New color in the sewing room!

It's Southfield Green from Benjamin Moore...sort of a Williamsburg-y green.  Not Williamsburg, NYC--Williamsburg, VA!

Anyway, the Roommate had a 3 day weekend & I had a 4 day weekend, so we got it done (he did the green, I did the trim).  It's partially back together now.  I'm waiting for the ceiling touch-up to dry so I can take off the blue painter's tape.  Which I do NOT recommend...it always seems to pull part of the original paint off that you were trying to protect, or the other color leaks under the tape.  I guess it's better than trying to paint a whole room very carefully, but I'm just not that impressed...

I just wanted to quickly share a few pics...the first is the before.  Our whole house was painted in a very neutral light brown (moccasin, I think is the color name).  Mostly I like it, and that's why when I first did the sewing room, I just left it.  But over time, I really decided I wanted something a bit more fun...

(Don't be deceived by that big window.  It's to the east & our neighbors are next door, & fairly close (about 12 or 14'), and they have a 2 story house--so it's a nice window, but doesn't really bring in that much light, especially after noon.)

And the 2 after shots.  I think you can see how well the green looks against the white trim,and also how nice it is with the light wood furniture...all from Ikea, except my wall-mounted ironing board, which is also birch.

I don't have that much I can do w/ the 2 tables, the cabinet & 2 small drawer/file cabinet units (one is for my notions, the other is for our files & the printer lives on top of it).  But I am trying a bit of a different layout.  I wanted to get the cabinet away from the door because it made the room hard to look into & rather uninviting.

If you're wondering about the dress, I'm about to go put the hooks on it (got them at G Street yesterday when I bought enough wool for 2 Starlet Suits!) and I've already hemmed it.  I'm wearing it tomorrow, even though it's going to be too warm (60F)...but darn it, I'm wearing it!  Pictures will be posted!


Music?  Paint it Black by you-know-who!

Oh my gosh, I haven't been sewing & can't think of anything to write about

Okay, reading public.  I know there are a few of you out there & I appreciate your time.  Just to let you know I'm not lost in the mess that is DC politics--I wish my life was that glamorous.  I'm actually extremely busy.  I think I may have to go back & read Tilly's blog post about her Sewing Productivity Project Survey, because I cannot figure out how my online sewing friends have jobs, friends, roommates, clean houses & manage to exercise and play with pets, while making zillions of amazing, well-tailored, lovely outfits.  I only work 9 days every 2 weeks, so that means I commute 1 day less than a lot of people (45 mins each way), and of course I get that extra 8 hours.  So where does it go?

If you're wondering what's occupying my mind at the moment, we're going to re-do our kitchen this summer.  See this American Standard ad from 1946 to get an idea of what's inspiring us (our house was built in 1937).  We have stainless appliances, and will have white cabinets & blue-ish counters.  We haven't picked out the floor & backsplash, but hope to do that this weekend.  But this is all pretty time-consuming--though it's REALLY fun!  What's funny is that we are about the quickest decision makers around, and still, it's time-consuming.

Some fun sites I've come across while thinking about our kitchen are Retro-Renovation, lots of great ideas, photos, old advertisements (like the one above) and even places to get antique items (there's a link to a tile factory that has a bunch of stock from the 1950s & 1960s).  Another is DalTile, which has a mosaic designer tool--hours of entertainment!  On the tabs across the top, click Be Inspired, then Tools, then Mosaic Designer. 

Second, you may remember my problems w/ trying to get my tiny extra room (10' x 6') turned into a sewing studio.  I bought a cabinet, am using 2 old tables (one a gateleg), and got it arranged in what I thought was a good way...but after 4 months or so using it I realized it's a) not light enough and b) the arrangement is just rather weird.  So, this weekend (it's a 4 day weekend), I plan to finish the dress.  Yes the dress!  That I started on in October?!  Then I am going to take everything out of the sewing room & the Roommate & I will paint the walls and rearrange the place.  After that, I'll have to find some more lighting and I'm thinking of putting up some additional shelves.  But that will be after sew/remove/paint/move back in...I will draw before/after plans to show you once that is finished.

Another time-user-upper is we've been slowly decorating the new addition.  We spent about a zillion hours putting a lovely late 1960s free-standing Danish modern bookcase together.  The man who sold it to us warned us--and he was correct--it wasn't easy to put together, but it was SOOOO worth it.  And then last weekend it was putting the new bed together.  Oh, and the perfect helpful Bella knocked down a shelf in the brand-new closet, so that must be dealt with this weekend.  And then there's yoga class on Saturday mornings!  And and and...

However, if nothing else the dress  has taught me that I want to improve my sewing skills.  So first, I'm taking an in-person class at Bits of Thread in DC in late March.  It will be the perfect skirt class...so I'll make a pattern & then a skirt over 2 3-hour classes.  And I'm seriously thinking of signing up for Gretchen Hirsch's class (of Sew Gertie Sew fame) to make a Starlet Suit.  It's online, and I think I'll learn lots of good techniques, and taking another class will motivate me, too.

