Trapeze

I found an out of print McCalls pattern last year that was described as a trapeze dress. It had a definite 60's vibe and I had all kinds of fabric ideas for it. But it, along with all other sewing projects, lay sidelined while my post-vaccine life speeded up. Finally, in August, I decided to force some creative time for myself by entering a sewing contest on the Sewing Pattern Review site. It was a month-long contest and the subject was Ankara fabrics. I decided I would make the trapeze dress with some wild pink & orange Vlisco fabric that I purchased from Etsy last year. 

The pattern instructions were straightforward but after pinning the pattern onto my dress form I realized quite a lot of alterations were needed. The pattern was a size 10 and my normal pattern size is 14. That was quite a huge jump in sizes and because this was a vintage pattern, multiple sizes weren't included. My biggest alterations were in the upper torso and armhole area, which were cut close to the body. I also decided that instead of a zipper, I would create a back opening with button closure. I added pockets, something which I consider a necessity in all women's garments. Finally, I cut the length of the dress by about two inches.

After much studying of YouTube tutorials, web articles and my own notes, I was ready to sew the dress with some trepidations. My lack of confidence is due to lack of practice - it's been a year since I sewed anything of significance, and decades since I sewed complicated items like coats and suits.

Meanwhile, since I was making so many alterations to customize the pattern, I decided to make a second trapeze dress with longer sleeves. It was an opportunity to order more Vlisco fabric, this time directly from the Netherlands. The fabric I chose was named in honor the singer, Angelique Kidjo.   

Was relieved and thrilled that both dresses came out exactly as imagined. They will be perfect for the many gallery and studio events that I participate in and with Indian Summer on its way, I might actually be able to wear them without a shirt or leggings underneath.

A Kitsune Cape

 How does a 69-year old design a superhero outfit that is befitting her age? This was the challenge I gave myself for a multimedia artwork collaboration. I knew I wanted to channel a time-traveler kitsune, or a Japanese fox. I did not envision myself wearing a skin-tight, cleavage enhancing catsuit nor did I want to dress in a furry fox outfit that would be sweaty and uncomfortable. 

What I decided to make was a magic cape and a lush foxtail that could be worn with a belt.  The pattern I chose was the Traveller Cape from Twig & Tale. The pattern directions seemed simple and there were only 3 pieces to the pattern. I chose a lovely grey soft pile minky fabric for the outer layer and a purple silk charmeuse with the matte side out for the lining. 

The pattern was relatively easy to sew, although I was initially stumped by the lack of information on yardage. After a brief correspondence with the friendly folks at Twig & Tale, I was able to move forward with the project. I chose the medium length cape, which turned out slightly shorter than what was depicted in this picture. Because of the difference in thickness of the two fabrics and the slipperiness of the charmeuse made it impossible to machine sew ,  even with hand-basting and using a walking foot. I ended up pulling out the stitching three times. Hand-sewing the lining was a much easier solution despite the longer time invested.

I used a lavender long-haired faux fur fabric to make the fox tail. Thank goodness for YouTube, which offered several excellent video tutorials on how to work with faux fur. It was really difficult to sew this simple piece because of  all the loose fiber. Some lodged in my throat for days, despite wearing a mask. Remind me never to sew  with this material again. After it was sewn (it came out really plush and tail-like),  I had to devise a way to wear it . It was too heavy to tie it with an elastic band to a leather belt. I finally hit upon the idea of sewing it onto a wide elastic belt with a front zipper closure.  

I love the cape and tail and they worked perfectly well with the rest of  the art installation. And now that the show is over, I have a lush cape that I can wear on cool San Francisco evenings around town.

 Here is the lovely rose-swirled grey minky with the purple silk charmeuse lining. I decided to have the matte side of the charmeuse show rather than the shiny side. The front and back pieces are clipped together for hand-sewing.

The plush purple tail is worn with the wide elastic belt. It was a great way to wear the tail, which had considerable heft, without worrying about it slipping off.

