Spring Pattern Fever

Vogue 9096

Is this a great Lab coat or what? I'm so happy Vogue is filling the fashion needs of lab techs everywhere.

Vogue 9089
Mr Hunting Creek says it looks like a maternity top. Not that there is anything wrong with that

Vogue 9097 -useful if you are sewing for James Bond

I'm happy that Vogue is featuring a pattern for men, but hell will freeze over before I make semi  formal men's jackets. Just sayin'
Perhaps next time we could see an interesting shirt or pants or non-dinner jacket?

Vogue 9087
This one has some interesting seaming details.

But if they tell me to finish the neckline of a silk crepe top with store bought bias tape I'm not doing it.

Pattern Peeves

 Don’t get me wrong, I love how the pattern companies are issuing some patterns now with pattern pieces for different bust sizes. I love that. I  really do. But it seems like they are only doing the easy ones. The ones I could do myself in my sleep. So we get this one with the bust sizes done for us, 

but not this one,

which I am sure you’ll agree, is more of a puzzler.

In the interests of attracting more sewists to our beloved pastime, I have a radical suggestion to make to the big companies: offer all of the patterns with bust adjustments. And don’t forget our A size sisters, please. Please offer all of the patterns in all of the sizes too. I know you can do this: you offer some of them in size 20-28 and some starting at size 4 and 6 so I know that you know how. We can all agree that people come in all sizes and it would be nice if those multi-sized people could find their sizes easily in pattern land. I have friends who are size zero and friends who are size 26. I don’t discriminate based on size and the pattern companies shouldn’t either. It’s just good business to make more people happy. So what do you say? Will you issue this Vogue pattern with the bust adjustments for us? Because believe me, it’s making my head hurt trying to figure it out.

Mystery Pattern Theater

Vogue Patterns seems to be telling us a coded story. Extremely thin and hungry women look as though they are evading capture from force feeding activists..

Or they are reclining decoratively on windowsills

reminding me of my cat, Harry, who looks much like a model himself, but much better fed.

Like you, I too play touch football in black dresses made of wool jersey, dresses that took me three weeks to make. How did they know? It would be nice if we could see the clothes pictured more clearly, but that seems to be beside the point. Well done, Vogue pattern people! You’ve made the very thing we look at your website for to be secondary to what you show. I’m sure a masters course in Marketing somewhere describes this phenomenon…something like ‘arty people in New York, get bored, produce unintelligible marketing campaign, understood only b y fellow arty people in New York. Stay tuned for the winter Catalogue. Will our hero be captured and forced to eat non-organic produce?.

All Wrong

Just as otherwise sensible women will confess to a secret attraction to rodeo cowboys, international playboys and Nascar drivers, I love patterns that my rational self knows will not look good on me. I am short and curvy, and this model is tall and willowy. There's a reason they show clothes on tall, willowy models. Everything looks good on them; that's why they are models. I will list all of the reasons why this dress (which my inner princess longs to wear) is all wrong for me. I am short, and also short waisted. I have an hourglass figure, but it's an hourglass in which a great deal of time has passed. This dress would not be kind to the hip-endowed hourglass. Also the neckline would be problematic for those of us who wear undergarments. In the past I would buy aspirational patterns like these, but never make them. Now I know better. Instead, I should buy Vogue 8631 instead.

This is the kind of style that looks good on me; why do I scorn this and want what is bad for me? A mock wrap is attractive on many figure types, and I even already have fabric that would work. (Of course I have fabric that would work for every single pattern Vogue offers; who am I kidding?)
If I were realistic, I would forswear my international playboy patterns and settle down with a nice practical wrap skirt, a cute tshirt and some jeans. We could have a long lasting relationship...long walks on the beach, cozy dinners by the fire...
What patterns do you covet yet know they are all wrong for you?

Is it Spring Yet?

My mother was born in Punxsutawney, PA, which is why I grew up being able to spell Punxsutawney.This comes in very handy for Jeopardy. Therefore I feel like Punxsutawney Phil is sort of a cousin. So Phil, honey, none of that shadow stuff two weeks from now. Please?
It is 17 degrees here in Virginia right now. I am so ready for Spring.

I read on Trena's blog her plan for all of the pretty things she is planning to make and I thought - what a great idea! I am always forgetting what I intended to make and then when I have sewing time I have to try and remember just what it was I wanted to do. So I am going to blatantly steal her idea and make a plan. I'd take pictures right now, but there has been an "unfortunate accident" with my camera. It was on the little bookcase here in my office and I accidentally knocked it off behind the bookcase. It's carpeted back there, so no harm done, except that I couldn't reach it. I tried to catch the wrist strap with a hanger (I thought this was a brilliant idea, but as my son says, "Mom, even monkeys use tools." and I managed with the hanger to get it even further under the bookcase. Perhaps the monkey could have done better.) I asked Mr. Hunting Creek if he could move the bookcase and get it for me, but he forgot. I don't want to be accused of nagging, (again) so I will ask him tomorrow (sweetly) if he can fish it out for me. In the meantime these are the new spring Patterns that I am planning to make, fabric to be assigned later.
Vogue 1085 looks nice and summery and a gal can't have too many knit tops. The wrap version is my favorite.

Vogue 8557 pushed all of my blouse buttons (oh what a great pun! and totally by accident!) Princess seams for the FBA, cute sleeves...I know I have some dotted swiss in the sewing cave that would be perfect.

I'm making all of the spring stuff out of existing fabric. (Like Trena, I discovered that constantly getting new fabric was keeping me from actually sewing what I had. Ironic yet true.)
I'm happy tonight because I have a four day weekend. You may have heard that we are having the inauguration here Tuesday. Since we are in Northern Virginia, we keep reading that the entire area will be paralyzed with traffic, crowds and gridlock. I don't care, it's all worth it, plus I'll be inside sewing!
I hope you stay warm and have fun sewing too.

New Retro Vogue Designer Patterns and Soup

Today while we are adding new products to the website [ some yummy Vogue Designer Patterns from the 1970's http://www.thelittlehuntingcreekcompany.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=130] we are also making soup. As I mentioned before, Real Soup does not come out of a can. During the week, whenever we have steak or roast chicken, or cut up a chicken for grilling and other reaons, I always save the bones. I save steak bones from grilled steak, prime rib bones, roast chicken and turkey carcasses, chicken wing tips, necks, gizzards etc. I save them in zip lock freeze bags and when I have a bag full, I dump them all in a stock pot to make stock. Stock is the foundation of soup and just a fancy chef word for broth. The Global Canned Soup Conspiracy would have you believe that soup is complicated and costly to make, but this is false. Soup is practically FREE to make, because I consider saving bones and carcasses and necks to be using what most people throw out. Anyway, don't tell those nervous nellies on Top Chef, but I dump all the bones in a stock pot or dutch oven, turn the heat on low and go about my business. There is no need to add carrots or onions or three cloves or eye of newt or whatever those fancy stock recipes tell you. No salt either. I come in and check every 30 minutes or so to make sure it isn't boiling [ what we want is a slow simmer] and with no help from me it turns into stock. Then I turn it off, strain it into a clean container, cool it down by placing that container in an ice water bath and then when it's cooled down, place in the fridge. [I don't like to put hot soup in a cold fridge. Bad for the soup, bad for the fridge] I leave the fat on top because it is easier to remove when it solidifies. Now all that's left is deciding which of the thousands of kinds of soup should I make? That's the only hard part.

Don't forget to check out those Vogue and other Patterns - buy three or more and we'll pay for the shipping! Use coupon code 3patterns http://www.thelittlehuntingcreekcompany.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=130

Happy Sewing!