We're here!

Writing dropped off the priorities list after my last post in October because we did, in fact, move to Snowy State (although there's still no snow here).  J got a job in Snowy State literally days after my last post--a college friend called on a Thursday to say that if J could be there on Monday, there was a job waiting for him, so he drove off with a car full of stuff and the cat.  It's not a super reliable job, since theater work is unreliable work: when it rains it pours, but when there's nothing, there's nothing.  Because J works on the technical set construction end, his kind of jobs dry up once the acting starts, as with the start of all the big Christmas shows.  

Between my stipend and pinching our pennies, we're doing ok.  J lived with my mother in October/November while looking for an apartment, and I stayed in Cloudy City to finish teaching, sublet our apartment, and finish the move out on that end.  The Post Office has lost at least two of the twenty-three boxes (yes, 23!) of books I mailed, which concerns me since my academic and craft books are hard to find and expensive.  

My sewing machine is also somewhere in transition across the country, so with the unpacking and holidays there will be minimal craft making.  I've felt a little at loose ends since getting unpacked because I usually mix writing time with craft project time, and most of my sewing/craft things are either still in the mail or were donated.  I'm trying to keep purchases minimal right now because of J's job situation and all the travel I'll be doing for research after the holidays (hello, airplane craft projects), but it just feels odd to have so much of our usual stuff around and then reach for a pair of scissors and not be able to find them or be sad to not have glitter.  (Although there is no such thing as too much glitter anyway).

Moving forward . . .

My mother works with a lot of corporate bureaucrats, although she isn't one herself, so "moving forward" is one of her favorite phrases to use when she's annoyed with the way things are (not) progressing.

J had another job interview yesterday, near Major Metropolis.  It was a place that sounded good at first: union, union wages, health care, good pay, good location.  But at his interview he was told that overtime is mandatory, there are layoffs every three months of people who are deemed "no longer useful" and the shop only works when there is work, and sometimes there isn't work.  That last part is pretty standard in the theater business, but the rest sounds sketchy, especially since we would have to move long distance for him to work there and there isn't much other work for him in the area if he were to be laid off.

Moving home to Snowy State is looking more and more likely, since he's gotten some offers for short term work there, his professional network is pretty strong there, and our families are both nearby if he can't find something for a while.  Cost of living is also lower.

Moving to Snowy State is looking so likely, in fact, that we're selling a lot of our furniture this week and making preparations for him to drive out there at the end of the week if we don't hear a gold plated offer from the sketchy place.  It's a bit jarring, because we've been sitting on our hands for so long and now things are suddenly moving forward so quickly.

I had to go through my fabric stash to get rid of things for the move (Snowy State is a multi-day drive, and we can't afford movers or to ship much).  Some of it I was able to get rid of with a sense of relief, because I've been sitting on it for so long that it's no longer exciting, and there's an awesome sewing/fabric thrift store in our town that only does donated fabric and notions, so it's going to a good cause.  But I still have a ton that I have plans for but no time for.  I'm increasingly excited to move near family in Snowy State, but parring down my fabric stash and the plans I had for it feels like a big break with the plans I had in Cloudy City.

More Deaccessioning

The cat and I have been spending some time in the guest bedroom going through things to get rid of before we move.  Currently it's sewing patterns.

I learned to sew mostly on my own and later working in the costume department of a living history museum, like Plimouth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg on a small scale.  (It was an 1840-1890 midwest town and I also worked as an interpreter, so I was the young lady school teacher.  Also a lady blacksmith.  Also a male soldier. Basically it was the best high school job ever.)

The costume department made our own clothes and the clothes for the rest of the staff and the volunteers, and the museum either couldn't afford bulk licencing from pattern companies or couldn't find patterns correct to the costuming director's standards.  The more experienced folks drafted patterns from their own research, original clothes in our or other museums' collections, or modified slopers.  That was probably the most long-lasting benefit I got from that job--I stopped working there after my second year of college, after four years working there, and never worked up the skill/nerve to draft anything more complicated than a lined jacket, but it definitely gave me the confidence to try later in college and grad school.  (Not trying to brag, but re-reading that, I can't believe I drafted my own lined jacket at 17.  Working with ladies who whipped out whalebone corsets and full hoopskirt dresses and Victorian jackets sans patterns definitely put things in a different perspective at the time!)  I also did some volunteer reenacting in the 17th and 18th centuries and sold clothing to people for several years, so I have a lot of other self-drafted and commercial patterns from that as well.  I kept almost all of the patterns, slopers, and muslins which fit me, and since I haven't done any more reenacting in grad school, they've just sat in a box for the last three years.

I've sorted things to get rid of and keep, getting rid of things that either just wouldn't fit me now or which I could easily redraft.  Do I need a 17th century cap pattern or an 18th century corset pattern in the near-term future?  Probably not.  Will J and I get back into reenacting some time period once he's working a job which doesn't require 80 work weeks in the summer?  Definitely.  In the mean time, what I kept now takes up four manila envelopes in the file cabinet instead of a whole box, so that feels better.

I felt sort of sad going through everything, because those patterns represent a learning experience I didn't really appreciate at the time and cutting ties with an activity and subculture that had and has a lot of meaning for me, which I don't have time to participate in any more.  But deciding to get rid of patterns which I could easily redraft also felt pretty good:  I hung onto them when I moved because I wasn't confident of being able to recreate the clothing which I had given away or sold when I moved to Overcast.  I've grown a lot in my sewing, and if I did it once I can do it again.

