Cull Aftermath

In my last post I outlined the extent to which I had to abruptly reduce the number of garments I own. The current number is approximately one third of the total from a week before. On one hand, this could be viewed as a problem due to my participation in my own brainchild Self-Stitched-September which looms close (sadly my handmade creations were far from immune during the recent cull). A crazy stitch-up session to repopulate my wardrobe before the onset of September is off the cards as my sewing stuffs and I are separated indefinitely until accommodation is found in my new adoptive city. In short, expect a lot of repeated outfits during September!

On the other hand, I believe the situation I have found myself in is actually pretty positive. Not only does it test my commitment to my aims to become as unconnected to mainstream clothing consumerism as possible, but it also sticks a rocket under the implementation of my more considered approach to sewing. Thanks to the interesting and ingenious comments left on my Stuff and Things post in which I asked for peops advice on how they decide what is worth sewing, I think I’ve got a clearer idea of how to avoid making garments that won’t see very much action.

It’s interesting to me that my recent decision to go a year without buying new footwear was shortly followed by my need to give 6 or 7 pairs of shoes away. This has somewhat forced my hand in coming to terms with how many possessions (in this case, footwear) I can actually get by with (or without). There will now be less ‘shopping’ within my own previously excessive shoe collection, which might have somewhat alleviated the symptoms of desire for new shoes. I’m predicting this will make me take better care of the shoes that I already have, keeping them cleaner and adding innersoles to pairs that would benefit from them, and encouraging me to experiment more with introducing them into outfit combos.

I’m hoping the next couple of months with a comparably limited wardrobe will confirm to me that I can dress sufficiently well that I don’t need to need to make clothes like the rabid sewist I was before. When I do get my little sewing factory set up again, I’m determined to slow my output down and spend more of the time I would be producing garments on the aspects I often tend to rush through (thinking about what would be most useful, planning outfits, altering existing garments, perfecting the fit including toiling a style before rushing into ‘best’ fabric etc.). Hopefully the revised approach will result in clothes that follow my style objectives (posts on this subject are due), fit my body well, are constructed to a high level and don’t result in many types of the same garment (eg, heaps of A-line skirts and short-sleeved blouses but no trousers or long-sleeved tops).

And if I need to get that fix from creating a garment super-quick with next to no thought required, I’ll turn to my new toy: origami fashion! A genius going away gift from my friends Lee and Isi, I was able to create a shirt, tie and entire suit whilst travelling through France by train. That or create more pants of course, because I’m not sure you can have too many of them!

The Great Wardrobe Cull of 2010

So, in the last post I left you with the difficult news that I had been forced to part with a fair chunk of my wardrobe (including some handmade items). Well now I must report that after writing that last post the packing clothes situation got significantly more brutal. BRUTAL I tell you! The discovery that the previous clothes culling had not been sufficient came at quite an advanced stage of the packing/moving process. In fact the knowledge that we literally would not be able to carry at the same time all we needed to take through France and UK came very late indeed, later than the final opportunity to give Correos (the post office) yet more of my holiday-cocktail fund to send some of it on ahead. Not wanting to burden our friends with the awkward and time consuming task of sending the excess stuff on our behalf (the pain we are inflicting by our relocation is probably tough enough!) the only option left was more possession-culling brutality. It’s not all bad, my mate Jen (the recipient of the majority of these belongings) doesn’t need to buy any clothes or shoes for at least six years now. Yay for reducing consumerism?!

I fear I am not being sufficiently explicit in my attempts to convey what has happened so in order to do so more fully, and indeed to help myself absorb the full extent of the situation, I have prepared some stats. Let’s look at the figures for couple of different garments groups:

Bottoms:

Last week I possessed: 1 pair of jeans, 4 pairs of trousers, 1 pair of Capri pants and 2 pairs of shorts.
Now: 2 pairs of shorts



Outerwear:

Last week I possessed: 2 coats, 4 jackets and 1 big woolly cardigan.
Now: 1 coat and 1 jacket



Sleepwear:

Last week I possessed: 18 items for all seasons (ok, I admit some thinning out in this area may have already been overdue!)
Now: 8 items.



Footwear:

Last week I possessed: loads
Now: not so many.



At risk of blinding you with all this science, I’ll conclude thus:



In a manner similar to an amputee who still ghost twinges in the missing limb, the reality hasn’t kicked in yet! However, I am not attempting to elicit any particular emotional response from you, dear readers (my capacity for self-pity should be sufficient), I am simply laying down some heavy facts which directly affect the major themes of this blog: consumption and sewing stuff.

Stuff and Things

See that? That's all my clothes in one pile. All of them except for a few bits that were hiding in the laundry and the garments I was standing in. That's what I dealt with yesterday.