Those are my plans for spring 2012...the next time you see me, I promise I'll be wearing 7051, if it kills me.  If it does, I can wear it to the crematorium!

Music?  How about a classic from 1936...
Come On in My Kitchen - Robert Johnson

A D I N K R A ! - Fabric stamping from Ghana

I've mentioned before how we collect not only textiles, but also tools used to make those textiles.  So here are some Adinkra stamps along with a piece of Adinkra, all of which we got in Ghana. (Our travel photos from that trip are here.)  And here's a video of someone using the stamps.

The stamps are carved from calabash gourds & you can see on the 2nd example that they are curved.  You'll notice in the video that the printers have to "rock" the stamps a bit to get the complete design to stamp.

A piece of fabric uses many different stamps, broken up by the colorful embroidery used to stitch 2 strips of fabric together (again, strip woven fabric used as part of the overall design), then they use a piece of wood that looks like a hair pick to make the parallel lines that also make the outline of the checkerboard.

The stamps represent ideas and proverbs.  Head on over to adinkra.org to see an explanation of what the different symbols mean.  (Click on the symbols at the top of that page.) Photos of a stamp carver hard at work are here.

In the second photo, I was trying to show you how the stamps are held.  Each one has little holes in the back (3 or 4, depending on the size/shape of the stamp).  Small sticks are inserted into these holes (they look like overgrown toothpicks).  Then the 3-4 sticks are held together with a piece of cloth bound by string.  It is not at all stable, everything slips apart quite easily.  We try to never handle ours because they dismantle if you look sideways at them! We took them all apart to get them home, but have tried to avoid that since.

We bought our stamps at a tourist shop in Tamale and they haven't been used.

More fabric stamps

BTW, I'm not including the bread stamps (from Tibet) or the wallpaper stamps (from the Czech Republic). See my first post about fabric stamps here.

In the first photo, a detail of the 2nd, you'll see 2 small border stamps.  The left is only a few inches long, about 1.5" wide and the other is about 5" long.  I'm guessing they would have been used at the border of a piece of fabric.

In the next photo, which includes stamps from both Iran & India, you'll see another border stamp (at the top), along with a pair of triangular stamps, which fit together. (As always, clicking on the photo will give you the largest version available.)  They are from Iran, and I'm guess part of a 4 stamp set (as explained in the last post), but we've only got 2.  To the right of the photo you can see 4 more triangular stamps, and you can even make out the paint on one of them; I'm guessing it was the red stamp!  Again, these amazing, intricately carved pieces would be stamped on fabric, in succession to (slowly) create a 4 color printing process.  Not only is the carving painstaking, but it must be hard for the person stamping to get things lined up just right, too.

In Abu Dhabi, where we bought the stamps from Iran, it was a bit of a coup among the Western expats to get a <b>complete</b> set!  Which makes sense--stamps were probably often retired/thrown out because one was no longer in good shape--so the rejects came to the Iranian souq near my house--meaning few complete sets made the journey across the Persian/Arabian Gulf.  We did manage to get 3 complete sets, I think.  Which demonstrates a) that we lived close to the waterfront where the souq was located and b) that we probably spent a lot of time/$$ there!  ;-)

The fabric they are laying on is a bedspread from Jaipur.  It is batiked (wax resist), and I'm sure a stamp was used for this intricate design that repeats and repeats over a huge queen-sized bedspread without flaw.  Which is another interesting way to think about fabric stamps--not as adding color, but as preventing additional color to be added!

Fabric stamps & what they make in Asia

Happy New Year!  It's Chinese New Year, actually:

恭禧發財

I don't know about you, but I'm having trouble getting into the swing of blogging 2012-style.  I think about it, but haven't felt inspired, nor have I had 10 seconds to sew.  This is my 3 day weekend coming up (I have every other Monday off), so let's see how that darned corduroy dress zipper goes...

Anyway, thought you might like to know about fabric stamps.  Carved from pear wood usually, these intricate stamps are used to make repeating patterns on fabric.  Here's an Indian expert carving a stamp in Jaipur.  And here's a stamp & stamper hard at work, also in India.  But of course he makes it look easy--I know my rows would be skewiff! I'm showing you 2 views of Indian workers because the first few photos are of stamps we got in India.  I felt compelled to buy the paisley stamp because paisley just says "India!" doesn't it?

I asked the Roommate to take a photo of the back & side, too, because I thought you'd like to see that it's all carved from the same piece of wood.  And I wanted to show that row of holes, drilled all the way through, I'm guessing to make it lighter for the user.  This probably isn't that important if you're doing one piece of fabric, but I imagine that after a long day of stamping, the lighter the tool the better.


Next up are 2 sets of stamps from Iran.  Persian style fabric stamping is a bit different.  Rather than one color on fabric, the Iranians do 3 and 4 color printing with their stamps.  Which means they carve different stamps, all the same shape & size, but with a different design--which fits with the other stamps to create a multi-colored design.  The skill involved--getting the carved pieces to interlock and then printing them without smudging or overlapping--yikes.  The Roommate & I are collectors, but believe me, we're admirers, too, of the skill & artistry involved in these treasures.