So. Many. Pictures.

Due to some camera/camera cord/computer issues, I've been taking pictures but not been able to upload them reliably.  Everything's fixed now, so on with Me Made June!  There's more than a week's worth of pictures, so click through to read (if this clogs up your reader, I apologize)

(Not a) Crafty Book Review

Ok, so this doesn't exactly fit with Freeze-dried's summer book club, but considering it's media and I hated the book I selected for this week's reading, I'm going to go ahead and review the videogame Kirby's Epic Yarn.

The book:  I tried reading Yarn by Jon Armstrong for this week, with emphasis on tried.  I couldn't finish it.  I think I've put down without finishing maybe four or five novels in my life.  It's got decent reviews on Amazon, and apparently got good reviews in Publisher's Weekly, the LA Times, and Locus, and was nominated for a Phillip K Dick Award, but I hated it almost as soon as I opened it.

Why?  It's supposedly fashionpunk, a twist on dystopic cyberpunk, and the story focuses on a master tailor who worked his way up through crime and intrigue from the neo-feudal corn based wastelands of America's heartlands to the global center of fashion.  I was pretty intrigued by the concept, since I love me some dystopic fiction and sewing, but I was very disappointed.  I've read my share of cyberpunk, and this was basically cyberpunk with programming replaced with sewing: the author seems to have a pretty good understanding of fashion and sewing terms, but threw them in in a way that, even as someone who knows the terms and is used to encountering a lot of jargon in genre fiction, I found off putting.  The writing, both dialogue and descriptive, was otherwise terribly stilted, with overly long, complex sentences put together with the same repetitive and boring adjectives.  And don't get me started on the gender politics: the only women I saw in about 150 pages were literally sex objects presented for the male gaze.

So that's how we get a review of a videogame rather than a book.  J and I picked up Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii on super-discount sale, so I'm not sure if I would love it as much if we'd paid full price (50USD), but for 20USD, I love it.  I tend to play a lot of games, but I would identify as neither a gamer nor the new-to-the gaming industry "female casual gamer" demographic.  Shooting zombies or matching jewels? No thank you.  Turning into a yarn robot who unravels sweater snowmen? Yes please.

I've never played anything in the Kirby franchise before, but the game doesn't require it to be enjoyable.  It's a platformer side scrolling game with about as much storyline as any Mario game (which is about maximum amount of story I want in my game, frankly).  There's no princess to save, and it's cooperative two player rather than competitive.  The aesthetics are awesome for someone who loves sewing/knitting/crafting, because the designers obviously put a lot of thought and care into tying both the game design and the game mechanics together aesthetically.  The image above doesn't really do the design justice: the fabric detail of the backgrounds and worlds are really detailed and beautiful, and the fabric design has a lot to do with the interactivity of the game play.  The point of the game is to collect points and objects to unlock more game, but a lot of the levels have such fun mechanics (ie, swimming as a dolphin, bouncing, etc) that they're very replayable.

The other thing I like about it is that it's challenging and varied but not difficult or demanding.  That is, there's enough puzzle solving to hold your attention, but it doesn't require you to try a level over and over to succeed or to memorize a bunch of nonsense key combinations to beat the bad guys.  I find overly dense interface to be a real barrier to my enjoyment of a game, so if I can't understand it without a long tutorial or memorizing a bunch of junk, I just don't play anymore.  Kirby has a good combination of being pretty, fun, and easy to play in short bursts while having more goal and variety than something like Bedazzled or Farmville.

Me Made Kickoff

 

Me made June at chez Construct is rolling, although we had some technical difficulties yesterday--my camera is broken (and on its way to being fixed by my dad) and J takes his camera to work with him to document things they make at the shop.  I don't think I've mentioned yet, but J transitioned May 1 from working at the liquor store to working at the theater scene shop, and his work clothes for the shop are mostly me-made--I've patched and remade all of his pants, and made some of his work shirts.  

Anyway, back to the lady clothes.  The top above is self drafted from a bias cut thrifted Express top that I love.  And, despite not really being a ruffles kind of girl, I've caught ruffle mania from the rest of blogland and had to put ruffles and some lace on this. 

 This is a Vintage Vogue pattern that I had a terrible time getting to fit right, but I just love it.  When I first put it together, the shoulders were so large and so far apart, and the waist/bust so large, that it literally did not stay up on me.  It took a lot of cursing and modifications to get the neckline narrowed, but it's now one of my more comfortable go-to dresses because it's light enough to wear in summer but heavy enough for layering in the winter.

And finally, the air plant, because that's sort of how I'm feeling today.  I don't usually wear my hair down in public because A. it gets bigger as the day progresses B. it gets in my way when teaching and C. people touch it.  I ran errands today, and while I love getting compliments from strangers, I do not love being touched by strangers.  While walking, I had one man stop me and tell me I had "dropped my smile" and a lady waiting in line with me ask if she could touch my hair.  And then another woman touched my hair without asking.  People!  Leave strangers alone!  Young women do not exist in public for the gratification of strangers.  I appreciate that you may want to tell me how "wholesome" and "all-American" I look (code words, I think, for white, non-threatening, and retrograde, and things I am frequently told by strangers in public, at airports, in banks, at grocery stores, etc), but do not touch.  It's an invasion of personal space that I've never heard that a man of my acquaintance has experienced, like being told to smile. 

