Say hello to my little friend

Many wonderful things have happened this week, amongst them a surge of visitors to this blog from Facebook.

Of course this gives me no end of joy, since I haven’t had a FB account for nearly six months. I can only imagine someone’s created a fan page for me and my blog, and judging by the geographical origin of the visits I am pretty sure I know who my benefactor and President of my fan club is.
(Yes Love, I can see you. In fact, I can see a bit more than you can. Remember this next time).

So make yourself at home and leave a comment – I’d like to do my best to make your visit an entertaining one!

FO x 3 – The return of Simplicity 7451

Tags

apparel, charity shop, dressmaking, fashion, movies, refashion, rtw, Seventies, sewing, sewing machine, sewing patterns, simplicity, sizing, solids, top

Remember Simplicity 7451? It’s back:

L-R: Maroon l/s, refashioned jumper, poly knits s/s spots.

This week I made a long-sleeved V-neck one from some maroon poly knit that was in the stash. I know it looks purple, but it really isn’t.
It has a centre back seam like almost everything I make these days, because I don’t like wasting fabric.
There is a 3in band folded in half at the wrists and a 4in one at the hem, with a much narrower one at the neck. Bias tape from the pile of bias tape at the shoulders and black thread everywhere, since I had a bad case of CBA.
This took two very distracted evenings to put together. I wore it on Thursday for a very long day at work and was very pleased with it.
It’s the right length and the right fit, no bunching or riding up. I love long-sleeved tee but they never fit like this one does.

On Friday I raided the charity shop (more on this later) and picked up a men’s red jumper which I made into another Simplicity 7451, this time taking advantage of the existing ribbing. This took half a morning and the finish isn’t great but I am still going to wear it, and I can always replace the band if I can’t live with (I usually can).

I wore my new red top to go see Sam Raimi’s Oz The Great and Powerful, which I really enjoyed. When it comes to “Disney gives money to a director I love to make something inspired by a classic” I am still smarting from *that* Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland (eurgh), but this is very good. Aside from maybe James Franco liking himself to an extent not seen since the golden days of Clark Gable, but that’s his problem and not the film.
I also love Michelle Williams, who is a lot more talented than just being Heath Ledger’s ex or somebody who used to be in (double eurgh) Dawson’s Creek. She gets to wear some amazing costumes in this, and so do Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis.

Finally, today I just finished another short-sleeved one out of some polyknit.
I managed to squeeze sleeve and bands out of a tiny squeezy metre of fabric. I had to do a lot of joining and was quite gutted when I realised I had overlooked a relatively big scrap that would have saved me most of the joining. Still, this took just three very leisurely hours, with plenty of breaks for tea and Easter egg:

Not bad for a 37-year old pattern that cost me ten Bob.

FO of 2013 #2 – The Life of Pi Burda “Chill dress”

Tags

blue, Burda, Burda Style, Burdastyle, dress, dressmaking, sewing

The Facts

Fabric: Less than a metre of man-made printed knit. I like it because it’s a bit Seventies and it reminds of zebras. Stashed after my Christmas visit to Giesse Scampoli.
Pattern: Burda Style 11-2012-136, the dress view (as opposed to the top). Here’s a link to the pattern in the shop.
Year: 2012.
Notions: Thread, bias tape for the shoulder, WundaWeb to stabilise the hem..
And the insides? Nope. This was a challenged to see if I could make a dress in an evening, so the raw edges stayed raw.
Hours: About 4 hours in the course of an evening. My housemate works nights so I could rattle into the night to my heart’s content.
First worn: For work on Monday 14th January 2012.
Wear again? When I find a better red belt.
Make again? I might make the top length, but I won’t be making the dress length again.
Total cost: I can’t find the receipt but it was only the fabric and it’s from the remnants place, so two Euros at most.

Dear Blog,
How’s January treating you? Here it’s cold, work is as insane as I predicted and every once in a while I like to take some time out to do my own thing, if by “my own thing” you mean “discovering a channel on my new PVR box that only shows music biopics – oh dear I think I might forget to eat”.

