Some good reads

If there's anything I love as much as sewing, it's probably reading. There's the kids and the husband, but, y'know, reading has been in my life a lot longer. Plus, I'm totally willing to share it.

 

So I did some pretty good reads when I was holiday, and since I'm a bit of a dork I took photos of them all so I could remember what a great time I had reading them.  They were kind of so good that I wanted to tell people, and as I don't go to book club, just like I don't have a sewing circle, I'm going to share the love here. If you're looking for some good books, try these!

 

And while you're at it, ponder this: are there any good novels that prominently feature sewing? Like actual sewing as part of the story, not 'just' seamstresses? It was at the back of my mind for two weeks and I couldn't come up with a single one. You? 

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Bring Up the Bodies is the sequel to Hilary Mantel's hugely successful Wolf Hall. Both follow the life and career of Thomas Cromwell as he schemes and intrigues his way around the court of Henry VIII. They're cleverly written from Cromwell's point of view, with such great wit that to be honest I basically developed a crush on him. I heard that some people found Wolf Hall difficult as it was sometimes unclear who the "he" is that's speaking or thinking - I didn't have a problem with this, and if I had one niggling doubt about Bring Up the Bodies, it's that every now and again Mantel clarifies this with a "he, Cromwell". I felt like slightly talked down to, as I'd kind of liked that about the first book: the plot expected you to follow the machinations going on, and the ambiguity reflected the shadowy politics of the time.  But this is a tiny complaint: the plot, characters and writing of both books are brilliant, and a great window into an interesting period of English history from a rarely-considered viewpoint.

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Peter Carey is a writer I keep coming back to without realising it, and Jack Maggs is a wonderful, lighthearted, easy-to-read pastiche of Dickens' London. Lovable rogues, grocers made good, a maid with a heart of gold and a renegade hypnotist: I can make no comment about this book except that it's an excellent, rollicking story.

Bonus tip: Carey's previous book Parrot and Olivier in America is also brilliant.

[Edited to add: double bonus - picture also features the Sunday Times where I have great fun spotting articles by my friend Nicci. There she is!]

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I'll be straight up about it: Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver was my least favourite of the four books I got through. Not to say that I didn't enjoy it: I did, immensely. The tale of an Appalachian farming family struggling to make ends meet as the landscape around them moves mysteriously, it's an earnest and open-hearted book - a bit like Kingsolver is inviting you in to her farm to talk crops and climate change over a cup of tea. And that, for me, was the problem - the whole thing just wasn't quite credible enough. I never really felt like the characters or their story had escaped the author's control over the point she wanted to make. Still, it is a good read, and I wouldn't want to put anyone off!

 

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And finally, John Irving. Has John Irving ever written a book that is not good? I don't think so, although happily I have yet to exhaust his back catalogue (I shall likely feel bereft once I have done). In One Person is his most recent novel, telling the story of a bisexual boy growing up in Vermont. In the sense that the book is clearly 'on the side' of main character Billy and his rainbow cast of friends, it's a politically-tinged book. But, as with all Irving novels, it's the heart and soul of the story that sucks you in. The sometimes exuberant or outlandish people and plot elements are completely outweighed by the gentleness in the telling. It's a beautiful book.

 

Bonus tip here too: much less 'political' and my runaway favourite Irving book so far is Last Night in Twisted River. Absolutely excellent. Contains plenty of bears.

 

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So come on then, answers to my question please! Stories abut sewing? Preferably good ones...!

 



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Marie Claire Idées N° 94

How about we flick through some crafty French eye candy today?

At Christmas I was given a year's subscription to Marie Claire Idées. It's basically the same as the 'normal' Marie Claire, but for crafts. I like it not just because of the pretty pictures and the things to make, but also because it's a little window into the French-speaking world of DIY, which to my eyes is a bit different to the Anglophone world I usually live in.

Want to see what I mean? Let's take a look.

The first few pages are filled with bonnes idées - good ideas. Which in this case means, shopping. Nice pretty things to inspire and, if you have pots of money, buy. I'm always pleased to see Belgians featuring, of course: that's Magritte on the mugs, for those who wouldn't know :-)

But let's move on to the crafts.



Some kid sewing patterns: cute enough, and I'd be tempted to use their gilet pattern if I didn't already know about the extremely similar free download from Mme Zsazsa.



Things with sticks. The first is an idée masking tape, the second a jewellery hanger. I have to say that both these are far too homemade for me, but each to his or her own. It's democratic :-)

There are some decent knitting ideas. I like this blanket quite a lot:

This snood is one of the relatively few things in the magazine that deliberately links crafting with the catwalk:

Along with a spread on how to shop stylishly from your local Parisian thrift shop:

But some of the other features, I have to say, well - I raised my eyebrows. I mean, there's the aspirational feature on people who live in a house like this:

I don't know about you, but I can't imagine there being a lot of common ground between them and the demographic who might make this:

That's a hand-sewn jacket with hand-knit sleeves and pockets. Is it just me, or is that a bit insane?

