Sewing News

It would be really cool if I could update all of the sewing I've done since I last posted.  But, of course, not gonna happen.

It would be easier if I had been keeping track of my sewing anywhere, like at sewing.patternreview.com, but I haven't even been doing that.

The quick version is that I've been sewing a lot of Jalie patterns.  I've sewn the Eleonore jeans so many times that I've started to forget how many I've made.  For example, as the weather started to cool down this fall I was thinking that I should probably sew a pair in grey denim; the other day I was sorting through my closet and realized that I already had a pair in grey denim. I have no memory whatsoever of making these, but here they are, obviously made by me at some point in the past year. Apparently it was such a humdrum thing to do that I barely noticed I was doing it.

Note: The pattern as drafted doesn't actually fit that well, but at this point I know what to do to make it work -- where to add a bit more, where to slice a bit off.

I've also made various Jalie sportswear patterns to wear during the summer when mowing the lawn or walking around or doing just about anything outside which involves lots of sweating (which, in St. Louis in the summer, is just about everything).  Lots of t-shirts, some tennis skirts, a janky pair of shorts I made off of a different pants pattern  that came out all baggy and shapeless, and were absolutely perfect for yard work.

Perhaps over time I'll get around to taking photos of all of this, writing down details about fabric and alterations.  For now I just want to make a note to myself that this is how I spent my time for the past few years.

Costume making continued.  Some were for Annabeth as she continued ballet -- she was in Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, and Napoli.  Some were for other groups, such as the time I made a bunch of monk's robes for Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Overall, I've appreciated the speed at which I can make usable garments when I sew.  If I decide I need new clothes for a trip or event, my first thought tends to be what sewing patterns I own and what fabric is available.  I've also managed to sew up or give away yards upon yards of fabric that has been hanging around here for ages.

Part of me feels sort of subversive about rarely purchasing clothing at retail any longer.  But another part of me wonders how and why I would start shopping retail for clothing.

And then various other things happened ....

Which brings us up to date, right?

The other day someone said something about, "Look at what was interesting to you in 2006-2007, and see if those things still interest you."  I couldn't really remember what I was doing in 2006 (other than homeschooling) but then remembered AHA -- I have a blog!  I could check that!

Except, alas, this doesn't go back that far.

ANYWAY, homeschooling as such is over. Thalia now lives in a different state and is doing adult things.  Annabeth is attending a university.  I still spend November raking leaves.

In spite of that, there's a certain comfort to having this record online.  I associate paper journals with moody, overwrought pre-teen/teen essays on the injustices of reality; this public record helped me focus on the mundane "things I did today" aspects of my life. Honestly, the latter is more interesting for me to pick up and read.  Or maybe it's just less embarrassing.

Plus, online writing has spellcheck. And better legibility.

Which is to say, I'm thinking about starting this chronicle up again.  This will involve re-learning how to use Blogger (huge points to me for figuring out how to log in).  Also, what were all of these post labels about?  What the heck did I used to write about? Should I have a new focus?  If so, what?  Maybe this should be Tales of Post-Homeschooling Life?

Learning About Craft Businesses

A local homeschool group puts together a craft fair every fall. Anyone can sell at it, but it's particularly a chance for kids to experience a bit of entrepreneurship -- developing a product, organizing, pricing, advertising.

Annabeth and I decided to purchase a space to sell doll clothes, having discovered people would actually pay money for things we make.

 We made sure we had a lot of items at a lot of price points.  It was sort of crazy here in the weeks leading up to the craft fair, as a matter of fact, as we made clothes and shoes, figured out pricing, rehearsed efficiently setup of our display.  We also signed up with Pixie Faire to sell  items made with their patterns -- an easy process, but someone actually did ask if we had permission to sell items using these patterns, so hooray for being official.

Oddly enough, someone also asked if the clothing would actually fit the dolls.  We had, of course, tried each item on a doll at home as soon as we finished making it.  More to the point, though, we had 6 dolls standing or sitting at our booth wearing various outfits; and during the course of the day Annabeth had small girls help her decide on new outfits and participate in re-dressing the dolls.  

The oven mitts were popular.  We should've made a bunch to sell as Christmas ornaments.  Pattern from Lee & Pearl.

Annabeth wants to continue selling the overstock plus some new items.  The biggest barrier is letting people know what we have.  Attend more craft fairs?  Use social media?  She's been working on photographing various outfits. 

She has strong opinions on what what constitutes good doll photography.

I think she's starting to get the hang of it.

School desk upgrade

One issue with blogging much about homeschooling a high school student is that the choices in education become so highly individual by this point.  Gone are the days of general discussion of phonics vs. whole word, or spiral vs mastery.  High school is the realm of a child who might be deciding whether or not to dual enroll several semesters of calculus vs. a child who might be figuring out how to run their own business. I really think that's a big reason why so little is written about how to homeschool high school (well, and by the time you get to high school you're so busy with the actual homeschooling that you don't have a lot of time to write about it, let alone find anything interesting to photograph).

However school is accomplished, though,  a unifying element for all students is the need for an area for writing and/or computer.  For Ananbeth, a huge fan of Katy Bowman, this involves sitting or lying on the floor. 

This year for Christmas we found the perfect desk for her:

a bamboo bed tray (shown here on Christmas morning with treats from the stockings -- potato chips and juice).

