Embroidery and bunting
2 July 2009, 23:00I seem to be pretty lucky so far to have escaped the constant chemo nausea I was told to expect. I’m on two different chemo drugs now until Sunday when I switch to a third on its own, and so far one of them has had zero affect on the way I feel, and the other seems to be giving me wildly different comedy afflictions each day (first fever & headache, then the next day a weird bumpy rash like mosquito bites all over my body plus breathing problems, then tonight it just seems to be a 2 hour long sneezing fest. weird.). In any case, it’s so far much easier than I was expecting (knock on wood), so it’s given me some time to do some crafting in amoungst my tv and film watching.
Yesterday (Day -7) (in bone marrow transplant land, the day you get your stem cells is Day Zero, so right now I’m counting down to that, 8 July. After I receive them, I’ll go into the positive numbers!)
Yesterday I did a bit of ham-fisted embroidery, finishing up a bit for a baby present, which I’ll reveal when it’s totally finished, as well as finally finishing that Sublime Stitching apron kit I’ve been working on here and there over the last few months (remember this from the al fresco sewing day?).
(Fun fact: the nurses say it’ll take a few weeks for my hair to fall out! I was expecting it to be instantaneous, so now I’m kinda wishing I’d had a trim before I came in, and it also means you’ll have to wait a bit longer for my super-stylin’ chemo cap pattern.)
While not strictly sewing, I also took most of the day to meticulously assemble a cardboard & tape pinhole camera that our neighbours Felix and Kate got me. This thing required loads of concentration and patience to assemble, but I’m excited to get some 35mm film for it (oh how old fashioned!) and see what kind of artsy, blurry photos I can take of the pigeon and occasionally grumpy lady standing in the window of the ward five feet outside my window. I know, exciting!
Then today (Day -6) I got out my little red JL mini sewing machine and made some bunting to decorate my room. I spent all last week cleaning out, reorganising, and assembling new storage for my sewing room (more on that later), so I got rid of a lot of my old scraps in the process. But before handing over the big bags to a delighted Veda, I cut out a bunch of bunting triangles from the fabrics of my most loved garments. I’m calling it Memory Bunting. Where others would make a quilt, I thought it’d be nice to be reminded of all the things I’d made already to cheer me up if I end up feeling really bad some days, and I can see them all from my bed.
So as a test of my memory (ha!), here’s the origin of my finished Memory Bunting (some of these scraps are so old, they not only pre-date this site, but pre-date my posting creations on Craftster!)…
L-R: lavender zippered tee, red Chinese-inspired top, Gez’s 30th birthday dress, silky secretary blouse, a pair of lounging trousers for my Mom, a very early pattern attempt at a wrap skirt, a concealed button placket shirt
L-R: pink guitar pyjamas, my vintage German curtain dress (yes, really), yellow satin cocktail dress, faux-fur coat, green silk 30th birthday dress, seagulls yoga tee, Orla Kiely beach coverup, denim from Thames jeans & KnipMode jeans & faux-wrap jeanskirt, sheep pyjama set, grey summer wool from Roland Mouret Galaxy dress & BurdaStyle Alexis skirt
L-R: shortened RTW tunic sleep masks, a very early green twill A-line skirt, a very early purple A-line skirt & handbag, Shanghai market silk sleeveless blouse, Irish silk blouse, James’s Dogs Playing Poker shirt
(oh yeah, those are my plastic flowery friends there at the bottom! And apologies for the lo-res iPhone photos.)
And on top of that, my friend Shasha sent me instructions and special coloured paper to make origami turtles, which are apparently a symbol of good health. I am now assembling a tiny turtle army as fast as my hands can make them. It’s becoming something of a nervous hand compulsion (good thing I never took up smoking, eh?), though if I do too many in one stretch, I swear I’m going to give myself arthritis.
I’ve got a big blue IKEA bag full of boredom busters from lots of you, friends, and relatives, so don’t be hurt if I don’t mention yours right away – my mom’s picking one from the bag to bring me each day, though some days they actually carry through a bit longer (like today’s – an embroidered towel kit from my mom that needs floss shopping before I can start. :) ).
