10,000 Hours

Another pair of Simplicity pants and a modded Lady Skater t-shirt.

I've had this thought in my head for some time now, the idea of becoming a master at something by spending thousands of hours doing it. Ten thousand hours, give or take a few. It was an amalgam of different thought threads, one was of a conversation I had with a dear friend about how, as we approach our fourth decade of life, things keep getting easier. Like, we really have a handle on it. Things like cooking or driving, writing, reading, running a household, games, and our chosen professions.

And those thoughts led to a phrase I hear all the time. You might have heard it yourself "Gosh, I wish I could sew like you do, I'm just no good at it". And I always want to tell these people that I didn't start off being good at it, I worked my way toward it. In fact, I'm still learning more as I go. Lately, however, I've found myself coasting just a bit by making more knit clothing than anything else. Granted I've hacked and slashed any number of patterns without much anxiety because hey, knits are very forgiving. But then I found myself putting off things I NEED because I didn't want to challenge myself anymore. So, I pushed myself by taking my serger in for badly needed repairs and facing the wedding sewing head on (which is not a complaint about sewing for a wedding).

I had forgotten how much I liked the challenge.It also made me realize just how much I have learned about fitting a garment to myself in the last year. The non-euclidean topography that is our bodies is making more sense to me. I think I even have started wrapping my brain around fitting trousers. And here's the funny thing, its not all from doing, a lot of it is from actively working the problems in my head. I suspect I am not the only one that uses idle brain capacity for solving the complex geometry problems that making a garment can create. In fact, I think it is a trait found in most creative people that gets applied to computer programming, science, math, engineering, and domesticity.

Which leads me back to the hours I've spent in my head thinking of creating. For a while now it feels like there was some sort of block between ideas and action upon those ideas. I want these things to materialize out of thin air but it doesn't work that way. Finding a way to make myself visit challenges head on and start DOING again has felt like a huge hurdle. I'd like to say that kids, husband, job are keeping me from doing it, but really its my own anxiety of feeling like I'm shirking everything else.

Which is totally crap because when I create I feel better. That's the whole reason my tagline is "Sewing to Stay Sane". I really should learn to take my own advise. I'm halfway to 10k, I just gotta keep going, learn to take the time for myself.

Because if Mama ain't happy, Ain't nobody happy.

Trifecta Two and a TNT

I did not make just one Trifecta, I made two! In fact, if my main serger didn't need to go to the sewing machine doctor I'd probably have cranked out another  two or more. And a whole slew of Simplicity 2369 variations. But for this post we're going to focus on view D, the pants. But first the top.

Is this how I smile? 

Contrast lace sleeves! In fact this is almost an exact copy of one I made for Felicity and failed to blog about it. I did put it up on Instagram sometime last summer though. The stretch lace I got in 2011 at the Sewing Expo. The black fabric is a medium weight bamboo knit from Fabric.com. Its 5% lycra so has great recovery and doesn't grow like most bamboo knits which is awesome.  They have several basic colors that are re-orderable. I want all of them because they are so soft and snugly. I could just throw them all on the bed and make a fort.

I think I might be scowling at the neighbor's screaming kids.

Uh, I'm not sure how this one got so washed out but hey, at least you can see my butt clearly. And now would be a good time to mention the pants. I love them! I can actually pair them with a nice knit top and wear them to work, like this set, and be comfortable. Like I said, I want to make many more of these along with the view C tops from the Simplicity pattern. I could wear them and feel put together at work even during The Monthly Visit (its really the worst four days of the month).  In fact, a few more fancy stretch laces and such and I could get away with the Trifecta as well.

Almost bitchy resting face.

Did I mention that these pants go perfect with Kitschy Coo tops? They totally do. The blouse didn't require anything special other than elastic along the arm seams. I also put clear elastic in the crotch and inseams of the knit pants to help them keep their shape.

My husband posed this one.

Ya know, I'm not getting any kick backs or anything for telling you how much I love Kitschy Coo patterns. They really are just that awesome.

p.s. I just got my Espresso leggings and Riff shrug in the mail and its killing me not to start on them RIGHT NOW. I have to make some frosting.

