Archive | May, 2009

Fashion Show

31 May

First, can I say that I love how IKEA is stepping up to the home sewer? Kristy and I got there early yesterday to have a look around. I mean, really, who doesn’t always need something from IKEA?

I love this ‘sewing area’ display they had set up. Complete with binders for your sewing patterns.

They are selling starter sewing kits too.

This cute, stackable storage container

I absolutely bought two storage sewlutions for the sewing room. The pattern storage solution is too heavy to get out of the car by myself. And the other has 30 pieces. So, we’ll just have to wait on it.

Also, love their use of fabric to decorate

And, the most fun thing I purchased were these two pillowcases. They are $8.99 for both.

I bought two sets and will take them apart to make sewing machine covers. Something I’ve been needing to do for a good long time now. I am even tempted to make a Weekender bag out of them too since that’s a good size for carrying my new Featherweight.

So, the fashion show was really interesting. I think Lisette, Kristy and I were absolutely checking out construction. And, not just because we sew. You can’t help but notice construction, because if it looks sloppy, you’re distracted from the design. There are 15 semifinalists and you (yes, even YOU) can vote online for your favorites.

Apparently, someone thought it would be totally funny to put my daughter in the show.

Like seriously. Can’t you imagine I would have a kid that looks like this? She strutted in an Kristy and I were shouting ‘WE LOVE YOUR HAIR’!!

This, stylistically may have been my favorite. I love the two different fabrics and the twisted bubble skirt.

Very cute / sweet look. Love the details on the neckline.

Take a look at the yellow pleating on the bodice. Lovely.

I love that this designer went all out! But, he used a black invisible zip that you could see against the white in the back of the skirt.

 

Again, I liked the fabric mix. Was happy it wasn’t the black and white print that most people gravitated too.

THIS was the BEST finishing I saw on anything. I love how she followed the pattern print to create those leaves. I should also say I ‘know’ the designer. As well as you know anyone from the internet that you’ve never met IRL. But, seriously, this dress was great.

The guys outfit was really basic. And, honestly, I was too distracted by all those muscles and the green eyes.

How freaking CUTE is this. I think I have a love affair for piping. Because that’s what also made me love the dress below.

I think I would have done something different with the straps on the dress on the left. And, imagine the impact if the bottom was finished like #5

The dress on the right is a basic sheath dress.

Love the dress on the right. The dress on the left was interesting because they used kind of like a sack cloth fabric. The fabric just makes the dress on the right.

 

So, below is what I meant about the invisible zippers in the ‘wrong’ color. That being said, maybe that was the look they were going for.

This exposed zip I loved. This is obviously on purpose.

After, I was so inspired I bought the white fabric below to go with this orange jacket that I never have anything to wear with!

Overall, lots of fun and great to meet up with Lisette. So, make sure you vote for your favorites.

Two Great Things in One Awesome Day

30 May

I practically had to toss a coin  to figure out of the two great things today, which I would talk about first. And, it came down to photos. So, I’ll chat about the great thing with good photos first.

I finally got a Singer 221 Featherweight!!


And, it does sew just as beautifully as they say. And, I do a killer happy dance!!

Blog reader Melodye tipped me off that one was on Craigslist for a 1/4 of the going rate within 20 mins of me. Actually this is the second one she let me know about, but the first time I was in Seattle. I emailed the woman Thursday night, looked it over on Friday morning and picked it up today. Her grandmother first got it in Christmas 1954. Then it was her mom’s. And finally, it became hers. But, she already had a machine and it was ‘just sitting in the basement’.

My friend Kristy and I (who got her beautiful Centennial edition above all perfect and unused in the trash of all places) went to work at it for about an hour today to get the bobbin area cleared of horrible thread snarls. Now, it’s fabulous! I’ll do a size comp with my Kennie 1040 soon. So, that brings my machine count to…five. Four vintage. All loved. Seriuosly, I was talking to the Featherweight.

