A warm and toasty diversion

Hey readers!

I feel like I’ve been all over the place lately with sewing projects.  I feel kinda bad that I haven’t been updating my Albany Dress sew along, but I got diverted…by the COLDEST MORNING IN 96 YEARS!!!!

Yes, my dear friends, a couple of days ago it was 1.6 degrees in the wee hours of the morning.  I tell ya, that made for a mighty uncomfrotably cold bike ride.  To all my North American, European and any other place that experiences ‘real cold’ friends, yes, I’m soft.  And yes, it took me a total of 6 months to go from rock hard “+3!!!  Where are my thongs??!!” Winnipeger to soft “+16 is FREEZING, where’s my polar fleece” Aussie.  :P

This lead me to put my lovely dress on hold and divert my efforts to a warm wool coat.  You see, my pink jacket was suppose to be said coat, but got cut short if you remember.  This leaves the backside unfortunately exposed to the elements whist on the saddle of my bike.  I did have 3 yds of lovely Meadowbrook basketweave wool just sitting on my fabric shelf collecting dust.

So, I went to toooooowwwwwnnnnnnnn.

I wanted a trench type coat (rather fitted) with a wide collar…and look who showed up on BurdaStyle…

Perfecto.  Except for the leather fabric and the GINORMOUS patch pockets, it was a go go.  I’m making it slightly longer with 4 buttons (double breasted style) and putting a D-ring on the belt.  You’re probably wondering (or perhaps not) why I always choose BS patterns.  The reason is that the size 44 always seems to fit me well with few adjustments.  This is good enough reason for me.  Besides, I like the fact that I can download them and have my pattern now and for just over 5 bucks.

Anywho, I made a muslin anyways.  The fit was perfect…that was a waste of muslin, but you never know.  It could be terrible…it’s happened before.  And just like rain, as soon as you don’t wear your rain coat…yeah, it rains.

The fabric is rather heavy and can’t be traced with my usual tracing wheel/carbon paper setup, so I had to thread trace by hand around every freaking piece.  It took me ALL day.  Only to find…..

I DIDN’T BUY ENOUGH FABRIC!  Double frig!  So now I have no sleeves…real good on the warm factor

I have taken Susan’s couture dress course on Craftsy and had her voice in my head saying over and over…”pin all your pieces to the fabric BEFORE you start cutting”.  But Noooooooooooooooooooooo…I knew better.  I had enough, for sure!  Yeah, I’ll just eyeball it.

Bad idea.  My advice?  Pin all the pieces to the fabric before you cut…go figure

Anywho, unfortunately the fabric was from the USA, so I had to order another yard.  But to justify the shipping charge, I had to order more fabric…of course.  To be fair, I also ordered a nice rayon twill lining in cream to go with my coat.  I figure a mid-weight twill will be heavy enough to stand up to the coating weight wool flannel.

Well, I’m tired now and heading to bed soon.  Tomorrow is tailoring collar time…yay pad stiching.

Enjoy,

Kat

Pattern Making – Week 4

Hey readers!

As you’ve heard I’m taking a Pattern Making course at TAFE.  It’s seriously great and I’m learning a lot about turning a basic skirt block into a myriad of patterns.  It’s really amazing what you can do with a block once you know a few basic rules.  I’ve finished my basic straight skirt block and made the toile.  The toile fit almost perfectly except for a small intake of 0.5cm on each side on the hip!  Yay!

I made said changes to the block and set out to make something different.  I decided to make a wiggle skirt with a yoke and a rear godet.  Something similar to this, but not as ruffly at the back and and not as super tight.

Image from www.lafrock.com

The yoke basically removes the darts.  It’s so easy to modify a pattern with darts to make a skirt with a yoke.   Just remember, the darts always need to go somewhere.  Here’s what I did.

Here’s the plan for the skirt front.

I wanted to make the yoke dip down at the front and up towards the side seams, hence the angled cut.  You can make the yoke any shape you like, just don’t leave too much of the dart left (more about this in a bit).  I also pegged the skirt in, as you can see with the red cut line.  Make sure you only take it in below the hip line, as that measurement needs to be unchanged.