Tags: embroidery, home-dec, hospitalComment [10]
Sewing in hospital
30 June 2009, 15:11You may have noticed the new banner at the top of the site (or not, if you’re an RSS reader!) :
When
From 30 June for 4-6 weeks, I’ll be confined to a special germ-free room for a bone marrow transplant. For at least 6 months after that, I’ll be unable to go into any public or crowded places (shops, restaurants, cinemas, public transport, my office, etc) until my immune system rebuilds itself with the new stem cells.
What’s happening
Roughly speaking, it’s 7 days of intense chemo (yes, you can have chemo without cancer!!), then the next day I’ll receive the bone marrow stem cells from the donor via an IV drip, then the next few weeks are a waiting game filled with constant transfusions and battles against infections until the stem cells migrate to my bones and start producing new blood cells. After they reach a certain level, I’m allowed to go home, though I’m told to expect to be readmitted at least a few times after that.
Backstory
In 1984, when I was 5 years old, I had a really rare blood condition where your bone marrow stops making blood. To make a long story short, they tried a cutting edge therapy, which worked beautifully, they said I was cured, and it faded into the background of my existence as an aside – “oh yeah I nearly died when I was a kid”.
Fast forward 25 years to last October, when I was noticing my running was a bit more sluggish than usual (I was running 30k a week but put it down to changing the clocks) and I started having burst blood vessels in my eyes. The optician found nothing wrong and sent me to my GP for a blood pressure check. That was fine, but a blood count revealed that I had extremely low platelets (causing the eye haemorrhages) and low haemoglobin (causing the sluggishness) and within two months of that initial GP checkup I was being seen by the UK’s leading specialist and researcher in Aplastic anaemia. With hindsight, they know now that the brand-new treatment I had when I was a kid usually only lasts 5, 10, or 15 years, so they’re all very interested in me going 25 years without a problem as I’m the only known case anywhere in the world to have gone that long!
But alas, with further investigations (alongside the several transfusions a week it’s taking to keep me going), they discovered this time I’ve also got MDS (essentially: what little blood I do make is a bit weird), so that treatment that worked so well the first time around won’t make much of a difference now. So a bone marrow transplant it is, and I’ve been waiting on a suitable donor (luckily finding three 90% matches for me quite quickly) and space in the special ward for the past few months.
Wanna help?
I’m allowed to bring in pretty much anything I want to help pass the time, so of course I’ll have my little red sewing machine to keep me occupied, alongside my laptop and iPhone, the hospital-provided tv & dvd player, and a huge backlog of films and tv to watch (that’s a season of The Wire per week. I think I can do it!). I am allowed visitors, two at a time, in restricted hours, and only if they have no coughs, colds, or anything, and I’m not allowed any flowers or outside food (Londoners please email first if you’d like to visit).
Other than that, I will be reading all my emails (though I probably won’t be able to reply to as many as I’d like so please forgive me!), going through the various activity packs sent by family and friends and FehrTrade readers, and opening cards (my mom has kindly offered to open up all the envelopes to avoid any germs passed on my postal workers. Yes, it is that serious that you NOT send me anything if you’re even the slightest bit ill).
My hospital address is:
Melissa Fehr
Derek Mitchell Unit
2nd Floor Cheyne Wing
King’s College Hospital
Denmark Hill
London SE5 9RS
UK
Another way to help out is to add yourself to your local bone marrow registry if you aren’t already. You only need to fill out a form and get a sample of blood taken at your GP or clinic and that’s it. And if you end up being a match for someone, then your immune system will be completely back to normal in three weeks (it’s not like donating a kidney or something where you’re missing something for the rest of your life, for instance). Please go here in the USA or here in the UK to get yourself on the list.
The good news is that I’m young, fit, and I’m being treated at the UK’s leading centre for bone marrow disorders (their dedicated bone marrow transplant unit is very impressive), so the outlook is as good as it can possibly be.
Tags: hospitalComment [25]
Ruffled pink girlie dress
28 June 2009, 22:04I hadn’t planned on making this dress, but I suddenly remembered it was our neighbour Matilda’s fourth birthday today so I went over and took some measurements yesterday, and chose dress #6 from the Fall (Herfst) 2008 Knippie idee magazine:
Remember back at Christmas I made this as a top for my niece? You might also remember Matilda from the knit balaclavas I made her at Christmas…
This time I made the smallest in the size range, 98, after measuring Matilda (who’s turning 4), whereas I’d made the biggest size, 128, for my niece who was barely 6 then.
