Gussets, Puppets, Chicken, Flannel: this week in work

Starting in June, I have a stretch of full to bursting employment in the office and  in the sewing cave (and we do know it's really a cave, right?)

A bodice was taken in

Sleeve gussets were added to a too small dress

Ant puppets were made. This is version one, an actual sock puppet made of socks. Sorry it's such a dark and blurry picture, it's from a quick demo video I did and it's gone now. Deemed "too sweaty" sadly. Version three is under review. There's still four more tech rehearsals and I know that means three more versions until we're cranking out an army at the last minute.

I love it.

Chicken stock was made and frozen.

(this is so slack: we buy rotisserie chicken, strip it and eat it. I stuff the carcasses into a plastic bag in the freezer. When the need/space/time arises, I shove those into a crock pot slow cooker, chop an onion, add water to fill and a bay leaf and let it go until rendered. eight hours? Take that, strain out the stuff, chill it and skim off the solid fat. Put that in a wide pan and simmer it to reduce. This time I didn't burn it. It takes time but it doesn't take effort, and it makes other stuff taste amazing)

A JoAnn's coupon was used to buy Xmas jamas flannel

.

This shrank a little, but fluffed up beyond my expectations and six yards only lost about a 1/3 cup of lint. Dang! It's so fluffy now! Mine, all mine!

 (oh, the Armani bag! Like a postcard from a different decade of my life, it appears and disappears from time to time).

But there are more dresses waiting.

As of this moment, I've got 32 done, 18 to go, with 18 days left. 

And patterns to finish testing. A second set of puppets on the bubble. The usual mom stuff. 

and

Halloween!

We're going with the Dr Who stuff. It's faster to rehab and wear.

And I have a ray gun to repair.

Make good stuff. Not too much candy. See you later.

Ikat Bag Owns All The Bag Tutorials

If you have ever considered making a bag, a handbag, a dopp kit, a pencil case

ANY of those things, 

go read this. 

Loads of linked tutorials, you will need to bookmark this one and return again and again.

She is a gift, a public service and a genius.

Go and be enlightened.

Go now!

http://www.ikatbag.com/2016/10/zip-bag-chapter-26-summary-and-epilogue.html

YSL The Perfection of Style at Seattle Art Museum

So this opened this week in town.

And all I had to do was ride one bus from my house to see it.

This is just the first room of dresses. There are over a hundred dresses and ensembles on display, with videos and jewelry and walls of fabric swatches. It's breathtaking and exhausting.

I am on a deadline and I don't have time to write up the best post about this exhibition right now. 

But you need to see this show, and let me show you why.

From the first collection,with examples through the end of his career, there are two walls of these swatch/style/model pages.

It's enough to make you dizzy.

I love how I've snuck Barbara into this (she's in the center).

look at that pencil line! Oh good god that's beautiful.

I will come back to this page. Mostly the Mondrian's are made of wool jersey, but one is twill and another looks a little like serge. 

sorry this is out of focus; I will get a better shot later

Pages are taped and pinned together, but the clothes are drawn on the grid sheets, overlapping and addressing each other. 

The effect is mesmerizing, both as a set of figure drawings and as a gradual evolution of the style of the house. 

It's the show in one room, with swatches.

Oh there are dresses. There are hats. It's actually overwhelming and I felt burnt out at the end. I ran out of camera battery so the photos stop after a THIRD of the exhibit.

It's big.

Which brings me to my point: if you can get to Seattle, see this. The ticket is hefty (thanks Library program

I love the Seattle Public Library with all my heart

 http://ysl.site.seattleartmuseum.org/

Yes, tickets are 25$. And for once, it's worth it. Take the day, you can leave and come back in (lunch break).

 At this point, my camera battery is dying and I have to be super choosy about what I'm going to photograph. There will be more. And I bought a spare battery.

HATS! Let's just stay in this room! Forever and ever!

 The breakdown on printing in this one case was amazing.

They did get to haul out the 1965 Wesselman to hang with the 1965 Homage to Wesselman dress.

We'll talk about one this next week.

And I will have gone again. 

We miss a lot out here in the PNW. We're a cul du sac of culture, as we aren't 'on the way' to somewhere else (the big tours never came here, from either side of the area). 

But now and then,  the stars align!

Self Made Croquis

AS with so many things that change as I age, my perception of what looks good and what doesn't has had some difficulty with the transition that my body has undertaken.

In my mind, I still look the same. 

And I'm not.

So this is an exercise in how I'm making a croquis for drawing and doodling ideas

and

 mostly it's an exercise in coming to terms with how things are right now.

I have never used them before.

http://www.designersnexus.com/fashion-design-portfolio/v53-free-fashion-croqui-templates/

I just don't move like that. I also don't have legs that are possibly three times my torso height.

You can do this at home for yourself. You need a camera, a mirror or a pal, a picture editing program with tools (Paint is great, still comes imbedded in Windows 10, there are other editing programs on the web for free but this is the one I can use in my sleep), and access to the Internet. 

Well, you surely have the last one  if you're reading this.

First come the photographs.

 (shakes head and sighs)(that's an audible sigh. I'm doing this for you, kids!)

Then we edit in paint

Clip out the background

Then we go online to PicMonkey. Which is free. You can buy in for more advanced features, or you can do a free trial for them. Your choice.. I made the image black and white, then posterized it.

I used the Edge Sketch to reduce it to a line image. Kind of a line image.

This one is going to be easier to edit back in paint

The front image that I didn't edit is harder to read. And it took longer to clean up. But I got a useful result from it as well.

Back in Paint, I've lightly drawn over the basic, sad, chubby little outline (slaps self: those cookies were good, dammit. Quitting smoking was hard! And then there's been the gym-interrupting injuries!)

It was easier to use the line took instead of the pencil at some points. This is a cartoon, not a pencil sketch. I could make it pretty or I could make it useful. And looking at yourself knowing you're going to make a blog post out of it is painful.  Yes, I have left out photos. I'm here to explain a process.

I select the better half of me (if only!) and rotate and paste.

I've never been bilaterally symmetrical before!

So this is what I have. It's not that pretty, but it's realistic. And it took about an hour and I can make as many copies as I can stand to look at.

Hmmmm coookies.....