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.

It Runs in the Family

Just minutes after I posted my Mystery Pattern Theater post, both my daughter and my sister told me that they NEEDED the red Chado Ralph Rucci dres I had featured. Vogue 1317 from their Fall catalog. (We also like the same colors, books and shoes...it must be genetic)
This pattern has some interesting construction features, looking at the line drawing:

MISSES' DRESS: Dress has low neckline slit, close-fitting bodice cut-in-one with sleeves (slit), side back bodice extending into uderarm gusset, lined midriff, single-layer tie ends (wrongside shows), skirt with side front/side back seams, side front pockets/vents, invisible back zipper, stitched hems, and self-bias binding. Topstitching and edgestitching.

FABRICS: Synthetic Suede, Lightweight Double Knit.

Unsuitable for obvious diagonals. From reading the description, it sounds like the bodice has some unconventional construction features, including a lack of side seams and underarm gussets (shades of retro-fifties dresses!). I have never done an FBA on a dress made like this, so a muslin is definitely in order. Especially since I want one of these for myself.. (On a side note, do the pattern companies ever say This pattern suitable for obvious diagonals?I don't think I have ever seen that. Diagonal prints can be very flattering. I wonder why they hate them. The pattern matching n this one would be a puzzle, so I think that's why they don't recommend it) I'm watching for the next Vogue sale, because this pattern will be mine.

What Not to Do

Beginners always start with the complicated. They decide to learn to bake and decide their first project should be a buche de Noel, or a croquembouche, instead of some nice, simple brownies. When they start to sew, they want to make wedding dresses, prom dresses and jeans, instead of pillowcases and aprons. It was always thus. When I was in high school sewing, they made us make ditty bags for PE or some such nonsense, and I couldn’t be bothered. For one thing, everyone I knew did not haul their PE Clothes home in some dumb bag – we crammed them into our backpacks bags on pain of death (you will wash these weekly or get an F in PE.) and always forgot to tell our mothers to wash them until late Sunday night, hauling back damp clothes (if we remembered them at all) on Monday. (I can still hear my mother yelling that “you knew you had to wash these two days ago, why wait until the last minute?”) Anyone who knows how to sew knows that making simple stuff is hard enough. When I get tired of making shirts or blouses ( so many details! So much finishing! Buttonholes!) I make a tee shirt. Tee shirts are easy but I’d never tell a beginner to start there. There is just too much to explain and grasp before we even get to tee shirts. No. Instead, I’d say in a cheerful voice, “How about a nice PILLOW?” The new sewist is full of scorn at this suggestion. They want to make a skirt! They see a burgundy velvet pencil skirt with black piping. An invisible zipper. Lining. Or they need a party dress for this Saturday. Nothing good can come of this idea, but there you go. I freely confess to making party dresses and hemming wedding dresses not only at the last minute, but doing the finishing touches while Mr. Hunting Creek turned the key in the ignition, I am not the best person to ask to teach a beginner how to sew and/or cook. It’s clear that I live for danger. I am the Flying Wallenda of domestic arts. I could teach you what NOT to do. That would be a good place to start. We’ll start with what not to do: Do not make a wedding cake for a friend in the summer in Virginia. It’s HOT. It is against the laws of Physics to set your air conditioning to absolute zero so that the frosting doesn’t melt. Do not get roped into volunteering to host the cheerleader Christmas Dinner. (It started to snow. It was originally going o be a Progressive dinner, with entrée at one house, dessert at another, but the coach decided that was too dangerous, with it starting to snow and all, so she said could I have all of the teams at my house? And all of the courses? Oh sure, I said, weakly, not envisioning the utter overwhelming Extreme Perkiness of 60 plus cheerleaders in one place. Now you know – Do Not Try This at Home. Don’t volunteer to make your daughter’s duck costume for the third grade school play. Because what will happen is, the teacher will see it and then ask you to make ALL of the ducks, because the other mothers are Lazy Slackers…I mean, Busy Career Women who do not know how to sew, in self defense probably, now that I remember all of those duck costumes) Don’t make a recipe you’ve never made before for people you don’t know. It might be a huge success, it might be a disaster. I’m betting on disaster. I of course do this all of the time, but remember, I Live For Danger. I’m the James Bond of Domestic Arts. And finally, don’t give the secret recipe for your baked bean casserole to anyone, unless they swear to never reveal that it consists of Mrs. Bush’s beans and a pound of Bacon. Just sayin.

