A Few Favorites

Since I seem to be on brain-drain juice this summer, I'm going for eye candy this week. I've got a few posts in the oven, so to speak, but with the funeral and family in town and all the papers I still need to grade, they've been put on hold. So, please enjoy these picks, some of my favorites from Etsy.

Identifying Fabric is Harder Than Remembering Grease II Lyrics

I'm not a scientist. (Shocker!) And, if a piece of information is not tacky song lyrics, bad movie lines or useless commercials from the 70's and 80's, I'm likely not to remember it without lots of effort. So identifying different kinds of fabrics and remembering sewing vocabulary is not something I'm naturally good at. We didn't have a house full of different kinds of fabrics either, so it's not like I had a lot to learn from growing up. We had denim, cotton and polyester. I got those down, so now on to the other hundreds of options. (I do have the entire soundtrack of Grease II memorized, from watching it on Cinemax after school everyday during some very impressionable years of my life. Ahh, wasted braincells.)

One of my troubles with identifying fabric is that I buy them all at thrift stores and garage sales so they are not labeled. I pick what is interesting and feels good or what I think might be fun for a particular purpose. I'm just not always sure what it is I have. Is that acrylic or wool? Is that acetate? polyester? silk? Sometimes it does not matter because they behave the same when sewing. However, the care and cleaning of the fabric often makes a big difference, so how I wash and deal with stains and smells matters much.

I also have some vintage dresses I want to post on Etsy, but I don't know what kind of fabric they are made of, so I find myself making educated guesses and typing five question marks after the word "blend."

I'm taking a class at American River College this fall about textiles, and although fall will come faster than I want it too, it doesn't help me now. I'm enrolled in this class: Fashion 320--This course is a study of natural and man-made fibers, methods of fabrication and finishes. Topics include the selection, use and care of modern fabrics as they relate to clothing and home furnishings. I wanted to take "History of the Western Fashion World" and "Apparel Construction" but those interfere with the classes I'm teaching and I still must make a living I suppose.

There are a number of references for learning more about fabrics on your own. A few months ago I noted that I was checking out a bunch of books from the library and I'd do some reviews if I found some good ones. Here's what I learned: there are entirely too many books out there with almost nothing in them. (And, I check out too many books from too many different libraries and can't remember when to return them to which library. My husband puts all of this information in his digital calendar, but that's so practical. I prefer to wake up sweating in the middle of the night stressed out about returning my library books. I once returned a book to the wrong library and they never found it. I had to replace it. Unfortunately, it was a lame book to begin with so I was irritated that I was perpetuating lameness. I would have rather bought a better book for the collection, but no, rules are rules.)

Besides the books with almost nothing in them or the books with way too many ruffles and appliques, here are two that were most useful to me.

I cannot recommend The Sewing Bible by Ruth Singer enough and I bought one for myself immediately after checking it out from the library. It's got just about everything you need to know about sewing, stitching, and basic techniques like hemming, seaming, and buttoning. The instructions are actually coherent and the photographs are clearly displayed. This is a win.

Sew Any Fabric, by Claire Schaeffer, is probably the best book I've seen as a general reference to fabric types and behaviors. The pictures of made products are quite matronly, but the info is good and the descriptions are very helpful. There is a full page or more devoted to each kind of fabric and they are organized well and cross-referenced. There is also a glossary and each entry has headings and topics organized in the same manner. Useful.

I got goals people

Coming soon to Smarty Pantalons

Now that the garage sale is over, I can focus on other things: like picking up the garage sale stuff. Well, hopefully not just that. I've got another post planned for the sale, an update about what happened and more advice about having one, but for now I'll just give you the skinny on some of my plans for Smarty Pantalons this coming month.

• More frequent posting. I've been so crazed I haven't been good at regular posting: garage sale over, school out, regular posting in. (I plan on blogging with my students this summer so hopefully that will keep me regular as well.)
• Getting to cleaning up the house and garage. Unfortunately, there is too much Etsy and garage sale clean up left to ignore this. And, I slept like the dead today so did not get much done.
• Get more stuff up on Etsy. If you've come here from Etsy or A Beautiful Mess--Thank You! I've had good traffic and good sales so far. I've got lots more to go up and it's just a matter of fitting in the time.
• Make a mock-up muslin of my first original Smarty Pantalons creation. When I have a prototype, you'll be the first to know and we'll do a give-a-way. I also have a couple of destash give-a-ways planned of patterns and fabric so let your friends know.
• Create an outfit for Cathy, Peter's cousin, over at Male Pattern Boldness. I've been looking at lots of fashion books lately and all I can think about is what would look good on Cathy? I love dresses, but I'm round and lacking height and they don't love me. Cathy can pull them off.

I've got more goals, but I think this will keep me busy. For sure. Of course, I'm gonna squeeze in some vintage shopping as well, since I mostly stayed close to home and worked my feet sore last week. And, I need to fit in walking the dog, visiting grandpa and arguing with my child this week too.

Charlie is happy the sale is over too; it was stressful!

Dresses in the House!

Or, more like, there are dresses all over the house. Since I don't wear dresses and I live with two boys, this is a bit odd. But, now a few of the dresses are in the shop. There are more dresses to come and more chatter about dresses, too. For some reason, even though I don't wear them, I think them fine creations. Some of them at least. Happy summer dresses.