Sunday, July 24, 2011

Garb-ish stuff...

Cleaning up the studio a bit more.  Trying to get the notebooks full of garb articles into some sort of useful order.  The Garb Planning & Inventory notebook is starting to look pretty good, as I've gotten quite a bit done this last year.

Wow, about 1 1/3 years since I started building garb for Highlands War last year.  I do have quite a few pieces now, though I'm still struggling to get complete outfits put together.  Accessories seem to be my downfall.  I started logging my garb pieces on my A&S 50 Challenge page, on this blog.  In just over a year, I've made 46 pieces - ok, so some aren't quite finished, but I'm definitely going to meet the deadline for the Challenge!  If I finish my outfit for Middle East Feast (Labor Day weekend), I'll probably have my 50.

Some of what's on my list isn't all that spectacular, so I think I'll keep going on the Challenge, after the 50 are done, and see how many pieces I really have at the end.  Then I can count the 50 best for the Challenge and do a blog post with pictures of all.  That would be fun.

Ok, time to go back to the notebooks and piles of papers.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

And as for the great stash reduction...

...phase one is complete.  Approximately 144 pieces of fabric found new homes amongst my fellow SCA'ers, and in a children's theater costume shop.  Thank heavens for costume shops!  Fabrics that had me wondering how insane I had gone to have bought them in the first place - no problem - they'll fill some need or other and look great on stage.

Can't help but feel that I still need to cull almost as many pieces again, but it's harder now.  The pieces now gone were pieces that either I actually disliked, or pieces that I sort of liked but knew would not be sewing until a lot of other pieces had been used first.  What's left is ALL stuff that I do like and can envision wearing eventually.  I guess the dilemma is to decide which pieces are likely to be the last ones that I want to sew, even though I like them all.  That's not easy.  So much depends on the inspirations of the moment.

Oh well.  I still feel that a fabric stash is a marvelous source of inspiration in its own right, and a therapeutic tool that calms and relaxes when too much else is stressful and hectic.  I can stare at my stash and see new combinations amongst fabrics that have been there for a long time.  Re-arranging the folded pieces, every now and then, seems to re-charge the stash potential and bring to my mind new possibilities.

Will I miss any of the pieces that are gone...NOPE.  Many I've already forgotten and am not likely to recall.  Maybe I'll go visit a few of them when they're on stage, during a show.  Otherwise, I'm moving forward and those fabrics are definitely behind me.

Have camera...will shoot! (LONG)

Yes, finally have a working camera once more.  Gave up on finding the old battery charger and ordered a new one.  Of course, that just about guarantees that the old one WILL now show up!

And so, I can catch up on photographing garb to show, good, bad or otherwise.  I'll also be posting pictures of some past projects, as well as some things that are going to be leaving my studio in search of new homes.  My camera and I will be busy this week!

For now, my most current project - a Persian coat in the works.  I'm debating how to finish it and thinking that a partial lining - facings really - in a blue/green silk will be the way to go.

No, the pictures don't do justice to the shape of the coat, but I'll figure out a better way to photograph garb eventually.  Here is the full length of the coat.  The two shots below show the lining/facing fabric stuck into the front.  I feel that the contrast lining/facings are necessary as the printed fabric is white on the back and not attractive at all.  The facings will be on the front, around the neck, and around the hem, with the hem facings deep enough that the white won't be noticeable in most wearing situations.  Sleeves will get hem facings too.


The fabric that I used for this coat was on a sale table, quite cheap, and I was using it to test the pattern for this coat.  I got in a bit of trouble over that as some people felt that it was too nice to use for pattern testing!  The pattern turned out so well though, thanks to Lady Adelicia, that I can absolutely finish it!  Even though I was cutting without regards for pattern matching, I ended up with some surprising matches!

Once this coat is done, I'll be cutting the fabric that I considered to be the 'good' fabric for this project.  It's a home dec fabric - more upholstery than drapery, so a bit heavy and warm for Arizona, but I'm sure that I'll get some opportunities to wear it, like in January maybe!
 




Back side of fabric

Recently completed is the corset that I started at Costume College 2010.  A bit less than two weeks ago, I was looking for some hand-stitching with which to wind down for the day.  There were no projects ready for hand work, at least none that I felt like working on.  It was probably 9 in the evening when I walked over to the drawer where the unfinished corset was waiting.  It needed all of about 4 rows of boning channel stitching before I could machine stitch the bias to the edges and have it ready for the hand-stitching to finish the bias on the inside.  I gave it about an hour that evening, and finished it by lunchtime the next day, after 11 1/2 months of avoiding it!

Within 2-3 days after that, I got an e-mail from Marcia, my carpool partner and roommate from CoCo last year.  She wanted to know if I would be interested in buying a CoCo membership, as her roommate had cancelled just 2 weeks before CoCo is happening.  I had decided months ago that I would not be going this year - budget issues - but when this happened, how could I resist!  So, just 2 weeks before CoCo this year, my project from last year got finished!  Good timing.

The corset fits me better than my dressform.  The dress form is smaller than me, so the bust area is gaping, and the foam is not compressible, so the waist can't be laced in any smaller.  Still, it doesn't look too bad on her and it does fit me.  That's the importing thing - it fits me.  I can fit other people, but I can't fit myself, so getting this fitted in a class setting was a necessity.