Deaccessioning

Deaccessioning is a good word I learned while working for and later researching at museums, and it's how I'm trying to think about the move.  It means that, rather than getting rid of something or throwing it away, you deprioritize it out of the primary research or display rotation, and move it on to somewhere that will value it.

We're currently in the process of deaccessioning books and furniture, which was stressful to begin with, like the plants, but is now becoming less stressful.  (I think I got stressed out about the plants because they were one of the last things I had yet to realize we had to move).  The furniture stressed me out to begin with because so much of what we have is thrifted and we've put a lot of work into making it ours.  Painting, reupholstering, building, it's all too big to move with us, but like handmade clothing, something with that much work put into it is hard to part with.  Additionally, I think what stresses me out about the thought of moving is my associations:  although all of my own adult moves have been very smooth and relatively stress-free, I never moved as a child until my parents divorced, so it doesn't have the best memories for me.

Part of what consoles me about deaccessioning furniture which we've put a lot of work into is the thought that if we did it once, we can do it again.  It won't be the same, but that's part of the fun of handmade, that you can make it better next time.

So what does this have to do with all the pattern photos?  We've been making a conscious effort to stop buying books, fabric, dishes (I collect vintage/antique serving pieces) and other bulky things, but without really thinking about it, I've shifted my aimless buying to patterns.  I was never really interested in accumulating a lot of patterns until the past few months.  I started drafting my own patterns two years ago, and stopped buying new patterns unless I had something in mind I wasn't sure how to draft.  But there's something consoling about buying vintage patterns: some of these, like the ones in the top photo, have pretty heavy wear but they're still in good shape, and they all have so much potential.  They're part of my effort to shift my thinking about the move as a break from what I've made in Overcast to thinking about the move as a bridge to something new and exciting.

And the news about the move?  Next week.  Or at least that's what they say.  That's two next weeks that the granting agency has pushed off the decision.  Their original notification date was 10 May, and it's nearly June. I guess when you're the one handing out the money instead of the one asking for the money, you can call deadlines however you want.

Jacket Success!

I trimmed down the seams of the RTW jacket, and it's looking much better.  It's pulling a little oddly, but I'm hoping that's just from being pinned and from the facing kind of drooping because the lining isn't holding it in place.  But the fit is SO much better.  It may make the jacket unwearable if my body changes much (my mother pesters me to "make clothes that you can wear after you have babies") but I'm ok with that.  Here's the before and afters:

Before

It has a much more tailored fit now--thanks to almost a 1/2 inch taken off every seam except the center back and center fronts.  I'm not really looking forward to making both of these modifications to the lining, since I didn't make great notes about what changes I made, but really, it's just shaved down on all the seams.

Posting may be light the next few days, since my mother is in town to visit for the week.  I'm hoping to get some pictures up of the garden and the farmer's market, but we'll see whether my digital camera wins out over her grocery store instant in number of photos taken.  It usually loses, but I'll try to take some photos.

Boudoir Photos

Not really, but here are some pictures of the beds in our house.  J and I went to an awesome party on Saturday for some friends who finished their Master's (Mistress) degree exams, and we had a little bit too good of a time.  So on Sunday, we headed out to the greasy spoon near our house for some pancakes, eggs and fried ham, but that didn't quite settle my stomach.  J, knowing me, suggested that the thriftstore next door could cure what eggs and toast couldn't, and indeed it did.  There's several thrift stores in Overcast, and this one specializes in furniture and local art (new, not resold) so we don't usually get much, but we got two amazing finds. 

We found a quilt and a quilt top--the quilt for 80$ and the quilt top for 40$, both hand sewn.  My mother has a house full of quilts she got when she was my age, back before antique quilts were collectible, when she would pick them up for ten bucks at garage sales.  But I haven't seen any in my price range at all, and I've been looking for several years.  Most of my vintage table cloths are ones picked up for a song, but I've never seen quilts for less than 100. 

Here's the quilt top on our guest bed, spread out so I could see how big it is.  It must be around a king, since it reaches to the floor on both sides of the full guest bed.  It's not a color combo I would have picked, but it's really fun without being overwhelming.  I've never made a quilt before, but I think I'm going to at least figure out how to back and bind this one, since it's too pretty to leave folded up.  I have no idea how old these might be--the pink and brown looks and feels like it's all quilting weight cotton, and it's a little 70s in the colors and prints, but I really don't know.  The white and pink looks like it's pieced from garment fabric, and the white fabric is several different kinds, and none of it feels like synthetic.  Don't know.

 

The white does have this odd header/footer band which looks like it must have been added later.  When we first bought it, I thought it must have been added because the maker ran out of blocks to make a bed-length quilt, but after getting it home, it looks like the band was added right over the quilt blocks at both the top and bottom.  From what I can feel through the fabric, it feels like the blocks are intact, so I'm thinking of snipping a few threads to see, but I'm not sure if I should take the whole thing off or not.  We'll see.  Expect some unscheduled quilting adventures later this summer.

In scheduled sewing adventures, the RTW jacket continues to vex.  It at least looks like a jacket now, and the lapels look great after all that work, but the fit is terrible.  I made my muslin modifications, but it still feels huge.  There's a lot of extra room in the underarm, which pulls on the front oddly.  I may make another go at widening the seams in the front princess seams, the back sides, and all the underarm seams, but the pieces in the underarm are so small already that I'm afraid of narrowing them too much.  At least the lapels and the pockets look ok.