The finished cape with an accent button to keep it closed. Instead of the hood, I chose to make a collar, which turned out quite well.

Here I am with my art collaborator. We are doing a photoshoot in our respective superhero costume. She is a Black Space Traveler and I am a Kitsune Traveler.

Issey Pleats

Some things are timeless and I count Issey Miyake's clothing line as one of them. Since the late 1980's I've visited his boutiques in Japan and Manhattan, and collected bits and pieces of his ready-to-wear. I still own most of them and wear them even today. 

When I took up sewing recently I was delighted to discover that a large number of vintage Miyake patterns were available on Etsy or Ebay. Some are far too complicated and slender to fit to my body but others were intriguing and looked like a lot of fun to make. I am especially fascinated by his patterns with instructions that are similar to folding origami. Sometimes he provides only one pattern piece that somehow folds and sews into a recognizable blouse. 

I recently completed a Miyake pleated blouse from Vogue 1142. The blouse consisted of two rectangular pattern pieces and two small placket pieces for the front and back neck openings. It was difficult to imagine how these simple pieces could result in the elegant blouse depicted on the pattern envelope. 

The fabric I selected was black handkerchief linen. It's lightweight and easy to work with. I had purchased five yards of this fabric to replicate a pair of wide-legged Miyake pants with a paperbag waistline. The fabric was wider than expected so I had enough to make the pants and the blouse. The pants construction will not be discussed here.

The biggest challenge in this pattern was exercising patience. I spent days in pre-sewing preparations, sewing tailor tacks to mark all the small and large dots and marking the pleat lines with silk thread. I also decided to edge-stitch all the pleats, both in the front and back of the garment pieces so that the pleats would still be there after washing.The edge stitches came out perfectly thanks to my Bernina edge stitch foot, which I have never used before. It kept the fabric from pulling away from the machine and I got great even stitches right at the edge of each pleat.. The stitches were perfect but here is where I made a big mistake. I sewed the pleats on the wrong side of the fabric. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter with this black fabric as the front and reverse are essentially the same. 

The placket pieces were very small, and therefore difficult to turn over to the reverse side after slashing the fabric. If I make this blouse again I will increase the size of the plackets by half an inch all around. I wasn't sure if the armholes would fit me properly so I sewed the side seams half an inch below the markings. This adjustment worked out perfectly. 

Interestingly, once the handstitch prep-work and pleating were done, it was a quick blouse to pull together - sew the side seams and the shoulder seams and it was done! I had my doubts about how the blouse would turn out until the shoulder seams went in. But the finished result is beautiful! Here it is on a dress form but it looks even better on the human body. It is a very flattering blouse and ingeniously designed.

Since the 1990's Issey's ready-to-wear line has utilized machine-pleated polyester fabric, which he shapes into dramatically geometric dresses, skirts, tops and coats. But I miss the wonderful hand-woven fabrics in cotton and linen that he used  in his earlier work and the hand-pleating techniques he employed. The ability to recreate that early Miyake sensibility is what these wonderful patterns bring to the table.

 

 

    

Fall & Winter 2020 #1

My fashion horizon expanded significantly when I took up sewing this year due to COVID restrictions. Thanks to Etsy and to some extent Ebay, the availability of vintage patterns have made my imagination soar in the same way as creating artwork through collage, acrylics and  installation. Many of my inspirations will remain just that - ideas percolating in the mind. But others will be transformed into actual clothing in styles and fabrics that would be far too complicated or costly to purchase retail. Here is a lineup of some of my favorite Fall & Winter 2020 looks.

