05.09.09
Posted in travel at 2:13 pm by wendy
(finally got around to remembering this draft was still around waitimg for upload, it’s ages old now, tho’ not as old as if I’d waited ’til home. Good wifi spots really are far and few between.)
So, I kind of sort of really didn’t like Santiago de Compostela.
No, wait, that’s not really true, I just think I reached my limit on Catholic indulgences (pun intended) and tourists and greasy salty Spanish food in a perfect storm of nausea and ill temper.
I loved Santiago de Compostela Friday night, arriving in the early evening with Nick and checking into our swanky digs right next to the Cathedral on Plaza do Obredoiro.
Best hotel experience ever.
Beautiful room, quiet, clean, spacious, tastefully decorated with charming reproductions and an amazing bathroom. There was a perfect bathtub, just the right depth, just the best angle for your back. With the wifi in the room, we lolled in the tub after our run and browsed the internet and relaxing mindlessly. I sort of wish it hadn’t happened so early in our vacation, as it was a great decompression (if we’d had anything to decompress about/over?) although I could have used it later. Poor Nick. I had my “pissy sick day” a little early in the vacation, just a combination of hunger from the fact that all the food we’ve been able to find seems to be oil/fat & salt disguised and shaped as food and it has been hard for me to figure out how to eat enough to not be hungry again in two hours (once the grease induced nausea and a has passed) without trying to just choke it down too quickly that the nausea is overwhelming and I horrify our Spanish friends by barfing all over their zápatos.
Who knew I was such a delicate fuxking flower?
So I was nauseated and the streets were packed with people wandering around through the narrow streets, walking three and four abreast, stopping abruptly to gawk at tchotchke shops with no discernible difference (to my eyes at least) from any of the others, inevitably stepping back into the only gap left to goggle at the display and blocking everyone. What is it about people that makes them go into or out of a narrow space and immediatly stop, like escalators, commuter train cars, medieval streets? Oh how it makes me want to kick them in the taint, and when you start fantasizing about kicking old people in the taint, it’s time to chill the hell out and go to a quiet place.
I would have loved to walk the streets holding hands with Nick, but it required a level of willfull obliviousness to all the other foot traffic that we were just unable to pull off. It’s just a knack some people have, and it pisses me off.
Anyway, I liked Santiago de Compostela on Friday evening, and I’d probably like it on any week day just as much, but on a Saturday, it was just too crowded. We did stumble on to the market though, and that was really great to see. There is healthy food sold, just not in the restaurants, but at the market there was great potential. We took a few pictures, one of a filleted headless fish who was so fresh its heart was still beating.
Runnning was good in SdC, there’s a park we did a loop around, but there’s a bit of hilliness and we quit at 25 minutes because Nick’s knee started hurting.
We were going to stay 2 nights in SdC but we moved on down the road instead, spending the night in an inn along the way in Castropol and heading off to Santillana del Mar after a good night’s sleep.
We stayed at Hotel Altamira in Santillana del Mar and it was a nice little place with a good restaurant; Cocido Montañes is a white bean stew with various meats in it but not greasy or salty, so we had it for lunch and dinner. The Zoo at SdM was fun, almost all the animals were out and about and close enough to see, being active and carrying on, some quite friendly and curious, although it might have been because Nick and I were both wearing greens that were pretty close in color to the jackets we noticed the Zoo employees wearing. The butterfly enclosure had so many butterflies, it was excellent, actually better than San Diego’s, with the undersides of many munched looking leaves harboring eggs and caterpillars while butterflies practically made a nuisance of themselves.
We had planned to leave the car at Santander’s airport and catch a RyanAir flight back to Madrid for the scheduled family stuff, but we decided to forfeit the money/tickets and just drive down so we’ll have the car for the week in and around Madrid. We think we’ve pretty much got the hang of driving here, the roads are well-maintained and the routes fairly well signed. We won’t be driving in the city though, since it’s more trouble than it’s worth and the great signage of the open roadways doesn’t seem to extend to the cities. Like Mexico, street names are usually on the sides of buildings and quite small, if they’re even there at all, and can be quite hard to spot from a moving car especially when pedestrians here are like at home in the good ol’ US of A: prone to flinging themselves blindly out, against the light, while on a cellphone or with ears stuffed with little white buds, and the mothers here lead with the stroller as well (I know, I know, how else do you walk with a stroller? But have you ever noticed that the darters-out, the jaywalking mamas who just launch themselves into traffic studiously avoiding any eye contact or appearance of caring whether you see them and can stop in time always seem to lead with the stroller way out in front? Then they take their time and the stroller gets closer and closer to their bodies, until five minutes later, as they are finally nearly across the road and the Giant Slug they were walking with is leaning against the lamp post, looking at its watch and clicking its radula in impatience, exchanging rueful looks with the Glacier at such slowness, the mommy is almost dragging the stroller behind her.)
