2013 – wheeeeeeeeee

Welcome to 2013 – although it’s already a week old and starting to fray around the edges.

I’m in Australia visiting family and it’s a heatwave here. I am frazzled by the heat. All I want to do is sleep but it’s too hot to sleep.  I’m returning back to the US soon and I’m looking forward to winter temperatures again.

It is the custom to take stock of the old year and plan (with good intentions) for the new year.

Last year was a good year for me, I lost some weight, got a promotion, got a car, got a kitty cat, did lots of singing, got interested in learning to play the dulcimer and made it back to Oz for Christmas, the first time in 3 years. Cannot fault that really can I? Craft-wise I got better at altering clothes to fit me, and made pjs. Knitted half a shawl but that was an “un-doer” as I didn’t like it. Knitted half a dish cloth. Crocheted a bit of lace trim from a vintage pattern to see if I could do it. Oh and on the culinary front I made nice fig jam, learnt how to fry taco shells nicely, perfected soft boiled eggs (thanks to an egg cooker) and also learned how to make mini cheesecakes. I also did a budgeting course which was useful to do.

This year? Gotta lose weight again  - end of the year was heavy workload, stress, eating wrong foods, no regular exercise and I’d like to fit in my clothes again thank you very much. So back to the classes at the local Y and lots more walking.

Did You Make That has a resolution jar – I added my 2 cents, too late for it to count officially, but putting it up in public anyway helps to push me a bit. I want to do more sewing and knitting and crochet. Nothing too ambitious, just do more of these activities.

Plus I will do more singing and enjoy learning to play my dulcimer. Be conscientious with my budget and use the breadmaker I got for free from a work friend. My singing teacher makes delicious sourdough bread and I intend to get a piece of her starter and learn how to a) keep the sourdough starter going and b) make equally delicious bread from it.

I decided that I would make the effort to do something different each month in 2012 – I pretty much accomplished that too – although the last few months were work, work, work, work, fit in singing commitments, more work. But the rest of the year certainly had lots of stuff going on and overall last year did not seem boring and same-same.

Going with the same concept for 2013 means it’s bound to be another good year!

PJ Pants Done

Well talk about last minute. But the pj pants done as part of the sew-a-long at Did You Make That are finished.  Obviously the band on the bottom is familiar. The green check fabric is another cotton sheet found at the thrift store. Excuse the rather dark photo but it was taken around 11 o’clock at night – definitely bed time! I set up the laptop on the coffee table and watched “Life” on Hulu while I was sewing.  Christina Hendricks pops up in the series and the lead, Damien Lewis is rather appealing

Oh and the results of PatternReview’s vintage pattern contest have been announced, Peter from MalePatternBoldness won for his wonderful take on a 50s opera coat. Congrats!! I was stunned to see that 9 people voted for me. ? What the? I didn’t even vote for myself, they’re just pajamas… but whoever you are, thanks!

Fashionably Late to the Pajama Party

Well, it is one of those synchronicity things that just as I finish making pjs, I stumble upon a blogger Did You Make That? who’s hosting a pajama sew-a-long. All the pj pants get reveled on the 28th. Another pair would be useful… so it took less than a day for me to decide and sign up, almost at the end of the month, fashionably late?

No running to the store for pattern or fabric. Impossible anyway. This is just knock up something out of what you’ve got time. The pattern will either be something drafted from an existing pair or else I fix the vintage pants pattern. Nice and easy it does it in one evening.

Miaow to the Vowel

The first song I learnt last year when I began weekly singing lessons was this jolly 1920′s number called “April Showers”.  Typical of songs from that time it was incurably optimistic.  The song was written by for Al Jolson to perform in a musical called Bombo in 1921. Louis Silvers composed the tune, B.G. De Sylva supplied the lyrics. Interesting bit of trivia, Buddy De Sylva was a co-founder of Capital Records. Anyway, Al Jolson’s name lives on, but clearly Bombo is not destined for revival anytime soon. The first verse goes thus:

“Life is not a highway strewn with flowers, still it holds a goodly share of bliss.

When the sun gives way to April showers, here’s the point that you should never miss.

Though April showers may come your way it brings the flowers that bloom in May.

So if it’s raining, have no regrets, because it isn’t raining rain you know, it’s raining violets.

And when you see clouds upon the hills, there soon will  be crowds of daffodils.

So keep on looking for a bluebird and listening for his song, whenever April showers come along.”

There’s a 2nd verse that’s more of the same Bertie Woosterish optimism telling you it will all turn out ticketty-boo.

“I have learned to smile when life is gloomy. Smile although my heart’s about to break.