So, now you’re left with a the top of the skirt cut off.  You will transform this into your yoke like magic.  Simply fold one side of the dart (in red) and move it to lay directly over the other side (in blue) – essentially folding out the dart.  There, you’ve just gotten rid of the dart.  Your yoke may look a little angular due to the folding, but just take a pencil and smooth out the curve, no worries.

But now you’re left with a tiny dart on the bottom bit of the skirt!  That dart has to go somewhere, so you take it out of the side seam, providing it’s less than about 0.8cm…any more than that and the curve is too severe.

So there, now you’ve got a yoke pattern (cut two – one for the facing) and a pattern for the main skirt body.  I made the same yoke pattern on the back as well.  Just make sure you match the pegging in on the back with the front – seams always have to match up.

Next week is godet time, so stay tuned!

Enjoy,

Kat

The story of wine and chocolate

I’m sitting here on a lovely Saturday evening eating a square of dark chocolate with a fine glass of Edgecombe fortified shiraz…simply because the guy at the cellar told me to.  And good advice it was indeed.  All you Perthites should go to the Swan Valley and pick up a bottle of their fortified shiraz.  And some dark chocolate.

But I digress.  This experience reminded me of a lovely dinner Chris and I had at Chapter One Brasserie in Subi (another Perth recommend) and a related wine and chocolate related life lesson.   A tasty, tasty life lesson.

We had just finished a fantastic dinner which left me satisfied but not grotesquely full, thankfully.  I had room for dessert.  Namely, the dark chocolate torte – and a chef’s specialty at that.  Oh yeah, he’s Belgian too.  Freaking no brainer there.

When the chocolate arrived I felt bad…in a good way.  I said to the (very knowledgeable) waiter, “Sir, do you have a port you would recommend to accompany this fine dark chocolate torte?”.  He replied (to my delight), “I know just what you need.  It’ll be..” I interrupted with, “No, no, no!  Don’t tell me the price…just bring it to me”

And he did

And it was…exquisite.  Combined with the chocolate it was… indescribable.

Lesson I learned from this tasty, tasty experience was; if you’re going all out, do it properly.  I don’t do it often, but when I do, I get the good port.  So to speak.

Love to hear your most memorable food experiences.  It’s truly one of life’s greatest gifts and finest pleasures.

Enjoy,

Kat

Sewing “Disaster” Update

Hey readers!

Remember my last sewing disaster?  Well, I’ve gotten quite a bit done on my chic little jacket and I must say I am loving it!!!  The back with my ‘creative seaming’ actually looks pretty cool

I’ve gotten much past this point, actually and have constructed the whole jacket now.  The sleeves were just above the wristbone (which, being tall, I HATE), so I lengthened the sleeves by 10 cm.  No other alterations were made.

I think it’s so cute!  I don’t have a piccie of it on, since I have to insert the lining still.  I bought a super cute polka dot poly lining today with some gorgeous black beaded buttons.

Let’s take a closer look at those buttons, shall we?

Beeeautiful!

Well, I’ve certainly learned that mistakes can be a good thing, although sometimes it’s also good to know when to give up too.  Speaking of…I’ve also been working on the lining of my Glamazon suit jacket…and..I kinda don’t like it.

The color is just not good for me – the light coral color kind of reminds me of pyjamas for some very very strange reason.  Anywho, I’m going to try and jazz it up with a flower or something.  But for now it’s a UFO and is hiding in the closet

So, there, I’ve divulged my nasty UFO secret…what’s yours???

Enjoy,

Kat

Sweet Pea Teeee Peeees

Hey readers!

Short post today to share a different way to grow climbing veggies (peas, beans) if you don’t have room for or don’t have lattice – built a tee pee for your sweet peas!

So for each tee pee, you need only 3 bamboo stakes and some twine.  Hopefully you can see from the photos how you wrap it around the stakes.  I found that the easiest way was to stick them in the ground first, tie the tops together and then wrap the twine around starting from the top and winding it around each stake as you pass it.

If I’d do it again, I’d use longer stakes, as these seem a bit small, but I figure I can always add more tee pees or string twine between them if I need to…and I think I might.

Anywho, hope you enjoyed and gained some useful information.  If you’re short on space, you can grow peas in containers!  These tee pees would be great for that too!

Do you have a garden be it container or beds?  Love to hear about any interesting ways you grow your plants!

Enjoy,

Kat

Sewing “Disaster”

Hey everyone.

