Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Darling, You Need More Flair


Oh Christ God do I have hay fever! I'm stuffy, bloated and prone to fits of sneezing like you would not believe. That has not stopped me from sewing, though. I'm working on the Hong Kong Vest and just finished the Marci Tilton Vogue 8397 pants. Did I follow the directions? Heavens, no! Did I even follow the pattern exactly? No, I tell you, no!
I used the pattern for view C, which is only two pieces. The front and the back halves are the same piece. You're supposed to create three long darts at the sides and I did so , but was unimpressed with the look of it. I was too lazy to take them back out again. I think the side darts add to the "Size E for Enormous" look, but that's okay with me. We have a saying "There's enough blue in the sky to make a Dutchman's britches" I think these pants bring that to reality; here they are, made from patches of blue in the sky. (I hope I am not offending any of my friends and relatives from the Netherlands, it is a quaint saying probably thought up by Netherlanders who moved to the States a century ago. Like my grandfather.)Actually, I used a lovely blue checked poly I found at fashion fabrics club.

I recently found a whole slew of Flair pens! Whoo hoo! So what, you say. I remember when Flair pens were all the rage in the early 70's and I loved them for creating strange, overtly colorful sketches of hippies wearing psychedelic bellbottoms and doves flying over rainbows...I'll see if I can dig one out of the Annika archives...

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Busy busy busy

I have been very busy this last weekend. Linda had her 40th birthday party at P.F. Chang's - here are some photos. The first is a picture of Linda's sisters (from left ro right) Lois, Lori and Linda's niece Sabrina (Lori's daughter)

Next is Zanne and Linda
And Matt sandwiched in between Linda and Fran...


Additionally Sabrina just graduated from highschool! Yay! Sabrina is a vibrant, clever force to be reckoned with! She's off to university in the Fall to study marine sciences.










Also on Sunday I managed to put together a bubble skirt for Rosie. It's an Ottobre pattern from one of last year's magazines. the fabric is a glorious stretch pink velvet with embroidered flowers. I couldn't find any velvet ribbon that matched the skirt so I used pale pink from my stash. Whatever! The stretch velvet was much easier to work with than regular velvet - the plush fibers sort of smooshed right into eachother and held fast while I sewed. Usually velvet slides all over the place whilst between the feed dogs and presser foot. This time I lucked out.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Simplicity 4076

I made this wrap version of Simplicity 4076 for my friend Linda out of a lovely silky single span I got from Emma OneSock. The print on the fabric is a medieval tapestry of a man and woman and various medieval beasties. See the teal version of this wondrous stuff in my previous blog below. I think the sleeves are a bit long, but she likes 'em that way. Sorry the photo is so murky - my digital camera broke today and had to use a spare camera...

Friday, June 01, 2007

The Swinging Sixties





Here are some of my favorite 60's book and magazine covers...if only I'd known that bellydancing could shimmy me into the big time...