When I know that trouble’s coming to me, here’s the happy attitude I take.

Though April showers may come your way, it brings the flowers that bloom in May.

So if it’s raining, have no regrets, because it isn’t raining rain you know, it’s raining violets.

And when you see clouds upon the hills, there soon will be crowds of daffodils.

So keep on looking for a bluebird and listening for his song, whenever April showers come along.”

In the early lessons, after listening to me mangle the vowels and slipping into frightful Australian dipthongs, as wide as the Mississippi (or its Oz equivalent, the Murray), my teacher suggested I practice the song leaving out the consonants and singing the vowels only. This would help me enunciate the vowels clearly and beautifully.

This is a lot harder than it sounds. Go on, try it. Take a song you know and sing it without consonants. In the case of April Showers, the first two lines of the song became:

“Iii – i – o – a – ii-ay-ii – i – ow-uh. Ii- i- oh- a- oo-ee-eh-o-i.

Eh-eh-uh-i-ay-oo-ay-i-ow-uh, ee-eh-oi-a-oo-ou-eh-eh-i.”

That’s an approximation without the benefit of using the phonetic alphabet.  I tried at home to do this. I really did.

But every time I’d crack up laughing. I sounded like a demented asian cat.

Remember this? (Click on image.)

I never knew that was Peggy Lee!

Vintage PJ’s Finished!

Ta Da!!!  Last weekend I finished the pjs in time to meet the contest deadline, even managed to write a review and work out how to use the self-timer button on the camera. (I don’t read manuals most of the time and I couldn’t tell you where the manual for the camera is.)

The review is here. From this 1947 Advance pattern (which I recently found out the department store chain JC Penney used to own), I made view 1, with the short sleeves.

Does it look like the picture on the pattern? Yes. Although I didn’t put on bangles for the pic, but at least my toenails are painted.

The yellow floral was a cotton sheet and the pale pink was a large nightgown, both from the local thrift store.

The trim was handled differently. The pattern called for lace edging – 5 yards of it – at $3 a yard at Jo-Ann, I wasn’t going to spend $15 on trim. For a couple of weeks I toyed with the idea of making a crochet lace trim instead. I experimented with a few trim crochet patterns and liked this one and I thought it was meant to be when I found some crochet cotton at a garage sale for 25cents. I did crochet some trim but decided it wasn’t going to work and gave up on the lace edging altogether. I salvaged a bit of trim, bows and buttons from the nightgown. The extra ribbon trim on the sleeves came from the nightie – the sleeves were cut that way.

What I Learned 

Tracing a pattern onto tissue paper is boring, but doable.

Unmarked vintage patterns are not so scary after all. The instructions, while glossing over details, still give you enough information to sew the garment. (Although these were only pjs, not a tailored coat.)

I can fit into this size, but the pants are a bit weird – way high in the waist but way low in the crotch. I did make a rough version of the coat out of a poly-cotton sheet and it fitted ok, but I didn’t bother with the pants. Live and learn. These are pjs to warn me not to put on weight as there isn’t a lot of wiggle room to get them over my hips. There’s elastic in casing only at the back – the front has a yoke.

I wish I’d discovered this tip before turning over and pressing the edges of the bias strips. I need a gadget (a set square?) to cut bias strips properly, although the polka dots worked as a guide.

Sheets have crooked grain. The nasty polycotton sheet (how can polycotton feel slightly slimey?) used to make up a rough version would not line up with the grain. I got very frustrated trying to get it to lie flat on the floor (folded), even ironing it directly on the floor at one stage.  The cotton sheet was slightly less frustrating – even after cutting off the edges it was still not quite true. I gave up trying to make the grain perfectly straight.

The worst part about sewing for me is preparing the fabric and laying it out. Yes I understand why you have to wash and iron it. But how on earth do you iron large swathes of fabric on an ironing board? And then lay it out, folded of course, and get it straight and wrinkle free? This is the most hated part about sewing. Having to do this is probably 90% of the reason why I don’t do much sewing.

Cutting on the floor is also a pain. First you have to sweep the floor. Maybe mop it and wait for it to dry. Or at least dustmop it. Then it’s hard on your knees and the fabric won’t cooperate and lay flat. I’m seriously contemplating getting a fold-out cutting board that you can put on the bed. Of course I’d have to make the bed first.

Major Boo-Boos

Forgot to cut the pants yoke on the fold so had to re-cut.  A simple mistake anyone could’ve made.

Blue tailor’s chalk doesn’t wash out well.  All the buttonholes have this bluish look to them from the chalk.

