Princess Ida Has Moved On

Our Princess has passed.

She arrived with the name Ida.

As a Savoyard (fan of Gilbert and Sullivan), I honored her with the Princess title*.

Which she royally deserved.

She had opinions about how you spent your time.

You're done voting

You're done sketching

You're done cutting this out

(she was banned from the sewing room, so this is the only 'cat and sewing' photo I have)

This was how she liked to travel. Usually in the hood of the hoodie. Of the photos I have of her, and there are a lot of them, over 60% of them are photos of her being carried around by one or another of our family. Or acquaintances she pressed into service.

She enjoyed an elevated viewpoint

I don't have the photos from when we brought her home, but she lived with us for the last nine years. She was 18 (possibly older) but considering how little time she spent on the floor, she didn't have much mileage on her. She had kidney issues, feline herpes (she could sneeze a LOT) and a host of other pesky annoyances and major health issues. She was an only cat, never went outside, and liked to be UP, and she liked it best if you carried her around and didn't sit down.  

This last week or so, she got a lot smaller. No less fluffy and soft tho

Ida supervised a lot of these posts. 

There was a whole week of this. I never saw her get up there, and there was nothing nearby that was almost as tall. No one else was around to help her do this. And yes, she's meowing to be let down. She was a meower.

She did fall out the second story window once. Sat on the back porch until I opened the door and SURPRISE! Guess who got outside?

There's a very sturdy nailed in screen behind her. She only fell out the once.

She really liked the Carolyn Pajamas.

She liked to help write this blog. It's weird typing this with both hands.

She will be missed, and by no one more than me.

I love you baby girl. Rest easy.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Ida

Ernie Kovacs for the Hall of Fame, Trenton Edition!

This is the verbatum email from erniekovacs.com and as a loyal member of the squad (and a former employee of Fantagraphics), I endorse this message. (I did fix one of the links tho) - skm ----------------------------------------------- Hello Friends of Kovacs! After many years of effort, Ernie Kovacs has been nominated for the New Jersey Hall of Fame!   Many good people in Ernie’s hometown of Trenton and the surrounding area (I’m talking to you Jeff, Nick and Randy) have pushed for this for and it’s finally here. You can vote until June 30, after that, you are out of luck. We wanted to ask you, if you had a moment to vote for Ernie (and other worthy candidates), the link to vote Kovacs into the NJ Hall of Fame is right here: https://njhalloffame.org/2019-nominee-voting/ Feel free to share this with your friends, urge them to vote, post on social media and hashtag #PutErnieinNJHOF We had a very busy 2019 celebrating the Kovacs Centennial with live events in Chicago, Budapest, New York,  London, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas & Trenton. In light of what we are all experiencing with Covid-19, we’d like to take a moment to tell you just how much we appreciate all your support in celebrating the legacy of Ernie Kovacs. As always please see www.erniekovacs.com & www.edieadams.com for DVDs, vinyl, CDs, books, photos, rarities, autographed items and much more. More news coming soon about our Kovacs coffee table book from Fantagraphics Books coming in 2021. Stay safe, listen to the scientists and the doctors and wear a mask! Thanks so much. -The Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams Archive

Journey Jacket - it's all in the lining.

The original Journey jacket is how I learned about adding pockets to other clothes.
They have updated and enhanced it since then.

Journey Jacket 2

Saf-T-Pockets is all about adding pockets to clothes to keep your hands free.
https://saf-t-pockets.com/

If you read enough of this blog, my theories are clear: pockets are damn handy. If you have your keys in your pocket, you won't get locked out.

Many women have breasts.

If you have a loose fitting or oversized jacket or coat, 

 there's space you can use for storage 

under those breasts.

It's like a shady grove for things inside your clothes.

Oh, the star is the bust point. And since I grew a new tummy, I can't run the pockets all the way down. The opening of the pocket can be at the bust point, if the pocket contents can hang below it.