OVERSIZED COAT

One trend in the Fall/Winter 2020 season is over-sized coats. Athough editorial looks like the red coat (above) are too much for everyday wear, I want to make an oversized coat similar to one in Mina Perhonen's 2018-19 Fall Collection. Vogue Paris Original pattern 1082 featuring Antonio Castillo's design for the House of Lanvin comes very close to creating the look of this coat. I will make the collar-less coat version and add welt pockets and bound buttonholes. Mina Perhonen also produces its own textiles and I love the feminine roses on dark green/black background used for the coat. Instead of heavy brocade or winter wool, I plan to use a very lightweight floral wool fabric, underline it with silk organza to create some body, and line it in a pale bee-skep patterned silk shantung. If successfully sewn, this will be my signature piece for the second half of this year.

New Skills: tailoring, hand-sewing an underlining and lining, bound buttonholes, welt pockets 

Fabrics From : Mood Fabrics, https://www.moodfabrics.com/

The Chances of Making This Coat: good     

DENIM SKIRT 

Denim is a heavy and stiff material to sew and I have never made anything with it. I have no desire to sew traditional denim wear such as jeans or jean jacket since they are readily available in stores. My preference is using denim to create feminine looks in a skirt or dress. One day while trolling Pinterest, I came upon a fringey skirt. It captured my imagination right away. The raw edges on the hem and waistband were fabulous and I loved the drape of the flared lower skirt. I found a Donna Karan pattern (Vogue 1451) that I could adapt for this skirt. I prefer the pattern's shorter length over that of the original. Mood had a great sale on a Rag & Bone dark indigo cotton denim from Japan so I ordered some. The fabric took a long time to come and nearly didn't make it to my home because Fedex delivered it to the wrong address. Fortunately the person who received delivery bicycled it over to my house (thank you neighbor!). I have now washed the denim twice to get ride of some of the dye. It is fringing nicely and I am looking forward to cutting and sewing it.  

New Skills: sewing denim, putting in a zipper, sewing an asymmetrical flounce, fringing the hem and waistband

Fabric From: Mood Fabrics, https://www.moodfabrics.com/

The Chances of Making This Skirt: good 

THE DRAMATIC COLLAR

Another Fall/Winter 2020 fashion trends is the dramatic collar. I love the long, sharp collars seen on the runway and would love to make a blouse that reflects the look but drapes a little more softly. Vogue 1187, which features three blouses with a great selection of collars and sleeves designed by Donna Karen seems just the ticket. The blouses in this pattern are bodysuits but I would lengthen the torso and lose the snaps at the crotch. I want to make this in silk, but haven't decided whether to go stretchy/slippery (stretch silk charmeuse) or less slippery like silk shantung

New Skills: sewing with silk, making sharply pointed collars, button holes, rolled seams

The Chances of Making This Blouse: at the dreaming stage, no fabric selected at this time

  

 

COTTON TISSUE KNIT: EASY BREEZY CHOICE FOR SUMMER

The title of this story is only partially true. In June I decided to sew a cotton teeshirt or two for the summer months. Fabric stores were closed so I had to make my selection online. This was a dilemma because the joy of fabric selection is to feel the fabric and note its color, texture, stretch and thickness. After much perusing of fabric stores, I landed on Britex Fabrics. Their selections are not cheap but they have carefully curated bolts of imported fabric that can only be described as scrumptious. And so I was tempted by a fabric imported from Japan. It was called "pistachio sherbet cotton tissue knit." Its name alone was enough temptation. But its price of $29.99 was beyond my teeshirt budget. So I ended up buying a practical Italian cotton knit in white, which I was going to use to make a funky teeshirt designed by Issey Miyake. I won't discuss that project here, but suffice it say, I was proud that I had made a practical fabric decision. But the words "pistachio sherbet" created a mental craving that was not going to go away through the passage of time.  