I wish I’d had the sense to plan ahead and apply the trim on the coat’s yoke before inserting the sleeves to avoid the unpicking/resewing business where the lace disappears into the sleeve seam. However the main annoyance with the eyelet lace is that it frays a bit and I didn’t allow enough at the ends to properly turn it under and secure it – so it’s going to fray with repeated washes and I’ll have to replace it down the track.

Small Wins

I can do buttonholes by hand! The guide had instructions for hand made buttonholes. I did consult my 70s edition of the Readers Digest Complete Guide to Sewing and did 3 for practice, before noticing the pattern guide had instructions already. Whilst doing the 9 buttonholes, I kept on thinking of Laura Ingalls Wilder – in Little Town On The Prairie, she’s got a job in town sewing men’s shirts to help raise money to send Mary to college. Well she hated doing buttonholes so much she became very fast and proficient at them. On the other hand, I took hours…..

As the pink fabric was much thinner than the yellow fabric I doubled it for the yoke of the coat as I didn’t want the facing to show through. As can be seen by the pants yoke, you can see through the pink fabric. Don’t really care about that on the pants, but it was a good decision for the coat.

My choice of DVDs to have on in the background was a winner. I borrowed from the library a few seasons’ worth of The Closer. I knew that I needed something on in the background that was better than free-to-air TV, but it had to be something I’d seen before and didn’t mind watching again. The Closer turned out to be a perfect choice, you can follow the plot by dialogue only and it’s watchable enough to get me through the hours of handsewing. Anything that’s more engrossing and that I like more, like MadMen or Larkrise to Candleford or (insert period drama with gorgeous sets and costumes here) would be too distracting and I’d end up watching that rather than sewing.

Making these pjs to a deadline almost got me used to the idea of sewing regularly. I almost found myself thinking I needed to sew something else pretty much straight away. There seemed to be a gap in my free-time that almost needed to be filled by another sewing project.

Thoughts on Singing

Last year, in July I started singing lessons.  It was something I’d secretly wanted to do for a long, long time and it was the right time to do it.  I found a great teacher living about a 10 minute walk away.

I do not consider myself to have a very good voice, but I concede I have improved. I’ve always been able to stay (more or less) in tune but had zero breath support and technique. Slowly – snail slow at times – I’ve gotten better.

Whether or not I sound that good becomes a moot point – I like the activity of singing in itself. The mind/body connect to produce this sound, this sensation. Its enjoyable just in itself. Breath streams out of my mouth carrying this sound with it – I try to imagine the notes pushing forward or spinning – the sound is never fixed, it’s in motion, like a water wheel turning. The water is never the same water, it’s always flowing.

I like how at times when during practice, there’s usually a stage after doing exercises and running through the song I’m learning that I feel something “click”. Well it’s more an awareness of an expansion – the voice seems louder, fuller, notes are reached with less effort, there is no tightness.  It gets easier and more enjoyable to sing. That sensation makes me want to sing more because everything is working – the water wheel is turning, the water flowing through.

When I’m singing I am in the moment, I’m not thinking of me and my problems  - it’s just the activity of making these sounds. Some form of transformation happens – the mind and it’s jumble of thoughts and judgements gets pushed aside. I guess in its own little way singing makes me happy.

And with that comes the realization that I sing more around the apartment (to myself), because I’m in a good mood, and the singing amplifies that. So I sing because it makes me feel happy in the moment and I sing when I am in a good mood. How’s that for positive reinforcement?

So, getting to the 40s jammies now…

The Vintage Pattern contest has started at Pattern Review. So far I have a pattern, Advance 4522, 1947 jim-jams and now I think I have some fabric. After work I stopped by Texas Thrift, where the radio station plays oldies from the 80s (this woman near me was singing along to Red, Red Wine, bless her) and it’s easy to lose track of time given how big that place is.

I spent a bit more money than anticipated, but found a cotton sheet and pillow case in a sunny yellow / pink floral. Cotton sheets were scarce, mostly it was all poly-cotton. I wanted to combine different prints so also got 2 pieces of cotton clothing that were xxl – a hot pink broderie anglaise top and a pale pink with white dots nightie. There’ll be buttons and lace trim to salvage from the nightie as well.  Surely I have enough fabric to do something.

Now the reason I spent more than I intended to was that I found 2 Christian Dior nighties. And yes, they’re a bit old lady-ish, and large size I’d say, and one has a couple of unmentionable looking stains down the front near the hem, but when else am I going to own Dior?

The lace decoration on the yokes are very pretty.

The white is simpler, with a couple of pin tucks and some lace.

More pretty lace at the cuffs.

Don’t really know what to do with them – I just liked the lace!