Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post #2059: Three things I would like to make this fall
This in no way constitutes a project list – because I’m not making a list of things that I should, or will do. That’s just a trap, doncha know? But I will tell you what garments seem like interesting makes to me at the moment, two of which I have the materials for already. If I actually start any of these, there will be a more detailed post on each of them.
First up is the Purl Soho Quilted Vest (featured on the left). I’ve got a light corduroy fabric that I picked up with this project in mind a couple of weeks ago, and three different quilting-weight cottons that I am weighing for the lining. A little while ago I started working on the Colette Wardrobe Architect Workshop and while I didn’t get further than the first couple of worksheets, I very quickly identified that I am a person who very much likes clothing for layering. Partly that’s because I live in the perpetual swing season of the west coast where you might be hiking on Christmas Day in a t-shirt, or battling a monsoon in August – and partly that’s because I’ve got body image issues and I like to cover up. Yes, I realize that layering isn’t the most slimming look, but body-brain problems are not exactly rational are they?
Anyhow – I currently own one outdoor vest, and it gets a lot of use when I don’t feel like wearing a heavy coat but I need something transitional. Although I have pictured the cotton vest above (because I want to use cottons) – I’m actually thinking I might use the pattern for the Wool Vest version which has pockets and buttons/snaps. We’ll see. I’ve printed out both of the free templates and this is a project that I am going to make a muslin for because top pieces don’t always get along with my bustline and I think I might have to do a full-bust adjustment on this one. After all, this is Purl Soho we’re talking about; I can’t help thinking that the clientelle whom they aim their products at are very elite/thin NYC women – which I am pretty much the opposite of.
But nevermind that – I love their free projects on the Purl Bee and I lust after many of their products – though between the initial cost, the exchange rate to Canada, and the shipping costs – I would pretty much have to sell my house to purchase from them.
Enough about that though, the second item that I’ve got the pattern and fabric for already is the Lady Skater Dress. The name alone is enough to get me excited about this pattern because when I was a eight, I couldn’t tell you what was more glamorous than the lady skater costumes (except for singers in restaurants – I thought they were pretty glam too). But really what attracts me to this pattern is the simplicity of a jersey-knit dress and a pattern that does (at least according to Mary over at Idle Fancy). I bought a ton of jersey knit at one point, in white, black, and red – and I need to use it up. Plus I’ve been thinking that because I will never wear white, and the red is too gauche – I wanted to find a simple pattern to make and then practice dying with.
This dress has been made lots and from what I can tell, it looks good on everyone. If I make a black version, it has the added bonus of being another garment for meditation practice – because knits are comfy over long periods of time!
My final fall intrique is the Aster by Colette Patterns. I should just say up front that me and blouses don’t have a very good history together. Though I so much desire the ability to wear a blouse with a pair of jeans or a skirt (as opposed to a pullover top, or a tank top with a cardigan) – I pretty much never find button-up tops that work for me – which is true for all women with boobage. Really, you end up stuck with a huge floaty sack, or the buttons are straining to close and gapping in between. There don’t seem to be a lot of options in ready-made clothing beyond that – which is why I have bought and then purged so many blouses over the years.
As a sewist, you would think I would have tried to make a blouse already – but no! It hasn’t happened because I am afraid of button holes. Making them, that is. I don’t have good button hole skills and so I pretty much stay away from anything that has a front-button closure. So Aster presents a challenge to me – which I’m ready for in my sewing life. Also, Colette has a very good sew along site for their patterns that includes this excellent tutorial on the full bust adjustment for the pattern.
I love the neckline on this, and the simplicity of the lines overall – though I would probably veer towards a 3/4 length sleeve version, or create ties for rolling up the long sleeves – since I pretty much never wear my sleeves long. I don’t currently have the pattern or the fabric for this – so it’s the last thing on my makes list at the moment. I really am trying to use up some of my stash this fall!
I’m just finishing up the Cappuccino Dress and working on my Zen embroidery project set-up at the moment, so it’s unlikely that any of these will get started this week – but it’s a tossup what will happen next!
Post #2058: Ten pounds of olives
A couple weekends ago I was at my local market and a bag of raw olives just jumped into my basket. Besides that, I have really no explanation for how I managed to bring home ten pounds of Sevillano Olives without the faintest idea of what to do with them.
But here they were in my kitchen, wrapped in a mesh bag all the way from California, and so after about eight days of that I realized – I have to get going on these before they shrivel and become unusable, and so at the end of last week (right before the start of meditation retreat) I got down to processing them.
This extension office hand-out is the best thing I found, by far, on the many ways to cure olives. (I personally think the Extension Offices in the United States are pretty much the best thing about that country and I don’t understand why Canada doesn’t have something similar.)
Although I am super-curious about lye-curing olives, I didn’t have any lye on hand, nor did I have time to stop at the Homesteader’s Emporium to get some. Instead, I opted to try them two different ways – Brine Ferment, and Water Cured. Because ten pounds of olives translates into 2 gallons of processed olives, I’ve got two jars of each, and I’ve done each jar differently. The brine-ferment jars are spiced – one with pickling spice, and the other with peppercorns and chilis. I plan to spice the water-cured ones differently as well, but I also processed them in two different ways – cut, and cracked. I figure that since this might be the one and only time I get my hands on raw olives (I’ve never seen them in a store here before) – I might as well experiment and see what turns out the most edible.
At the moment, I’ve got them lined up on the counter, mostly so I can keep an eye on the brine-fermenters, and so that I don’t forget to change the water on the water-cured ones every day for the next couple of weeks. I’m notoriously bad about starting fermented projects and then leaving them to dry out or mould – which is basically why I ended up with no sauerkraut this year. (It fermented super fast because of the heat and then turned to mush pretty much just as fast.)