This is a tablecloth we got at the Iranian Souq in Abu Dhabi and you can see it has the four-color printing I mentioned.  Red, black, yellow and blue.  (For most of my photos, clicking on it will take you to the larger, original-sized photo if you want more detail.)  Details of this tablecloth below.

And a little side-track here...the two sets of sailors, recently rescued in the Persian/Arabian Gulf by the US Navy?  I'm sure they were either on their way to or from the Arabian side of the Gulf...headed to a souq (market), much like the one we walked to in Abu Dhabi.  It takes about 6 days on one of these small (20-30') wooden dhows to get from Iran to Abu Dhabi.  The treasures they would bring over!  Lapis jewelry, enameled plates, tiles, kilims, along with printed fabrics & blocks for creating that fabric.

I don't have any stamps from Pakistan, but I'm sure they do fabric stamping there, too, because of these cushion covers we received as a gift from a Pakistani friend.  You can see they've been stamped, too, possibly with only 2-3 colors.  I think it's funny that it's one color in India, a few more in Pakistan, and as you continue to move north & west...more colors, more intricate.  Probably more of an aesthetic issue, rather than a skill issue, is my guess.

We have more stamps (I just found a few that we need to take pictures of), including one used to print Buddhist scriptures in Tibet, and some huge ones (that weigh a ton!) for printing wallpaper in the Czech Republic.  I'll have to get to those in later posts.

We haven't tried them out--I have washed plain muslin and even owned some suitable fabric paint for a long while, but never got it together to do any real stamping.  Mostly because I'm a bit worried about ruining the stamps; how easy will they be to clean?  Next post will be more about fabric stamps in Africa...Ghana to be exact.

Style Icon - Lucille Ball! I Love Lucy!

Happy New Year all.  Hope your holidays were amazing.

I know I'm not the first person to suggest this, but how about looking at Lucille Ball as a style icon?  The Roommate & I were at an exhibit about I Love Lucy yesterday at the Library of Congress, and it's hard to miss how great her 1950s clothes were.  Of course she had a great figure & was a redhead, too (I can meet one of those requirements), so looked great all the time (unless she was being funny, and meant to look like a mess).

So here are some pictures I got from the web that demonstrate what I mean...

She loved polka-dots & wore them so well.  Maybe that's why I'm inspired to wear print dresses!  Also, I love swingy skirts too--so feminine.

I'm not that into weddings, but isn't this a pretty dress?

 More polka dots & a suit with a pencil skirt!

 I love this dress!  What a great collar.  And she's being silly but looks fabulous...

 And what an amazing geometric jacket.  Like a TV test screen, but fashionable!

 Did you know she was the first woman to be shown on TV while visibly pregnant?  The word was never used, but her pregnancy was written into the show and eventually Little Ricky appeared--even though she & Ricky had separate twin beds!   But here she is, in a gorgeous coat, back when women were forced to dress in some pretty awful maternity wear.  

The contrasting collar is so great!

Check out the Lucy - Desi Museum in Lucy's hometown, Jamestown, NY for more inspiration!

Music?  Babalu - Ricky Arnaz.

Extreme Pattern Modification (or, 4th time is the charm?!)

Just to give you an idea of what I HOPE is going to be the last time I show you these pattern pieces..and an idea of what I've been working on...a bunch of made-up & super-modified pattern pieces.

This first one, you've seen.  It's what the Bonus Basic Pattern recommended I do to modify the pattern so it fits better.

The 2nd shows how I had to move the point of the bust dart down.  And up close you can see that I added close to an inch along there to hopefully ease in enough fullness.





The 3rd photo shows what I think the new neck facing should look like (front & back) based on the modifications to the bodice pieces (you'll notice in photos 1 & 4 that it's gone from a round neck to a V-neck).  Also in this photo is the pattern for the collar.  On the other 2 or 3 versions (I've lost count!), this was actually the one thing I made up that worked quite well (here's one example).

However, in that first version, the collar looked great & the facing worked well, but the neckline was quite big (lots of skin showing--not really what I wanted for a cozy winter dress). It's quite cold out at the Reference Desk--there's always a stiff breeze from the A/C, winter or summer, so I really didn't want direct air-to-neck contact, at least not in my cozy thin-wale corduroy dress.


And in the 4th photo you'll see up close how I modified the front neckline.  Then I just used this to create the facing you see in the 3rd photo.

Do I know what I'm doing? Not at all.  Am I going to get to the dress before we leave on vacation?  Probably not.  Will I have a ton of free time when we get home to finish it?  Again, probably not--we'll be moving into the new south wing, a friend is visiting from the Netherlands to do research at the Library of Congress and we're headed to California to celebrate the Roommate's birthday w/ his family.  Hmmm.  But I've heard the winter is going to get quite bleak come Jan/Feb here on the East Coast--so that might motivate me to finish.

Wish me luck in the new year!  And thank you for your kind attention this year...I'm mostly enjoying blogging, but do find it a chore to keep my sewing up in order to write about it! Not really, I love sewing, but am starting to pine for the days I only worked part-time!

Music?  B.i.l.l.i.e H.o.l.i.d.a.y by Warpaint