Why Do Designers Think We want to look like Flamenco Dancers?

Vogue 9243

This new Vogue pattern will be useful in my career as a flamenco dancer, should I decide to bring more flamenco into my daily life.
I'm not alone, I hope, in my desire for the "cold shoulder"trend to GO AWAY. Women can't wear these looks to work, designer humans.Persons with any kind of bosom support needs can't wear these looks without the dreaded strapless bra, a contraption surely designed by the Marquis de Sade.

Vogue 9242

It's not that I don't have nice shoulders. I just hate wearing clothes that have to be fussed with; that I have to pay attention to, lest there be a wardrobe malfunction.

Vogue 9257

I remember making this exact top in the 80s. I wore it to a swanky engagement party,,where the parents of the bride had had the pool covered to make a dance floor. There were fairy lights everywhere, and if Pinterest and Instagram had existed then I'd have social  media'd the heck out of it.

"Look at this fancy party I'm at, a mere recently graduated college student!"
(there were no Mason jars or burlap anywhere. Those items were not yet  on the wedding planning horizon.)

It's funny how we remember exactly what we were wearing at certain times, especially if we made the clothes.
   Nowadays, if I were going to a fancy wedding,  I think I'd choose something that was elegant but more understated. Being a wheelchair user, I'd pick something that looked nice sitting down. Maybe that flamenco top would be just the thing.











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My Twelve Tasks, or 15 Minutes a Day

Vogue 1415

  It's always inspiring to see what other people want to make. I always get ideas and change my wish list accordingly. so I thought I would share my list. This will also remind me what I wanted to do.
I can't be the only person who finally gets an hour of unscheduled time and can't remember what it was that they wanted to do. Lists are helpful that way.
I had very good results when I made a 12 part list of monthly goals. I didn't do it last year and didn't get much done.

Twelve Ideas, to be chosen at random every month:

Sew a scrap quilt - in progress
Make something out of silk
Use a  border print
Sew a Hawaiian shirt (Mr. Hunting Creek is very happy about this!)
Make pajamas Make T shirts
Make a Wall hanging or other Art
Make some potholders and pillow covers
Finish something (plenty of unfinished projects to choose from)
Use a Vintage pattern
Use a new pattern
Make a Holiday decoration

Patterns I want to make:
Vogue 1415

This is the prettiest blouse and I have added it to my list to remind me to make it. Both views appeal.
I'd like to make a leopard print tee shirt. I haven't picked a pattern yet.
I'd like to make some silk drawstring pants.

That's a manageable enough list, I think.

I've already got 1/5 of my scrap quilt done. Yet the tub of scraps looks the same! Scraps defy the laws of physics. No matter how many I use, there are always more.
I'm allocating 15 minutes a day to just hang out in the studio and do just one thing. Surely I can do that.

While the Enemy Sleeps

Quick! Cut out knit dress

Terrorists are sleeping now

Cats tear patterns up

Ninja Strikes Fast

File your patterns now

Not later, ninja strikes fast

Avalanche in sewing room

The Curious Case of the Yoga Bag Pattern

We sell a lot of patterns at the Little Hunting Creek Company. Hundreds, maybe even thousand of different patterns – new, vintage, quilts and clothing, home dec and more. Whatever looks interesting to me, I sell on the website. Like puppies and kittens, most patterns find happy homes; they rarely come back
Once in a while, someone will find that they have bought two of the same pattern, or they bought the wrong size or some other innocuous reason and they send the pattern back for exchange or refund. That’s all part of doing business and it doesn’t happen often. We either exchange the pattern for a different one or give a refund. A plain and simple transaction and it is no trouble.
But in the case of the Yoga Bag Pattern, nothing was simple.

It says on the website: Handy tote pattern designed to carry everything you need to yoga class: mat, eye mask (pattern included), water bottle, keys, lock for personal locker, and more.
From Patterns by Annie
I decided to offer it because my daughter is a yoga fiend, and I thought that (silly me) people might like to make their own yoga bags. I had no idea that this decision would come to haunt me.
A few days after the pattern was listed, someone bought it and it was mailed to them. But this person wrote back that the pattern had no pattern pieces! Just measurements and instructions! That's not a pattern!

(The pieces are all rectangles or squares and do not need pattern pieces. Only measurements - like a quilt pattern. Does it amuse you when Simplicity or Butterick includes a pattern piece that is nothing but a rectangle or square that you could easily measure for yourself?? It amuses me. Perhaps some people can’t measure?)
So we told her to just send it back if it wasn’t what she wanted; we’ll be happy to give her a refund.
Then another person bought one. And she complained that it WASN'T A YOGA BAG!

And this made Mr. Hunting Creek declare, “What part of Yoga Bag Pattern by Patterns By Annie would lead someone to believe that it is an actual YOGA BAG?”

And this led me to think that maybe Yoga and sewing don’t mix.
After much thought, I’ve decided that this pattern is cursed. It has Bad karma.
Perhaps Yoga Bags should not be sewn! If the Universe wants you to have a yoga bag, one will present itself to you. You can’t make a yoga bag. Yoga bags should just come into being. Like rainbows or unicorns, yoga mats…stuff like that.

My dad used to have a sign over his desk that read, “Opportunity doesn’t knock. It calls you on the phone and asks a stupid question.”
Even though his official position was that the customer was always right, even if totally wrong, he taught us that the customer always deserved to be treated as IF they were right.
So in the interest of harmony and customer happiness, we will no longer sell the Yoga Bag Pattern. For people seeking harmony and balance and such, my experience with yoga sewists has been that they (so far) appear to be very poor readers.