Kristy, myself and Lisette

The second awesome thing was that I met up with Lisette today from La Cubanita Cose (which I always say is my favorite sewing blog name)! We went to Ikea to see the ‘Sew Me What You’ve Got Fashion Show’. I’ve got a lot to say about that, but want to organize my photos better. Lisette though, was awesome. Funny, smart, charming and wearing a great BWOF skirt that I didn’t get a photo off. My pic above is awful, so I’m hoping hers was a little better.

And, here’s a teaser for my next post on the actual garments from the fashion show. More soon, I promise!

Cynthia’s Dress!

28 May

While I was traipsing the Pacific Northwest two weeks ago, Quilt Market was taking place in Pittsburgh. Fabricworm owner Cynthia (a blog sponsor) wore the dress I made for her (she’s on the right). She seemed to find her fabric twin while there!

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Check out her blogger blog for other photos and sneak peaks of what’s going to be out soon.

Sevreal months ago I dusted off my J-School diploma and did a little interview with her.

How did you start selling fabric?

I kind of fell in to selling fabric. I initially thought I would make things to sell, and set up wholesale accounts, then realized that I really was addicted to the fabric itself, and I wanted to have every color and every print. The only way I could do that was if I were to sell it too. More on that later. Also, I was really inspired to sell fabric when I found it a little difficult to find Japanese Imported fabrics like Echino, and Kokka. I thought that it might be a good idea to sell these online, and help bring them into the mainstream more. Plus Etsuko Furuya of Echino is my Favorite Designer of all time!

How can your cottons be used in clothing choices?

I think that it can sometimes be difficult to sew garments with quilting cotton. They just don’t drape the same as rayon or polyester blends. I think that some of the Amy Butler patterns are perfect examples of ways to use fun quilting cottons in garment applications, The Anna Tunic and the Barcelona Skirt are great examples of fun garments that work well. I love the idea of simple shirt dresses like those from the fifties would work well, anything that hangs straight and can be belted for a more flattering look.

How do you choose fabric to stock in the store?

I choose the fabrics that I sell completely on instinct and truthfully, mainly personal preference. I do see everything that is coming out new, and then I decide what really suits my customer. Most of which are a similar demographic as myself. I’m a WAHM (Work At Home Mom) and many of my customers make handmade goods that they sell on Etsy, like children’s clothes, handbags, and quilts.

What are the big trends you see for spring?

As far as trends go, it really seems like a lot more of the same for now. Woodland themes, with deer, owls and mushrooms are still popular, spawning originally from Japanese Import fabrics that have become more and more popular. I think we will also continue to see a lot of bold brights and also simplified graphics. I personally would like to see more Mid Century Modern graphical prints like those from Anna Griffin’s New Line Darcey. I think a palette of charcoal, aqua, and orange would be fantastic. I’m working on a few designs of my own, and am hoping to launch my own Fabric Line when I have more free time.

How do you keep yourself from stashing fabric when it’s all around you?

Well, that’s funny, because I don’t really. I haven’t made any scrap packs, because I can’t part with them. They are the lovely offspring from my original bolts. They are my babies, I’ve claimed them as mine, and someday if I ever can find the time, I swear I will do something with them. LOL. /you really should see the stacks. I’m running out of room for sure!

Book Review: Bringing Home the Birkin

26 May

I picked the following book for bookclub. We usually only read ‘serious’ books. But, each summer we pick a beach book. I thought this was a good summer read. Especially for those who like fashion and celebrity (umm, me). It comes out in paperback this July.
Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag by Michael Tonello

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
$25,000 for a bag? Not so crazy in the circle that author Tonello travels in. How can Hermes claim to only make 100 bags a year and put people on a waiting list? The author was able to buy five at a time and spent years traveling the world lookng for new Hermes stores to buy from. All his wares ended up on eBay or sold otherwise online. What is ingenious is how Hermes built their name and the mystique surrounding them by totally faking exclusivity. The BEST chapter IMHO is when one of his bags is taken hostage. The rest of the book felt like filler to that point.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to read something easy and light. And, this was read start to finish on a Friday evening after work. It is *not* high lit, but would be great for a marketing class.

I was impressed with the ingenuity of the author and the thrill he gained from working the system. But, to read how ravenous others were for a handbag boggled my mind.