I was so excited about getting the corset finished that I immediately cut another one from remnants saved just for this purpose.  The fabric was just a synthetic brocade from JoAnn's.  But the pattern was so pretty, I loved it in spite of the polyester content.  I had originally bought it to line a coat from a Donna Karan pattern, the coat that has been in the works for about 20 years!  hehehe

It's a cocoon-type coat, with dolman sleeves.  The sleeves were originally cut so low in the underarm that it just made me look even shorter and dumpier than normal, so I scooped the underarm/side seams upwards some.  Once I did that, I like the coat well enough to want to finish it, but did not like the way the interior was looking.  The fabric is 'ribbon' fabric, with 1/8 ribbon woven to form loops on the surface.  The pattern did not call for a lining, but the inside looked so bad that I knew I had to add a lining.  The pink brocade was my choice - a perfect match for the ribbon fabric and such a wonderful pattern. 

The coat is still awaiting a last bit of finishing - hand-tacking the sleeve hems, and coming up with a really wonderful closure.  Then I just have to wait for the weather in which to wear it.




 

The rest of the fabric from the lining will make a scruptious corset, lined in a cotton-candy pink faille that I found in my stash.  There won't be much left in the way of scraps!

Hmmm...Coco Chanel lined jackets in fabric to match the blouses for the suits.  So a corset to match the lining of the coat - following in some impressive footsteps, hehe.






Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Progress, slow, painful but progress...and some big leaps too...

Well, maybe the painful part is an exaggeration, but yes, things have been slow.  Finally however, some things are coming together.

I should have a replacement battery charger and a new battery for the good digital camera, so I'm going to be able to start taking pictures again, lots of pictures!  Then I can share the things I've been making, and the plans for future projects.  I can also get pictures of things that I'm going to be putting on E-bay, so that my studio can have some open space and room to maneuver!  Yippee!

Which leads to today's big project, though that requires going backwards just a little bit first.  A few weeks ago, I decided to really cull the pattern collection, with the intention of inviting a vintage pattern dealer to look through the discards and then selling the rest on line.  Right now, there are two grocery bags (plastic) full of pattern envelopes - no content - just envelopes.  Not sure how many, but those will be going to that dealer, or online very soon.  I'll probably cull a few more patterns before I'm done.  The pattern collection has truly gotten absurd and it's time to reduce it in a major way.

Well, if I can do that with patterns, I can probably do it in other areas too.  I'd read an e-mail on one of the sewing groups, about a woman who'd found a major load of stress gone after she donated a majority of her fabric collection.  It felt as if I might actually be at that point, ready for that kind of a change too.  So, week before last, I pulled 200 +/- books from my studio library.  It almost seemed as though I hadn't pulled any...the shelves were so overflowing.  Those are going to go away either via e-bay or more likely, via a used book dealer who will come to the house and pick them all up, or so I hope.

TODAY...I looked at the fabric and felt something give way...and set the goal of pulling 100 pieces of fabric that I no longer love, and sending them on to new homes.  I've got 76 pulled and bagged, 24 to go, and that will have been so very easy.  Unfortunately, I don't think I've pulled enough.  If I can get through all of it, I can probably double the number of pieces, the number of bags.

Yes I'm using numbers like 100, 76, 200...I am truly a fabriholic, a sewing supply addict.  It's time for a change.  When one walks into one's studio or sewing room, and feels nothing but the stress of pending projects hanging over one's head, maybe there's something wrong.  Maybe it's time for a change.  Maybe I do not need to be a fabric pack rat, or a pattern collector.  Maybe I don't need hundreds of books to which I seldom refer, either in my own sewing, or in my teaching and class preps.  I want to walk into my studio and see enough fabric to give me inspiration, but not so much that there is no chance of my ever using even a portion of it in my lifetime.  I want to have enough space to work comfortably, even when I've got multiple projects going on all at once.

And today was productive in other ways too.  Actually, 2 nights ago I was looking for some handwork to do while watching a little TV before bed.  I didn't find anything ready for handwork that suited my mood.  However, my mood must have been a little strange because I ended up pulling a project from a year ago, diving in and getting ready to GET IT FINISHED!  I'd taken a Victorian corset class at CoCo last year.  It should have been finished that same day, but I just did not quite get there.  It needed about 6 more rows of stitching for the bone channels, the boning inserted, and the binding put on.  I just had not been in the mood to deal with it for most of the 11 months since CoCo.  I don't know if I just didn't care about it, or if I really thought that I didn't know how to finish.  At any rate, I sat down at the machine, buzzed in those channels, inserted the boning, machine-stitched the edge of the bias to the edges of the coutil, and started folding and pinning the bias for the hand-stitching on the inside.  With the help of a few episodes of Charmed, finally available on Netflix Instant View, I got the bias all stitched in place and it is finished!  YEAH!  Why did I wait so long?

That project being done really did fire me up to get back into the studio and get sewing, which is why I was out there today, in place to have the lightbulb moments that led to the Great Fabric Reduction!  I also cut out a new corset, using scraps from an old project - the lining fabric from my ribbon fabric Donna Karan coat, a project that goes back at least 17-18 years, and STILL needs a fastener!  The lining fabric was a Joann's brocade.  Yes, sadly, it's a poly, but those brocades did/do come in some really pretty patterns and colors and this one went so well with the ribbon fabric for the coat.  I had just enough left to cut the corset.  While weeding out fabrics, I stumbled across a perfect fabric for the lining for the corset too!

I've also set aside the fabrics for the next two corsets - one in a blue-on-blue jacquard, and one in a faux tooled leather.  Getting that corset from CoCo finished, really got me fired up, even though it wasn't my first finished corset! 

Yup, as soon as the battery charger gets here, I'll get set up and start taking lots of pictures.  I'm ready to start enjoying my studio and my fabrics and projects again, and I'm ready to share the fun!