KitchyCoo Trifecta Top!

Have you seen the latest Kitchy Coo pattern yet? If not, there's a whole lot to love here! This is a raglan sleeve knit shirt that has lots of customization as shown above. The top I'm showing you here was my first test, straight out of the package. Its a bit tight in my shoulders but I think that's me going off old measurements*.

This is a poly ITY knit from Fabric Mart. I also made a pair of slacks out of this, I'll show you that one later. My favorite thing about this pattern is that I didn't have to do a large arm adjustment. WOOT!!

I could probably do with a sway back adjustment. However, I usually just make the hips wider. This does not always turn out as planned.

I put the neck binding on in the round, as well as the sleeve bindings. I just turned under and cover stitched the hem.  That's about it, really. The whole thing took me about an hour after I was done fiddling with the fabric to cut this out of leftover scraps. So, not counting my time this shirt was basically... .50 cents worth of material.

So you really need to run and get this pattern RIGHT NOW. Its easy to put the pdf together, not very many pages at all and there are endless variations. Ok, not endless, its actually 27. TWENTY SEVEN VARIATIONS FOR A SINGLE KNIT TOP!! Holy crap. So if you take the $7.20 UK (11.98US) and divide it by 27 that's .27uk (.44us) per variation.

So what I'm really trying to say is "BUY THIS PATTERN".  Ok, that's all for now. Love all y'all crazy folk.

*new medications and new diet have had me swinging widely on the scale. I'm currently at the heaviest I've ever been outside of pregnancy. I'm NOT happy with it largely for health and pain reasons. 

Fancy School Pants

So my children have hit that time in their life when they're likely to grow an inch in a month or two, then not grow for for months, then SPROING! Up they go again. This means that, not only are they eating me out of house and home, all their pants are too short.  I've been wanting to make jeans for a while but still feel intimidated, mostly because of the thickness of denim and top stitching. I decided I would start with something a bit easier, such as a pair of side zipped pants with cuffs. What I didn't do is re-measure Felicity because I thought 6 weeks couldn't be THAT much of a difference. I was wrong.

The pattern in question is an OOP Simplicity 4518 (side note, these are easy to find second hand)

Just about everything in this envelope has Felicity's name on it. She really like the pants, which I made from some remnant cotton/rayon blend suiting. Problem was I didn't give myself extra seam allowance for the hips and waist, because she's inherited my build. We vikings have ample muscle mass and lots of booty. I ended up having to take the center front and center back seems how and was unable to flat fell the crotch seam. This turned out to be its demise.

But let me go back a bit first. I should probably add that I somehow forgot to sew when making these. They were doomed to begin with. WORST waistband and zipper insertion I've ever done. It took me no less than three tries, and due to needing to take out the seams I had to do some weird darning stitches  to add to the SA. It looked horrible.

Bad zipper, no cookie.

See, it sucks. But I had to finish these things out of sheer stubbornness.

Fancy School Pants  (and my Green December UFO)

I also finished at the beginning of my bout of the flu, which for means a week of sick and two days of fibromyalgia flare up. Poop. BUT, she loved them and put them on before going over to her Grandmother's for a few days. I told her not to get them dirty. Not that that would do much good, because this is how they came back to me.

Ripped seat and Georgia red clay stains

Yup. Not only not enough booty room, but she was playing outdoors in the mud with her cousins. And if you didn't know, we don't have dirt, we have clay. RED CLAY. That shit doesn't come out of anything. Because what you see is basically no seam allowance left, I had to throw these in file thirteen. Fudge.

However, the punchline to all this is we now have a new thing in my house. Because what I said was "What did I tell you about playing outside in your fancy school pants in the first place!!". This made both my children start doing a sing song and a dance.

FANCY SCHOOOL PANTS, FANCY SCHOOL PANTS!! *kermit flail with butt wiggle*

*sighs*

She now wants a pair out of stretch satin leopard print.

