What I didn’t buy

When you see the button sculpture you know you’re in the right place! Love that!

I was good.  Very good.  I was sent to NYC (for work) on Monday on my reserve days for an overnight.  Without boring you too much, 3 days a month I’m “on call” and the notice to go can be minimal (two hours).  So I was sent to NYC and had a long enough layover that we stay in town (rather than the airport hotels for short nights – which is much more usual!).

When faced with a bit of time in NY I like to go down to the garment district and buy fabric.  Who wouldn’t?  But this past week I’ve been reorganizing my fabric stash and ended up donating a great many bits and pieces I’d never realistically use.  In the face of that, buying more fabric that didn’t have a specific project in mind was a bad idea, not to mention a waste of money.

Going forward I’d like to keep the stash of fabric and yarn to a minimum because I find that when I buy fabric/yarn with no specific pattern or use, it ends up languishing in the big plastic bins in the garage.  If I buy a fabric with a pattern in mind, it gets used.  So it only makes sense to buy fabric when I’ve selected a pattern I’d like to make up.  Get me, how mature am I?!

Since my next project will probably be a Hollyburn skirt in some wool crepe that I’ve preshrunk using this method, I ended up buying 14 zippers.  That may seem like a bunch but they’re much cheaper and better quality than the C&C crap at Joann’s.  So 14 invisible zippers of various sizes was my haul!  Not too sexy or exciting, but I did paw the gorgeous Liberty cotton lawn prints at B&J Fabrics before deciding that I wasn’t ready to pull that particular trigger.  Plus I love all the prints and choosing would have been agonizing.  Plus-plus it’s $37/yard so it’s good to be sure.  I shall certainly buy some Liberty as my shirt skills have come along nicely, but in time.

So I shall sew from the stash for a few more projects and the warm, sunny weather is putting me in the mood for cotton dresses.  Luckily I’ve got fabric for that.  Quite a bit.  Now to find a pattern and time!

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The peacocks have arrived

More peacocks are needed here.

After little 15 minute bursts of sewing, I’ve finally finished the peacock edition of Granville shirt by Sewaholic.  I’d rather stalled on any kind of crafty activity but managed to talk myself into little bursts of sewing to move Granville along.

My lack of crafty energy has nothing to do with the pattern or my liking of the shirt, but winter doldrums exist even when you don’t have winter.  I guess.  I do know that little bits of sewing every so often managed to get this shirt done and my crafty thoughts whirring.

What you see here is Granville constructed by the techniques from Craftsy’s “The Classic Tailored Shirt” class.  I made this shirt following Pam Howard’s instructions and success!  Pam can calmly talk you through anything and should probably be a UN negotiator based on teaching the collar and stand lesson.  Seriously not hard folks.

Best view of peacock mutations brought about by shoddy pattern placement.

The Granville pattern fit me well out of the box with the exception of the sleeve length.  I have long monkey arms, I know that from all I learned in pattern making classes using standard measurements.  I usually add at least 1″ to long sleeve patterns to compensate for the previously mentioned monkey-like tendencies.  Not so here.  These sleeves are seriously too long and it did not occur to me to check that.  So Granvillians beware, measure those arms and adjust.

Yes, those sleeves are rather too long. Will have to roll them up on this go round – must remember to alter the pattern.

Other than too long sleeves, this shirt was easy and fit well.  I only changed the cuff pattern because I think I messed up the tower sleeve placket insertion and the pattern cuffs were too big.  Those instructions were meager and Pam doesn’t cover that in her class.  Next time I’m doing it Pam’s way and skipping the tower placket.  The fit in body and across the shoulders is good and I shall use Granville as a jumping off shirt point for future makes.

All in all a good pattern, a great class and more peacocks would have been better.

Sprung forward

You know these are my absolute favorite! Cherry blossoms are soooo early this year. Thanks drought!

Well there’s not much craftiness here.  What there is here is spring.  Massively, obviously SPRING.  Now I know just about everywhere else this is not the case.  Most places I travel, people are trying to hang in there for spring.  So for your pleasure, here spring at my house.

The first tulips of Tulipwatch 2015!

The only crafty bits around here are my sadly neglected peacock shirt parts.  I did sew the back together and managed to cut the peacocks in such a way that they look like mutant Chernobyl peacocks that just happen to be conjoined twins.  Oh well, keep on moving.

Conjoined, mutant peacock twins anyone?

Stay warm friends!