The Right Stuff

Wasn't that a lovely wedding? The bride was radiant, the groom was blushing, everyone looked happy (except for that one bridesmaid) and now we're all off to search for a pattern for Pippa's dress. Having got up at 4am this morning, I can't be trusted to do anything more complex than load patterns on my website. I may have loaded several thousand vintage patterns in the last few years, and I think that there might be two kinds of Pattern People: the Stuffers and the Folders.
The Stuffers take their used pattern pieces and without regard to envelope size or shape, wad them up into a vague rectangular blob and jam them into the poor envelope, shoving the instructions in along side the wad of pattern. Witness the photo above.
Whereas those of the Folding School of Pattern Care gently fold their ironed pattern pieces, softly and reverently slide them inside the instruction sheets and close the envelope. The Stuffers sometimes can't close their envelopes, so they frequently resort to staples! (Oh the horror!) Those of the Stuffing persuasion may be closely related to those sadly misguided souls who cut out their patterns with Pinking Shears. My Junior High School sewing teacher felt that this behavior was just one step on the road to perdition, and I can't help but feel that she may have been right. How can one line up the pieces accurately if they're cut with pinked edges? I do not approve.
Of course I feel that my way is the only correct way: when the garment is sewn and the pattern is no longer needed, gently fold the pieces, making sure that all of them are together with the instructions and place them back in the original envelope.
I am always shocked to hear of people who cut up their envelopes, tape them to manila folders, and shove the pieces into ziplock bags. Or they tell me that the have all of their patterns sorted by number. (This is OCD madness, and I hear that there is medication that can help.)
I have mine sorted by pattern company, and then by type of pattern, because when I want to make a skirt, I am not going to remember the number. I just keep all the skirts together.
But there are people with complex systems who scan the patterns and have whole galleries on Flickr. I suppose I could do that, but I like to look though them.
I never cut up the envelopes and I never mangle the patterns. (What would Mrs. Funk say?)
What say you - are you a Folder, or a Stuffer?

A Lesson from 1965

My Dad sent me some cool old patterns in the mail. He knows that I love old patterns. (Thanks, Dad!) I especially love the instructions. Unlike current instructions, the old ones do not SKIP AROUND. I know that I am not alone here in really disliking the current instruction sheets that skip around all over the place for each view. Do the pattern companies realize how much this discourages beginners? And makes old cranky experienced sewists like myself even crankier? If you're reading this, Simplicity, take a look at your archives from 1965. Sometimes the old ways are better.

Exhibit A: instruction sheet from Simplicity 6371 copyright 1965

Look how it calmly instructs, "Follow your progress from start to finish, put a check in the box after finishing each step."
1. Select the pattern pieces for the view you are making
2. PRESS the pattern pieces
3. Compare your body measurements with those on the back of the envelope.
(I don't mean to quibble here, but really, shouldn't THIS really be STEP ONE?)
CAUTION: Do not measure pattern tissue, for in addition to body measurements, ease is allowed in the pattern for garment style and comfortable wearing.
(I feel like such a renegade, because I always measure the tissue. Sometimes when I haven't,I have been unpleasantly surprised.)

4. if alterations are necessary, they should be made in the pattern before placing on fabric.
This is always good advice. And they go on with every tiny little step, including a zipper tutorial.
This dress could be worn as-is today. I especially like the yoke detail on view 2. I might steal that idea.
The pattern pieces have more detail too. In addition to seam lines, they also instruct which direction to sew the seams. I always do my own thing this way, depending on the fabric, but I can't recall seeing this direction on a recent pattern. Studying old patterns helps me to visualize different methods of constructing garments, and I can contrast older methods with current ones. Mr. Hunting Creek teases me because I read instruction sheets in bed, but what better way to see how things were done? Sometimes I actually learn something new.
Happy sewing!

p.s. Little Hunting Creek is having a sale, free shipping on patterns and fabric packs when you buy three or more. Mix and match!

Why I Love Patterns

Some people find out how many patterns I have and they are aghast. Why do you need so many? (non-sewists just don't get it) Patterns, like recipes and road maps, are the directions to get you where you want to go. How can you have too many directions in this world? Say that you are watching the Academy Awards and you see the fabulous Helen Mirren. She was wearing an amazing dress, right? The sewist knows that they could make a similar dress with the help of a good pattern. Or you are in a great restaurant and you have a wonderful dish, delicious and unusual (like the carrot and ginger soup I had once at Zola in DC). You know that if you can find a similar recipe, you can make that soup whenever you want. A good map gets you where you need to go. Mr. Hunting Creek, armed only with the Rand McNally Atlas, once drove us from LaGuardia to Tuxedo Park New York for a wedding weekend, with no wrong turns, in the dark! All you need is a good map and decent directions, he said.
I very seldom make a pattern exactly the way the designer intended. Either I have adult attention deficit disorder, or I am incapable of following directions. I like to experiment and also, sometimes I think I know better than the designer. For instance, don't you think that this pattern would make a great top? That's what I'm going to do with it. And this Butterick Tunic wants to be a dress (it told me).
With quilt patterns I mix stuff up too. I take a little of this and a little of that and make something different. I like to take all of my patterns and mix and match ingredients to come up with something better. The first time you do this it will feel funny, but if you play around with test fabric first , you'll get the hang of it. And pretty soon, you'll be swapping the skirt of one Vogue Pattern with the bodice of another to the benefit of both. Don't say I didn't warn you.