Rules, Sew-a-Longs, and Pledges

Hello all you lovely people in the Sewcialist Land, I've had this thing on my mind lately. Its a thing about sew-a-longs, themes, and pledges that have proliferated of late. I mean, I'm totally happy that they do, and I'm fully aware that I'm an enabler and instigator.But for myself personally I feel like I can't keep up with the pace of sew-a-longs, et al. I'm totally a rules breaker and usually a non-conformist. Which is a polite way of saying I'm contrary. Sorry, not contrite at all.

To be honest, I love making plans but rarely follow them. Its kind of like that saying "Life is what happens while your busy making other plans", except I do it to myself.

SQUIRREL!

What was I saying? Oh right, inability to keep up with the pace. You know, I figure I'm probably not the only person that feels that way, and I thought I would share. Because seriously, don't let yourself be distracted. Or go along with things as you like, its all good.

And something else, too. I discovered I sew the way I think. To use crankysysadmin terminology, I've got a quad core brain and its multi-threading processes (projects) all the time. I like to cut a lot of things out at once, then sew them up as I like. I'm not very "one project at a time". Sometimes a process gets stuck and I have to reboot, or sometimes the file gets corrupted and we got to scrap it and re-install. And sometimes I just need to power down and chill out.

Can you believe its taking me over a week to write this much? I've been overcome with a great amount of lethargy and I'm going to blame it on the weather. In the 22 years of living in Atlanta I have NEVER experienced such a cold, wet, and miserable winter. Ok, its not totally miserable, there was some beautiful moments. But the problem with climate change is we don't know what to expect anymore, ya know, other than volatility. But any way, its been a major contributor to my lethargy. There's promise of high 60's low 70's next week, and that's good.

Also I can finally share another bit of great news because its official. We are going on an 8 day Caribbean cruise with our dear friend Dreama and her family, which includes me being her Matron of Honor. I have to make something to wear for that and will do double duty as a dress for the formal dinners. Along with some sun dresses and other cruising attire. This will be happening in May and the kids are beside themselves with anticipation.

And last but not least, February is BLUE! I will say I love the color themed months the best because it leaves style and pattern up to the person.

Stash Busting and TNT's (Tried and Trues)

I have spent the first two weeks of 2014 contemplating my very large stash of fabric. I can't even remember how I acquired all of it, well mostly I can. Its called working graveyard shift and being the first to receive sales flyers in my inbox. For the record, buying fabric does not replace talk therapy and anti-depressants, just so you know.

Though, I can't deny the tactile pleasures that come with a new box of fabrics. I'm sure if I did some digging there's be research on a small endorphin rush that temporarily satisfies the mind and body. But I'm totally feeling lazy so lets just pretend I might know what I'm talking about, k? 

But what I wanted to talk about is actually sewing up all this fabric using Tried and True patterns (TNT - patterns that have already been fitted and can be made up again and again. The Hawthorn being one of my example). It was after reading Cation Design's post about continuing the stash busting into 2014 that I sat down and made a list of all the patterns I've done the work for and will probably make again. I was kind of surprised at the list. Here they are in no particular order.

Current TNT Patterns:

Simplicity 2369 Wrap Dress

Lady Skater (and a million variations)

Penny Pinafore

Colette Hawthorn

Vogue 8747 Princess Seam Blouse

New Look 6564 cropped jacket/bolero

Vogue 8701 raglan sleeve dress 

Vogue 8679 raglan sleeve knit sheath dress and a-line skirt

Colette Clovers

Cake Patterns Hummingbird Skirt

Gertie's Pencil Skirt from the book

Sewaholic Renfrew

Sewaholic Tofinos

Wow, that's actually a lot now that I think about it. I mean, that's what I thought to myself after writing it all down. But I also decided there were several gaps to fill in and made another list of patterns I WANT to become TNT's. 

TNT's To Be:

Colette Beinget

Colette Jasmine

Colette Laurel

By Hand London's Victoria Blazer

Sugar Plum by Lolita Patterns

Jalie Jeans

Sewaholic Cambie

Sewaholic Thurlows

Butterick 5859

Simplicity 1882

Vogue 8766

Which, looking at it on screen instead of my Sewisit's Notebook (Thank you Dad!) its seems like a way bigger list to tackle. I think I'm going to focus on separate for a bit. Those being Jasmine and Thurlows first. 

