Guess what this is?

What do you think this will make?  I bought this 4 or 5 years ago in a pile of sewing fabric and notions at a yard sale.

The fabric is a beautiful lightweight cotton voile.  

The pattern is marked as Simplicity 2585 which is this....

which is beautifully cool!  Simplicity 2585 is also this....

Judging from the amount of pattern pieces and sizes, I am pretty sure it is not a hat pattern.  I will start assembling and see what happens!

How beautiful are metal knitting needles?  The spouse picked up 7 more pairs at a yard sale to add to the pile.  I just love the colors.

Very atomic.

There has been some traveling going on....

I was in Florence, Italy, a couple of weeks ago.  Hence the lack of posting and activity in here.

The shopping is always wonderful there with the major Italian and French fashion houses lining Via de Tornabuoni.

Casa de Tessuti

Tailoring display

Accessories at Hermes

Hermes

Arno River

Many of the churches are covered inside with mosaics, carvings, and frescoes.  Others are very plain.  These were taken in Santa Croce which is my favorite church in Florence.  The lines to get into the Duomo are long.  Brunelleschi's dome is amazing, but it is usually a long wait.  Since I had already been in the Duomo, I spent my time in other places... with shorter lines.

The pink building at the top of this picture houses the Villa Bardini.  In this museum is the Capucci Collection.... just amazing!

Wil Wheaton vs. Paul and Storm

On Wednesday night we saw Wil Wheaton and Paul and Storm live at the Alberta Rose Theater.  They were hilarious!! It was the epitome of geek culture with obscure sci-fi references flying through the house.  Reverse the polarity anyone?  I have been a fan of Wil's Table Top show on Geek and Sundry not only because the banter among the players will make you laugh until you cry, but some of the games are amazing.  I still want to buy Dixit.  Beautiful illustrations from a French board game company.
Anyway.... here is Paul and Storm's best 36 seconds on the internet from Wednesday night.  I'll bet you will watch it at least 5 times today.

I have torn my studio up in an attempt to purge, reorganize, and create more breathing room to increase the flow.  It is still a mess.

There is a slight funnel effect the closer you get to the computer.  The biggest flow issue is the ironing board.  It is not only in the way, but blocks one of my cabinets.  When I planned the layout of the studio, I did not think about the ironing board which is up most of the time... especially when I am sewing.

I am still rearranging and cleaning, but I'm getting closer.  Will post more as the progress ensues.

Jacket Lining Project

About a year ago, I decided to fix the lining on my pea coat.  Every time I put it on, I heard a distinct ripping sound.  You can see in the first two pictures the state of things.

So many of my vintage coats have beautiful, heavy weight satin lining that are durable and look gorgeous.  The lining in this coat was cheap and too light weight.  I decided to replace it with a heavier satin lining in hot pink AND replace the Thinsulate inter-lining that I had paid extra for when I originally purchased the coat from J. Crew.  This coat is also a petite, so I didn't have to hem the sleeves.  The shell wool is in good condition.  There were many reasons for saving this coat... as well as keeping it out of a land fill.

 I have the whole step-by-step up on Burdastyle here, but I will show you some highlights.

Lining removed

 I did not make marks when I took the lining apart and I should have.  The body has side panels and the sleeves are two part sleeves.  The front seam of the sleeve appears to line up with the front seam of the side panel, but something happened during my construction phase and these seams did not line up.  I will be more careful the next time I re-line something and make more marks.  It's an easy step when the lining is still sewn together, but almost impossible once you have ripped the whole thing apart.

Cutting the new lining

I bought this coat right before leaving for Berlin in January... a very cold time of the year.  I wanted the Thinsulate interlining for extra warmth, so I wouldn't have to add a lot of layers to my wearing or suitcase.  I have sewn with Thinsulate before and have worn it many times.  I ordered it online from Seattle Fabrics.

Thinsulate

DO NOT IRON THINSULATE!!!  An iron will instantly melt the Thinsulate together into a felted mass and will no longer work as designed.  If you have a coat with a Thinsulate interlining do not iron it or let your dry cleaner press it.

Lining in progress with Thinsulate flat-lined to each lining panel.

 I did not take out every seam and remove every button, so there were some bulk issues to work around especially at the back neck.  There were also some seam allowances that were not the same which made it even more challenging to sew.  I had to use some hand sewing to get the lining in.

I started using leather thimbles in college when I was a sewer in the costume shop.  We were often sewing on bulky fabrics or unusual items.  Nothing hurts quite like running a needle through your finger eye first, so I adopted the use of a leather thimble then and always keep one on hand.