The lining is full of pockets and hangs from the shoulder seams to keep those pockets from bulking out the outside fabric. 

Kinda like one of those hanging shoe caddies for closets.

photo stolen from Wayfair because I have a cat in my lap and I'm not getting up to take a photo

I've done this on several jackets on this blog; traced off a lining pattern, cut it, added pockets, and then sewn that lining to the inside of a previously unpocketed jacket.

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2013/03/adding-pockets-to-existing-jackets.html

(I no longer have that jacket, but I have the photos to remember)

The key is keeping the weight hanging from the shoulder seams. so it doesn't unbalance the jacket.

For this jacket, I wanted a facing of the same fabric, not to just run the lining up to the edge (as I understand it, the facing is standard issue with the Journey 2 jacket).

I cut a fashion fabric facing for the front lining.

Facing and lining sewn together.

Auditioning pocket locations.

- I pinned the lining onto me and marked the top and bottom location with safety pins.

And those pockets are going to get zippers.

Sewing the zipper opening 'window' with interfacing around it

Flipped to the inside and pinned: I will topstitch it in place from the right side at this point,

because the pocket doesn't have a back side to it yet.

I pin the back to it and stitch around the edges.

Be careful over the zipper end.

The other pocket is a self welt pocket, where you sew one large piece of pocket fabric to the lining, 

turn that to the inside, and fold it over to make a welt and the body of the pocket.

Or if you like my super sharp Paint diagrams...

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2014/01/self-facing-welt-pocket-diagrammed-in.html

Still needs tweaking but it's getting there.

Journey Jacket, same reasons, with doubts

I wasn't blogging when I made the first one of these, back in .....2002? 2003? I had bought the pattern at In The Beginning years before, and then just could not find the right fabric.

However, I did find the right reason.

The idea behind this pattern is hands free travel. A jacket with lots of useful pockets so you won't have to carry a bag for your wallet, passport (long before cell phones would have fit in anything smaller than a suitcase).

I was working an onsite ticketing job where I could be carrying a large quantity of money to and from work, in various locations, doing box office cashier work.

And I wanted to be able to look like I wasn't carrying anything, or at the very least, could give up on the cashbox because it didn't have any cash in it.  I sewed myself a multipocket expanding wallet that I could make change out of, for the situations where the cashbox was like wearing a billboard walking down a side street downtown. HEY I AM CARRYING LARGE QUANTITIES OF NONSEQENTIALLY NUMBERED BILLS LARGER THAN ONES.

The wallet itself. Still comes in handy now and then.

I was working for Judy Cites, who at one point in her career worked for Northwest Releasing, a music promoter, and in that capacity found herself carrying several thousand dollars in cash to pay Chuck Berry's fee at the stage door so he'd go onstage.

She carried that money in her go go boots.

The first Journey version was a victim of it's usefulness. It was poly crepe, easy to wear, very handsome, and smelled like all the cigarettes I smoked wearing it.

So it went.

I knew I would make another one eventually.

I bought this tropical weight wool fabric for this version in anticipation of a job interview that did not go the way I hoped.

But I got the second job, in a box office. And you can always use a 'grown up from the waist up' jacket in a box office.
Except now we are closed and will be for some time.

And even though we are in the Covid 19 shutdown, and there are no performances I need to dress adult for, no concerts I need a sweet jacket to go purseless for, I am making it, as an act of faith.

POCKETSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It needs work. Overexposed to show collar and seam problems. 

I may not have the job.

But I will have the jacket.

Work From Home: This chair hurts me. I can fix that

The cat owns the chair when I'm not on it.

And it's killing me now that I'm sitting on it eight hours a day.

Maybe it needs more padding.

 The process is the project.

Pretty self explanatory.

Using stuff I have around the house

This works

Darts

Pliers for pulling the needle in a tight spot

Work from home office, except now the PPP ran out and I'm on standby.
At 0% hours.
I know, it could be worse.
Stay safe kids.

Ida approves this chair