Sewing and Errands

I've finished the handsewing for my RTW jacket (all the padstitching and interior taping) and it looks ok.  I think the interfacing may have been a poor choice for this project, because it's delaminating around the edges of the pieces which have spent a lot of time in my bag, but it'll be sewn into the seams, so hopefully that will keep it from coming all the way off.  Plus there's plenty of interior sewing holding it to the shell fabric. 

I don't quite know if my pad stitching is going to do what it needs to do, since this is my first time padstitching anything, and I'm not sure if I helped it roll or just puckered the fabric.  I suppose we'll see when it goes together.

 

I thought today was going to be spent sewing and doing some research work, but that's not to be, because I need to find a new power cord for my computer.  The computer is fine, thankfully, but the powercord no longer transmits electricity, so but I need a new one in order to use my computer.   I finished my current round of grading, though, so at least I'm not pressed for time until exams come in in about two weeks.

Speaking of grading:  I usually try not to take student misbehavior or slacking personally, since 9 times out of 10 it's due to something non-academic, and I did my own fair share of it in college.  But without getting into the specifics, I'm more than a little annoyed at a paper that a student turned in.  The paper is about a politically sensitive subject, and bases a rather vague but well meaning argument off of a lot of fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of American government and about religion.  The problems of the framework are not wrong because I disagree with them politically: they're just factually wrong.  

This is bad enough, from a graduating senior who is an American, and, presumably, is qualified to vote.  But the students also had to turn in a proposal on which they got feedback early in the semester, and I spilled a lot of ink informing the student of the errors in hir* framework for understanding the interaction of religion and government, and explaining in a basic-civics kind of way how the American government actually works.  I also met with the student in person a few times, and we discussed at length how religion and government interact in relation to the student's paper topics, the student asked questions, and kind of sounded like zie* got at least the basics of how the Supreme Court is in fact different from the legislative branch, and does different things.  

But, I get the paper, and the same fundamental misunderstandings are right there, and underpin the whole argument of the paper.  IF those the student's assumptions were true, it would still be a bad paper due to poor writing, lack of sources, and vague argumentation.  BUT it also has these deep factual errors, making it both wrong and incomprehensible.  

Normally I would chalk it up to just not getting it and move along, but I met with this student on a number of occasions, talked hir through the problems of hir framework, and made detailed suggestions about where to look and how to reframe the topic so it was based on factually true things.  And the student did none of them, so I was kind of pissed while grading the paper.  I've assigned a grade, but I'm going to wait until grades are due to put an official grade in for the paper, because I'm not sure if I'm being more harsh because I spoke with the student so many times than I would be if I hadn't spoken with the student.

*What's all this "hir" and "zie" business?  If you haven't come across it before, hir and zie are used as gender neutral pronouns.  I prefer them when talking about students or about anyone else I want to keep anonymous.

In which links are substituted for content

Today is a sewing, errands, and perhaps even reading day, so here are some links that I'm thinking about.  The insightful Ethel Louise has a very smart post on the recent celebrations over Osama bin Laden's death, and her discomfort (which I share) regarding both the message such celebrations send abroad and their meaning for policy and thought at home.  While I saw my facebook overflow with the kind of nationalistic celebration at the news which is being reported in the media, I'm skeptical regarding the extent of such celebration.  The reports I've seen, at least of the street celebrations, seem to have been small in number and in participation, making me think that they are being reported out of proportion to the number of people participating in them.  Which makes me wonder why the media finds it important to focus on these celebrations--perhaps to convince viewers that the news of bin Laden's death is more important than it is, both symbolically and strategically?  EL has much more on the symbolic importance of the news.

Tenured Radical has a provocative piece on the intersection of war abroad and the war on women, responding in part to a piece in the Nation on the recent rollback of American women's access to basic health and reproductive services.  While teaching the 20th century history course this semester has been very difficult given my background, that course and the Obama administration's ambivalence towards the attack on half the nation's (and, through foreign aid spending policy, half the world's) population have convinced me of the conservative turn of both the GOP and the Democrats.  When Eisenhower, Nixon, and even Reagan look progressive compared to the sitting Democratic president, you know the left in this country is in trouble.  Which makes the use of socialist as a political slur all the more infuriating: what we have seen is the expansion of state power without the expansion of state protection.  Given the erosion of citizens' access to government after the Citizens United SCOTUS case, the non-wealthy in this country, especially women, are increasingly subject to the will of the government without a voice in its implementation.

In less upsetting news (or possibly more, depending on how you feel about sewing), I'm going to do So Zo's Me-Made-June challenge, and try to wear one item of self-sewn clothing during the month of June.  I'll be trying to take daily photos of what I'm wearing, but I'm only going to do weekly posts of the photos.  I like the idea of trying to move more away from purchased clothing, and I think I finally have enough clothing made to go for a month.  I'm planning on making a top or two to round things out, though, because I have a lot of dresses and skirts and not much else.

In RTW news, the jacket is coming along, but I'm stumbling on the handsewing in the jacket front.  Well, not so much stumbling as taking a long time.  I'm cheating all over the place by mixing methods.  I'm doing some of the RTW techniques, like the block fusing for some pieces, but the jacket front has different interfacing requirements, so I'm doing a mix of the pattern's couture methods and the pattern's suggested RTW methods.