I bought the BurdaStyle book!

To be honest, the main reason for my purchase was their coat pattern!  Love that Audrey Hepburn took!

The rest of the book is pretty good too, I guess  I really like how they highlight creativity over perfect technique.  They take a blouse,  skirt, dress, coat and bag pattern and how how they styled it and then show two variations of the basic pattern resulting from basic pattern alterations and then walk you through those alterations.  I find this incredibly inspiring.  Encouraging creativity and individual expression is awesome.  Also, encouraging pattern alteration to fulfill your creative desires is doubly awesome.  Essentially, it’s awesome

Anywho, you came here for a sewing disaster…and you shall get one.

I bought a lovely rather large remnant of wool felt from Textile Traders upon my latest (of many) visits.  It’s a dark shade of hot pink and simply could not be passed up.  It was 2m x 1.6m and $15…AND 30% OFF TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Can you say MASTER CARD!??

Anywho, I’ve always meant to shorten the BurdaStyle coat to a longer jacket.  I whipped up a muslin with the new length and loved it.

Please forgive the hair.

Anywho.  I was all excited about the lovely dovetailing of my BurdaStyle coat and my $10 fabric, so I got down to biznis.

Here’s my fabric layout

OK…want a challenge readers?  Are you ready?  Spot the centre back piece.

I”ll wait.

Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema…

Okay okay…it’s a trick question…BECAUSE THERE IS NONE!  Yes, that’s right.  The pattern pieces fit so well on the fabric because there was no centre back.  Kinda important for a jacket, no?  FRICK!

I discovered this unfortunate error when I went to assemble the thing. I was so upset that I threw the whole freaking thing in the bin and went to watch “Bill Cunningham New York”  See review here.

Bill kept talking on and on about standing out from the crowd and being creative.  This inspired me to go dumpster diving and retrieve my ill fated coat.  I laid everything out and thought about my options.  The biggest piece of fabric is the sleeves…so I thought of cutting them short.  Then I thought this wouldn’t exactly be practical for the wintertime, so I turned my attention to the bottom front and back pieces.

I thought that I could perhaps shorten the coat into a jackety type thing and use the bottom half of those pieces as fabric for the centre back.  However, the pieces were not long enough to accomodate the entire pattern piece.  So, I cut the piece in two.

I then laid the large piece on the lower back fabric piece and the smaller one on one of the lower front pieces.

So, the centre back will have some “creative seaming”…I like to think of it as a design feature

Anywho, will update with progress on my “Interpretation” of the BS coat

Stay creative and make mistakes!  Have you had a mistake that you turned into an opportunity for creativity/resourcefulness?  Let us all know about it!!!

Enjoy,

Kat

Film Review

Hello readers!

I’m no film buff.  I just don’t watch movies for fun.  But I do love a good documentary, especially when on a topic near and dear.  While perusing Gertie’s Blog , I came across a commentary on the film “Bill Cunningham New York” and the premise intrigued me enough to make a purchase off iTunes (considering it would take a billion years for the hard copy to arrive from the US).

Let me begin by saying I’m infinitely glad I did.

Bill Cunningham is a fashion photogra…make that cultural anthropologist for the New York Times.  He lives in a *tiny* studio apartment in Carnegie Hall (one of the last 2 holdouts), wears the same clothes everyday, eats the same meals, and gets around on his vintage Schwinn.  He’s never had a romantic relationship in his life, goes to church every Sunday and lives street fashion.  His work is his pleasure.

One thing that struck me about this man is that he seems to be either in deep concentration, almost in a meditative state, when he works or he’s laughing or smiling.  Sometimes both.  Gertie describes him as a “fashion monk”, and I would agree.  He works harder than most, lives in a closet and doesn’t have much but seems happy and at mental peace.  He had a good line that goes something like (and I’m paraphrasing here), If you don’t take money from them, they can’t tell you what to do.  Money is the cheapest thing, but freedom is the most expensive.  I could not agree more.

Isn’t that the paradox sometimes?  We work so hard for money to give us ‘freedom’ when all we get is further into the corner of the cage.    What we think will give us freedom, actually does the opposite.  Sure, we may have the ‘freedom’ to choose whatever holiday destination we like or whatever car/house we want, but in reality the one who writes the cheque holds the purse strings and we dance to their tune.

