Confessions of a Scissor Phobic

It's confession time, kittens.

I haven't finished my Chantilly dress. To be honest, I haven't even started it. Not because I'm intimidated by the pattern or because I haven't been in the mood to sew. I haven't started it, because I haven't even cut it out yet.

You see, I hate cutting out pattern pieces. I firmly believe every sewist has a step of the process he or she dreads the most. Some people may loath hemming, while others do everything they can not to put in a zipper. For me, the ironing, pinning, and lining up grainlines have become the seventh circle of sewing hell. If there were a service that allowed me to send in my patterns and chosen fabric, then they would ship it back to me all cut out, I would be a happy camper. The charge could be exorbitant and I'd still probably use it.

If I want to sew something, that's just it - I want to sew it. I don't want to sit on a floor for two hours, pinning tissue to fabric and getting a cramp in my back. Even watching Veronica Mars doesn't help pass the time. I can't properly concentrate on the damaged, but oddly noble Logan Echols while leaned over a cutting board. It's a quandary. To sew, one must have fabric pieces, after all.

No doubt, I would feel better if I had a rotary mat. Despite owning a rotary cutter, I'm still cutting things out the old fashioned way: pinning and scissoring. It's really difficult for me to splurge on a $100+ mat, when I could be buying fabric and patterns instead. Or, at least, saving up for my other big ticket sewing lusts, a dress form and a serger. I'm rather hoping JoAnns or Hancock will have a drastic sale on them at some nebulous future date. Or, miraculously, that one will pop up on Craigslist.

So, there you have it. My secret sewing shame. Tonight, I'm planning on lining up a wildly interesting audiobook and giving in to the dreaded scissors. If only the Chantilly didn't have so many pieces...

Do you have a sewing phobia? Is there one part of the process that you would happily choose to eat worms rather than go through ever again?

Pattern Musings: Colette Chantilly

This past weekend, I was hit with a mild case of the plague. Consequently, I've been more inclined to look pitiful while watching Veronica Mars than return to my sewing table. Now that I'm starting to feel like a normal person again, it's time to get back on track. Instead of sewing my final planned garment of the Colette Spring Palette Challenge, I'm opting for one of my bonus projects - the Colette Chantilly dress.

For the fabric, I've chosen a lovely blue & white floral cotton from Gorgeous Fabrics. It's actually the same fabric I used for the Sencha blouse, only in a different palette. I have a bit of a thing for small floral prints and this fabric has the added bonus of a lovely drape. It should work really well with all the flowing gathers of this pattern.

Because Colette patterns are standard RTW sizing, I don't have any fitting alterations planned. My measurements line up exactly with Colette's size chart and they are drafted for bigger bust cups. It's such a refreshing change! Now if only Sarai & Co. would release more of their lovely designs soon...

Have you sewn up a Colette Chantilly dress yet? Do you have any suggestions for someone about to dive into the pattern for the first time?

The Girl With the Violet Eyes

The incomparable Elizabeth Taylor passed away this morning at the age of 79. Originally, my plan was to write an eloquent post on her life and legacy. I can't do it. There's nothing I can say about Taylor that you don't already know or hasn't been said 1000 times before.

Whether it was pulling her own on screen against Paul Newman in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (my personal favorite movie of all time) or romping through her much-publicized romantic life, she always did it with panache. Elizabeth Taylor was quite a woman. Today, the world is a little less fabulous for her loss.

Unsolicited Opinions on Size and Fashion

This weekend, I had an interesting conversation with my mother. Early Sunday morning, she was flipping through the latest edition of O Magazine (one of our joint guilty pleasures) and spotted a spread of women breaking so-called "white" rules. It wasn't the (totally true) assertion that white clothes after Labor Day are fine that caught her eye. It was the models themselves. They were of all different sizes - petite, tall and slim, curvaceous, and every shape in between. Each one was completely lovely in her own right and looked spectacular in the styled outfits.

My mother, being a mother, shared this revelation with the purpose of encouraging me to look into plus-size modeling. Our exchange went - more or less - as follows...

• Mom: "...and then I thought, Mary is prettier than any of them! And we know how photogenic you are. Maybe you need a third career, darling."
• Me: (crazy, horrified laughter) "Mom, don't you think you're a little biased? Also, I'm pretty busy...you know...with the writing and medical school and all."
• Mom: "True. But women want to see models who are shaped like them in magazines and I thought you would just be perfect."
  