As you can see in the photo, I'm doing fusible interfacing but also handstitching things like the tapes for the roll line and the pocket fold, as well as the pad stitching for the collar.  I also forgot somehow that the couture method requires an underlining (a layer between the outer shell fabric and the regular lining) to provide body, so I had to rip some seams and put in the underlining, which took some time.  It's also not benefiting from being schlepped around in my bag, which is the primary reason my knitting is on hold, because the second little sweater has suffered a few too many dropped stitches in my bag going from home to class for me to want to pick up for a while.  My jacket fronts were stuffed in my bag yesterday for between-class sewing, and suffered quite a bit of wrinkling in the interfacing.  It doesn't translate to the outer surface, but I hope it doesn't mean the interfacing will peel off at a later date from wash or wear.  Has anybody found a way to keep your bag from eating your projects?  (Or a way to follow the news without becoming totally disenchanted?)

Sewing and Beer

Not together, unfortunately, since the beer was last night and the sewing is this morning before class.  Although it's the last week of class, I'm sure the prof would mind if the TA showed up tipsy.

The RTW jacket is coming along, but I'm trying to be much more careful in the sewing than usual, which also means going much more slowly than usual.  There's basically a million pieces to this jacket, and almost all of them are interfaced and/or underlined, even the facings, so that part is taking me quite a while.  It's gotten warm enough to keep the windows open, so the cat is helping by keeping things weighted down and not blowing around.

Things for the pot

J and I pitched a British bitter last night, a brown ale type with a lot of floral hops but not too much bitterness. I was going to do a tutorial-type post, but we got rolling and I forgot to take pictures.  We ordered a kit from Northern Brewer, along with some new equipment, which made life much easier.  The kit was about USD45, and came with everything necessary except for steeping bags for the hops (that's the little pile of cheesecloth and kitchen twine on the far right).  This recipe had both dried malt extract (the big white bag), actual grain, and malt syrup (the jug on the right).  The two silver bags are the hops and the inflated blue/black bag in back is the yeast, which we activated in-bag by popping the nutrient capsule the morning before brewing.

Things which need sanitizing

Yes, we sanitize in the bathtub.  We use bleach because it's cheap and easy to get, and doesn't foam up like dish soap.  There are specialty sanitizers you can buy from brewing supply houses, but bleach is at the grocery store and hard to run out of.  

Despite having dried malt extract, malt syrup, and grain, the recipe was actually very easy.  If you can make soup or tea, you can make beer, because the grain steeped at one temperature for 20min, the extract and syrup were mixed in at a higher temp, and the whole thing with hops was boiled for an hour (mostly to pasteurize).  We bought a candy thermometer for this batch, which was much easier to use than the digital meat thermometer we've been trying to use before.  Made life much easier, and was two dollars instead of twenty for the digital thermometer.  Also wonderful: cheesecloth bags which keep the grain and the hops neatly contained and easy to get out.

After everything was boiled up, the pot was chilled down in the sink full of cold water, and then poured into the carboy (big glass jug).  More cold clean water was added to the carboy to bring it to room temperature, and after everything was aerated (sloshed around to bring in oxygen and mix the different density liquids) we siphoned out some liquid to test its density (there's a special, but cheap, tool for this called a hydrometer that makes you look like a scientist), poured in the yeast, and put the beer away to do its thing.  

Sounds easy because it is.  This one will be done fermenting May 14; look for a bottling update then, and it'll be ready to drink May 28.  For today, I'm off to work on the RTW jacket.

A Self-Stitched Easter

Just a quick note about the weekend.  The RTW muslin is in a place I'm happy with, the fashion fabric is partially cut out, and I had a productive research weekend.  You all have seen the outfit I'm wearing above; the shirt J is wearing is a shirt I finished literally Easter morning.  The construction turned out well, and J loves it, but I HATE the fabric.  It's some kind of poly blend (mystery thrift store fabric) that's got a weird silky hand, but J loves it.  And although I didn't do the MPB Negroni shirt sewalong, I definitely learned the value varying stitch lengths for different areas--I don't love this shirt because of the fabric, but I feel good about my work on it.

I didn't get the editing/writing done that I wanted to, because I ended up chasing about 140 years of footnotes, but I found the source of an annoying scholarly myth that's been bugging me for several years.  It's the sort of thing that doesn't even get cited anymore because everyone accepts it as true--everyone in the 19th century cited primary documents, so we'll cite the 19th century writers, and not examine their evidence.  

However, when you chase down the 19th century citations, all these writers are basing their arguments about both the 17th and 18th centuries on a single document written in 1689.  It's used as the sole source for the price of retail goods sold to Native people in French Canada and New York, and A. it was written in Paris by someone who had never been to North America, and B. the prices it quotes are way off base from the account books I've found for both French Canada and New York for the same period.  

It boggles my mind that no one has examined these numbers, because entire books rely on the assumption that this document is accurate.  I'm rolling around in my head how to write about the problem of relying on this document and why it's wrong without it being horribly boring, but I'm excited about the find.  And with the magic of the interwebs, I can find pretty much everyone who has either cited this document or someone who relies on other scholars who do.  

Have you had an exciting breakthrough lately, in work, sewing or something else?  I didn't accomplish my stated goal for the weekend, but I did accomplish something, and that made the weekend feel pretty productive.

The Reworked RTW Muslin

After some helpful advice from Carolyn, who writes a very pretty blog and is making the same pattern for the RTW Sewalong, I decided to take in the muslin quite a bit.  