The best invention in the world!!!  A leather thimble WITH a non-skid metal plate!

Back neck seam in-progress.

 This is a production style construction coat NOT a tailored coat, so the lining is attached entirely by machine.  As such, there is an opening in the left sleeve through which the entire garment is turned.  Crazy but it works!  My very first job was as a sample sewer at Nike.  All of our lined jackets and coats were constructed this way.  It took me several hours to wrap my brain around this construction because the visual modeling in your mind is hard to create.  The best way to learn is to try it and see what happens.  And don't get frustrated if you get your sleeve linings twisted... it happens to everyone.  That is why there are seam rippers.

Turning the garment... aka sausage stuffing.

Garment turned showing opening in left sleeve

Done!

Stairway Carpet

The striped runner is finished!  We have learned A LOT about carpet runners, padding, and stripes.  There are some issues that are not what we initially wanted, but we are mostly pleased with the results.

There is some unusual mitering going on at the landing.  We are going with it.  There are several issues here:  the stripe pattern is not centered in the runner, the stair widths are not the same on the upper and lower stairs, and the walls may not be perfectly square... since very few things in this house are square, plumb, or at right angles to one another.

There is more touching up to do on the trim and then maybe we can get the paint cans out of the dining room.

Plaster Walls and Shelving

I love plaster walls.  However there are some challenges when drilling into them to hang shelving.  Such as when you drill the screw holes 1/8" too close together and then you have to remove not only the screw but the screw anchor as well.

We now have craters in the wall.

We are patching and will be painting.  But the room's occupant loves to dig in the filling material.  As soon as it is dry, we find evidence of mining going on and have to refill.  I am trying to fill and paint today before the miner gets home.  

Carpet, carpet, carpet

The new carpet is very soft, very quiet, and most of all VERY CLEAN.  You can lay on it and roll around and play on it without wondering what germs, dirt, and bugs might be hiding in it.  The last of the main plush carpet was installed yesterday upstairs.

The front of the carpet has been wrapped over the edge of the floor.  The wood part will be covered by the striped stair carpet.

Mister e's new room color.  The picture makes it look lighter and more turquoise than it actually is.  It is more like a stormy sea.  We are going to put up shelves for the Star Wars ships.  e has requested that the shelves be the same color as the walls, so it looks like the ships are flying in space.  Genius and simple solution!

Stripes for the stairs

This is the amazing hospitality carpet with stripes!  The pile is very dense and low.  Some of the stripes are raised.  We get to keep all the left over carpet and had a small piece of the stripe.  So we unrolled it in the hallway to get a feel for the stripe.  Love it!  I really wish the piece were longer so we could do a runner for the hall.

The stair carpet has been cut and is off to the binder to have the edges bound.  The guys will be back next week to put it in.  That will be almost three weeks of carpet laying.  Irving (our dog) can barely stand having people in the house especially people he can't see running up and down the stairs and pounding on the floor.  He is so worn out from not barking yesterday that he is sleeping all day today.

How are we getting all these projects done?  We have turned the dining room into a temporary paint station/command central.  The boxes hold the tools, brushes, outlet plates, painter's caulk, etc.  All the various cans of paint and primer are on the floor.  After the carpet install, there has been a lot of touching up.  This is faster than putting everything back down in the basement and having to run up and down two flights of stairs.  This way, we only have to run up and down one flight of stairs.  Good thing we have a dine-in kitchen.

Stairs

We removed the carpet from the stairs.  Our plan is to paint the treads and put down a striped runner thus making it easier to clean the corners of each stair and only paying for the carpet where you actually used it.  Besides, striped runners on white stairs look very cool.

Fir stairs that squeak if you breathe on them

Most of the carpet is out.  You can still see the
original grey carpet on the upper set of stairs.

However finding striped carpet was challenging.  We asked our carpet guy and he kept showing us subtle sort-of stripes in non-contrasting colors.  They were more "stripe wanna be's" than actual stripes.  We wanted this kind of look:

We finally had to show the carpet guy a picture on the iPhone.  Then he got it.  The type of carpet we wanted was called "hospitality carpet" (think bad casino carpet).  If you do a web search for hospitality carpet, you will find a gold mine of patterns, swirls, optical illusions, tapestries, etc!  Fortunately our carpet guy also does hotel and industrial installs and had an entire room of hospitality carpet swatch books.  We settled on a fabulous black with multi-color stripes.  I can't wait to see it on the stairs!

In the meantime, we have pulled staples, sanded the edges of the each tread and riser, primed, and painted 3 coats of paint on the staircase.