After finishing Mum’s skirt and tidying up the sewing room, I decided I wanted to make something easy, something that didn’t need lining, finishing, snaps and waistband. So I got out some printed knit fabric that looks a lot better than it feels (very manmade!) and decided to see how long it took me to make this Burda pattern that I traced during the holidays.

From marking the fabric to hemming the skirt this took just over four hours. The neckline and sleeves are finished with your usual self-fabric band folder in half and pressed, which works really well with this fabric. The bottom was hemmed with WundaWeb (yes, the supermarket variety) and then a small zig-zag on top.
Speaking of zig-zag, this project was a great way to remind myself of what a most perfect zig-zag my Judy produces.

After finishing this on Saturday night, on Monday I put it on to wear to work.

Was I happy with it? Nope. Far from being flattering on me, this adds where no more is needed and takes away where it should accentuate. There is flaunting, dear blog, and there is getting arrested, and I know on which side of that line I like to live my life.
So I decided to wear this with a belt like in the magazine, but problem is, I don’t own many belts.
I hate belts. They sit on my hips like a joke, move around and never really work. For this reason, I don’t own many belts at all. This was borrowed from an Eighties dress I bought in a vintage shop last year:

Whilst I agreeit does a lot for the dress, this belt is too short and it doesn’t have a proper buckle, so I took it off shortly after I got to work, lest it dropped in the middle of the canteen and it all looked like an accident.
I am also not a fan of how the belt makes this dress even short than it already is, which is something else I am not comfortable with.

Why Life Of Pi? Because I was listening to the audiobook once again whilst I was making this, and because when I wore to work last week I felt it wasn’t really doing anything for me, whilst everyone else was madly in love it and I got lots of compliments. Just like Life Of Pi, it’s up to you which story you want to believe!

For those of you who might be that way inclined, here’s my PR review:
Pattern Description: Man-made knit dress in the Loungewear section of Burda November 2012. My Burda is in Italian, but on the website this is described as a “Chill dress”. I am guessing “Chilling” is German for lounging.

Pattern Sizing: The usual Burda. I cut a 42 with extra room at the hips. I am a Burda 42 at the bust and hips but a 50-52 at the hips.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Pretty much.

Were the instructions easy to follow? I read them, but I didn’t use them. Yes, it is that simple.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? It’s very easy and Burda doesn’t go on any silly tangent with this, which is rare even on easy patterns.
I have to wear this with a belt so it ends up being shorter than I would like but that happens a lot with modern RTW with me. Also, the armhole are too low, as some other reviewers already commented.

Fabric Used: Synthetic printed knit from the local fabric shop near my parents in Italy. I only cut the front on the fold and this way I managed squeeze this out of less than a metre of fabric.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: Wider at the hips. Bias tape from stash at the shoulders, which (from memory) is instructed for the top but not the dress version.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I would definitely recommend this if you are looking for something easy to start sewing knits, and I might sew the top version again. The dress version is a little too much on my figure (and boy I am not shy!)

Conclusion: Dead easy and flattering, but will do very different things for different figures.

Sunday round-up: 26.08.2012

Tags

denim, denim skirt, marathon, pencil skirt, running, skirt

I’m back, I’m back, I’m baaack!!!
In fact I am so back it’s like I have never been away:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5   |  5  |     |     |     |  5 |     |  15  |
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|      | 3.1 | 5.4 |     |     |  8 |     | 16.5 |
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Where do I begin? August is always a beee-atch for me. Last weekend was better than expected, but the run-up to it was hard work as usual. Still, this year we might (I said MIGHT) have an August without tears, heartache, lootin’, tootin’ or shootin’. It’d be about time, too. Still, I’ve got some ace friends and some amazing coping mechanisms and I am pretty good at this life shiz if I say so myself.

But back to the running: yesterday I finally managed a long run worthy of its name! A proper 8-miler that finishes with the feeling that I could still go on.
Like in the good old days. Only this was yesterday!