I guess if one is going to use another human being as a shield, I would rather it be one that wouldn’t put much of a dent in the car. Although some of these strollers seem quite sturdy.
So anyway, we won’t be driving in Madrid proper, it has great public transportation.
On our way out from Santillana del Mar we stopped by Santa Justa, a little beach with a little church built right into the rock. Beautiful blue Cantabrian Sea, but definitely not a swimming beach.
Then on to Santander where we hit the heladeria, Citibank’s ATM and El Sardinero, the simply gorgeous swimming beach there. I got to take my top off without fear of arrest, but we didn’t swim as the wind would have frozen my nipples off after getting out. And without the swimtop fabric to catch them, they might have fallen into the surf and been impossible to find amidst all the other pink bits of shell and I would have had to wander all smoothly nipple-less the rest of my days. Which would be sad. And some French child on holiday would probably find one and save it for their collection of strange wonders to be forgotten in the car and vacuumed up by the car wash employee and the little French family’s dog would probably find and eat the other. See? All very sad and avoided by not swimming. Plus, we didn’t have any towels.
But it was lovely and made coming into the bustle of Santander vale la pena, as they say. We loved sifting through all the teensy tiny seashells that were so small and such a similar color to the sand that we nearly missed them, marking the moods of the tide where they settled in layers. Beautiful tones of pink, purple and green, easily missed in a rush, but like the carved facades in Salamanca, the more you looked the more you saw; I saved some of the bits, the tiny urchin spines, and I even found what I’m pretty sure is a stingray spine, which made me miss my Dad. I think he would really enjoy El Sardinero.
It would be wonderful to be there on a hot summer day, perhaps someday we will be.
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05.06.09
Posted in travel at 1:14 pm by wendy
(posts written on this trip are tapped out here and there during downtimes and waits, apologies for the lack of locational continuity and time lapse effect. I forgot my notebook at Jessica’s and haven’t picked up another yet.)
6 May 09
We went from the outskirts of Madrid (Valdemorillo) to Ávila to Salamanca today. It was a gorgeous drive to Ávila, along curvy roads with fantastic views that the little leased Renault Megane handled quite well. It’s neat to drive a new car; my mind is still blown by the fact THAT THERE IS NO PLACE TO PUT IN A KEY. Srsly, zomg. The Spanish nephews, however, were completely unimpressed by this, apparently, such “smart keys” are old hat to them. But my tiny little bourgeoisie brain is so impressed by The Button Which is Simply Marked Start•Stop that at some point in this vacation I will probably try to get out and leave the car still running.
Anyway, we went to Ávila and hit the Renault dealership to get a disc for the GPS for Spain but it was closed for siesta and we hit the town. Saw the Catedral which is part of the great wall and were quite impressed with all the “rich stuff” there, sumptuous silk vestments covered with tiny gold and silver thread stitches to create hugely elaborate (and indubitably very heavy) designs with more pieces of gold, silver and precious stones sewn into the design. Pomp and circumstance, indeed.
We also bought yemas, which is a treat particular to this town, I gather, and made by the nuns of Santa Teresa. They are egg yolks that have soaked up a ton of sugar, and whether that gives it the soft boiled/semibaked texture, or they cook them, I’m not exactly sure, but it’s egg yolks and sugar and tastes exactly as you might imagine.
We also went up on the section of the wall in which the Catedral has been incorporated, the view of the surrounding countryside off into the distance is lovely and you can see all the storks which have made massive nests amidst the gargoyles, turrets, and even apparently the bell tower. Big birds, huge nests.
You can go up and walk along more of the wall, which nearly surrounds the city, but we were lazy and had to move along to get back to the Renault dealership and be told they didn’t have the disc for Spain. D’oh. We have maps, but they aren’t very up to date and not very useful with all the teeny streets. The google maps function on my fancypantz iphone works incredibly well here and got us to Jessica’s despite closed roundabout exits, but gobbles up data and battery life like the Walrus eats credulous little oysters and while we bought a global data package, we’ll have to budget carefully to not overrun it.
So, we may have many exciting adventures and tales of roundabouts ’round and ’rounded when we get home. We’re getting the hang of how to get around here though, and perhaps more quickly than if we had the electronic crutch of a GPS. The relaxed philosophy of just going in the general direction seems to have served very well, so far.
Anyway, off to Salamanca, another gorgeous drive, flatter though and through agricultural areas instead of rocky mountains and pines. We aimed for the centro historico and left the car wedged into a teeny parking place in one of the public lots.
