What is or isn't sewing?

I was getting ready to write today’s post (it was going to be about how I didn’t sew this weekend) when I started to think about the things I*did* do this weekend; mended some stuff, restyled a shirt so I’d actually wear it, hemmed a pair of pants and spun some lovely wool.

 

Of the 4 main things (besides laundry, grocery shopping and dishes..ick) I got done this weekend 3 of them included a needle and thread so why don’t I, at first "glance", consider that sewing?

An interesting question that made me think. 

Is it because I think of sewing as a creative process? Possibly. Sewing has always been one of my creative outlets and I love that sense of accomplishment I get when I have taken a pile of papers, materials, and threads and turned them into something else. Within that narrow definition then what I did this weekend would not qualify as sewing. But then, if not sewing….what? The major components of sewing were all there; scissors, needles, thread, a plan.

Perhaps it’s that there is a difference between “Sewing” and just “sewing” to me and “Sewing” involves some creative process to me.

Something to think about. ;-) 

Ta

I sewed!

I finally did some sewing! After a bout of procrastination, a skirt mental block and 2 months out with a bum hip (who knew sewing could be so dangerous?!?!) I finally got some sewing done this weekend.
Even better? It's a long weekend here in Canada so I have another day!

Who knows, I might even get something worth taking a picture of!

In the meantime I will share a picture of my first finished project of the year.

This is a short row scarf I made from a pattern in spin Off Magazine. It's a very easy pattern and my first ever time knitting short rows. It's made from hand spun yarn that I spun last year after buying the roving at the Ryder Lake Spin In. It's from a wool I don't remember with angelina and silk mixed in. You can see some of the gleam of the silk in the 2nd photo. It's lovely to wear and I'm quite proud of it.

So stay tuned, I might have some pictures of sewing soon, now that I'm back at the sewing table. In the meantime here's a look at what I'm back to working on; Simplicity 8640

Ta!

What's been going on?

So with such a long break between posts it would probably be good to do a little explaining on what happened.
Basically life happened, and then it snow balled and then it got embarassing to have not posted for so long.
But I'm over that and I have lots of sewing news to share.
First (and because I have no pictures right now) the life part;

As you know if you read my blog earlier this year, Scooby became a bit of an escape artist. In June/July he reached a new pinnacle. He not only got out of the backyard he jumped over the balcony to do it! I'm not sure why but for the first year ever fireworks totally freaked him out. So up over the balcony he went, over the yard fence and into a major intersection not far from our house. Happily (considering) he was found by a dog friendly couple who got him into their car (not hard, trust me!) and they took him home with them to safety.
At that point he became a much more restricted doggie and sadly he was fine with that. It got to the point that he didn't even want to go outside by himself at all, even to eat. And for a dog that lives up to his nae....that's a huge thing.
So now, a few months later we have moved from a dog that was outdoors 24/7 to a dog that's indoors 24/7! That's a pretty radical change for him and for us.

Add to that some ex-husband and family drama, a teen and a tween and well, you have a pretty busy life and a busy me. But I really missed blogging so I'm back and I promise I will do better....well, better than the last 6 months anyway!

Right now the camera is unused and there's a fair pile of things to photograph and lots of projects in the works (2012! It's a big year for costuming folks!) but for now I'll get this up and then see what happens.

Thanks for reading Ta!

I'm back

Hopefully for a good long haul this time.
I have lots of things to tell the world about but in the meantime a little haiku for you all......

The days pass slowly

Then rush by, too fast to see

Why no posts lately

Stanley Cup Final - the aftermath

I'm sorry to say that this is not going to be a sewing related post. Frankly there hasn't been enough sewing done in this house to warrant one. :-( There will be one soon though, I promise.

In the meantime I wanted to take a quiet minute or two and write a bit about a rather bizarre local event that some of you might have heard about in the news. They're calling it Riot 2011 or The Stanley Cup Riot or the Vancouver Riot.