Sometimes a nice house, new car or exotic holiday do not make us happy in the long run – unless we have peace of mind which comes from fulfilling our potential and expressing our true selves.  Just like an animal becomes listless and depressed when caged up and not allowed to live their nature, we become mentally unwell when we’re not allowed to express our nature.

So here’s to Bill Cunningham – a real inspiration for me and a reminder to take time everyday (even if you can’t do it all day) to express your true nature and just be happy.   I highly recommend the film – 5 Kat stars

So, what do you think?   Have you seen the film?  Do you feel you are fulfilling your true nature or do you find ways to do so during the day?  I’d love to know how!

Enjoy,

Kat

Greek spinach pockets

Hey readers!

Chris is gone to a meeting tonight for the Australian Electric Vehicle Association, so I’m playing with dinner in the kitchen!  I’ve had a craving for these tasty little spinach pockets I used to have for lunch regularly back in Vancouver.  So, I decided to try my hand at a little recipe.  This is a Kat original, and I must say, a very tasty one indeed.  Again, sorry for the nonprecise ingredient list, but it’s kinda what I had around the house Ah well, it’s all about authenticity these days anyways, eh?

1 package of filo pastry

2 large bunches silverbeet (swiss chard)

2 potatoes, cubed

2 medium sized onions

1 block feta (I think mine was about 20cm square)

3 eggs

a handful of Italian parsley (yes ours is finally big enough in the garden to harvest!!)

juice of 1/2 a lemon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Roughly shred the silverbeet (you can also use spinach) leaves and finely chop the stems.  Steam until wilted (about 5 min), and place in colander to drain and cool while you do other stuff.  Place cubed potatoes into a pot with water and boil until soft.  Finely chop onions and fry in olive oil for about 5 minutes until soft.  Get a big bowl.  Squeeze all the water out of your silverbeet and place in bowl – and then add all the other ingredients and mix well. Taste the mixture and adjust seasoning if you like.

Remove 6 sheets of filo from the package and cut them into squares about 30cm square (mine were already squares).  Put about 1/2c of mixture at the bottom of the square, fold both sides over, brush the other end with egg and roll ‘er up.  Brush the pocket with the remainder of the egg to make it nice and golden.

Place all packages on an oiled baking sheet and place in an 180 degree C oven for 20-25 minutes.

Voila!

These were quite tasty, for sure and will make a great lunch tomorrow too!  The point is not to replicate this recipe, but play with it!  That’s the great thing about having a box of filo in the freezer.  You can put just about anything in it, roll it and bake it…and it’ll look and taste pretty darn impressive.

Enjoy,

Kat

Quick and Fab Chicken Casserole

Hey readers!

Just a short post to alert you to a GREAT chicken casserole dish I made a few nights ago.  This one fall under the category of short enough for weeknight dinner and good enough for guests!  I left out the bacon rashers, made it with home made chicken stock and served it with a potato and parsnip mash and freshly steamed green beans (not from our garden because our beans are very small).

Super yum.  Give it a try!

Enjoy,

Kat

Albany Dress Muslin (or holy crap, it worked!)

I finished the main body of my muslin last night and it was a near perfect fit!  This stuff really works!

The only issue was that the waist was a BIT too perfect – ie: I had little wiggle room.  So, I reduced the decrease in the centre front/side front seam from 1cm to 0.5cm; giving myself 2cm more on the waist.  It was too late last night to attach the sleeves – and besides, it’s not advisable to do such a delicate task after 1/2 bottle of red!

This morning I attached one sleeve and was thrilled with the result!  I just need to lower the sleeve hem by about 2.5cm (typical adjustment for a tall girl), but that’s it!  Check it out readers!

I’m really happy with the result.  I think this will become a habit for me.  Measuring the pattern and doing some flat pattern adjustment BEFORE the muslin even happens saved me a lot of time and fuss trying to pin myself and whatnot.

I bought some more muslin from the fabric shop yesterday (30% off too!), so I reckon I’ll use that for the interlining.  I’m still not sure what to use for the lining of the dress.  I’ve been toying around with a self-fabric lining, but I think I’ll have to play it by ear and see how it works out.

Next is transferring my adjustment to my flat pattern (waist and sleeve length) and then cutting out my muslin for the interlining!

Enjoy,

Kat