7 May 09
We’re staying at the Hostal/Pensión Los Angeles which is right within the Plaza Mayor. We have a room with a balcony that looks out on to the Plaza and it’s a good place to people watch. Right now as I type this, we are relaxing after touring the Old and New Cathedrals and the sounds of people bubble up to us like a fountain splashing. There’s a double set of shutters that partially block out the sound and completely block out the light if needed, which might come in handy. Last night/early this morning Nick was kept up by the singing; the acoustics of the square are definitely perfect for serenading your girlfriend or your friends after you’ve had a few at one of the five thousand bars here in Salamanca.
Last night we walked all around the city, well, the historic portion, and scouted out a running route for the morning while looking in at various restaurants and bars at the menus and pintxos. This is a great city to run in. Mostly flat and lots of pedestrian only streets that are pretty empty in the morning, plus a great walking path that goes quite a ways along the river on both sides and a little rubber running track just on the other side of the roman bridge that might be a 1/4 km or something, I should look that up. We probably did almost four miles this morning, although probably just three and a bit running. It was a great way to see the city and wake up a little, and since we forgot exactly which roads we went down, we ended up seeing even more of the city, so “hip hip hoorah.”. (There’s a girl in a wedding gown wearing a sign around her neck and surrounded by other girls who are chanting and singing and shouting “hip hip hoorah” walking a slow circuit around the Plaza as I slowly tap this out. She’s got street clothes on under the gown and all I could read of the sign is “Me casí” at the top. It seems more like a sorority stunt than a post-boda ritual, but I really don’t know.)
So, anyway, running was great. We came back to the room and showered, washed our running clothes in the sink and then saw the sign on the balcony door saying you can’t hang laundry there. D’oh. We strung the line in the teeny tiny bathroom and they’re taking forever to dry.
We visited the New Cathedral and the Old Cathedral (conveniently linked together) and right now they also have an exposition of the upper walkways that allows great views of the inside of the New, the exteriors of both and the surrounding area. The variety of gargoyles and the skill of the architects, the carvers of wood and stone, the metal workers and painters and the delicately wrought derring-do of their work on the ceilings and arches is well displayed. I tell you, the Holy See has very expensive taste. I try not to walk around thinking about how much food or clothing these fine objets d’art might represent, or wondering how far we might be in science if the Church had spent half the effort and money it expended in promoting and protecting the arts on the sciences, instead of threatening the observers of the natural world with death or excommunication if they didn’t recant, and try to remember that in the Bible Christ says that the poor will always be with us so it’s okay to spend a little on yourself, maybe get your feet washed with fancy oils before you sacrifice yourself to cleanse the world of sin, but it doesn’t quite seem to equate when I’m standing in front of some of these amazing displays of indulgence.
Anyway. The Catedrales are gorgeous, just full of amazing works by talented mortals and well worth visiting, even if you’re like me and made a bit nauseated by the Cult of Death stuff.
Then we did some shopping (there’s a shop that sells a bunch of the kukuxumusu shirts and clothes) had some espresso, rested our feet, went out again to see the Old Catedral again (turns out we had been so excited by the rooftop views and exhibits we missed quite a lot ofi it) visited the Cueva of Salamanca (don’t bother) checked out the Piratas exhibit at the Palacio de Congresos (again, don’t bother) and the Museo de la Historia de Automación (3 thumbs up, it’s a very nice collection and worth the price of admission) and then picked up some bananas and biscuits at a little grocery.
Back to the room to snuggle, put our feet up a bit (between the running and walking all over, we’ve got to have done some serious miles) and read. And now we’re out on the Plaza having una caña and pintxos.
Tomorrow we’ll be heading to Santiago de Compostela and pay more than I have ever paid to stay in a hotel in my life, but it will be at a parador and purportedly the oldest hotel in the world with a colection of galleries accessible only by guests, so I hope it will be worth the splurge for this once in a lifetime trip thingummy we’re doing. Although I do hope we’ll be able to make travel more of a habit, I miss the dogs.
Random Salamanca highlights/notes:
The Cathedrals, New & Old, especially the Ieronimus portion which may be seasonal and is an extra separate fee, but well worth it.
The Croissanteria Paris has really wonderful breakfast pastries. Café & Té, which appears to be some sort of Spanish chain had old croissants which absorbed some of the paint smell (and all the flavor) of the fresh paint on the walls and besides the VOC-soaked croissants, their wifi code didn’t work. Not recommended. 
The Heladeria in the Plaza Mayor, next to the Novelty Cafe, has the best ice cream and cones on the square, the best ice cream and cone I’ve ever been served anywhere. There’s a few heladerias in the Plaza, but this one is totally worth waiting in line.