Tragically two weeks after I purchased the practical white knit fabric, I received an email advertisement from Britex informing me that all their knits were on sale for a very limited time. When I paid a visit to the pistachio sherbet page, sure enough, it was now $15.00 a yard. Before the price magically changed back to $29.99, I ordered 2 yards.                                                                                                                                                                             

Britex offered curbside pickup so after almost a week of anxious waiting, I finally went to pick up the fabric. When the masked store person handed over the bag, I was concerned that she had forgotten to put the fabric in. I opened it to make sure. It was in there. And I realized that I had not paid attention to one word in the fabric's description: "tissue." The fabric was amazing - 100% cotton, the stretch was only in the weft, and the color was glorious. But it was very very thin. Tissue paper thin. Like one-ply kleenex. When I went back to the description of the fabric, I saw that Britex described the fabric as being a great layering piece and "fabulous for the rigors of travel." I guess that is true - it was so light it could easily be folded into a tissue packet.  Such lightweight, stretchy fabric is a devil to work with, particularly for someone as inexperienced as me. The challenge was to find a pattern that was simple enough to engage with this light-as-air knit. That - and not throwing away the fabric out of frustration or an irreversible goof.                            

The pattern I finally selected was Burda 108, which is described dryly as "polyester/cotton shirt." Burda does not use exuberant language in their pattern descriptions. It was disappointing to select such a bare-bones pattern for this exceptional fabric. Still, I liked the simplicity of the pattern and thought that the oversized cut would allow the fabric to drape nicely. After printing the PDF pages, taping them together, adding the seams and cutting the pattern, I was ready to begin. Because pins simply fell out of the fabric, I used sewing weights to steady the fabric. It took quite a number of tries to flatten the wrinkles and creases so that the fabric could be cut without the edges looking ragged. 

The next challenge was to sew this tissue-thin fabric without having the bottom layer slip out of the serger. Fortunately there was a solution to this - Sulky's totally stable iron-on, tear away stabilizer. I cut 1" strips of this material and ironed it onto the fabric. Through this method I was able to serge the seams without any slippage. After sewing, I tore off the excess Sulky. It remained within the serged areas but I assumed that it wouldn't do any harm and would probably wash away over time. I would say that without this stabilizer it would have been impossible to sew this shirt together. As it was, I made plenty of mistakes such as cutting into the fabric accidentally, sewing the wrong side of the fabric with the right side of the fabric, and tearing the fabric while tearing off the Sulky material too vigorously. One good thing about the fabric was that sewing machine and hand-sewing needles did not poke permanent holes in it. I used the serger as much as possible to put this shirt together. The only areas where I used my sewing machine were the hem, sleeve insertion and cowl insertion. I added a cowl to the shirt pattern because a single layer of fabric and serged stitches alone weren't strong enough. The neckline unraveled each time I tried on the shirt. Somehow I managed to improvise a cowl collar with leftover fabric. 

What to wear under this shirt? I found that a short sleeved Unqlo AIRism shirt in "natural" works really well. A thin black teeshirt or tank top would also look great.  

And the end result is...I am very pleased with the pistachio shirt. It drapes beautifully and because it is 100% cotton and very lightweight, it is a perfect summer teeshirt. However, I will not be sewing with stretchy tissue cotton again. It is not quite easy breezy.

 

                              

                        

              

MASKS OF CONVENIENCE

 

One of the first things I started sewing this year were masks. This project took me out of the paralysis of confinement at home and cancellation of trips, concerts and get-togethers. I was fortunately provisioned at home, being one step ahead of shortages in toilet paper, isopropyl alcohol, aloe vera, flour, face masks and nitrile gloves. However, my husband and I were going through face masks at an alarming rate and they were uncomfortable to wear. I decided to sew a batch of masks that we could wash and wear daily. 

In March, several articles came out on how to make masks. I watched a few YouTube tutorials and they seemed easy enough to make. I found printable templates online and had plenty of fabric remnants from past sewing projects so all I needed was elastic. That was the hard part, since narrow flat elastic bands were sold out in all of the online fabric stores and on Amazon. I finally found a black roll on Etsy, the only one that hadn't sold out. Once all the parts were on hand, I started the assembly line of cutting, marking, and sewing. The first sets of masks were pleated. I had a hard time determining the appropriate length of the elastic to go around the ears. Too short, and the mask popped off. Too long, and the masks drooped. The thin elastic was also uncomfortable when worn too long. 