Here’s the dress, front and back, laid out flat:
But of course, as any parent of a four year old will tell you, that’s the most still that dress ever was! Matilda changed into it immediately after opening it up, and stayed in it for the entire party.
And fuelled by chocolate cake and juice, we got to see how the ruffles moved as she zipped around, twirled about, and jumped up and down (I even had some interest in sewing the grown up version!)
The dress itself was really easy to sew – it’s essentially a long teeshirt with semi-circular ruffles topstitched on to the bottom the whole way around. I just finished the ruffle edges with the overlocker for a RTW finish and used a bit of that pink and black flowered fabric as the neck band for contrast. I told her mum and dad that I’ve got the pattern now if she outgrows this one too soon! I’m just happy she really likes it, and felt comfortable enough to play in it and not worry about spilling or messing it up! Little kids can be really fickle so anything more than a “eww, clothes? Where’s the toys?!?” reaction makes me ecstatic!
Tags: dress, kids, knippie-idee, knitComment [2]
Punk words day dress
25 June 2009, 11:53I adore my pink flowered day dress so much that I just had to make another version!
If you recall, I blended two similar dresses from the Feb 09 issue of KnipMode together into one! I took the top half of #15 (on the left) and the bottom of #18 (on the right) and joined them together at the waist seam to make a really comfortable, casual dress for lounging around the moorings.
This time I changed the fabric to use some fantastic punk words jersey from Crybaby’s Boutique and some solid black cotton interlock I picked up in Brighton for the rest:
The construction was pretty much the same as I’d done before, using the overolcker (serger) and coverstitch machines to make this a super quick project. I decided to raise the neckline a few inches this time, and make it round instead of V-shaped just for something different. Then, as it was hanging on my dressform, I decided it needed something else on the neckline so I pleated some leftover punk scraps into a rosette, and sewed a silver metal button in the centre to create a quick removable brooch:
Because nothing says punk like a brooch, right? ha!
The good thing is, I love this day dress just as much as the first version, and once again, it’s just so easy to wear – just slip it on and go! I can wear these to work or down the shops, and they’re comfortable enough for lounging, too.
Apart from a special request sewed this weekend, this will likely be my last project sewn before going into hospital on Monday, fingers crossed, though we’ve just done a major run to IKEA to completely remodel my sewing room so I’ll mostly be assembling furniture, reorganising, and rebuilding that in the meantime…
Tags: dress, knipmode, knitComment [13]
Green sweatshirt bolero
23 June 2009, 15:11I posted a few in progress photos of this bolero last week, but I’m happy to announce now that the embellishment is complete, and so is the bolero!
The pattern is from the March 09 KnipMode, the same issue which bore the recent faux-wrap jeanskirt, and it’s just a simple cropped jacket for knits, with 3 pattern pieces (not counting the few facings I drafted).
It’s a cute little jacket with some metal jersey snaps from the front…
…and then, as I turn to the back…
…a silver sailing aak emerges!
It’s my first try with this technique, but with a bit of silver metallic paint, a freezer paper stencil, and and old aak barge icon as my design, I was able to get a really clean and neat stencil on the back of the shirt in very little time at all. I first printed out the design onto regular paper, then I laid it on top of the freezer paper (shiny side down) and taped both to my rotary cutter mat. Then, with an Xacto knife and the aid of a ruler, I cut out all the dark areas, then untaped everything and really carefully pressed the freezer paper onto the bolero with a hot iron. Then I just had to dab the paint on and wait for it to dry before peeling the freezer paper off. I heat set it using a press cloth, and that was it! My sample went through the washing machine as good as new, too. Really, this was so easy James is hankering to do his own designs now…
I didn’t have enough sweatshirting to line this jacket, as the pattern called for, so I used some matching green ribbing which I had bought at the same time and lined the front sections and made facings for the neckline edges (I just turned up and hemmed the bottom and sleeve hems).
This is just too easy to wear, I’ve found myself wearing it pretty much nonstop since the paint dried! I really recommend this pattern if you just want a casual little thing to throw on in cool evenings, or to layer over vests (tank tops) and teeshirts!