If you’re a car dork, the Museo de la Historia de la Automación is totally worth a look, and only 3€. I don’t know why they call themselves this long name, since Museo de Automoviles would be more accurate and to the point. I had pointed it out on the list the tourist office gave us and Sr. Duda poo-pooed it because of its name but practically bounced in excitement when we went back to the office and he noticed a poster for it with cars. Our visit also coincided with the Protagonistas road rally being in Salamanca, where some wonderful cars go from town to town and park for a little bit and let the public gaze upon their beauty.
Our place at Hostal/Pensión Los Angeles is perfectly centrally located. Kind of tiny, floors are kind of gross (they look clean, but after a long day, we walked around in bare feet and picked up some pubic hairs I know for a fact weren’t ours) and the noise of the square means you have to choose between sleeping stuffy (no ceiling fan) but relatively quiet, and 3am drunken baritones intruding on your dreams. But, for the central location, at 50€ for a room with a view and private bathroom, it was a pretty good deal. No wifi in the rooms though, we had to go out into the main hall, which was a bit of a crimp in our tech style. There are tons of places to stay though, so if/when we return, we might check out another.
I even got a chance to buy some fabric and a pattern mag–Mimi from the Siskiyou knitters kindly e-mailed me some useful info, including the name of a great sewing mag: Patrones (Patterns, not Bosses, in this case) and I snagged one from a stand. Cute stuff, plus it’s monthly and was only something like 3.50€ (a little bit more than $5) and the pattern markings etc. seem quite similar. Then, as we walked out to the car, we stopped by a shop called Telas y Hogar and I bought 3 metres of a cute olive green cotton printed with little hot pink bomber silhouettes for only a euro a yard, so grand total of 3€. Enough to make a dress for not even 5 bucks. If the fabric in Paris & Madrid is even close to that cheap, we’ll definitely be posting a box home by slow boat. We’re leaving the car in Mulhouse and don’t want to be schlepping too much through Paris and back to Madrid.
None of the computers at the internet cafe there recognised my camera, so I couldn’t upload to flickr and the wordpress app doesn’t allow for placement within text. If I get a chance to fix it all pretty, I will.
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05.04.09
Posted in travel at 5:59 pm by wendy
Pretty smooth trip so far. We ended up getting up slightly earlier than planned; I awoke just before 4am to a woman’s voice saying, “call 911, call 911, call 911″ over and over again, so I did. At first, I thought it came from the room next door, but it was actually from some sort of thing going on around the corner outside and after the woman hit the man with an RV (just a little RV mind you) which happened nearly simultaneously with the arrival of the Portland po po (do they get called the Po po po?) and the bathroom had been visited and water bottles refilled (the water from the tap in Portland has to be the sweetest best city tap water in the world, it might even be better than that of Yreka) it was a bit of a job to get back to sleep just for less than an hour’s worth of restless half dreaming.
So with the late bedtime and early wakeup it was easy to zonk out on the plane, if not exactly comfortable. We’re almost to Madrid as I type this and I don’t think we’ll have much issue with jet lag. (famous last words)
The Continental terminal in Newark is huge. Kind of gross bathrooms and other maintenance issues, but given how many people must go in and out every day, it was amazing. Maybe next time we book a trip through there, we’ll leave more layover time and go into New York City; I gather from the in-flight magazine that it’s only a half hour train ride from the airport, and I’ve never been there.
So, so far so good. We’re about to pass over Santiago de Compostela (there are screens displaying the plane’s progress over the aisles) at 39000 ft and even with a 55 km/hr (34mph) headwind we’re still zooming along at just under 800 km/hr (500 mph) and going to be landing at Barajas within the hour.
So cool, all this informational technology; I’ll let this publish when we get to a wi-fi spot, because even though I’ve added a global data package, we’ve got a whole month to go and possibly much road googling to go. ;).
This picture is for my Dad, who always takes pictures of his food when traveling. I can recommend Continental’s penne and meatballs and iceberg lettuce with wedge of tomato most heartily.
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05.03.09
Posted in travel at 8:46 am by wendy
Aw, the internet ate my post. That hasn’t happened in a while. Short version: in Portland, leaving for Spain tomorrow for two weeks in Spain and two in France.
We were lucky enough to get a live in sitter for the “kids” and she said they’re doing well–it actually sounds as if they’re doing what they always do, just doing it with another woman. I’d be jealous if I weren’t so relieved; I’ve been really anxious about leaving them so long and it was hard to get out the door.