It was a travesty, it was sad and awful and is in no way something that Vancouver or BC is proud of. For those who don't know the story the Vancouver Canucks made it to the final round of the Stanley Cup. They fought hard and took it to 7 games. That final game was played in Vancouver. We lost. And then some people got really stupid. There were fires and looting and people got hurt. Lots more people got scared.
The only good thing to say about the riot is that no one died.

We as BCers are ashamed at how a small group of people acted. We just ask that people remember that it was only a small group and that it in no way represents the rest of us.

There are some good things that happened during and after the event and I would like to focus on that.
There were people who stood up for what was right and there were more people that stood up for them.
A lot of people came out into Vancouver where some of the worst damage and looting happened and helped clean it up yesterday.
After 2 police vehicles were burned Wednesday night another police car was found today covered in notes of gratitude and well wishes for the Vancouver police. It is a beautiful sight.
Some people have realized that what they did  Wednesday night was wrong and have come forward and turned themselves in. I applaud them for doing the right thing. I know that admitting you're wrong is never easy. Wednesday night they were people to be ashamed of, today I can feel a small piece of pride in what they did today.

This is not an event to be celebrated but perhaps, if we learned from it, we can celebrate that.

Ta! 

PS  To all those people who posted about their "accomplishments" during the looting or posed after being caught on camera being stupid....do the rest of the world a favour and don't procreate..Please!!!

It's Polyester Pants time!

Yep, you read that right folks.
My next project (delaying my actual sewing for me! Which I will write about later) is a pair of 1970's polyester pants. Miss C is doing a project for school and needs a costume for it so .... here we go.

I'm going to be using a vintage pattern from a Golden Hands books, specifically this one. The pattern for the pants on the cover is included in the book.

I have a small collection of these 1970's Golden Hands books. They're kind of fun and luckily they all seem to have their sewing patterns still in them. Each issue had a free sewing pattern stapled to the middle of the book.

The pants are actually rather cool because they don't have a zipper front but instead one that buttons up, kind of like sailors pants. I don't remember having a pair of these but then I think I lived in jeans pretty much through the 70's. LOL

Here's another interesting feature of the pattern;

This is the whole pattern piece for the pant back. Not very long huh?

That's because part way down it says "Cut on this line and insert 18.5 inches".
I found that really interesting. I'm not sure if this was just to save paper or maybe to make the magazine less bulky...? No matter the reason it's neat. Naturally I didn't cut it there but rather traced the pattern to the size I needed and added the 18.5 inches while I was tracing.

So hopefully today I'll get everything cut out and the markings placed. Then it will be easy to get some little bits of sewing done during the week.
I find if I have everything cut out I can fit in 15 or 20 minutes of sewing during the week, but if I have to cut stuff out I stall until the weekend. Weird huh?
Well, off to continue working.

Ta!

It's now complete

We had a lovely weekend here and since sunny weekends seem to equal me wanting to sew I managed to turn a remnant into an apron for Miss S's costume so maybe people will stop telling her she's very "fancy".
shrug I know, I don't understand how a fairly plain dress with about $2 worth of trim can be fancy...but there you have it.

So this is (hopefully) the final costume for Miss S.
It dang well better be the final costume....the play is in 2 days!

Here's a quick snapshot of the gusset I did for the dancing.

Basically I opened up the arm hole seam up until ...the notches probably? Then I had Miss S put the dress on and raise her arms. I measured the gap that opened and made sure it was going to be enough and not put any strain on the arm hole. From there I just made this football shaped thing (cut on the bias for maximum stretch) that was the length of the portion of the seam I let out by the width of the gap created.
Pin, sew and done! FYI I sewed the gusset in by hand as I felt I'd have more control. I was right. If I was to do this again I would sew one side of the gusset down and then sew the sleeve in going across the gusset rather than the armhole. But of course I was doing this after so....hand sewing was easier.

Ta!