Tags: jacket, knipmode, knitComment [7]
Green bolero - in progress
17 June 2009, 11:04Ok this is finally the last of the green sweatshirting from Pennine Outdoor! Seen previously in my Patrones haute hoodie and my nephew’s birthday sweatshirt, if you recall… And this bolero (though really it’s a cropped jacket since it closes in the centre) pattern is from the March 09 KnipMode, the same issue which bore the recent faux-wrap jeanskirt.
So here it is on my dressform, Susan, looking pretty darned complete. What’s missing, I hear you ask? Well, it’s not got the FehrTrade label yet, for one, but the only other thing that’s missing is the painted silver design I’m planning on adding to the back! I know,, I know – me in “decorative” shock!
Here’s a scrap piece painted with the silver metallic paint and aak stencil and with a bit of help from my friend the freezer paper, I should hopefully have a finished version to model awfully soon…
I just want to test heat-setting and washing the scrap first before I paint my bolero, as I’m sure you understand!
Until then, I’m putting this one aside while I sew up another version of my KnipMode summer day dress, as the first one is rapidly becoming my favourite go-to dress and I’d really like another.
Tags: jacket, knipmode, knitComment [3]
Easy cowl knit top
13 June 2009, 10:10After over week of agonising waiting, I’ve finally now got a revised admission date (29 June) which means I’ve got two more weeks to sew!
First up is a modified version of Simplicity 2580 (which my mom brought me from America), sewn up in the £1.70 lycra knit remnant from Brighton! I realised wearing it to work yesterday tht the pale turquiose here matches my spring coat exactly, too…
I took the front and back bodice pattern pieces from View D, plus the sleeves from View C, then lengthened the back by about 8 inches (though if I do this again I’d make it 9 or 10 inches), and eyeballed a new lower front pattern piece to make this a top (by “eyeballing”, I mean I made sure the top edge was the same as the underbust seam in the front, it was about 8 inches tall, and curved at the side seams to look okay).
I sewed this together in an hour or two using my overlocker (serger) and coverstitch machines, assembling it the way I saw fit, and only looked at Simplicity’s instructions afterward. GAG. Ok, people often rant about Burda’s magazine instructions being terrible, but at least they don’t usually result in a crappy finish if you can understand what they mean.
So in the interests of freeing home sewers from extraneous raw seams, here’s how I asembled my top:
- Fuse vilene bias tape onto the back shoulder seams and back curved neck edge to prevent them stretching out of shape
- Throw away their back facing pattern piece, and just cut yourself a stretchy strip of fabric an inch or so wide, and long enough to fit the back neckline (make it longer and cut it down after you’ve pinned it in place if you want to save yourself some hassle!). Place the right side of the bias strip onto the right side of the back neck edge and serge (or zigzag stitch) in place.
- Flip the strip to the inside and coverstitch (or twin needle!) 1/4” or so from the folded over edge
- Unfold the upper front (cowl) piece so it lies flat. Pin one set of shoulders to the shoulders of the back piece, then bring the other set of front shoulders around to sandwich around the same back shoulder seam. You should now have the fold of the front drape around the coverstitched edge of the back shoulders. Serge in place through all 3 layers.
- Flip the right sides out. Take the “eyeballed” lower front piece, and pin it to the right side of the outer upper front, right sides together. Then bring the lining side of the upper front around to the same lower front seam, right side facing wrong. Serge through all 3 layers, and flip right sides out.
- You should now have nicely concealed seams on the shoulders and under-bust seams!
- Fold under the outer edge of the sleeve and coverstitch (or twin needle), then serge the inner edge to the armscye, treating the upper front pieces as one. (if I were making a sleeveless top, I’d cut a stretchy strip for each side and do the same as I did on the back neck edge)
- Serge the side seams, then fold up the bottom edge and coverstitch (or twin needle) the hem!
I have a huge weakness for cowl necks, and I’ve got a stretchy RTW cowl top that I’ve never fully been able to replicate to my liking, but I’m definitely going to reuse this pattern. The drape of the cowl is just perfect for me, and for once, the fit on a Big 4 patterns isn’t crazy baggy! This modified top took up less than a metre of fabric, too, so it’ll be a great use for those odd bits of knits that are too big for the scraps bin but not really enough for much else. Oh, and another PR member also pointed out that becuse the upper front is doubled, it’s also a good pattern for lightweight lycra knits, too.
Coming up next (I think): a quick sweatshirt bolero and a Breton top…
Tags: knit, simplicity, top, tutorialComment [4]
Brighton fabric shops
7 June 2009, 19:39On Saturday we took a “cheer me up” trip down to Brighton, with the dual purpose of taking me back to my student days (I studied at Sussex for a year in 99/00) and buying some more fabric in some new uncharted ground! I did a bit of research first and found there were a few fabric shops clustered around the North Laines and again on Western Road, so we made our attack plan based on these…
New Fabric Fair
51 Gardner Street, BN1 1UN, 01273 605512
A small shop stocked to the rafters with bolts everywhere, including leather offcuts outside. A huge variety of braided trims, dress polys, stretch lace, and zippers for a pound each. Some great linens, wool suitings, and soft brushed cottons here and the husband & wife team were very attentive, though bring cash as they don’t do cards or cheques!
I bought this super soft brushed cotton (and a matching peach zipper) with this BWOF dress in mind…
Ditto Fabrics
21 Kensington Gardens, Brighton, BN1 4AL, 01273 603771
www.dittofabrics.co.uk (though the owners stress that not everything in store is online because it takes so much time to photograph everything!)
Really great quality stuff here – lots of designer name offcuts and really nice quality viscose knits, denims, silk charmeuses, and solid colour interlocks. The staff were super helpful and reminded me to prewash the fabrics and started talking about other customers who’d made tops from the fabric I bought. They stock Gutermann threads and a full range of Big 4 + Burda envelope patterns, too. My favourite of the 5 fabric shops I visited in Brighton!
I really needed some plain black cotton interlock so I grabbed a bunch of that, plus some kiddie print cotton for baby gifts (SO many pregnant friends due in Aug & Sept!!). And then I fell in love with their viscose/lycra knits, which they had in about twenty different prints and were soooo soft with great recovery. I finally settled on this black and white swirling dots print which is an offcut from Dolce & Gabbana (at a very reasonable £6.99/m, too!). I resisted the temptation of the many silk charmeuse prints (at £10.99/m they were cheaper than the prints at Goldhawk Road!) and grabbed another designer fabric, this time a 100% cotton suiting from Prada, with either the BWOF June cover dress or one of KnipMode’s shirt dresses in mind…
Michelle LeMaitre
20 Church Street, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 1RB, 01273 738836
A small shop just off the North Laines that stocks only quilting cottons in fabulous designs. I noticed a huge variety of Alexander Henry and Michael Miller here, with even a Merimekko or two thrown in. The A. Henry designs were a bit steep at £12.99/m but you’re paying for the name and print here. I didn’t end up buying anything here, but I was sorely tempted by the buff half naked cowboys print…
Fabric Land
76 Western Road, Brighton, BN1 2HA, 01273 822257
www.fabricland.co.uk
The biggest of the Brighton fabric shops, spread over two big floors with loads of trims, lace, buttons, haberdashery, costume fabrics, and jeryes. Beware though as some of the cotton jerseys felt kinda cheap, but everything was well labelled for price and some for fibre count. It was really nice to see the shop bursting at the seams with lots of people on a Saturday afternoon, and their site says this location is open Sundays, too.
I must’ve felt a hundred cheap cotton jerseys before I found this really nice quality navy hoop stripe jersey, and then directly after finding that I scored this lycra jersey in the remnant bin, which I think should be just big enough to make a sleeveless cowl top from this dress pattern my mom just brought.
I’ve added photos of all of these individually, with details of the amounts and price to the bottom of my Fabrics gallery if you want more details. I think the short version here is that if you’re going to Brighton for the day, first head towards the North Laines (which is a great area anyway, with lots of quirky shops and cafes) and then come back towards the clock tower and follow Western Road out to Fabric Land, and if you’ve got time (which we didn’t) hit up the two shops in Hove.
View Brighton fabric shops in a larger map.
(Remember, I’ve got my favourite London fabric shops in a map already!)
James even did some shopping and got this hilarious canvas shopper in the style of Keep Calm & Carry On!
We felt it wise to obey the bag, and bought more fabric! You’re all welcome.
Tags: shoppingComment [8]
Blue Sky sewing
3 June 2009, 20:13Last second delays, delays, delays are really getting me down. So last night I forced myself to sew a quick knit top to cheer me up and give me something new to wear…
For me, “quick” means:
1. the pattern’s already traced (and previously made is a bonus!)
2. the fabric is in my stash, washed and ready to go
3. Made from knits so no stopping to press seams
Luckily, I fondly remembered BWOF 11-2008 #125, so I went through my traced pattern pile (I knew I kept all of those for a reason!) and whipped this up in under two hours.
(For any doubting Thomases, you’re all getting a great peek of my latest accessory popping out from my neckline there…)
I made this back in November in black interlock, and the only change I made this time around was to raise the V neck about 1.5 inches, and it’s now much better for me, but I have a feeling others might still find it too low.
I used thin self facings on the front and back neck edges, serging the two right sides together, then flipping the facing to the inside and coverstitching close to the folded edge. In fact, one of the reasons I made this shirt again was that I remembered it used a ton of twin stitching the first time around, and it’d be a good, quick top to give me some more coverstitch practice (in addition to being a cute top I could whip out in under two hours, from “I think I’ll make a top” to wearing it).
The fabric is a thin blue cotton jersey with screenprinted birds that I bought from Crybaby’s Boutique a while back (my 1 yard of this cost $6.25 as my notes recall, and I see the coral colourway is still on sale). It’s pretty thin and went pretty wrinkly and the screenprinting became a bit scratchy after pre-washing so I had’t been quite sure what to do with it for a while, but I’m happy about the slouchy, laidback look of it here. I also wasn’t concerned about achieving a 100% (or hell, even 80%) perfect finish here, more in getting something wearable in the end, and I’m happy with this.
PS: I’ve done some searches online and put together a map of fabric stores in Brighton in prep for a possible trip back down to my old uni home on Saturday. Any native Brightonian sewers care to tell me if any of these are particularly great, pants, or somewhere in between?
Tags: bwof, knit, topComment [9]
Patterns from a suitcase
1 June 2009, 12:02My mom arrived on Friday morning, bearing a ridiculous amount of American cookies, candies, chocolates, cakes, and kitty treats, but also a few patterns that were on my wish list!
Vogue 1109 is a Sandra Betzina pattern for a knit top/tunic with really interesting seam lines. It kinda feels expected for all sewers to love SB without question, but to be honest, I don’t find her “all that” and this is the first pattern of hers I’ve even remotely liked (though not in either of those fabric choices, ugh) so I wanted to give it a try.
Simplicity 2647 is a knit dress with varying lengths and bodice treatments, but I really liked the short version with the wrapped side even though it’s quite similar to a Vogue pattern I already have.
Simplicity 2580 is another draped knit dress pattern, but this time I’m really looking forward to sewing the cowl neck view, either as a dress or shortened to a top. I adore cowl necks and I think this looks like a great pattern, albeit with some alterations (the cowl is self lined yet they still want you to use facings? On a knit. uhhhhh no.).
Vogue 8576 is a Divine Details sheath dress with incredible seam lines that actually doesn’t look too complicated to make after giving the instructions the once-over. I swear I saw a girl wearing at Denmark Hill station last week, in the exact same colour even!
And finally, Simplicity 9686 is a mid-90s OOP pattern for shorts (meh.) and skorts (yay!) that came highly recommended on Pattern Review recently, so for the grand price of a dollar I thought it was worth trying.
And the last item in the photo there is some black flowered denim I bought in junior high that I very distinctly remember making into a tote bag to carry all my school books (quite possibly my first and only real sewing project before the current era)! I had no idea it even still existed but she found it lurking in my old bedroom!
I also popped in at the big WH Smiths in Victoria Station on Saturday night on our way to see Wicked (squeal!) and grabbed the newest Sew Hip and (despite having a subscription) the June BWOF. Having my mom around suddenly became a really good excuse to buy Burda a fortnight earlier than my subscription copy is likely to arrive (she’ll get the later copy, you see)! I was really disappointed in the first issue of Sew Hip, but I’ve heard it’s getting better and a bit more dressmaker focused so I thought I’d give it another try. And the front cover pun of “Sew your own veg!” just made me smile.
Tomorrow is the BIG DAY so more on that tomorrow or Wednesday if I can get my 3G connection working properly on the inside… Delayed again with less than 24hrs notice. I have no energy left to talk about this and I wish I’d never mentioned it to begin with.
Comment [8]