Calorie-Free Chocolate

The post below about leather for the French Country carryall reminded me, the Anthropologie Mauritius Bag knockoff is sitting dormant on a desk because ... I need leather. Totally forgot about that project. As you see here, I have more ideas and visual obsessions than the discipline to complete a project.

And now summer is here. This is a yellow and white eyelet bag! It must be finished. Soon.

While I have chocolate color leather, it's about 2-2.5 ounces and a bear to sew, especially double thickness. I need a thinner, more pliable and drapey leather for my machine to handle. Leatherwise on eBay has never let me down in the leather department. One example, check this out, don't you just want to lick this?!




From Leatherwise, I have corduroy ribbed leather, tiny leopard print suede (which I made into a hat posted on PatternReview), silky black lambskin, delicate lilac suede, oh I love their leathers. The pieces are just enough for sewing an accessory or adding trim. The distressed pieces would make great coat/jacket collars and casual totes. Or what about making slippers to wear around the house? You could use their animal print leathers to make stuffed animals. I don't know if the dye lots on individual pieces are similar enough to buy multiple pieces for a larger project though, but probably worth contacting Leatherwise.

Cute Sewing Carryall

Here's a weekend sewing project for you. See this French Country carryall basket from Pierre Deux. Which you can buy all complete for $98. Sewing accessories and fabric swatches not included. Now look around your house. See a wicker basket in a closet or in the basement. Don't we all have unused wicker baskets tucked away somewhere? Now see a colorful fabric from your stash. See a solid heavier upholstery fabric from your stash. (The Pierre Deux version has leather wraparound pockets on the outside -- if you are lacking some leather lying around the house, check out Leatherwise on eBay where you can get smaller affordable pieces of leather of any color.) See some rectangles cut out, and contrast topstitching applied. See your very own one-of-a-kind French Country sewing carryall!

Not Second Guessing, It's Doing the Right Thing

On the home decor front today, I'm going to return the 24"x24" version of this print to Target, written about in Sunny Summery Sunroom. The sunroom wall is so large that this size would look insignificant. Yeah we all gotta pinch pennies today, but why spend a lesser amount on something that will be insignificant? Why spend at all, then? Who wants to buy insignificance? When looking at it that way, better to spend nothing at all, or wait for later. Bottom line, get the piece that will be right over the long haul. Cost Plus World Market has this in 36"x36". There's a Cost Plus World Market so close to us, I could walk there and get some exercise. Bonus!

My husband has another Rodney White print in his office:


I went for the biggest one. It's impactful and obvious as soon as you walk in the door. It has meaning for my husband. At the time we got it, he was in an energy-sapping job and wanting to fly more often. Flying is his hobby and love. He is alive when he flies. This print is a reminder to do what you love, even a little bit, as often as possible if not every day. And yes, he flies more often now and he is happier. He spends most of his waking hours in that office working on his business. But he can always glance up and be reminded to take a break on a clear blue sky day ... go out and fly ...

The It'll Cost Nothing to Dream print, hung in the sunroom and overlooking our backyard, will remind me of the gardening dreams that every spring and summer I put in place a little bit more. There's a grand vision in my dreams and bit by bit, weekend by weekend, year by year, we're getting there ...

Can I Join the Trench Trend?

I commit here publicly to sewing a trench this summer. In time for transition weather in the fall. This blog makes me commit publicly so I follow through and do it. Deepika's PatternReview newsletter, which hit mailboxes today, links to trench coat reviews on PatternReview. So many others have done it, can I do it too?

I am in awe of the talents and patience of these women to sew such professional trenches. Think about it, just the steadiness of all the topstitching alone ... the buttonholes ...

Not to mention even before sewing, the fitting issues and having the knowledge of techniques to solve fitting problems.