Really, really, really hard. They are so freaking cute and lovable and have been at the top of their Snuggle game for the last month, knowing something was up. Then, when that didn’t work Belu busted out her original Power Move of parental distraction by attempting another drug overdose, getting into the dogpill and pasta drawer (what, you don’t keep those together? They’re a natural pairing, really) and they all chowed down on fettucine, soba and $40 worth of heartworm preventative. But the package insert let us know that they were well under the problem level, so instead of a weekend of emetics and IVs like last time, the trip’s still on and they just had to deal with rumbly pasta tummies… Which meant three puddles of pasta slurry puked up on the carpets and rugs. Most of the house is tile and still they puke on the flokati. What is that about?
Needless to say, we really miss them.
It was hard to sleep without them last night and I don’t know how we’re going to make it so long without them.
But we must be strong.
We will comfort ourselves with Spanish ham and French cheese and try to be strong and only text for updates on the dogs once a day. Maybe twice.
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04.26.09
Posted in sewing at 9:27 pm by wendy
Another one from Weekend Sewing! Told you I love this book.
This is one of those dresses that is completely unlike anything I’d buy, and really isn’t like anything I’d wear, I have no idea why I wanted to make it so bad, but I love it. It’s kind of maternity-wearish, earthmothery mumu-esque but love means not giving a shit about the hippo-esque silhouette.
(My back looks so broad and pale! Eek!)
It’s a happy dress, made from happy fabric. It looks bright yellow with red and white polka dots from a distance, but they’re actually ladybugs and flowers. Aw. I am probably 26 years too old to be wearing this dress, but again, not giving a shit. 
assorted modifications, heads up, errata, ciabatta stigmata.
This was pretty simple and easy to make. I made a lining for it, but this quilting cotton I used is so thick I think I could have got away without it, but I was experimenting to work out any kinks before I made it with the “juicy” fabric that I love so madly, and which is much lighter.
But there weren’t many modifications to be made. I had to make it smaller, since I’m about 31″ now above the titties for the bodice measurement, and the pattern is 36″ or so, but these modifications were easily made in cutting. For the body & bodice pieces, I just took two inches out of each center piece and a quarter inch off each side to take out the five inch difference all around.
The lining was easily made much like cutting out the exterior, except I took an additional bit (2″) off the center to account for the pleats that wouldn’t be happening on the inside and cut it shorter. Here it is, traced out in chalk in the muslin before cutting:
Sewed the front and back together, graded the seams, pressed ‘em open, put them inside the dress body wrong sides together matching side seams and raw edges, basted the raw edges together for ease of bodice install et voilá, easy peasy! (look at me, jargonizing like a pro: “graded the seams!” snort. Yes, so much quicker than saying “trimmed the seams.”)
The construction is quite simple, although I had a sticky moment where the directions say to sew the pocket pieces to the front and back pieces and press the seams open flat, then sew the front and back pieces together with a 3/8″ seam allowance along the sides of the front and back and the edges of the pockets–which I couldn’t see how to do without getting possibly an odd little pucker where the stitching goes over the pressed flat seam bit, not to mention when I go to press the side seams later. I probably should have just done it, might have been no big deal. I just couldn’t visualize it from here:
So I pressed the seams flat, closed and sewed it together that way and it turned out just dandy. I defied the directions and nothing terrible happened! Yay!
Also, the directions for the bodice say to press the bodice facing under 1/4″ and catch it by topstitching, enclosing the raw upper edges of the body inside the bodice. I had to rip mine out and do it again (as the topstitching along the front of the bodice came in along too high up on the facing to catch the folded under bit of the bodice facing) pressing considerably more than that under–just take yours, fold the bodice pieces the way that you want them to look and mark where that bottom of the front bodice piece lines up with the back section as a fold line and press under from there, to make sure you enclose that folded under raw edge when topstitching the bottom edge of the front of the bodice. Maybe this was just an issue for me, this is probably one of those deviations from directions that’s just a common sense modification for a more experienced sewist.
Also, this used a whole 100m spool of Gutterman thread, just a heads up. I found another spool of very similarly colored red, so I might sew another couple lines of stitching at the hem, but I was on the last yard of thread with my original color. Although, that’s with an extra couple of rounds of stitching to attach and enclose the bodice since I had to rip and redo, and I added another line of stitching on the bodice and of course, the lining took a little bit of extra thread. But, then, I made a slightly smaller size, soooooo…make sure you’ve got at least 100m.
There was some confusion I guess about the number of pleats, since there are three on the dress front pictured in the book, two on the pattern and two in the book illustration. Not a big deal, since as Heather Ross says in the errata, pleats can be placed anywhere and however you feel would fit and make you happy. I goofed a little in matching the dress body width with the bodice width, so while I planned to have just two pleats in the front, I ended up with a very small pleat in the center as well, to take up the slack. Which I dig, ‘cuz a central pleat gives nice boob definition. Down with uniboobs!
I’ll try to get a good picture of the front and pleats up soon. It’s very cute.