I was on a high for the rest of the day, and I am still chuffed. And hungry!
I have missed proper running like this, and I have missed everything about it. The mangled toenails, the sore legs, the hollow legs, the body shutting down at 6 o’clock in the afternoon, the waking up early next day because you are still hungry.
I am only bummed that I didn’t get a chance to go swimming this week, but my sessions got delayed by a bout of Fetid Baked Beans, but I have cycled most of the week to make up for it.
The most important thing is – running and I have kissed and made up, and this is the best news ever!

In other news, I have seen The Lorax and Brave, and actually enjoyed the former more than the latter. I think I need to see Brave again to make my mind about it.

I have also made a denim skirt, and a black pencil skirt for work is waiting to be hemmed as we speak, although I have not had that much sewing time of late.

Sunday round-up: 12.08.2012

Tags

michelle pfeiffer, movies, paul rudd, running, running shoes

*drumroll please*
Ladies and gentlemen, the two weeks ending today:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  1.6 |     | 3.1 |     |     | 5  |     | 9.7  |
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|  3.4 |     | 5.2 |     |     | 5  |     | 13.6 |
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Yay! I am running again!
Invested in some new shoes but more importantly some Inbalance moulded insoles.

I have started training again and the plan is to slowly build the long runs back to 15-18 miles, do some mid-week speed intervals at work gym, but only run three times a week instead of four. I feel that I was in a good enough place before the injury to allow for this. I will use fourth weekly workout slot for something else. Last week I went for a swim and loved it, and I might try other different things.

I cannot say enough good things about the insoles. It’s not just the running, they make it much easier to stand for long period of times, meaning I was able to volunteer at the Manchester Mini Maker Faire, which was a ridiculous amount of fun – check out one near you!
Of course being comfortable standing for long periods of time means that sewing is much easier too! Even though entails wearing footwear around the house, which is the single thing I abhorr the most in life. My Mum, who has spent the past 30-odd telling me to put slippers on, will be delighted. If she finds out. Don’t tell on me InterwebZ!

I am saving up for a check at the local foot clinic another pair of insoles. They also allow me to wear flat shoes again, although work as a ban on trainers on Friday (don’t ask) and I am not doing Improv, meaning that I wear 2-3in heels most of the time. Those lift my arch the right way anyway, and look smart too, even at the weekend. Not that I am not coveting trainers they way I have done my whole life, mind.

In other news, yesterday I was getting ready to watch a DVD of How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer I had picked up with some kindling and skewers the other day.
One of the trailers was for I could never be your woman.
Never one to resist Paul Rudd’s charms, I went ahead and rented that movie instead.
It’s a lovely little gem of a rom-com, and I have no idea why I haven’t come across it before! Hoping to find it on DVD soon.

Sunday round-up: 15.07.2012

Tags

abraham lincoln vampire hunter, dressmaking, gett off, physio, purple, running, sewing

Hope you didn’t get here looking for a running blog today:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|     |      |     |     |     |    |     |   0  |
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Some of the pain from the injury is still there, and spending half of the week with the flu hasn’t exactly helped.
I went to see the physio on Tuesday and he did some strange Ninja move that feels like someone pushing hot rods into my feet, my knees and my hips. Delightful.
Pain aside, it was a useful visit as he took one look at me and pointed out that I overpronate like nobody’s business and I might want to look at different shoes for the marathon.

I am seeing the GP tomorrow to enquire about waiting lists to see someone about biomechanics. In the meantime I am refraining from training in case something else flares up and I am unable to dance at my friend’s wedding on Saturday.
Being unable to dance at her wedding is up there with not showing up, and it’s not going to happen.

This is what I am wearing at the wedding:

Only that’s just the front panel of the skirt, so if I wore it in its current state I would follow in the footsteps of Prince, and I don’t think that style suits me as much as it does him.

In other news, I finally got round to see Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. It’s so terrible that it is actually amazing! Really, go see it. It’s like Snakes on a plane, but better, and that was a tough one to improve on.

