Saturday, September 3, 2011

Miscellany

First, an apology for not posting much in the past few weeks. It's a source of continual amazement to see that people do continue to visit this blog daily, and that the number of followers here continues to rise even in my absence.  Almost 300!!!

During her absence in the real world, The Sewing Lawyer seems to have been busy.  Although there isn't much production.  Actually, if I am honest, there hasn't been any.  The Sewing Lawyer's sewing room has mostly been dark and neglected.  Too bad the cleaning fairies didn't take advantage of the opportunity to get in there and do some serious organizing.

Really the machine has only been running in connection with a little project which is (sort of) for someone else.  If you hang about on sewing sites, you will have come across Debbie Cook of Stitches & Seams.  Recently she's turned her considerable talents to producing a pattern and I volunteered to help test it.  She kept up her end of the arrangement admirably by sending me the pattern (PDF) and then e-mailing updates on its development in real time.  I'm not so sure I've performed adequately as a tester as the item is languishing, almost finished, in the messy sewing room.  I did send Debbie feedback on the pattern as I went, anticipating that this might happen, but I'm still hanging my head in shame, and hoping I'm not too deeply entrenched in Debbie's bad books.

On the positive side, the pattern (which is for a wallet) is for sale in her Etsy store where I seriously hope it is selling like hotcakes.  It's very professionally-done, IMHO.

On the negative side, The Sewing Lawyer (as usual) has made things difficult for herself by choosing to make the wallet out of leather. My machine is struggling through the layers in places even though the innards are cut out of the intended material - quilting-weight cotton.  I think I see some difficult hand-sewing in my near future since there is no way I am attempting to topstitch this baby by machine.

Perhaps in my far-distant future, I see a sewing machine that can power through layers of leather without faltering and skipping stitches.

Pictures to come (I promise) this very weekend.  Which is a long weekend in Canada!  Yay!

Other things to know, which have something to do with sewing.

While doing laundry today, the evidence clearly indicated it was time for new undies.  Not only does The Sewing Lawyer have a guilt-inducing pile of bra patterns with all needed materials sitting on the cutting table, the stash contains all the stuff for making panties, including a TNT pattern (before you ask, it's cloned from a pair purchased in the far distant past, then tweaked through several home-factory panty-making sessions over the years).  My version looks (sort of) like Jan Bones "smoothie" panties.  But it has a lower rise.

If you are inclined to make your own underthings, not only are there commercial patterns out there (this one from Jalie, for example), there are several for download on the www.   I first saw the "cheeky panties" pattern on Burdastyle, but today Google turned up this site which has a link for the graded version as well as the original instructions by Burdastyle member EmilyKate.  This pattern intrigues me but having traced it out and compared it with the TNT, my strong suspicion is that it's best reserved for teenagers or those with figures like teenagers.  In short, the TNT looks more like a TeNT.  I console myself with the thought that the back piece has to be big because it wraps mostly around to the front.

If I blog about making undies, the posts may very well not be illustrated, if you know what I mean.

Finally, I got an iPad for my birthday last month.  Being new to Apple (I'm a confirmed PC user) it's taking me some time to get comfortable with and understand how I ought to be using this intriguing little machine.  Please help!  What are your best recommendations for apps and content?  How do you use your iPad in the sewing room?

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on your ipad - we are a mac family - J has an ipad and loves it - I use an old macbook myself. Thanks for the wallet pattern - I love it and am going to have to order it - considering the Tandy leather store is two blocks from my house.

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  2. Congrats on your iPad - I love mine - even tho' I live in a PC world. I know that there are a bunch of sewing apps for the iPad but the only one I've used with any consistancy is the Yardage Calc app which calculates different fabric widths. I originally purchased this for my iTouch and transferred to my iPad.

    Other sewing related things ~ I surf the internet on it, buy fabric online (now is that surprising! *LOL*), read blogs, read sewing boards, keep lists for garments I want to make or just ideas.

    I know some people blog off of it but I have a first generation without a camera so I have to send pictures to my iPad and if I'm gonna do that I might as well write the blog post on my PC.

    Once you've acclimated to it I know you will enjoy it. I bought one for my mother for Mother's Day and it's become her best friend. It's just so easy to use!

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  3. You can count me in- now you have 300 followers. This is one of my favourite blogs, but I've never commented or clicked "follow". When I saw there was a new post, I thought "oh goody" or the nonverbal equivalent. And then you mentioned the number of followers you had, and for the first time it occurred to me that getting a new follower might possibly make you think "oh goody" or the nonverbal equivalent.

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  4. Congrats on the iPad. It's a beautiful machine! I got one for my bday last year but asked my husband to return it (the woman at the store asked him what kind of idiot returns gifted iPad :-)) Reason was that it's pretty useless for blogging. Safari isn't compatible with Blogger at the moment - or it wasn't the last time I tried (on my husband's iPad). Having said that, it's an awesome tool for ease of use, surfing, watching tutorials, portability... I went from using only PCs to getting a MacAir (what I got instead of the iPad - husband is in computer biz, fyi, which is why I get these gizmos) and then an iPhone. Now I can't imagine life without them.

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