Okay, no ciabatta stigmata here, I just felt a little rhythm going.
I love the pockets in this. Yay! A dress, but with pockets! Yay!
I tore off a section of red kona cotton I have and tried out the whole fabric sash thing to eliminate the whole ballooning thing, and it looks all right, although it’ll look a bit better after the cotton has been washed a few more times and softened up and gets more drape.
All in all, I really dig this. I don’t know how often I’ll actually wear it and I don’t know if I will make another one anytime soon, but I’m very happy with it.
I’m going to do the Kimono Dress next. Wish me luck, I guess this thing is famously huge so I’ll make mods to a muslin first, and this will be my first time using elastic thread, but I hope to have it done before we go to Spain and France so I can wear it there. I’ve got a great organic cotton/bamboo print for it.
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04.23.09
Posted in d'oh at 11:26 am by wendy
I read most of my blogs through bloglines, clicking through to comment when necessary. It’s a nice, faster way to catch up. I tried Google’s service, but meh. Bloglines looks cleaner to my eyes, easier and quicker to read.
But my blog never shows as updated anymore, or only shows new posts weeks after they’ve been posted. It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve got my bloglines set to the atom feed–I don’t know enough about this to know if that makes a difference or not, but it’s just weird. I mean weeks later stuff posts as new. I got used to bloglines burping up 200 posts at a time being shown as new posts for the blogs in my feeds, I just ignore it, and I haven’t seen it in a while. But this is different, and it’s been going on for quite a while, I can’t even remember when I noticed it, but it has to have been at least six months.
Anybody know? Assuming you see this anytime soon?
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04.20.09
Posted in books, d'oh, sewing at 1:03 pm by wendy
I love, love, love, love, love Weekend Sewing. And Heather Ross’s Mendocino fabric line. Oh those gorgeous cephalopods. The charming retro subtlety of the seahorses. I lurve it. I bought two fat quarter packs from Spool in Philly, hoping that would be the end of it, but I’m going to have to buy some more yardage to make some shirts.
Weekend Sewing is just full of so many great projects–I’ve bookmarked about a third of the projects inside, which is really quite a lot considering the number of projects in this book.
I’ve already made the Pajamas for Everyone out of a great woven bamboo I bought from Fabric of Vision for Nick, but I failed to finish the fabric edges properly and trimmed them too close, so after washing and wearing, there’s a big ol’ hole in the arse, and some in the sides. It frankly adds to the appeal when he wears them, but you’ll understand the lack of pictures. (I’m going to fix them, and keep them for me and make him a new pair with french seams.)
The pattern was easy and simple. I’ve already made pj bottoms from a Simplicity pattern, and these weren’t really any different except that the simplicity pattern is only in two pieces instead of four, so there are no outside side seams for the legs, but the width and length make the simplicity pattern a bit of a bugger to cut out; I had to use the floor, so of course I had lots of help from the dogs walking on the fabric and pattern sheets. The four-pieced pattern from WS, while perhaps not as quick from an actual sewing perspective with the extra seaming was easy-peasy.
Anyway.
And, I’ve made the Summer Blouse, which I’m happy with now, but holy cow. I had a problem with about every single freaking step. Sigh.
But I’m pretty happy with it now.
So, here’s a breakdown of the problems I had, since forewarned is forearmed and I will be making this again, so I’ll probably make a printable pdf for myself to stick in the book, since I always think I’ll remember next time and only sometimes do.
Step 1.) Layout and Cut Pattern.
No problems tracing the pattern or anything like that, (although don’t bother to transfer the placket lines to the fabric) but I had a different need for fabric amounts in mine. I made the smallest size, and even reduced the trunk widths because I knew I didn’t need it so big and still couldn’t lay it out for cutting the way it was in the book. I ended up using 68″ of the main color (just 4″ shy of two yards) so, just a heads up.
Of course, If I’d looked at the errata on the web page first, I would have seen that. One commenter (Jenn from KS) said she was able to get hers out of the amount, but I really tried a lot of different ways and it was just mathematically impossible from my nearly 46″ width, even with the trunk widths reduced.
I have been trying to go to the fabric store and just buy the stated required materials and no more, in a fruitless attempt to thwart the inevitable stash-building.
Thankfully, the shot cotton is one of those OTHER fabric store visit purchases, where I just loved the fabric, didn’t really know what I’d do with it… So I bought three yards of each color combo, and good thing too, since I wouldn’t have had enough if I’d done my usual purchasing with the project in mind and just the amounts I needed. Yeah, sure. See how this crap gets rationalised? And before you know it, your house is crammed with stash that’s too lovely to use and can’t be written off in your taxes and gets put on craigslist by your kids when you die.