Finally it got to the clothing stage in my packing to move back to UK. Until yesterday, I had the naive idea that I could whittle my clothing down to fill just one medium sized suitcase and maybe one smallish box to be sent via post to UK. Ummmm, No! Totally No, seriously No and a million times, No! I have come to realise that my initial aim only would have been possible if I were living (or about to live) in a temperate climate that was generally very warm with very little weather fluctuation of any kind. I don't know where such a place would be, but it certainly isn't my current reality. The truth is, whilst I'm wearing my smallest shorts, skirts and summer tops right now, jumpers and coats are to be fixtures of my near future.

The pile of garments that remain post-sorting is now about half the size of the pile in the image above, but even after the mass-culling, I'm going to have to buy a bigger suitcase. Sorting through clothes is so difficult! So many memories and attachments exist between both self-stitched and long-harboured shop-bought items. The ties between a sewer and their handmade wares are clearly complex and multi-faceted. But having not bought any new clothes for about four years, many of my shop-bought things have achieved an elevated level of preciousness as well, which was pretty much the point of signing up to the Wardrobe Refashion pledge in the first place: to live an alternative to the standard lifestyle where clothing is disposable.

But it couldn't all come with me and I had to be ruthless. A lack of charity shops here in Spain makes chucking out unwanted things more of a guilt-inducing activity than it might otherwise be if I was currently living somewhere where the culture of second hand were different. Thankfully, I have a friend living here whose hoarding instinct I have been able to exploit so I know the majority of the items I have had to discard are going on to a new life! But with so many 'old friends'and handmade 'babies', the criteria I needed to employ to figure out the what would stay and what would go had to be pretty tough.

'Slow-fashion' forces you to evaluate more fully what you need and want from a garment than shopping for garments does, because (if you're anything like me) you know that rushing in to an ill-considered project often results in an unwearable garment, and with the extra time and effort invested in it's aquisition, that can be pretty crushing! My sewing outup has escalated somewhat over the last year and it's really helped me focus on what kind of styles I'm interested in and suit me. There's been quite a few creations this year that occurred largely because I wanted to get something finished rather than because I was creating something well-suited to my tastes, body shape and lifestyle. This clothing clear-out gave me the opportunity to acknowledge that and let them go.

So now that my wardrobe consists only of items that are currently (or shortly will be) seeing a lot of action and the garments that I feel accurately reflect the direction my personal style seems to be heading, I feel I'll be in a better situation to get back into sewing when I find myself ensconced in our next abode. In a vein similar to Mena from Sew Weekly's approach, I hope to only make additions to my wardrobe that are well made, well fitting and well considered in terms of reflecting my personal style and lifestyle needs. In short, I've got to stop spewing quick-fix garments from my sewing machine that end up languishing in my cupboard. I'm most likely one of the last home-sewers out there to have come to this conclusion, but if anyone out there has any tips on how to implement this more considered (and, dare I say, mature) approach to sewing and how to keep yourself on the straight and narrow, I would very grateful to read them!

How to Construct Undies with a Serger and FOE

Here we go people, the very thing that you've been asking for and I've been promising to deliver: a how-to on pants/knickers/panties/undies construction. After a fair bit of examining my shop-bought pants, I did some experimentation with different construction methods and types of underwear elastic (a lot of which has been previously documented on this blog) to work out how best to make my own. This is my favourite technique for creating great-looking and comfy pants!

Materials:

• Pants pattern. Either make a pattern by tracing or deconstructing an existing pair or download my hipster pants pattern (to be uploaded to Burdastyle in the near future and available for free download). Make sure there are three pieces: front, back and gusset
  
• Knit fabric. You can upcycle old T-shirts or use any piece of pants-appropriate knit fabric. Remember, standard crew-neck T-shirt fabric tends to have less stretch quality than a lot of knit fabric (particularly those with an elastane content), so you may want to add an extra 0.5 - 1 cm at each side seam if you want to use the less-stretchy type to give yourself an extra 2 - 4 cms in total for comfort.
  
• FOE (fold-over elastic). You can use any type of elastic you please, but seeing as I prefer FOE for it's ease of use and clean finish, that's what I'm using for this tutorial. It is available in some haberdashers, and many ebay sellers stock it in a variety of colours and finishes.
  
• Serger/Overlocker
  
• Standard flatlock sewing machine that can make a three-step zigzag stitch or normal zigzag stitch.
  
• Thread
  
• Large handstitching needle

Step 1:

Serge/overlock the top edge of the gusset to create a neat finish.

Step 2:

To create the main gusset seam lay your pattern pieces on top of each other as follows:
Lay the front piece right side up. Lay the back piece on top with the wrong side up. Lay the gusset piece on top with the wrong side up.