After discussing the specifics of why exactly her dear daughter will never be a model (only 5'8'', 25 is a bit old to start, and totally not looking anything like Crystal Renn among the chief arguments), we talked about the real interesting point of the O spread. We do want to see women like us in magazines and advertisements. While I love my subscriptions to Vogue and Elle, it's rare that I actually look at the fashion ads. I flick past them with little interest, because seriously, what do I care what a six-foot, size-zero model looks like wearing that designer lace dress? It's not going to look like that on me. If I stopped and lusted after it, I'd just have to contemplate whether it would be flattering to my body type. Then, I would probably remember that said designer's line only goes up to size 8. When a fashion spread grabs my attention, it's because of artistic merit or vintage styling.

Even while shopping online, it's rare that I actually pay attention to the model wearing the outfit. I look at fabric, design shape, and price, because that's what will actually get me to buy something. Or, rather, that's how I used to feel.

Serendipitous to the timing of this conversation, I've been haunting the Talbots online store lately. Not because the clothes are great (which they are - I love the new direction they've taken), but because I was totally bowled over by one of their latest ad campaigns. They're in the process of revamping their "Talbots Woman" line of plus-sizes clothing and part of that has been hiring actual size 12+ models to display their clothes. As a cross-over size, I've never bought anything from the Woman line, but the front-page picture was enough for me to click through.

There was this gorgeous woman - tall, blonde, and totally bombshell curvy - wearing Talbots clothes. She looked like a goddess. It was a simple outfit: chambray Oxford shirt, brown belt, and a daisy lace white skirt. It was identical to an outfit I'd seen on the main Talbots site weeks before and dismissed, not thinking the straight skirt would flatter my hips. But modeled on a woman my shape? Totally changed my mind. I wanted the entire outfit and I wanted it right that second. What's more, I then clicked through every single outfit in the store, seeing if they had her wearing anything else I liked.

Thus is the magic of target marketing. When the average American woman is a size 14, doesn't it reason that the fashion industry would benefit by including models who are not so glaringly opposite of that size? This has been a bit of a hot topic in recent years, with the rising careers of models like Crystal Renn and Tara Lynn. These women have not been sidelined to the "plus-sized" stores, but featured in major runway shows and magazine spreads. Admittedly, a lot of the attention surrounding them has been precisely because they are so novel. Size 12 women rarely, if ever, walk major runway shows. In a fashion world where thin is so required that even traditional models are smoothed and shrunk through photo editing, average-sized women, no matter how stunningly gorgeous they may be, have become an aberration.

Honestly, this is part of the reason I started sewing. So many clothes I lust after are not only out of my price range, but out of my size range. Even at major retailers, like Anthropologie, it's not at all uncommon for sizing to stop at a 10. I can't tell you how many times I've fallen in love with a dress in-store, only to find out I've been sized out of purchasing it. All too many women take this occurrence as a sign that there is something wrong with their shapes. Frankly, that's crap. As someone in the medical field, I'm a big evangelist of the maxim that both health and beauty come in many sizes. Why should I have to crash diet just to shrink into someone else's view of normal? I'm a size 12/14. What's more, I'm totally okay with that.

So, I threw up my hands and decided that if designers weren't making the clothing I wanted, I'd have to do it myself. One of the things I've come to love about the online sewing community is that sewing bloggers do come in all shapes and sizes. You can see a new pattern on my 5'8'', curvy frame, but also on someone who's 4'10'' and delicately-formed. Because, fashion may have size expectations, but style does not. Here's hoping the former starts to take some cues from the latter, agreed?



Post Notes: It should be said that plus-sized fashion is similarly, if not as extremely, biased as well. Models do tend to be in the smaller range of plus sizes (and I would even argue that a 12 shouldn't be categorized as plus at all). What's more, there's not a place in the market for women of middle sizes - sixes, eights, and tens - to be featured. It's all-or-nothing with fashion, when it comes to highlighting larger sizes. But that's a post for another day, or else I'll ramble on longer, until this post becomes book length. No one wants that.

Also: The balloon picture? Credit to my wonderful, wildly talented friend Sarah Romohr of Sincerely Sarah Photography in Austin. I had fun playing dress-up for an hour last summer, so she could test out some techniques. She even managed to make me look not crazy ridiculous in front of a camera, which takes some skill. If you need photography in Austin, she's amazing! (And you may suspect me of a bias, as we've been friends for a decade, but I'm not alone. People go gaga over her work.)

Weekend Pretty: 3.20.11

This weekend's dose of pretty is brought to us by Elle magazine. Emma Roberts, one of my personal favorite young Hollywood fashion inspirations, was shot in a vaguely retro auto-meets-art spread called "Ticket to Ride."





Makes you want to take a summer road trip, doesn't it? (It also makes me want to have the Roberts family bone structure, for that matter!)

Mlle Marie Va Au Musée: Simplicity 2215

Cynthia Rowley is a genius, kittens. Did we ever doubt it? Her line of patterns for Simplicity is at once fashion-forward and delightfully classic. In every pattern envelope, there is room to skew both ways, depending on the sewer's personal tastes.