Um, anyway, so I needed more than was stated, so buy extra to be safe, although if your fabric is 60″ instead of 45″ you should be okay. Also, if you’re taller than I am (5′4″) you might want to increase the length of the body, and maybe the sleeves as well. CraftyClaire ended up using 78″ of fabric for cutting out hers, adding length to the sleeves and body. I had plenty of hemming room for the sleeves, but a fairly narrow hem on the body to hit at the hipbone.
And I get why we sometimes have to buy extra when we buy yarn for knitting, but for sewing, it’s kind of basic math to figure out how much yardage is needed, so I don’t understand how the allowance and cutting layout can be so far off the reality. It made me nervous about the rest of the pattern. After doing a lot more looking around the internet, it seems like there are a few differences between the actual samples made and the directions, and these differences are the root of the problems/some lack of clarity.
Also, when I make this again, I’ll reduce the placket length by 40%. There’s no reason (to my way of thinking) to make the placket so long just to stitch it up and I don’t think it adds much as a design detail. YMMV, of course, and I’ll still stitch up a bit of the placket to reinforce it, but that’s my Next Version Plan: shorter placket.
Also, since I cut one day, put away the fabric (at least in theory, in practice this is a bit like “I only buy as fabric as the pattern calls for”) and then sew, I was a bit annoyed to have to haul out the contrast fabric just to cut out a 1″ by 3″ piece of fabric for the spaghetti strap loop that as far as I can tell isn’t mentioned anywhere but step 7. Thankfully I still had it out to cut out another little chunk after following the erroneous instructions of Step 7. So, when you’re cutting out your placket, cut out a 1″ by 3″ rectangle as well.
2.) Make bust darts: I should have shortened my bust darts to account for my narrowing of the trunk width, and maybe made them a little wider at the base, as the breast shape they make is a little unflattering and they’re placed a little low for me. My mistake.
3.) Sew shoulder seams. No problem there. But maybe if I’d tried the blouse on there, and made the decision as to how wide I wanted the neckline to be, then and there, I could have avoided a fair amount of confusion and irritation later.
4.) Finish Placket Edges and Sew Placket to Shirt: The placket marking that you’re supposed to transfer to the fabric is much wider than the placket, you’ll get better placement if you just fold the front in half and press a nice sharp crease in the center of the shirt and placket and line the creases up for placement, since there’s always a chance that the chalkmarks might stain if they’re ironed.
5.) No problem with this step. It was like a big-ass button hole. Heheh.
6.) Begin Binding Neck Opening with Bias Tape: Oh, this bias tape thing gave me such fits. Such a stupid little thing to have problems with, but I guess the devil really is in the details.
The short version with All the Right Way Which I Wish I’d Known is:
Decide how much wider you want to make the neckhole, e.g., a half inch. Cut out strips of fabric on the bias that are twice that width, in this case 1″ wide and press them in half lengthwise, and sewing them together at the right angle, trimming off excess –there are lots of online tutorials for this, and since you don’t really need that much you don’t need such a big fabric section to cut from as you’ll see in the tutorials. And if you love the fabric you use, I’m sure you can find something to do with the extra. Doublefold bias tape isn’t necessary and eliminating its bulk when tucking in the ends for finishing the edge and sewing in the spaghetti strap loop would be quite helpful.
Follow myloosethreads instructions for this in this thread. Quoted here to be preserved for posterity:
I also saw a rather easy alternative for this (I agree the book’s instructions were confusing!!)
cut a 1″ bias strip
press in half, wrong sides together
Pin it to the right side of the blouse, all raw edges together
edge stitch with 1/8″ allowance
flip the binding to the wrong side of your shirt and you’ll have a 3/8″ binding
top stitch all sides of the binding
The directions and pictures show something quite different from this, but this is much better and what I’m going to do when I make this blouse again.
7.) Make Neckline Loop and Finish Binding Neck Opening: Do not sew this 1″ by 3″ strip, folded and pressed in half lengthwise, with a 3/8″ seam. Basic math and common sense shows that there is no way in hell you’ll be able to turn it inside out. Unfortunately, I lack for either and I went ahead and sewed it with a 3/8″ seam and looked at the tiny 1/4″ section that 3/4″ were supposed to be turned inside out into, smacked my forehead and dragged out the fabric again to cut out another little chunk, this time to press it in half and just sew right down the center, which was difficult enough to turn out (just hard to start it). Again, a little thing, but an irritating error.
8.) Topstitch placket. No problems there.
9.) Sew Sleeve Seams: Don’t bother looking for the basting lines that are mentioned in the pattern instructions, they aren’t there. If I had looked at the errata beforehand, I would have known this. Instead, I hauled out the pattern piece pages again, assuming I’d stupidly forgot to transfer the markings. Nope. Not there. Oh well, obvious enough from the instructions actually.