Sunday round-up: 01.07.2012

Tags

buttonholes, running, sewing

First of all, we’re halfway through 2012 and I haven’t fallen out with any of my friends yet!
This is a 200% improvement on 2011. What happened in April and May doesn’t count because in both instances it had already happened last year anyway.

But on to running! This week was a bit jumbled, but in a good way:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |      |  3  |  5  |     | 13 |     |  26  |
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On Monday I trained in the morning and after work I cycled into town to see Moonrise Kingdom.
It’s the best Wes Anderson movie, meaning it’s the best of the best of a lot of movies out there. But it was a late night, and on Tuesday I eschewed my usual run to head straight into work.

On Wednesday morning I headed out reasonably early and soon realised that a sizeable piece work was due at 11:30, so I cut two miles from my circuit and headed to the office. You’ll be pleased to hear that I made my deadline with a whole 11 minutes to spare.

Thursday morning I just had the most snoozealicious snooze of them all, but still managed to get my 5 miles in.

On Saturday I ran a tough 13.1 miles on 5 hours’ sleep thanks to my sewing mojo coming back from wherever it had been for a couple of weeks.
Some of it was pretty horrible, including 3 whole miles of hitting the wall, but I managed to finish and feel quite good about that.

As far as sewing is concerned, after The Dress Of Awesome I got seamstress’ block.
The magic had left the building and I was holding the door open by telling myself I needed to make separates for work, and that I had to learn to make buttonholes.

I didn’t learn how to make the wretched things but made some progress, and in the end decided to go back to making real stuff instead.
On Friday night I proved that you can make a skirt in an evening (pictures coming soon), and also discovered that I am a lot better at drinking wine and sewing than I was last time I tried. It’s all downhill from here!

Sunday round-up: 24.06.2012

Tags

buttonholes, cosmopolis, cronenberg, fast girls movie, improv, running

I decided it was time for a long overdue step back:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |  4   |     |  4  |     | 6  |     |  19  |
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It was a week of some bad news, much working, lots of hanging out with lovely people and spending time at the cinema.
I saw Cosmopolis on Wednesday.
You know a Cronenberg movie is good when some of it it’s amazing and some of it looks like a student movie parodying Cronenberg.
This one is no exception, but it must be well made since at one point I had forgotten I was watching the guy off Twilight. That’s a result.

All in all a decent week, but it was time for some rest.
Yesterday’s run was halved and partly replaced by eating crisps and drinking red wine whilst watching the olympic trials .

I was brought up to hate passive sportsmanship, and I still do.
People who use “we” when talking about a football team they support anger me no end, especially when I can see that they themselves last broke a sweat because the Last Orders bell startled them.
I had a brief period of going to watch rugby matches and, whilst some of it was pleasant, they just seem to go on for much longer than was actually enjoyable.

This attitude is one of the main reasons why I came to enjoy sports very late, when I was well into my thirties. Without an interest in them, there was no inspiration.

These days I feel entitled to watch other people sweating (a lot more than I ever do, obviously), because it inspires my own efforts. I admire Kathryn Bertine and I love her writing, and I owe my decision to enter the marathon to reading the right Chrissie Wellington quote at the right time.

It is with this in mind that on Friday I went to see a British film called Fast Girls, which is very good despite the terrible title.
Yes it’s cheesy, and soppy, and possibly simplistic, but it’s also very inspiring. It made me love running and miss Improv (“the relay is about timing. And trust”), even more than I already do.
And that is saying something.

In other news, naff-all sewing this week!
This is due in part to life getting in the way (work, lodger moving in, doing lovely things with lovely people) and in part to the difficulty of finding a worthy follow-up for the dress of awesome.
What little sewing time I had this week was spent trying to make a decent buttonhole on Judy.
I am not quite there yet, but I will soon – stay tuned!

Sunday round-up 13.05.2012

The bad news is I only managed one measly 5-miler this week, yesterday to be exact.