Step 3:

When the edges are lined up, pin the layers together.

Step 4:

Serge/overlock them together making sure you catch all three layers in.

Step 5:

Open out the pieces so the front and back pieces are lying wrong side up and the gusset is positioned towards the front with the right side up. The seam will be hidden inside.

Step 6:

Pin the sides of gusset to the front piece.

Step 7:

With the right side up, start at the side seam and apply FOE around each leg hole. The FOE folds in half and traps/sandwiches the fabric edge inside it. Using a three-step zigzag (or a normal zigzag if your machine doesn’t have the three-step) topstitch along the FOE. I usually use a 90-gauge sewing machine needle and haven’t had any problems before.

I would recommend practicing with the FOE and scraps of your fabric until you feel comfortable with this process. It can be a good idea to very gently pull the elastic as you are stitching to create snug-fitting pants. The sides of the gusset will get sandwiched in between the FOE as you stitch (don’t forget to remove the pins as you go!).

Step 8:

You should now have two elastic bound leg holes!

Step 9:

With the right sides together, serge/overlock one of the side seams together. Don’t forget to leave tails of thread, you can stitch these in later to create a neat finish without the risk of unravelling.

Step 10:

Now it’s time to apply FOE along the waist edge of your pants. Just as you did with the leg holes, start at one end with the right side up and sandwich the edge inside your FOE, topstitching with a zigzag stitch as you go.

Step 11:

With the right sides together, serge/overlock the final side seam together.

Step 12:

You should have three tails of thread hanging loose, one at the bottom of one side seam, and two at the other side seam (one at the top, one at the bottom). With a large handstitching needle, like a wool needle, thread the tails of thread back inside the seam overlocking so that the ends cannot be pulled out.

Ta da!!!!! Finished pants! Don’t forget, you can add anything, for example, lace, ribbon, small buttons, appliqués, bows, ruffles, embroidery, ricrac etc. to make your pants super-special!

If you need any stage of this how-to clarified, please leave a comment on this post and I'll try to demystify my meaning! If you don't have a serger/overlocker, don't fancy making or downloading a full pants pattern or don't feel like acquiring FOE, I would recommend Cal Patch's Make Your Own Underwear how-to for a slightly different approach to the one detailed above. Good luck and happy undies making!

'How To Be A Sewing Presenter'

Well, due to technical difficulties, both the pants pattern and how-to I vowed to share are currently still under construction. In the meantime, I thought I'd share will you some sewing-related randomness that I got involved in a couple of years ago, just before I moved to bcn.

At that time I was the organiser of a sewing group based in London (even though, for the majority of my involvement with them, I was actually based in deep Essex). One of the joys/trials of being the organiser was the interesting/crazy/funny/bizarre/annoying requests and suggestions I received via email at regular intervals (from non-members, and almost always from non-sewers). I have to say, the bizarrest suggestion I received was from a cross-dresser who clearly misinterpreted the purpose of our sewing group. His email seemed to suggest that he believed we were a group of people who sat around with no ideas of our own, waiting for some kindly soul to offer up a project for us to work on. For free. Umm, how about, 'No'? Anyways...

On the other end of the scale, I was also at the receiving end of all manner of interesting projects and offers. One such offer which I heartily accepted was to front some how-to videos for the website Videojug. Videojug's tagline is 'Get Good At Life', which is endeavours to help you do through instructional 'how-to' videos that the site hosts, many of which are produced by the company itself. Some are humourous such as 'How to give a man-hug', some helpful such as 'How to use curling tongs' or 'How to prepare a Bloody Mary', or down-right essential like 'How to make chocolate pasta' or 'How to Moonwalk'. Get the picture?

So, the peops at Videojug must have decided that their content was a bit craft-lite, so concocted some sewing/crafty how-to ideas to address this issue for which they needed a 'face' (well, mainly 'hands'). For the record, my involvement was very minimal, other than turning up with my sewing machine, eating a lot of biscuits and getting filmed. The lovely producer named Bryony did all the research and planning, and I got £100 plus a ride to Liverpool Street station in a private car (which didn't suck).

So, I would like to share with you the products of that day's filming (BTW, it was freezing in that flat, I wouldn't normally rock my Simplicity 3835 blouse with a cardi). First up, the most involved of the projects, 'How To Sew A Baby-Gro':


Sewing:
How To Sew A Baby-Gro

The project I had the most involvement in designing: 'How To Appliqué A Baby Bib':


Sewing:
How To Appliqué A Baby Bib

My massive smile at the beginning of this video goes some way to convey both how cute I think this project is, and also how amusing the idea is that someone out there might be wondering, 'Hmm, I wonder how you sew a baby hat with ears?'!:


Sewing:
How To Sew A Baby Hat With Ears

The other strongest contender for 'The Cutest Project of the Day' award goes to: 'How To Sew Baby Shoes'. In fact, I've seen projects similar to this one on Burdastyle, I wonder if any of them were, in fact, inspired by this video, stranger things could happen I suppose.