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?.

My Three Year Old Could Paint That

The Washington Post published my letter to the Editor yesterday, (That’s Ancient History) and like Pinocchio, I felt like a real person momentarily. Classics and History majors don’t get no respect sometimes, and it made me burn to see my major disrespected by the kind of people who always ask, “But what use is it?” These Practicality Police also say the same line about Art, (my 3 year old kid could do that), quilting, (why cut fabric into small pieces only to sew it back together again?), sewing, (you could get that cheaper at Target), cooking (why bother? It messes up the kitchen and takes too much time out of our busy schedules). (What on earth are they so busy doing?)They are the same kind of people that cut the budget for schools so deeply that the schools have gotten rid of or cut back on classes for Art, PE, Music, Home Ec and other valuable subjects , yet not perceived as necessary to the Budget Hounds. Listen up, Modern Spartans, because I know who you are now – I recognize you from my Classical education. You are the kind of people who take all of the joyful, beautiful things out of life and replace them with grey dreary usefulness. The Spartans lived only for War. Women were prized for their usefulness at bearing and raising strong sons. Men were admired for their skills in battle. Sons were told to come home “with your shield or on it”. They did not have dinner parties with friends; they ate in useful, practical mess halls. They did not invent delicious recipes, they ate gruel. It was practical. They did not sew lovely clothes in beautiful colors; they wore plain serviceable cloaks and tunics. It was a grim existence enlivened only by going to war and fighting. Currently these grim Spartans have been trying to seize control of our schools and state and national government. They claim, like the ancient Spartans did, that anyone who disagrees with them is effete and an elitist, and the things that we like are useless. Like the Spartans of old, they do not care to take care of the old, the sick or the disabled. Like the Spartans of old, they want to devote all of our resources to preparing for War It’s time for all of us who believe in a better life and better way to push back against their grim vision of the United States. We can all start by registering to vote, and making sure everyone we know does as well. And by doing something impractical today and every day, just to shake them up.

Summer Games

I loved this article in Slate about how the good knitters at Ravelry took on the International Fuddy-duddies, spoilsports and party-poopers at the Olympic Committee and won. What does this teach us, class? Don't mess with the ladies with long needles.

That's Ancient History

The recent news that the University of Virginia Board of Visitors wanted to get rid of what they considered “underperforming” departments, such as Classics, Philosophy and German has made this former Classics Major most distressed. If teaching the basics of the foundation of Western Civilization isn’t good enough, the exquisite irony of deleting Classics and Philosophy at Thomas Jefferson’s University should have made Helen Dragas think twice, ( Oh wait, she was a MBA student. Irony is wasted on those people.) As a former Classics and Ancient History Major (University of California, class of 1980) I will list just a few of the many advantages of learning the Classics 1. learning critical thinking skills from the guys who invented critical thinking (Plato, Socrates, Aristophanes, Euripides, to name but a few) 2. Studying the Peloponnesian War helps one understand the reasons countries go to war (they study this at West Point for just that reason) 3. Learning what “crossing the Rubicon” really means 4. Learn why NIKE is not just a brand of shoes 5. The Olympics and why they were important, then and now 6. the invention of Rhetoric 7. Marathon 8. with your shield or on it 9. Thermopylae 10. The Iliad, the Aeniad, The Odyssey 11. The invention of democracy 12. Euclidean Geometry Other good reasons: classics majors are really good at trivia, spelling and lifelines for bar-betting buddies. We know why Virgil went to hell, and why Dante used Virgil as his guide. We know all of the things that were inaccurate in the movies Gladiator, Troy and The 300. We know where Athens, Troy, Persepolis and Syracuse are on maps both ancient and modern. We know that basil comes from the ancient Greek word for King. We know about the real Oedipus Complex. Are we going to be a country that can’t have nice things, like real Universities? We are the richest, most powerful nation on Earth;. Must everything be ruled by the small-minded bean-counter types? We would have plenty of money for worthy endeavors if we use it wisely. They would do well to remember that even though Sparta won the war with Athens, they lost the bigger battle. Oh wait, those bean-counter types won’t understand. They haven’t studied Thucydides. They think the Spartans are a football team.