As I was casting about for a solution to the elastic, I remembered that I had a stretchy roll of black stretch bias tape that I had picked up from SCRAP, our local art material recycling store. I tried it on the masks and it was perfect! Soft, comfortable, fits the ears just right. Another change I made was to the type of mask. Instead of the pleated style, I tried making a single seamed mask. It took slightly less time to make and I liked the feel of it better. Soon I had enough masks and thought I could go on to more interesting projects. I was wrong. One of the consequences of Facebooking about the masks was that people started asking me if they could buy my masks. That was a difficult question to answer. These requests came from readers who didn't own a sewing machine, didn't know friends who could make them masks, and were more or less confined at home because of health risks. By April, my schedule had picked up and I would have to find a way to fit mask-making in with other work. It was impossible to name an affordable  price for the masks since it wasn't money I needed, but time. I have tried to accommodate these requests as best as I could. I recently had to turn a friend down, and felt very guilty for doing so. But Fall is my busy period with gallery work, open studio and other events. My mask-making days are over for now, until at least next year in late January.

MASK RESOURCES FOR THOSE WHO SEW

Simple Mask (I use a stretch bias tape for the ears instead of ties):   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4USPU1Trz4&t=430s

Pleated Mask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgHrnS6n4iA&t=223s

     

Stretch Bias Tape https://www.etsy.com/listing/816379579/125-black-knit-bias-tape-25-yds-1-14?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=Black+Knit+Bias+Tape&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&organic_search_click=1&bes=1

    

PAPER THINGS

I love paper! I love paper that is flamboyantly decorated, paper with a great hand, paper that is deeply wrinkled, paper that is lacy and thin as air, paper that is old and stained, paper that has a beautiful watermark, paper that is discarded and left in the gutter to die.

I do much of my paper buying when I am in Tokyo. In addition to checking out colorful chiyogami  and crumpled momigami at my favorite paper stores, I hit up the local flea markets for bargain-priced old copy books and receipt ledgers filled with beautiful calligraphy. 

Paper is still valued in Japan, despite concerns about the destruction of trees and pollution.  You can still find specialty department stores with multiple floors of paper and writing goods ranging from hand-made washi paper to hand-made inkjet paper, to calendars, journals, pens, inks, pencils, origami, postcards and letter paper. You can still find shops specializing in gorgeous handmade papers and origami paper. And you can still purchase paper wallets like the one above, that are gorgeous and sturdy enough to stand up to daily use for years. You can find barrettes made of paper that has been knotted and lacquered to adorn your upswept hair. Paper traditions carried on from centuries ago still persist today. 

I've also noticed a stylish trend in paper goods that are fashionable and useful. My recent favorite paper vendor is SIWA, which means "wrinkle" or washi spelled backwards. In checking their website, they seem to have dialed back on some of their whimsical items, such as hats, slippers and suitcases but they still offer an array of imaginative goods. SIWA products are made of naoron, a water-proof paper made of wood pulp used for washi and recycled plastic bottles. My wallet, pictured here, is almost a year old. It has developed the characteristic siwa or wrinkle on its surface and has taken on a lovely patina. I love compact wallets with a billfold that opens easily. It has  a sturdy elastic band that keeps my bills, cards and gray change purse from slipping out.

In addition to SIWA, I've collected paper tote bags from a variety of vendors, including the Shimanto Newspaper Bag and Daiso.  The Shimanto Newspaper Bag is made of recycled newspapers and makes a lovely rustling noise, like the sound of newspapers being opened. All of these totes, as they age, will wrinkle in the most charming way, just like us humans. 

Left: Shimanto Newspaper Bag, Right: SIWA tote, Middle: Daiso paper tote

SIWA Rollup Ipad Case