It's easily portable, so she can take it to various rooms of the house or carry it out to the porch. It fits her laptop nicely. The top can adjust to tilt various angles, but so far she hasn't been interested in using that feature. 

Theoretically it will hold up well enough that she can still use it when she moves out into her own place, which will probably not have furniture.

Wizard of Oz

While Annabeth was busy with Scrooge Thalia arrived home from a semester in the UK and set to work as tech director and lighting director for Wizard of Oz.  The show opened 4 weeks after she got home, so it was a whirlwind of activity.

There was no scene shop in which to make the set, so she used our garage

and basement. (That's Annabeth helping with the wood.)

Since this was over Christmas it was often cold.  Also, rainy -- the time frame included the days and days of rain that ended up flooding most of the area, shutting down interstates and generally causing a disaster.  Our house stayed dry, but it was stressful from the rain alone, not to mention trying to quickly build and paint things in unsuitable space.

Part of the design involved curtains, so I said I'd do those.  For the forest she needed a 40 foot span of muslin strips dyed various shades of green.  I rounded up an assortment of RIT dyes in various greens, plus black, brown, and yellow and set to work in our kitchen sink.

The muslin supplied for the project was 120 inches wide; the bolts varied in length from 7 yards to about 10 yards.  I took the fabric off the bolts and ripped each into 4 large sheets 30 inches wide.  I dyed the gigantic strips two at a time.  As the work progressed I got more and more random about my dye mixing; the last batch was simply "dump everything left that's open together and see what happens".  I also did quite a bit of throwing more dye in during the soak process.  We didn't want an even dye job, so I was splotching it up as much as possible.

The real trick was trying to get the sheets to dry given how soggy the climate was at the time.  Putting them through the dryer tinged the dryer drum green so I quickly stopped doing that.  I ended up with a fairly complex system of racks made from ladders, chairs, and anything else I could grab.

Then the sheets were ripped into 6 inch wide strips, varying from about 10 feet to 20 feet long.  These were sewn on headers -- I didn't have a 40 foot header, so I used some donated upholstery fabric to make 4 headers that were 10 feet each.  

I couldn't really spread out the project anywhere in the house, so it was a tangled mess in the entrance as I tried to somewhat methodically put various colors and lengths of strips together.

It turned out pretty well, though

especially considering how inexpensive it was.

Annabeth hadn't auditioned to be in the show since she knew she'd be busy with Scrooge, plus would probably help with the set.  

However, some dancers dropped out (possibly because they belatedly realized that doing a show over Christmas break means that you have rehearsals during Christmas break including every day except Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year's Eve -- the company spells this out clearly, but people don't seem to "get" what that really feels like in real life).  During Scrooge performances Annabeth got a message from the Wizard of Oz director asking if she could come be in the Jitterbug -- just the one dance, which isn't a huge commitment.  So, yeah, that's a fun number, and a minimal commitment.  Scrooge finished, we helped strike, and the next day Annabeth went to Wizard rehearsal ... and as long as she was there, could she please help out with another dance number ... and another....

And she ended up being Nikko, the flying monkey.  Really, a dream role. 

The show was great, but, wow, was it stressful.  

The mission of this theater company is to give young people opportunity to develop skills in all aspects of theater, and I think this was a great example of what they're trying to accomplish. 

More Scrooge

Annabeth played the Ghost of Christmas Past in this production.  She needed a dress that was a cool white, Regency-style preferred.  We used Simplicity 4055 view A with modifications (linking to the Pattern Review page for this pattern since Simplicity's new website is a disaster).

We used a crepe satin for the base layer, and a textured chiffon for the overlay. We raised the neckline., and closed it with a zipper -- much better for quick changes.  Annabeth hated the cap sleeves, so I lengthened them to about elbow length, then added fabric hanging on down to her wrists.

The overlay turned out to look like a fairly stupid effect in these fabrics, so we ended up adding a ruffle of chiffon to the bottom of the base dress.  It gave a suitably droopy diaphanous, dead look.

It turned out to look a bit like a nightgown, unfortunately.  But, hey, Scrooge was in his dressing gown, so maybe that was okay.

Overall, this was a GREAT show.  The kids were absolutely marvelous in it, and wonderful to work with. The costume committee was super, too -- a great group of women who did far, far more  work than my small contributions.  The theater seats around 400, and three of the four performances sold out.

Scrooge

Moving in no particular order through the backlog of things I meant to post about, the Christmas show for 2015 was Scrooge.  Annabeth wanted to audition for it because she knew the director -- she had been in shows with him before and wanted to be in a show  he directed because she knew he'd be awesome as a director.

I volunteered to help with the costume sewing.  At first we just went through heaps of fabric to find suitable cape material for use in outdoor scenes.

Then I was handed several yards of brocade and Butterick 3648 (out of print, sadly) to make Scrooge's dressing gown. The pattern wasn't actually quite right for the job -- the skirt was too wide, the front edges had no facing, it had no belt.  But it was much closer to an appropriate shape than any current patterns by the major companies.

So, after reducing the skirt width by folding up the pattern pieces, making facings for the front, 

making a belt  (sewn directly to the robe) and adding a pocket

Scrooge had a rather nice dressing gown

which was his costume for most of the show.