The good news is… well, where do I start?
From the running, I guess. Those five miles yesterday were the best run in a long time. The leg pain has left the building! I have been using my bike a lot this week and my intuition was right – it definitely helps loosen the muscles. Finally I am enjoying running again!

In other good news, some of which will probably get their own post soon, Dad had his surgery on Monday. It couldn’t have been on a worse day for me, since it was a Bank Holiday in the UK and I didn’t have work to distract me, but everything seems to have gone pretty well.
Once again I have the most amazing support network and I am so grateful to my friends for helping me maintain my sanity in the past couple of weeks.

I also have a brand new dress which will make its debut very soon, and a brand new silky pajama top I am wearing right now. The feel of the fabric is great but it’s going to be a while before I touch anything slippery again!

Speaking of music, there is a documentary about Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers over on BBCiPlayer that you have to watch!
Yes, it’s four hours long. So what? It’s less than a week’s worth of soap operas, and about two football matches. You can do it! I might well watch it again myself before it goes from the iPlayer.
It’s a beautiful, monumental piece of film-making by the legend that is Peter Bogdanovic.
And when I say legend I mean he went all the way to Cicely to visit Eddie in an episode titled Rosebud. And he likes rock’n'roll. What more do you want?

Sunday round-up 6.05.2012

Tags

ewan mcgregor, La Mia Boutique, trousers, unicrotch

This week was a little bit tougher than planned:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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| 3.9  |     |  5  |  3  |     | 8  |     |  19.9|
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It really irks me to not see a 20 at the end but I refuse to round it up.
Monday’s run was the first time in years of running I ever had to walk halfway through my circuit. I ended up turning around and running home. My legs just wouldn’t work.

I went back and thought about the last time I was training so much, and the only thing that was different was the I was cycling to work everyday. My legs were certainly sore, but they didn’t hurt the way they have done recently.

So I dragged the bike out of hibernation and started using it again, and the legs already feel a little bit better.

In other news, someone brought a book about birthdays into work the other day. I read it for a laugh and was not happy to find it full of astrology, but for what it’s worth I am allegedly birthday twins with Edith Head and Isaac Merritt Singer, although different sources give him a different birthday.
I guess that explains a few things.

In sewing news, on Tuesday night I made a toile (the French word that’s English for muslin) for a pair of trousers from La Mia Boutique May 2012.
I had just heard some worrying news from Italy and was struggling to concentrate, so my first attempt at the side and inner seams ended up looking like a skirt.
I ripped and started again and this time ended up with a fabulous monstrosity that I could only describe as one buttock with two legs dangling from it.
I didn’t take a picture of it -it was so gruesome that the lens on my camera would have probably broken anyway- so you have to take my word for it. I decided to name it The Unicrotch and carry it in my heart forever.

The toile ended up more or less alright, although I really need to learn to mark my wrong and right sides when they are not obvious. I am now working on another Unicrotch:

Tomorrow is a public holiday here in the UK so I plan to source a grey zipper, finish these off and then no more sewing for the day since The hovel in which I fester is no longer an amusing hyperbole to describe Palais Joynson and I do need to do some housework.

The rest of the weekend was spent running, having a very bad experience with Neue Mode 22098, feeling more or less sick / hungry / thirsty / worried and watching Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, because it’s a well-known fact that any illness can be alleviated by two hours of Ewan McGregor and a giant bucket of Sprite.

The film is very, very fluffy. It start out Love-Actually awful, but it does pick up as the story unfolds. Kristin Scott Thomas is outstanding and saves the whole movie from being a mere fluff-fest. She even makes a reference to The Wire that made me laugh out loud in the cinema.
If you are a fan of a certain statistic relating to Mr McGregor’s filmography, I can confirm that this movie falls firmly in the “no-wang” column of the spreadsheet.

There is a lot of footage of fish, which is always a winning combination with Ewan McGregor (Daffodils!), and some scenes reminded me of when I was a child and my Dad used to spend a lot of time on fish farms.

There is more running planned for tomorrow, as well as a long-ish bike ride, so night night cyberspace!