Her newest, Simplicity 2215, is no exception. The patterns seem simple - a shirtdress, then a skirt and shirt made from the separated dress. But, of course, nothing from Rowley is ever truly simple. The envelope itself suggests room to spice things up - deconstructed modern trims, bold fabric choices - but the pattern pieces themselves are also a cut above the normal Simplicity fare. For my first 2215 project, I chose the skirt. As I mentioned in my musings post, I've been lusting after a similar ready-to-wear piece from Talbot's, the Champs-Élysées skirt. Indigo is in my spring palette for the Colette challenge and this pattern seemed like a fairly-straightforward recreation of that classic pleated silhouette. I was mistaken. It is so much better.

The skirt pattern ended up being that brilliant Rowley mix of classic and modern. You see, the pleats and folds are actually asymmetrical. Unlike normal skirts, where the pleats typically all go toward the center and are of uniform width, each pleat in 2215 is an individual. Some face toward the center, while others double back toward the side, forming subtle box pleats. They all vary in width, as well, creating interest and depth in this seemingly simple pattern. This difference may not be noticeable to the common eye, but it made me a bit giddy. I live for surprising pattern details.

All this gushing is not to say there weren't some tricky parts. Namely, the side invisible zipper and pockets double threat. This was my first time inserting pockets when dealing with a side zipper. While the Simplicity instructions were remarkably clear, I still ended up sewing the left pocket shut my first time through. There's only so much one can visualize, you know? Right sides have to be together, the zipper has to be upside down, etc. It gets a little muddy. (Full disclosure: I was also a little distracted by the Stuff You Missed In History Class podcast on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Did you know he crash landed in the Libyan desert and that was his inspiration for The Little Prince?) Luckily, it was a snap to take out the stitches and resew the zipper to the correct pocket side.

Another slight issue revolved around pretty details I added, then had to cover up. I've decided to give up on fusible interfacing, unless absolutely necessary, and instead underlined the waistband with some leftover rose print pique from my first Miss Rose dress. It looked absolutely adorable. Then, of course, the pattern told me to fold over the waistband - effectively hiding the pretty. My fault, for not reading through the entire pattern directions, but still a bit disappointing. Similarly, I decided to use navy flexi-lace hem facing to do the hem. It also turned out well - a very cute detail that I will be returning to in the future - but in the end I wanted to take a bit more length off, so I had to fold it under. Once more, hiding the pretty. Luckily, I made the pockets of of the rose pique, so there are still some fun details lingering!

Overall, this is a wonderful pattern. Made up in a stretch indigo denim, it's an almost exact replica of the RTW inspiration skirt. This is a pattern that we'll definitely be seeing again, as I have grand plans to buy some cheery spring poplins and have a whole rainbow of pleated full skirts.

Things I Changed:

• Made the pockets from contrasting printed fabric.
  
• Made the pockets from the Colette Crepe dress, as I find that channel pocket design lays flatter against the body. That's it! No other alterations were necessary. Don't you love skirt patterns?
  

Things I Would Change, If I Made It Again:

• When I make the poplin versions of 2215, I will probably double the waistband width. I tend to like slightly wider waistbands, so that my hourglass figure is clearly visible. The waistband of 2215 ends up being about one-and-a-half inches, so a little on the narrow side for my liking.
• Add length and take a deeper hem. This is a personal thing. I just really like how sumptuous wide hems are and how floaty they make skirts.
  

Tricky Steps & Suggestions:

• The invisible zipper/pocket conundrum. It's a bit confusing to visualize how this pieces together, so my major advice is this: sew the zipper to the side of the pocket that is in line with the skirt side. I originally sewed it to the side that Simplicity says\ to turn under, because that's how the diagram looked. Yeah, that sews the pocket shut. Sew to the long side, whatever you do!
• When making the pleats on the skirt, have the pattern piece handy. While I did properly mark the pleat directions, it was nice to have the little arrows to look at on the piece telling me what to do, as they do switch it up a lot.

Fabric Used:

• Stretch indigo denim from Hancock's - $9.99/yard.
  

Outfit Details:

• Skirt: 2215 made by me! Hooray!
• Shirt: white lace shirt by Merona from Target
• Cardigan: blue lace detail cardigan by Merona from Target (I freaking love their cardigans right now - so many great embellishment and details. Also, no one would guess it's from Target. Even better.)
• Shoes: brown Fiddle Bow wedges by Clarks (Which I love. Not only are they adorable, but they are super comfortable. I now own them in not one, but three colors.)

Completely Superfluous Picture of Remy, Who Really Wanted To Be Involved In This Shoot: