on failure

I thought it might be time to talk about failure.

Some weeks ago we thought we might have a picnic one Sunday evening. I don’t know about you, but I associate very retro images with the word ‘picnic’ – something like the picnic scene in Mad Men. So I decided that if we were going on a picnic, I needed a full Betty-Draper-style skirt.

By coincidence, Kris had posted a link to what looked like the perfect full skirt, and it looked so easy to sew – two rectangles, some gathers, a zip, you’re done. I also had a fabric stashed that would take the retro theme even further – Hawaian print in dirty greens and blacks with bits of tan. Obviously everything was coming together for me to cut the perfect retro dash at my picnic.

:: oh dear…

You’ve already guessed where this is going, haven’t you? The skirt was an utter failure. I’m not posting a picture of me wearing it because it would set my body image self esteem back a year or two, it was that bad. But you might be able to guess from the picture above that it came out all wrong – drapey where it should have been stiff, full and heavy around the waist, not full enough around the hips. To top it off, the zip I used wouldn’t stay closed – it would slide open every time I moved.

But failures are for learning from, yes? So here’s what I learnt from the Skirt of Fail.

1. I cannot imagine a fabric into being something it is not. The fabric I chose was the perfect print. But not the perfect farbic. It was drapey and soft. It was never going to stand out stiff and crisp the way the skirt should have. I think I knew this at the start, because I tried to correct for it by adding an underskirt or black cheesecloth – forgetting that cheesecloth was going to drape as well, and creating a result which was think and bunchy but still drapey.
2. Icannot imagine my body into being a shape it is not. I love the full-skirted new-look look. Love it. But it is very hard to make it work on me. While I’ve got the small waist, it sits between a short body and larger hips and I’m not very tall. I need exactly the right full skirt, that flares out below the hips and doesn’t sit too high on the waist. The Skirt of Fail flared out from the waist, and it was full and thick over the hips, so my waist disappeared, my hips were two sizes larger, and I looked about 6″ shorter to boot.
3. If something is cheap, there’s usually a reason why. The zip for the skirt came from a batch I picked up at Reverse Garbage a few years ago, 10 for a dollar. There’s a reason they’d been sent for recycling: they’re broken. None of them will stay shut.
4. This technique for gathering fabric is FANTASTIC, and I will never ever go back to the way I used to do it (the traditional way, pulling the bobbin thread).

   :: the only good bit

5. I now know how to do an external zip. As you can see above, I did the zip so that all the zipper tape is on the outside of the garment – I got the idea from the dress you can see in this blog entry (which, by the way, is an example of a full skirt that I CAN wear). I really like this look, so I hope to be able to use it again soon.
6. I can have a perfectly fun time on a picnic even without a retro skirt. To go a-picnicking, I wore the dress in the picture below – it’s one I made in 2005. It’s faded now, but I still really like it. Probably because it’s made from a suitable fabric, it suits my body shape, and the zip was brand new, so it stays zipped up.

cushions | with bonus how-to

About this time last year (was it really that long ago?), I made some cushions for my loungeroom. At the time I intended to make another round of them in warmer tones, for winter.Well, winter came and went and I didn’t sew the cushions.

Summer came again, and I remembered we had a second cover for our sofa, in summery blue and white stripes. Which didn’t match the first set of cushions so well. Luckily, cushions are easy to make, and I had a gift voucher for fabric burning a hole in my pocket.

Here’s the new look.

:: fresh

The fabric is a beautiful cotton-linen blend. It was so restrained and beautiful that I knew immediately I wouldn’t be able to leave the shop without it.

:: in grey

And the shades of warm pale grey and duck egg blue look just right against the crisp stripes of the sofa.

:: in duck egg blue

These are so easy to make. I’ve written up a how-to which you can find in the my designs section. There are instructions for a 50cm square cushion, and a ‘recipe’ to fit the same design to any size.  Enjoy!

the sneak peak revealed

For those who didn’t click through to Ravelry from this post, here is the final view of the sneak peak.

It’s a hand towel. Given to my mum for Xmas. She seemed to like it, but insisted it was ‘too good’ to use as a handtowel, and so we had a brief, polite, ‘don’t-ruin-Xmas’ spat about that.

More pictures and details after the break.

friday five

:: five crafty ways to use less ::

1. unravel and reuse knitting wool
2. make do and mend: resources from the 1940s
3. make your own pads.
4. join the guerilla shopping bag movement
5. knit a jumper for a penguin

flannel pants

before

I bought these grey flannel pants at MUJI when I lived in London. They saw me through two winters, toasty warm. I haven’t worn them in 6 years, but I can’t bear to throw them out. I still love the fabric, but the cut is very 90′s. Look how long the crotch seam is.

I wanted to drop the waist down, but, women’s pants with pockets being an endangered species worthy of conservation, I wanted to keep the pockets. This is how I did it.

the makeover