of tables in order to accommodate the lamp, which is somewhat larger than I imagined, and has joints that only bend in certain directions. "Proficere lente sed proficere"

* I ordered these small self-watering pots with the last of last years Amazon birthday gift credit. I am no way a natural gardener, and I figure that plants here need all the help I can manage.

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January SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	-	new workroom light	bag to Goodwill
2	-	-	-
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	-	-	-
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

today's gratitude - this year is a great improvement on last year at this time, which had me in so much pain from cranky ankle that I needed an MRI and much physical therapy, and a lot of time to pass before I could walk without agony.