Sewing:
How To Sew Baby Shoes

And the final project that was filmed in all of five minutes at the end of the day, 'How To Make Your Own Baby Slogan T-Shirt':


Style On A Budget:
How To Make Your Own Baby Slogan T-Shirt

So there you have it, my foray into sewing stardom!

A Proliferation of Pants

There's currently just two weeks left of my life in Spain. I've finished the summer school I was working at, finished my Burdastyle Book garment, and almost finished the red vermouth lurking in the cupboard. Our belongings are all over the place in preparation for boxing up, and the goodbye-drinks have resulted in a 48 hour hangover. What to do? MAKE PANTS (of course).

So, the blouse I created for the Burdastyle book is all bagged up ready for an epic journey to the Barcelona FedEx depot tomorrow (it's on an industrial estate frikkin' MILES away from the centre of Barcelona, in another town entirely). I'm pretty sure I can't show you it at this stage, so it must suffice to say that personally I'm still having trouble looking beyond the fabric colour, but I am very pleased with my handiwork (and 8 out of 10 for construction I think). With three days to spare until my sewing machines must be packed away, I had a tiny window of opportunity to finally make some form of contribution towards my Summer Essentials project and preparation for Self-Stitched-September.

If you were to peruse my Summer Essentials hit-list, there more eagle-eyed among you might notice that pants are no were to be seen. But since Ali, the genius behind the challenge, emphasises flexibility and encourages re-evaluation, I feel no shame in presenting these in the place of one of the other things I didn't get round to making. And seeing as it's three-showers-a-day-hot here at the moment, new pants are going to lighten the pressure to keep up with my laundry!

The pattern I used was a slightly enlarged version of the initial pants pattern I developed at the beginning of the year in preparation for Me-Made-March (like, an eon ago!). I used a variety of pants elastic (my favourite is still FOE) that I purchased from ebay and a market stall. I have written fairly extensively before about my enquiries into using different types of undies elastic here and here.

One of my the best things about making your own pants is that you can make them from an old T-shirt, giving it a new lease of life. The yellow pair begun life as a T-shirt belonging to my boy. When we first met, he was working for Avis, the car rental company, so for his last day in the job I made him this 'Hertz' T-shirt to wear as a joke. Apparently it went down well. But after the event, whose going to wear a wierd handmade corporate car hire company's logo emblazoned on their chest through their own free will?! Pants seemed the natural solution.

My favourites have to be the nautical ones (que sorpresa!) which use yet more of the little anchor ruffle that already adorns a few other creations. The hearts printed ribbon on the red and white pair came from a St. Jordi's day rose (basically Catalunya's valentines day) and the little lucky heart button was a souvenir from my pilgrimage to Britex in San Francisco.

Now, dear readers, I will very soon be without my sewing machines however I will have a week or so with computer access and time on my hands. I was thinking about sharing my pants pattern and making a guide to their construction and upload the whole shebang (somehow, research will be required) onto Burdastyle. I reckon I could attempt some amateur grading to make a couple of sizes, but would there be a market for it? If five people comment on this post to say that they would be interested in having access to my pants pattern and how-to, then I'll do it. But I have a lot of America's Next Top Model I could be watching instead, so if no-one is really interested, then I won't bother. This is democracy at it's very essense people!

At Colette Patterns: 'The Language of Fashion'

As I stated last week, many of my posts on the Colette Patterns blog seem to follow a vague formula. However, sometimes I write something more random. It would also appear that, on occasion, these posts can prove to be a touch provocative: mildly inflamatory, even. I most definately do not set out to do this, and do not even realise until the comments start rolling in. But, hey, stimulating healthy debate can never be a bad thing, can it?

So this week, inspired by this book I'm currently reading, I gots to thinking about the language of the fashion industry. How I personally feel towards it's use became the focus for my post. Despite introducing the crux of my arguement with the word 'personally', it certainly stirred up some interesting and conflicting opinions. Check out the post and the comments if you want to be riled/vindicated/unimpressed, depending on your viewpoint/experiences. It never ceases to amaze me how differently people can feel about the same topic. Take Sherry's (effectively critical) comment, and then Pat's (effectively supportive) comment of my original post. Both eloquent and well presented by two clearly intelligent and capable individuals, yet taking wildly different stances. fascinating, no? Oh, and then there's the commenters of course that enjoy pointing out your spelling mistakes, like Microsoft Word's spell checking failures somehow undermine the very essense of an entire arguement and set of personal experiences! Ah, fun times.