The writing was *ok*. I did feel like the publishers asked him to throw in more about his romance and backstory to flesh out the book. I was also uncomfortable with him talking about his parent’s wealth, seemed to have little to do with the story.

I think if you’re not interested in fashion and retail, this book will annoy you. If you are interested, you will be amused.

View all my reviews.

Lost and Found and Some Pattern De-Stashing

25 May

UPDATE: I remember!

Right, again with the cleaning / moving of the sewing room. This is going to be an all summer project I think. At any rate, I went at it hard today looking for my missing three Burda World of Fashions (1/08 — on loan, 2/08 — still missing, and 5/07 — on loan). In addition to my pink Dritz C-Thru ruler. Lo and behold, what did I find?

The rayon knit from Philadelphia!! It’s been missing about eight months now and it turned up crammed on a shelf.

It’s a good thing I broke down and bought more black knit last week thinking this one was lost for all time.

I also started pulling out my traditional sewing patterns. I didn’t think I had that many as I had done a big (not thought out) purge five years ago.

Hummm. Ok. So, these will get the color scan at work during the next few weeks, burned on a CD and stored on Flickr.

And, anyone want some patterns? Here we have two vintage robes / smoking jackets.  I think they have both been cut into.

And grey velvet with very faint greenish paisley swirls. I’ll never make something for myself out of this. Maybe three or four yards? TAKEN

You also have a men’s jacket, quite similar in style to a Burberry trench. TAKEN

The velvet and pattern can be yours for the cost of a flat rate box to wherever you are. International included. Just email me at miss celies pants at gmail dot com.

Frankening a Pattern

25 May

Another reason to love Burda World of Fashion (BWOF. Or BWTF when they don’t make sense). They have every pattern you could ever want. And now that I’ve got them sorted out, thumbing through was so easy! I am often stymied by too many choices. Here are the four patterns that I’m considering to make the biker jacket.

I really like the collar and sleeve zippers on this one 5-2008-119. But, I want the zipper to go all the way up through the neck. Because my neck is always cold. Probably because it’s always thrusting forward. Kind of like this:

Easy enough I think. 12-2008-119. ETA: I was googling and found this: That’s how I want to zipper to go and keep the collar I like best:

I like the front zipper placements on this one best. Including the useless one on the chest. 9-2008-113 But, I think I can’t do a lower band and I’m *not* using ribbing.

I like the princess seams on this one best and how it tapers in. 11-2005-117 This is the one Christina made, so I would want to extend it by two inches I think.

Issues to resolve: No lining. The sherpa is awfully thick when doubled. I looked online and the RTW jackets seem to have matching denim — minus the sherpa used on hem bands, etc.  I’ll use some combination of seam binding and edges finished with a double row of straight stitching

Not that I’m anywhere near tracing. But, don’t we all spend our time plotting and thinking over projects :)

AJ asked if I have tough biker boots to go with proposed jacket. Well, I think I do:

Israel boots,

Israel Boots

New Zealand Boots — I don’t know why I’m looking up so oddly. Hunh.  I should point on that the first pair make my toes hurt and the second Israel boots split on the side. Which would make it the SECOND pair of my three Israel boots that split on the side. And aren’t very warm. Or waterproof. The New Zealand boots were a 1/4 of the price and are better on all counts.

Original Post on the boots:

And finally, I’m wearing these boots I got in Israel over the summer. We were leaving out of Tel Aviv and stopped at the mall for dinner. While everyone got their last taste of Kosher McDonalds, I ran into the shoe store and bought three pairs of boots in less than an hour. They barely fit in my suitcase. And my co-workers who were heading back home refused to carry any back for me. So, I carted all three pairs over to Egypt for another three days. In fact, I wore a pair the entire time I was in 105 degree Egypt since my sandals took up less luggage space. Guess who’s laughing now?