And here's the thing, the majority of my stash was bought with one of the above patterns in mind already, with several one off statement pieces on the back burner. Some of them have been on this back burner for years, waiting for me to level up my skills, I may not have been prolific but I certainly had a lot of DING! moments (gamer humor, i can never escape it).

I, ladykatza, in an effort to be frugal with my purchases pledge to sew with stash fabrics at least 85% of the time. I shall continue to expand my TNT pattern selection as well as use existing ones thoughtfully to make a more cohesive and functional wardrobe. 

I also want to get back to writing process posts on my works in progress so as to help other sewists along in their journey to a self-made custom wardrobe that will make them happy.  Oh, and be better about replying to comments. I LOVE COMMENTS. Seriously, I read all of them. I want to get better at keeping up with other sewcialists as well.

So, what patterns do you have that you want to make into TNT's or are already TNT's. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Take care and have a wonderful day!

2013 - A Review

I've been meaning to write a year-end post for weeks now but I never had both time and energy at the same time. And since I tend to be contrary I'm only going to kinda follow the format for this. There's been a lot of things on my mind, things I haven't quite figured out how to share. I lost my stride in blogging this year because I found I didn't have the energy for the type of photography I felt I needed to keep up, which made Carolyn of "Diary of a Sewing Fanatic" post so very timely. Most of the time all I have of my makes are selfies on instagram. Speaking of, she follows me on Instagram and I'm always psyched when she comments. I love her corporate style of sewing, I tend to lean that way too but I have more artistic leeway being in the IT world. So put her on my Inspiration list.

Another of my early inspirations rose from the ashes like a phoenix and gave us this post. I can't tell you how much I've missed Miss Snug Bug and her ingenious writing. Even now while she goes through one of life's tougher lemons. This gives me one more person to visit in Nashville which I hope to do this year.

And there are so many more that have become special to me. Oona and Tanit-Isis have been there since the beginning cheering me on. The last year I started Twitter and Instagram and the sewcialists were born and through that endeavor I now have Leila, Katie, Gillian, Heather B, and Joost, just to name a few. Much like the friends I made years ago through the Neil Gaiman fans I found another wonderful little corner of the Internet that is full of beautiful people in thoughts and actions.

Speaking of tough lemons (I know, bad segue here, just go with my stream of thought, k?), 2013 was all about getting myself back together. I know I did a video blog about chronic pain and depression and your response was so unexpected and supportive. These things are slowly getting better and more manageable,
setting hard boundaries of what I can and cannot do and expectations has helped a lot. I've had to learn to say no even when its someone I love to bits. I've lost friends, reconnected with lost ones, and made new ones, and have the sort of steadfast understanding relationships that weather all storms. I'm watching in amazement as my children grow into adults, I cringe as they make mistakes, I get angry, I laugh, I cry, I sigh in exasperation, but most of all I just love them.

And my husband, who is always there, I love you.

When it comes to sewing this year I didn't have a very high output but just about everything I made and loved was something that was a challenge. I made a button down blouse, a cropped jacket, a shirt waist, plackets, hacked patterns into something I want, and a coat!  And lots of other quick projects that I never got around to officially blogging, so for the interlude of this post I will deluge you with selfies.

Wow, that was a lot. 12 months worth of photos, and not all of them the most flattering. I can see where I started to lose weight when I had to take gluten out of my diet and then gain it back after a series of steroid injections into my spine, that was kind of a blow to my confidence. But, its still forward. I started walking again, and yoga and my basic core strengthening exercises. The key is to not give up.

And you can see the evolution of my hair color.

In this coming year I want to sew more from my stash. I want to make jeans, a trench coat, twin set suit, a ball gown, and a pants suit (lightly tailored). I'm sure there will be easy projects in between, and of course, sewing for the kids.

I also want to work on more resources for the sewcialists.org website. And meet some in real life. I have a cruise in May for a close friend's wedding. We're all looking forward to it.

And I'm looking forward to getting to know you better and I have so many thoughts and ideas to share with you. Life is rarely predictable or easy but at least its never boring. All of time and space is just behind this door, who wants to come along for the ride?