But. I really don’t like the leg o’ mutton look this gathering creates. It looks fussy on what is just a simple casual blouse. The puffiness relaxed a bit after the fabric was washed again, but it makes it look a bit like bad sewing since it doesn’t really match the look/feel of the casual blouse. So, when I make this again, no gathers. I’ll have to look up how to modify the sleeves caps to get them to fit in flat. But I was annoyed again because you don’t see this puffiness in the modeled blouse in the book, maybe it’s there but just not apparent because the blouse is so big on the model and the fabric is much drapier. (More drapey?)
10) Sew Side Seams: I suffered a brain fart and sewed the side seams WRONG SIDES TOGETHER. D’oh. My mistake, and my french seams were halfway done! Whee. Quite happy with that actually.
11) Shockingly, I didn’t spaz out when I set in the sleeves.
12) No problem with hemming really, beyond my usual lack of skill with ironing and sewing an even hem.
I tried it on and took some pictures at this point, not happy with what I saw.
The back is huge, and just not to my tastes. I saw that with other people’s too, but I had ignored it since it didn’t suit the reality I wanted to see.
And the collar was way too tight and narrow. (My bias tape confusion* + my lack of cutting a roomier neckline when I cut a narrower width back and front section, see saga below if you care to).
So, I ended up ripping out the bias tape collar and cutting what was basically a huge dart out of the back, which narrowed the neckline a bit further, but redoing it with much wider bias tape fixed that, and I’m fairly happy with the result, fitting much better in the back and neckline.
So, in sum, when I do this Blouse again, I will just use the pattern pieces as a guide and cut them quite a bit more narrow in the waist and hips, but leave the shoulder and neck alone, although I might still need to make a dart in the back, as I suck at viualising sewing pattern changes into 3D shape effects. I’ll make the changes to sleeve caps, shorten the placket, change the bust darts and do the much simpler bias tape adaptation.
Next up, the Trapeze Dress out of this fabric:
which will also have to be significantly down-sized, so wish me luck, and let me know if there’s anything to be added to the errata on the page here.
* The long irritating whiny rest of the double fold bias tape saga from my notes from making this:
Also, “3/4″ of double fold bias tape” maybe means bias tape made from a 3/4″ strip of bias cut fabric. This seems obvious after you’ve made 3/4″ bias tape and see that proportion-wise it won’t look like the picture. This lack of picture matching didn’t seem too much of a problem, especially as it all ends up on the inside, but attaching such wide tape around the tight curve of the neck at the shoulders proved problematic for me and I had to rip out the stitching and remake the bias tape. (Turns out it was just me being a spaz, and the collar made with thin bias tape as it looks in the book picture is very tight if you forget to compensate for the modifications made in bodice width and adjust the collar width accordingly. My mistake, contributed by lack of clarity of instruction and confusion from the difference between the picture and what the instructions seemed to say, all obviated by the better alternative way to handle the bias tape issue, see above.)
Then I sewed it on, folded it over, then realized I’d guesses wrong as to whether the skinny or the fat side should be attached to the outside, a failure of vision on my part. It’s the relatively thin half of the double fold you’ll want attached to the right side, otherwise, when you fold it to the inside it will look like this:
which while it’s on the wrong side of the garment it doesn’t really matter that it doesn’t look smoothly finished, but the important bit is that unless you trim the raw edge of the body it won’t really enclose the raw edge of the blouse collar on the other side of the bias tape. And using double fold means that when you tuck in the ends and sew in the spaghetti strap and placket you end up having to sew through quite a bulky bunch of fabric at an edge, which is quite tricky, on my machine at least.
Since I ended up doing this collar several times, it will be child’s play next time. Staying positive.
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04.17.09
Posted in dogs at 11:00 pm by wendy
Tahoe and I snuck out to play frisbee together and it was such a brilliantly gorgeous day. The Bobobear’s a little out of condition, I’m afraid it’s been too long since he’s done much cardio, plus it was pretty toasty, relatively speaking.
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04.11.09
Posted in dogs at 7:02 pm by wendy
“Greyhounds are so regal looking!”
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03.31.09
Posted in dogs at 8:31 pm by wendy
I love Ron. I love him so much I take him everywhere with me. I take him into the yard to lay out in the sun when I lay out in the sun and I take him even up on mommy and daddy’s lap to watch movies together. I love him. Thank you for making him for me. Mommy says you didn’t make him just for me and I should share him with Tahoe and Crivens but she’s stupid and they’re stupid too and Ron is mine and I love him and I love you for making him for me.
Love,
Libelula Weazel
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