I’m decidedly not laughing now

Sorry, I was confusing in my post about Seattle. The MSB’s and Lady Boutiques are not at Daiso, they are at Kinokuniya

Lazy Sunday

24 May

Total Lazy Sunday folks. I’ve got to get organized. I got some great tips in Portland and have started moving my sewing room to the basement. After seeing Christina’s super organized Burda magazine stash I decided it was time I get on the stick. Mine are in three Kasset boxes from IKEA, but they look mangled because every time I want to browse, I have to thumb through them.

Today, I got a grande latte, packed the BWOFs in a suitcase and took all 60 or so to Kinko’s, loaded up $20 on a card and just copied like there was no tomorrow.

136 copies my friends. One hundred. Thirty. Six. And, I found patterns I totally forgot about. This is a GREAT system. I’m going to take the binder to work, run them through the scanner and make a PDF of it.

interesting fact: my oldest BWOF is from 2000

sad fact: I’m missing about 10 magazines. Two from 2008. Sigh. I think I loaned one out. The rest, I need to hunt down.

interesting fact: A 1.5 inch binder isn’t going be be big enough for my issues. I’m going back for a 2 inch. I still need to copy my La Mia Boutiques and Patroneses which are currently on loan. And my Easy Fashions. And my Knip Modes.

Did you see that Burda has a ‘where to shop’ in London feature? Nifty. Funny how even photos of a fabric store make my heart race a wee bit.

I pre-treated my denim backed sherpa this morning and re-washed some other denim in the stash (I just read that it’s a good idea to wash it twice first). Fuzz is everywhere. That’s just what was in the dryer trap. The only thing I don’t like is that it was very very overdyed. Denim blue bled onto the sherpa. It’s now more a medium brown instead of a light brown. But, the sherpa stayed nice — not ratty at all. And, I don’t mind the sherpa getting darker. Dirt will just show less!

Summer Sewing Plans

23 May

These lists never work out for me. I never make what I say I will. But, I was so inspired by the women and creativity at PR Weekend Portland, I’ve started a list.

Long term summer: a motorcycle / bomber jacket. I fell in love with this denim backed sherpa from Mill End. At $14 a yard it was a good buy. I immediately thought bomber jacket. Then at Christina’s I tried on her amazing amazing biker jacket.

I’ll also make a forward shoulder, round upper back adjustment and FBA, but this puppy will be mine by fall! But, can I say again how appalled I was at my posture in these (all) photos? Forward thrusting neck, rounded shoulders and all.

I felt like I had the upper body of an 80 year old. Less time at the computer would probably help!

Next: this Badgley Mishcka  Vogue jacket on display at Josephine’s Dry Goods in Portland. Drool.

I bought the rest of the bamboo denim off the bolt, ordered the patterns from Christina’s in Seattle on Monday and it was at my house in Baltimore on Thursday.

Again, I need an FBA. But, how fun to try on the garment you wanna make?

Third: Jeans! I bought two pieces of denim at PR Weekend LA (2008). And I won (ok, begged, badgered and pleaded) for the Jalie 2908 stretch jeans pattern.  Emile from Jalie was there and I tried her on. Awesome fit and no gaposis. I know, I’m totally the girl who cried denim, but I *really* wanna make some jeans!

In July I’m  going to take a stab at a raspberry Anthropologie trench-inspired dress for the PR RTW Knockoff Contest. It sold off their site less than a week after being on. I tried it on in Seattle and it was very flattering on me. I have a few cuts at home that should work just fine.

Truthfully, I know this is enough. But, I’m still thinking sailor pants, trench coat and a blouse or two. Sigh. In all honesty I will probably end up making just one of these! It’s simply the curse of the list.

PR Portland Roundup

21 May

DVM CIndy is a star!dvmCindy

Wheee! What a fun trip. I love seeing the U-S-of-A! The weather totally  cooperated and we had some beautiful sunny days. I hear it rained in Baltimore the entire week I was gone! From the bottom of my heart I have to thank the organizers! It was the best of the three PR Weekends (LA, NYC, Portland) I’ve been to.

Cidell and Jaeng Jaeng who designed the JJ Blouse on BurdaStyle and I

Deepika and EmilieDeepika and Emilie from Jalie Patterns

So, what is it we like about PR Weekends? You get to meet your friends in real life. You’ll sit up late into the night talking about sewing, boys and makeup. It’s just a hoot.

