New Winter Hats

I have lost my hat that looks like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakol

Mine was red. It's missing.

I mean, look at it, its a tube with a top and sewn tuck ribs down the side. the crown often has same color embroidery on it, in a four point oval 'star' or similar.
The ones with gathered midsections are sweet.

photo from various

And in velvet (although this is just a photoshopped image from elsewhere, so not really but ain't it pretty?)

Meanwhile, my head is getting cold. I have grey wool coat fabric.
Made band and crown. Lined it with stuff. Sewed stuff on it.
Hat!

This goes really fast, and I only got to photos at the last step (covering up seams on the side with wide fancy ribbon, purchases long ago at Treasures of the Gypsy at SewExpo (long retired)

The ends need covering. I have a lot of this ruler trim from the last days of Pacific Fabrics.

I sewed the edges with the raw edge pinked and out,

But I don't like the raw edge flange top.

I love the derpy expression on my face, but the profile of the hat, no.  If it's going to flange at the edge, the body of the hat below it shouldn't be bulgy. I need a different shape for the body.

So, get out the ripper!

I'm going to get a handle with flames on it.

Pinned.

Bias trim inside to cover edges and provide a little structure (the hat equivalent of a sleeve head)

And okay. Still not what I'm looking for, but it's fun and warm and cost nothing but time and remnants from the stash.

Sew Expo 2016

I live in Seattle, which is an hour north of Puyallup, home of the Sewing and Stitchery Expo.

I live right off Interstate 5. I can hear it from here.

After a great deal of calendarical dithering, I determined I'd be going to SewExpo on Thursday to catch Laura Nash's vintage pattern class, and whatever classes worked out for the rest of the day.

Which I would have made if I had left Seattle about an hour earlier. Not for traffic on the highway, but traffic trying to get ON to the highway.

Seattle, you have too many cars.

The weather was perfectly nice. This is a terrible photo, because I take terrible photos out of the car window while I am driving (nuff said). But that grey mountain shape in the lower center of this is Mount Rainier, which is very visible from some parts of Puyallup. And you could see all of it's snowy glory that day.

So....cars.

A really sad attempt to yarn bomb the Sasquatch at the entrance of the Washington State Fair grounds.  He needs a full sweater.

Since I missed the 830, I did the shopping first.

Vogue Fabrics had wider aisles this year, and nothing I needed.

Love this shirt. Love Judy. More on her later.

I took an illustration class from Julie Paschkis once. She is a great example of how you can use your talents in all markets, and her lines for In the Beginning's quilting cottons are clothes-worthy.

And hard to cut into. I just pet mine.

I predict more people will do scale draping. It really works, and it's easier to take a gamble with a smaller amount of fabric to try something out. Especially next to a mountain of magnetic pincushions.

Are they cushions if they aren't cushioned?

Buttons. I am a sucker for you. Put five on a piece of string and watch me drool.

Huh.

New pattern this year. 

Look familiar?

Huh. I must be crazy.

Lorraine Henry does a nice presentation about moving darts and altering pattern pieces. I have seen this several times before, done by a variety of people, and she does a good job of explaining it. She does not have a book, but her methods are all over the internet. The key to her method is preserving the seam line length, rather than cutting through it to alter. 

This year the omnipresent WSU banners cracked me up. My elder child, Thing One, is a freshman at WSU, over in Pullman. So I give them more money now!

Marla Kazell was the  technical advisor for the book, Couture The Art of Fine Sewing by Roberta Carr,  which is kinda like finding out someone else painted the Last Supper. Marla's presentation was about prepping a jacket pattern, and recutting the center edge and facings offgrain so they would hang straight. It's just how it is. This was a tough sell for some of the participants, who just couldn't get it. 

And Judy Kessinger's Fit Nice class. 

Theoretically about pants, but about her pants pattern, with some great old lady advice about just not giving a dang. I don't need another pants fitting system, but I enjoyed my 90 minutes with her. It was a hoot and then some. Her website is full of videos that are worth your time, videographed by her sons. Go check em out.

And then we go back to shopping. Or buying in this case.

Treasures of the Gypsy. 

Yes, they have many shiny things and they are really serious about you keeping your damn hands off them. I get where they are coming from, I love them to bits. Don't mess with them!

The Venus of Willendorf. And five thousand Elinor Peace Bailey patterns.

I own about four hundred yards of that nylon bird fabric. I pick the birds off and use them for trim.

My beloved needle threader was on sale at Hancock's booth. I did buy another, as a gift. Really.

A scone for luck

The haul: the free tote bag, the black striped 3 yards of japanese woven cotton goodness, the poly digital print from Marci Tilton, 18" of shiny beaded red trim, six beautiful resin buttons, a 3/8" curved ruler (finally, now I can stop coveting one), more typewriter fabric (two 1/2 yd pieces to be kluged) and class info pages.

And how quickly I sewed this beauty up! Thanks Ms Tilton!

Huh.

So Sew Expo?

TenThousand Hours of Sewing's current post about sew expo made me think.

Yes, this a photo I took last year. I was so underwhelmed this year, I did not bother to take photos. 

It all looked the same.

I know it's a traveling trade show, with many of the same sellers, and I have no issues with quilters, or sales shows, but...it's just not for me anymore.

I have been trying to put my finger on why I just don't feel the need to go again. I am envious of the presentations by Gentleman Jim that Victoria mentions in TenThousandHours; I just didn't see anything of that level of information or experience at mine. Then again, I'm the person who grumps about Threads Magazine not having enough content.

I think there is so much available on the internet now, between blogs and tutorials for information/education AND online suppliers of fabrics and tools, the Expo isn't the only show in town.

photo Tami Levin,  Lemon Tree Tales blog

One big difference: Treasures of the Gypsy does not sell online. They just tour their amazing collection of magical stuffs from 'spo to 'spo. And I love them. I give them all my money.

See these birds? Laser cut from nylon.

I have them on the collar of this jacket, on a hat, I've bought more in white, and some leaves in yellow and green and...it was the BIG stop of the three hours I spent  at Sew Expo.

I left earlier, MUCH earlier than usual. There just wasn't anything else for me.

The Puyallup Fair Grounds have always had Fisher Flour scones (see, Original Fair Scone). And I got my scone for 2014.

And I ate it while driving home.