I've learned so much from the pattern reviews, board posts and blogs of others who've shared online, that I'm confident the knowledge is in my brain. But having:

• the steadiness of hand to sew straight near the edge during topstitching when it really counts
• the patience to rip out seams when they're not right instead of forging ahead and living with a final result not up to par (I'm impatient and susceptible to that!)
• the discipline to add the extra defining details despite the extra work
• the bravery to do buttonholes and other potentially game-changing details at the very end of the process
• the foresight to practice on scraps before sewing with new skills on the actual product ...

Beyond the technique and problem-solving knowledge, these are the qualities that sewing a trench would help me develop. So am I saying I do not have these qualities now? Sometimes I'm not sure. I do know my sewing would improve if I were more disciplined and focused and patient.

Plus I have that Burberry trench fabric -- solid on one side, striped on the other -- that so many others have used to sew trench coats. Mine is red -- a deep, gorgeous, eye-catching red. It shouldn't sit in the stash. I wanted it. I got it. Now I hope I can do it justice.

It occurs to me ... I'm not just committing to sewing a trench coat here. I am committing to real change, real growth. Does anyone else get this sense of awe and trepidation when you've chosen to do a project that you know will force you to change how you sew?

Notes by the Hourglass

To follow-up on my X posts ... here are tips from real life, real women, real sewing for the hourglass figure at PatternReview.

Wish I'd consulted this discussion before sewing the current trend below. The dress wound up darted in the front and back so I don't look enormous and shapeless. Cut wide enough to clear the hips and falling over the chest of an hourglass shape, it stands too far from the body. But just skimming over an "I" shape, it could look fabulous.

So, study the words of these wise women.

Sewing Project: Plaid Shirtdress

Today's theme is "second guessing."

I had settled on Burda 7658. It will require redrafting the shoulder and adding a short sleeve. But here's Vogue 8028, complete with sleeve and, because I'm sewing with plaid, the necessary shaping through darts, not princess seams:

And of course there's the stash of 5 years of Burda World of Fashion patterns, which I've used to sew a grand total of "zero" wearable items, but many UFOs and some wadders. It's beyond time to make that investment worth its while. Mostly, I under-utilize Burda WOF because it's inconvenient to flip through all the magazines versus frantically rifling through my pattern drawers and throwing envelopes all over the place. I feel like I got a lot accomplished when I see envelopes spread all over the floor, like giant confetti. It looks like I'm really working. Really getting things done. I can stand there with hands on hips, pondering, thinking, liking, disliking, changing my mind ... moving fabrics around and pairing them with envelopes, like a huge storyboard spread all over the basement floor. Can't do that with the teensy-weensy Burda WOF line drawings.

Rather than making a mess that looks like a 3-year-old who sews lives here, I was inspired during today's blog readings by Cidell, who photocopied her Burda WOF line drawings and organized them in a binder. Always meant to do this, never have. It's time to do this!

Sewing Project: Plaid Shirtdress

More planning ... I will underline the EmmaOneSock linen with silk organza to minimize wrinkling and help maintain the crispness of this linen. I tested a 4"x4" swatch in the wash and it shrunk only very minimally (Armani quality, after all) but it softened the linen a lot. And wrinkled. It came out of the dryer in a little crinkled string bean shape. I prefer not to spend many minutes of life ironing, unless to press just-sewn seams. That feels like truly purposeful ironing. Plus this is a shirtdress. I think of shirtdresses like a shirt -- pressed and crisp, goes with tailored pieces. Softer drapey linen would be fine for a swingy wrap dress and other shapes and styles less structured.

I'm debating whether to take the linen to the dry cleaner for steaming/shrinking or whether to iron it with lots of steam myself. Not sure I trust that it really shrinks enough to eliminate future problems either way, so what does it matter. Maybe I should just trust the process. I have a hard time trusting processes that I can't see.

See, there is a benefit to having 24 boxes of stashed fabric -- I already have bronze silk organza from Thai Silks:

Except, the silk organza has been pre-washed, it's very very wrinkled, and it needs many, many minutes of ironing.