Leslie and Christina at Sunday BrunchLoohoo44 (Leslie) and Christina at Sunday Brunch

What else do you do? Try on your friend’s clothes! Emilie from Jalie Patterns was there and I’m going to try my first Jalie now.

Photo Courtesy of AssortedNotions.Blogspot.com

I’m also all over and I mean ALL OVER making a trench coat from my red Burberry fabric. The trench is MAGICAL. I don’t even like myself in black! I got five inches taller and dropped two sizes in Leslie’s trench. I am also going to seriously work on my posture (and getting my hair all one color again). Patti Palmer told me I had forward shoulders and rounded upper back. I shrugged it off until I saw the photos from the weekend on Flickr. Yikes.

DSCF8588

On Saturday, Patti Palmer did an overview of her fit workshop. It was really interesting to hear what she had to say about pattern companies, thier business models and what the trends were.

  • When her first McCall’s jacket pattern came out in the 80s, it sold 20,000 in the first week
  • Pattern shelf life is now 18 - 34 mos
  • 2,000 pattern sales a month is average. 3 – 4k make it a bestseller.
  • And ONE pattern at McCall’s takes about $40,000 to produce. Think about some of the not so loveable patterns they come up with. That took $40,000 to produce. Crazy.
  • Patterns have to sell about 1,500 – 2,000 a month to stay viable

On the bus

On the yellow school bus for fabric! I bought (just 12 yards) five cuts:

Getting Bamboo Linen

  • Denim backed sherpa
  • Two basic knits
  • Bamboo denim (above) and cotton voile

There is a destination (and photos) of these fabrics. I’ll chat about that over the weekend.

Melissa, Nancy, Cidell and DVMCindy

MelissaB, Nancywin, myself and dvmCindy

Whew. So, I’m back home pre-treating and dreaming of my next project!

Seattle and My New Found Love of All things Japanese (photo heavy)

20 May

So, I guess I’m starting at the end of my trip. After PR Weekend concluded in Portland, I invited myself to Christina’s place in Seattle, WA.

On Monday I spent the morning exploring downtown Seattle.

I found the first Starbucks (I found out later it actually wasn’t. But, I thought it was at the time and that’s good enough for me), Pike Place Market and the the Daiso store.

I think we all know that I loooove pink. I actually have very little in my wardrobe, but loads around the house. My stop by Daiso, the Japanese $1.50 store in Seattle did NOT help. Sisters, check this out:

Pink tape dispenser(s). The smaller one is for classes (hopefully draping this fall) and the larger one is for home. Totally excusable. Tape is a necessity in pattern design, right?

Pink mini bento boxes for lunch. They even come with mini chopsticks.

And loads-o-blotting paper. I’ve been told I shouldn’t get wrinkles because of my tragically oily skin. In the meantime, I blot, therefore I am. These things cost a small fortune around here. But, from Daiso, $1.50 a box of 200.There was more I picked up. But, I made myself sit in the aisle and put things back (cone shaped coffee filter holder, tea and coffee canister, etc). It’s going to be ugly the next time I’m in the Pacific Northwest.

And, check this:

Sewing supplies! Machine needles, hand sewing needles, elastic, velcro, covered buttons, zippers, shirt buttons, flat head pins, lots and lots of sewing supplies. I wish my dollar store was like this!

And, on the Japanese… I got two new Mrs. Stylebooks and a new for me Lady Boutique from Kinokuniya Bookstores in Seattle (www.kinokuniya.com) . I can’t buy them locally anymore :( And, these were $10 less each than I’d been paying! Christina has committed (cough) to buying them for me and just bringing them at PR Weekend Philly in 2010.

And if you’re unfamiliar, these are the drafting directions

Finally, the thing I may have like best about Seattle are the home styles. Seriously. I am in love with Craftsman style homes. It fits my whole ‘urban cottage’ aesthetic.


Everywhere I turned there were houses ripped from the pages of the now defunct Cottage Living. Not one red brick row house with marble steps to be found!

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