(I had to take my own pictures without even a timer, because J left the house with my camera and I had a hard time figuring out his.  Please excuse.)  

I took in every seam another 1/4 inch, and reduced the width of the shoulders by almost an inch.  The sleeve cap will have to be redrafted as a result, but that's for another day.  

I think the pulling in these photos is a result of trying to hold up the enormous camera--when I look at it when not trying to take a picture, it hangs nicely.  I'm so much happier with the fit having taken it in.  I didn't take in the center back, and I think for the fashion fabric I won't take in the side back seams--it really just needed a reduction in the sides and front seams.  I'm also contemplating shortening the torso and adding a little more length to the hem, since I like the length of it, but the narrowest part of the waist sits a little too low for my liking.  But, when I just pinned a tuck across the torso to check before sewing, moving the waist up suddenly made the whole thing look much less slimming.  I may not move the waist, since it bothers me less in photos than it did while I was wearing it.  

I'm struggling with this muslin more than most things I've sewn, but I'm really enjoying the experience (when I get the time to work on it).  This is definitely the most complex pattern I've done, even more complex than the suit jacket I made for J and more complex than the historic patterns I've done.  (I started sewing because I got a job in a museum's costume shop in high school, and I stuck with it through college).  It's got so many pieces!  And I think the fit for women's clothing is less forgiving than for men's clothing, at least when it's tailored, since women's tailored clothing is meant to sit so much closer to the body.  But I'm also enjoying the difficulty of fitting this since I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of my measurements and making adjustments.  This pattern is definitely outside my comfort zone, but it feels like a good stretch.

RTW Muslin and Fellowship Dress #2

I'm so far behind on the RTW Sewalong--they're already fusing things, and I've only just got my muslin put together.  And it looks crazzy!  I think I might have to go down a size since it doesn't look that big in the photos, but there's so much extra in the side and hanging over the shoulder.  But the finished product will also be in wool with a lining, so I don't know if it's supposed to have that much extra room.  Or maybe I'll make some seam allowances bigger.

I'm sure the horrid thrift store acetate lining I used for the muslin doesn't help any.  And also rushing through sewing it before going to office hours.  Maybe I should put my sewing machine in my campus office so that I can get something done with students don't show up.

On AB's suggestion, I decided to go with the periwinkle.  J and I have been doing a spring closet cleaning/clothes purge, and going through my rarely-worn conference clothes, I think I do have enough to make outfits with a blueish blazer.  I mean, almost all my conference clothes are black, and everything goes with black.  But I think I'm going to sit on the muslin, and maybe iron it, for a while before cutting the real fabric because I'm so uncertain about this pattern.  I've made J a suit coat before, but I think this pattern has more pieces and more complex techniques than anything else I've done before.

In other news, I've FINALLY finished the second fellowship dress, and while I'm happier with it than I thought I'd be, it's not everything I'd dreamed it would be.  It's ok.  It's a self drafted pattern, so it has some crazzy in it because of that, and also some crazzy because the satin lining would not cooperate.  The inside is basically a trainwreck of the lining being way too big for the fashion fabric, despite being cut from the same pattern.  It also adds about two inches to my waist measurement because of the thickness of the fabric, making me feel very large in it despite the fit actually being pretty good.

But I also look like a super spy with sunglasses on, which is a plus.

I don't know about this dress.  Have you ever made something and then gotten rid of it?  I have another dress that I made for a holiday party, wore once, hated it, wore again a year later and still hated it, and I can't bring myself to get rid of it.  I'm afraid that might happen with this dress.  I don't hate it yet, but I can't see myself wearing it anywhere because it's so different from the rest of my wardrobe.  Since it's a dress, it doesn't really have to go with anything else, but I'm afraid it borders on costumey.  What do you think?  (Either about sewing outside your comfort zone, or about giving away/selling/getting rid of something you've made?)

On Handspun and Handmade

 

I have a terrible secret to tell you, dear reader:  I used to hate handspun yarn.  It's lumpy, it's irregular, it comes in crazy colors, it slips around on the needles, it's hard to afford enough of it to make anything bigger than this:

That is, if you can't tell, a fluffy mohair handspun knit in an open pattern which will hopefully be put together into a pillowcase soon (it was my project on the train to and from NYC).  I prefer more tailored clothes and a more sedate home-look, and something like the above is not really my style (although I'm hoping that in small doses it can be a nice accent piece).  Because I don't care for handspun, I've ended up with an entire drawer full of it:

Why do I have a crazy drawer full of yarn I supposedly don't like?  My mother.  My mother doesn't knit, although she crochets a little, and she's friends with handspinners and likes to go to craft fairs, so she sends me tons of yarn for birthdays, holidays, whenever.  (She also sends me a ton of thrift store cloth and vintage clothing "to make something cute out of" which is why I have a dresser and a rubbermaid full of stash, but that's another post).  What a problem to have, right?

I think she likes the idea of these yarns: she gets to pet them, pick ones she likes, and be involved in the things I make without having to commit the time to making things or storing them in the meantime.  She's a full time RN with a long commute, so she doesn't get a lot of down time or bus knitting time like I do (I'll say this for academia: it's a good thing there's a recent trend towards knitting in meetings and at talks, because otherwise I'd be bored out of my mind). 