Anyhow, these definitely require some attention, so I’m leaving them where I can see them.
Post #2057: Experiments in dressmaking (seam edition)
As I mentioned in my last post about the Cappuccino Dress I’m working on, I was thinking about doing more than just zig-zagging the interior seams to finish them (I have no serger so that is never an option). For the initial dress seams, I used the french seam technique – which I use whenever possible because it makes a garment as beautiful inside as it is out – but this dress has some unusual construction elements that make french seams not possible in some places. So I’ve decided to try a Bias Bound Seam instead.
Using 1/4 inch double-fold bias tape (in bulk I bought 10 metres of it at Dress Sew for $2.29), I started tacking it down with pins last night while watching an episode of Midsomer Murders – but quickly realized that with that little room to play, any shifting of the tape while sewing would cause a terrible mess – and my pinning skills aren’t the best. So instead, I switched to hand-basting the tape down, and am midway through the process – as pictured above. It’s taken me about an hour so far, so I anticipate that with another hour I will be done – and the final machine-sewing won’t take more than twenty minutes.
I used to really resist hand-basting in this fashion, even though it’s recommended for all sorts of things – hems, zippers, bindings – because I had a rush approach to garment-making. While I don’t pretend that using more hand techniques is turning out couture garments on my end – taking a step back and giving time to each step definitely does cut down on the frustration. And it also turns out a nicer product.
What I notice right away while hand-basting the seam-binding is how much it gives the inside of the dress a vintage garment feel; this used to be a very common way for home sewists to do finishes. I once went to an estate sale for a very elderly woman who had sewn all her life, and had racks of handmade garments and vintage fabric for sale (that’s where I bought the wool used in the Woodland Stroll Cape). Every one of her garments had bound or French seams – even the housedresses and aprons.
In any case, I’ve got a busy weekend ahead and I probably won’t get this stage finished until Monday. My husband leaves town for ten days tomorrow morning, and while I’ve got a full schedule for the week – I’m pretty sure his absence will allow me a little more time on the sewing machine (and knitting needles, and so forth).
Post #2056: Somehow just being….
All the things I want to do, and all the things I have to do – aren’t exactly lining up these days. Partly it’s that slump thing I wrote about recently, but partly it’s because I feel so inspired to knit and sew and go for long walks in the mountains – and my days and even my weekends aren’t allowing for as much of that as I would like.
But at the same time – I feel like my wants are crazy big at the moment even though I have (almost, literally) everything in my life that I want – and that anyone could ever want.
And here I find myself smack dab in the middle of the Second Noble Truth. Again. Desire and craving for something else, until the something else comes along for enough time to get bored of it – and then desire and craving for another thing, and another. “There is the origin of suffering…. attachment to desire. Desire should be let go of.”’
Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden – their needs were met, and yet still they were tempted into the one novel experience left to them. They bit into that apple, and thus all of human history is suffering – and the apple stands in for desire forever more.
My desires are not lustrous, nor far-fetched. I can attain all the things that I want, and yet I am held back by the desire to have more time, more energy, more leisure – and then rushing from one project to the next as though the only point is to finish in order to start anew. It makes me restless just thinking about it.
Can I step back for one second and just be? Just be here at my desk making my earnings, or just be kneeling on my meditation mat in the mornings, or just be sewing the seam-bindings onto my new dress. Just be one of those things at a time.
That’s the practice, I suppose. Counting the breaths in one place at a time.
Post #2055: Autumn Zen
In the Zen tradition that I am involved with, there is a custom of intensified meditation and contemplative practice in the fall – known as Fall Practice Period – which opens this Friday. Beginning with a two-day non-residential meditation retreat (where we go to the Zen-do and meditate all day and into the evening, but return home to sleep), we craft the following six weeks around a self-designed program with the goal of deepening our commitment to zazen (meditation), sangha (community), and dharma (the teachings and philosophy of the Buddha). At the end of this time is a seven-day silent residential retreat with the head teacher, and then a closing ceremony.
For my period of practice, I have made the following intentions known to my teachers -as a way of holding my own intention out and asking for support:
- increased daily meditation length
- increased attendance at the Zen-do – although I can’t make many of the Sundays, I have committed to weekday early mornings and volunteered to help open the meditation hall if others are unavailable to do so
- limiting intake of alcohol (not that I drink a lot – but you know how it is….)
- attention to healthy life practice (food/exercise)
- gratitude practice
I have also decided to undertake a craft project as a mindfulness practice – and since I already do a lot of handwork, I have chosen something that I don’t do a lot of – embroidery. As I bought the book and the materials for this project sometime ago, it also fits the criteria of using up items that I already have:
This bag by Naoko Shimoda features the artwork of Heather Moore – for a piece that I think will make a good focus in October. I am going to try to prep the piece tomorrow so that I can focus on the hand-stitching starting next week.
The dress pictured above, is a nearly finished garment for meditation – the Cappuccino Dress which I wrote about here. I have some finishing work to do still – including seamwork, sleeve cuffs and hemming. I used a French seam where the dress allowed for it, and I am thinking of ribbon-finishing the other seams as an added touch. This is a way I think garments should be in essence – very simple in appearance, but with attention paid to the details that (mostly) only the wearer would notice. I’m going to the fabric store today at lunch to see if I can find some seam tape – otherwise it’ll be zig-zagged by tomorrow and ready for wear once I hem it.
And of course, all of regular life will continue during this time – work, the band practices, the family visits, a trip to Las Vegas (more on that later) – it’s not as though I am suspending it all to go sit on a mountaintop. Rather, I hope to bring a greater attention and ease to the work I undertake during this time. We’ll see how it goes!
Red Cedar 