But back to the yarn.  As part of my recent efforts to de-stash, I've been trying really hard to knit down/sew down things I already own, and finding patterns to fit the yarn, rather than find new yarn to fit a pattern I want.    I just started this shrug sweater pattern on Ravelry, and paired it with the blush-to-raspberry yarn at the top of the post, and it's changing my mind about handspun.

The pattern is fairly tailored, and the yarn, while not slubby, has a lot of thick-n-thin which gives the otherwise tailored look a little interest (I'm also doing an inset chevron lace detail on the chest, arms, and middle back which shows up as holiness here, but which will hopefully add a little interest when it's blocked out).  The yarn was dyed in the wool and then spun, so it's giving a nice ombre/tequila sunrise effect as it goes from blush to pink, and there's a lot of pretty changes in the yarn to look at as it knits up.  The reason this yarn and pattern combo is changing my mind about handspun is because it pushes me outside my comfort zone and will hopefully add a little twist to my otherwise fairly tailored (and increasingly similar-looking) wardrobe.  I think part of the danger of sewing or making so much of your own clothing is that it's really easy to make a lot of similar things (at least for me).  It's easy to make patterns you know work well, it's easy to select the same fabric types or colors over and over because they work, it's easy to make similar styles because they go with things you already own.  And as much space my mother's presents take up, it's kind of fun to jump into something feet first that I wouldn't have done if I didn't want to get rid of stash.

On Making and Shopping, Craft and Art

Oh man.  The week in NYC totally defeated me.  Well, not totally, but since J was sick before we left, I got sick as soon as we got there.  Between the head cold and the freezing cold wind that descended on the city two days into our trip, it was just about all we could do to pick out restaurants close to our hotel.  As a sum total, the trip was really productive, and I got everything I went to the archive for and more, but we didn't end up doing as much sight seeing or photo-taking as I would have liked, because we were both so exhausted.

We did get to some touristy things, like the Brooklyn Art Museum, which had this awesome installation in a Beaux-Arts courtyard, in which all of the stately 19th century columns were wrapped with fabric over hoops to distort their classical proportions and lit from inside.  (More photos, including in-process photos and design sketches, at the link).  

We didn't get to the apparently awesome Armory red-and-white quilt show, because J's art major college roommate, who we were staying with, pooh-poohed it as "seizure inducing" and not real art.  Like "femininity isn't feminist" this "craft isn't real art" BS is old and tired, so why does it get dragged out by young and otherwise progressive people?  Friend was trained at the same SLAC as we were, in a radical philosophy but traditional methods art department, which I think points to the problem that craft and craft technique are still largely feminized and therefore undervalued. 

Like the awesome Japanese crocheted playground Hands Occupied (via Freshome) pointed to, installations like these show the potential in working with "craft" and domestic techniques on a monumental scale previously reserved for more high-art techniques.  Not that small-scale or homemade craft items don't stretch the boundaries of "craft" and "art," but I'm excited by these monumental installations because they expose more people to different definitions of high art.  And that's part of why I love and am excited by the craft/sewing/making community, because of the care people put into handmade items and the re-valuation of effort.  

Tiny dino provided for scale.  And yes, our house is full of toys.

Which makes shopping damn hard.  The air plant ball above, along with some art prints and another house plant, are the only things besides food which I bought in NYC, and here's why.  J has a hard time find RTW or thrifted clothes which fit him, because he's tall and lanky, and he doesn't like buying online before trying on in real life, so we did a lot of clothes shopping while we were in the city.  And despite all that shopping, I couldn't find a single thing that I wanted to buy.  Things I'd love to have, and things I'd love to make, but not buy.  I think my ideal vacation would be to take a sketchbook and camera and wander high-end clothing stores for a few days, but store owners might frown on that.  

Part of my own embrace of hand-made has been taking the fearful responsibility to say: "Yes, I made this."  I say fearful, because in making your own clothing, housewares, whatever, you are responsible not just for choosing from a limited selection for sale, but also for the details down to every last choice.  I used to agonize about wearing things I had made because all the flaws stood out to me, and because I feared being judged for having both poor taste and poor construction skills.  But there's a joy in that too.  A lot of my dissertation revolves around the idea that we all make choices about how we wish to position ourselves socially in the clothing we select, and in handmade that's taken so much further.  I find that the more involved I get in making my clothing, J's clothing, and things for our house, the more reluctant I am to buy something that isn't just right.  Part of that comes from being cheap to begin with, but more and more of my purchases are things that I can't make myself: plants, art pieces, raw materials, and consumables.  I don't know if that means moving towards handmade has reduced or just reoriented my commodity desire, but there it is.

Has your relation to handmade changed?  How has it affected your shopping?

On Feminism, Clothing, and the Politics of Vintage

Does this dress make my feminism look too big?

I guess this last series of posts has started to look like me-made-March, but this post isn't exactly about this outfit.  This weekend was busy-busy-busy with hosting students admitted to the graduate program, and some comments made by the prospective student who stayed with J and I got me thinking about the politics of vintage and vintage-look.  Normally I wouldn't gender-identify someone, but I think it's important for the story to know that the guy who stayed with us was, in fact, a guy (although I've had the same reaction I got from him from women occasionally as well).

Our program doesn't have a lot of money, so to save prospective students from having to pay for their own hotel rooms, we arrange for them to stay with other graduate students, usually in their areas of study.  I didn't have anyone coming in this year in my area of study, but we do have a guest bedroom, so we got a prospective.  Our areas of study and methodological/theoretical approaches didn't overlap at all, but we had a lot of "you love that TV show?  I love that TV show!" type commonalities.

[Trigger warning]

What we did not have in common was our fondness for rape jokes: specifically, our guest's fondness for them, J and my lack thereof.  Who tells a rape joke to someone they've just met, especially someone whose house you're a guest in?

Conference clothes?

I've been thinking for a while that I need another good blazer, so next month I'm going to do the pattern ~ scissors ~ cloth RTW Tailoring Sewalong.  I have this vintage Evan Picone blazer that I just love:

It just goes so well with everything, it has a nicely distinct waist (I tend to look lost in boxy silhouettes) and it's got nice structure without feeling stiff or rigid.  I really like it for teaching and conferences, because it's comfortable and can make jeans look professional, but since I only have the one blazer, I can't do that look for all three days of a conference or too often in a month of teaching.  So I'm thinking about doing this jacket:

It essentially has the same lines, and I'm not sure if I should stay with three buttons or go down to one.  I tend to like one button cardigans and blazers better than more buttons because I have a short torso and I don't like being all buttoned up, but it might be nice to have some variety.  I'm trying to clean out my stash, so these are the fabrics I'm thinking about:

The pink and the purple on the sides are lining fabrics, and the stack in the middle is the suiting wool.  I have a TON of the black and white plaid on the bottom (something my mother gave me) but I don't really care for it. It's very soft, and it's got kind of a slubby finish, so it reads a little too much like something my mother would wear.  Maybe some of it will go into a pencil skirt one day, but there's like seven yards of it.  The others are a periwinkle, a gray, and a maroon:

I like the idea of the gray best, but I already have a gray blazer!  I think two of essentially the same cut and color would be a little much.  The periwinkle reads as fairly gray in most light, but it's so light in color that I'm not sure whether it would go with my professional clothes.  I like the color of the maroon, but it just seems odd for a blazer to me.  I originally got it for the center look of this pattern:

But I think this pattern reads as more "light coat" than blazer, so I've been putting this off because I already have too many spring/fall coats.  I have this awesome houndstooth:

But there's only a yard of it, and my blazer pattern needs two yards.  The houndstooth might go into this little Butterick Retro vest at some point (the B look on the left):

So I guess the point of all this is that I don't know which fabric to do, and I don't want to buy more fabric (I have an entire dresser and a rubbermaid of stash fabric!).  Is maroon an odd color for a blazer?  Maybe I could get away with it if I wore it with something dark and more sedate.  Help me out, I need to get rid of some of this fabric.

Projects under construction

Sewing kitty is hard at work

Let's take a break from my political ranting, and get back to what really matters: sewing, grad school, and pictures of cats.  This week is shaping up to be very busy, in part because our department is bringing newly-admitted but not-yet-committed grad students for a visiting weekend, and I'm hosting one, hosting the department wide party for all of them + all the current grad students, and buying booze for said party.  Plus I've got a lot of my own projects floating around half finished.  

The first gratuitous cat picture up top is the fabric I'd like to use to recover our office chairs; this second one is their unfortunate current state.  Two chairs for a grand thrifted total of twenty bucks isn't bad, since the casters are really smooth and the frames of the chairs are both solid, but the upholstery is just terrible.  The ikat fabric up top is a good upholstery weight, and I don't think it'll pick up too much cat hair.

Speaking of reupholstering things, J and I are gearing up to reupholster our yellow velvet couch,  We've reupholstered armchairs before, including the green one here, but the couch is a much bigger commitment, and it has mock tufting.  The yellow velvet has really grown on me, but it's worn off in big patches all over and there's tears in the velvet where the stuffing is coming out.  I think we could get through it in a weekend, but it would mean being couchless for a weekend, and that's where we live most of the time.  And by we I mean my library books and I.

And I apologize for turning this into a cat blog, but short of J holding on to a struggling ball of unhappiness, there was no way to keep the cat out of the pictures today.  Wherever the camera went, he wanted to be, so that's where he is.  Illustrating the cat hair repellent qualities of the new fabrics or something.

So here's a picture with no cat in it:

Return of the Mannequin

Here's fellowship dress #2.  What's with all the slim skirts?  I don't own any other pencil skirts or slim skirted dresses; I don't know where these last two came from.  I also don't know where I'll ever wear this, since it's too heavy to be a summer dress, too sleeveless to be a fall dress, and too short to be a winter dress.  And I rarely wear anything short sleeved when I teach.  

Anyway, this is from the same pattern as the last fellowship dress, with the princess seams closed and turned into regular waist and bust darts.  I'm not totally happy with the dress, since it's WAY louder than what I usually wear, and it's lined with a bright blue that makes it feel a little cartoony to me.  I'm going to let it sit for a few days while I think about it/do some academic work for a change.  

Right now it's at that stage of the project that I was complaining about a while back with my State Capitol research--most of the way through, but not quite sure if it's going to be worth it on the other end.  I think part of the problem with this dress is that I'm happy it's stash busting (I have an entire dresser + full of fabric) and I like the look as an idea, but I'm not sure I'll wear it.

But maybe I can wear it to an archive or something--I just got my first acceptance letter for one of the fellowships I applied for, at an archive in southern California.  I've never been.  Maybe they wear sleeveless, heavy wool dresses in California?  I'm just so happy to have one that I'll wear whatever they tell me.  Two more of these short term ones and I can put off a semester of my grad school funding; if I get a big one I can take off a year.  That might be too much to hope for, though.