I think that's what I find a little bit strange about this magazine. It looks chic, just as I want to expect from the French. But much of the content is an awful lot more frumpy than what the modern Anglophone crafting world looks like. Or am I out of step? I don't really read craft magazines in English so I wouldn't know about them - maybe it's the online crafting community, whatever the language, that's a few steps ahead in terms of functional and fashionable crafting. Is there a cultural/linguistic divide here - or am I just wrong? It's always possible ;-)

This article seems like another example, though - an info piece on yarn bombing. There are so many incredible knitters and hookers in the French-speaking world, it hardly seems possible that this hasn't hit their towns and cities yet. 

Although I suspect that attitudes to public space are rather different in France; perhaps that explains it.

Anyway, apart from that, we move on to articles in those classic women's magazine territories: beauty and cooking.

The recettes maison for home beauty treatments look pretty good in fact, and are one of the few things from this edition I'm likely to actually make.

The food looks good too, and I may well try some of these if the mag makes it from craft room to kitchen at any point.

 

 

 Sadly though, the cover picture is not about how to cook the cakes but how to sew the tablecloth.

I was a bit gutted by that to be honest.

There's also a travel feature on Angkor Wat and pretty things to bring back. This seemed a bit out of place to me in a crafts magazine - but it does reflect the structure of non-crafting women's monthly mags.

Sorry for the small pic - click to enlarge if interested!

And finally, at the end there's the cahier d'explications - instructions for how to make everything shown in the previous pages. Which is the point at which I think, nah - not actually going to bother.

Click for the bigger picture...

But I do enjoy looking at it. I've rarely made anything from Marie Claire Idées, but it always makes me explode with my own ideas, a bit like French Pinterest on paper.

Any other readers out there? What do you think? Does something like this exist in English? What other crafty magazines should I be reading?

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And with that, I'm off to watch Tilly in episode one of the Great British Sewing Bee. Isn't this the most exciting thing on television ever???!!!!

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Skirts galore!

Have you had enough of me and my skirts yet :-)?

I got skirt number three of four finished this weekend, and am sitting here happily wearing it (guess what? It's rather lovely!).  The plan was to show it to you today too, but the photo-taking part has yet to happen, so I thought instead I would fill you in on the patterns I'm using.

This was the pre-cut skirt sewing pile, and on top there is the pattern book: Allemaal Rokjes by Mme Zsazsa.

OK, so, it's in Dutch - this is why I figured it would be fun to share it :-). Because there's a rather vibrant sewing and blogging community in the Netherlands and Flanders too, and this book has taken it by storm. In fact, on its launch a few months ago it rocketed immediately to the top of the bestseller lists, toppling Jeroen Meus' latest cookbook, and he's basically the Jamie Oliver of Flanders, so in fact it's probably fair to say that it's taken the entire Dutch-speaking publishing world by storm too. There's a sudden rash of sewing books coming out this autumn, in what was previously a pretty much non-existent market segment. Allemaal Rokjes is already in its sixth or seventh print run.

And basically this is because, regardless of the language, it's an absolutely fantastic pattern book.

These (above) are all the patterns included. Each of these skirts comes in sizes from girls' age two up to women's size 46 (I think). They're all very well drafted: the fit is true to size, and the shapes are great.

The book contains detailed picture tutorials for each one, as well as variations and customisations, and more tutorials for techniques like installing zips and sewing with stretch fabric.

Mme Zsazsa has a wonderful way of writing which is also deployed to great effect on her blog (although she's often hilariously colloquial enough to confuse the hell out of google translate). She's down to earth and witty and completely demystifies the sewing and construction process.

The title Allemaal Rokjes manages in two little words to convey both "All About Skirts" and "Everything About Skirts" - which very neatly encapsulates the whole book. Not being a proper translator, I can't think of a phrase that does this job so well in English. In my head I think of it as "Skirts Galore!" - which kind of echoes the exuberant circus photography throughout.

Well I'm guessing any Dutch-speaking readers out there have got this book already, right? If not, why have you resisted?? :-)

Do you ever use patterns/sewing books in languages other than your native one?  I wonder if it takes having a certain confidence in your sewing skills to do so? For example, I've learnt a lot of sewing vocabulary by using this book, because I was able to match up my pre-existing knowledge of the techniques with the descriptions in the tutorials. Needing to attack it with a dictionary as well would have stopped me at the outset!

And what about reading blogs in other languages? There's so much out there, and sometimes it seems like we're all inhabiting the same worlds but in parallell. One of the reasons I wanted to share this here was to overlap mine a little bit.

So, what other non-English blogs should I know about?

And last but not least: what's your favourite pattern book? You'll have guessed that so far, this one is mine :-)

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Book review: The Perfect Fit

Well garment sewing might not be my bread and butter, but when I do get on to it, oh what a joy it is to finally be able to make things that fit!

For me as a self-taught clothesmaker, with absolutely no background in fashion or design, learning about adjusting for fit/shape has been crucial to sewing success - not to mention totally enlightening. I honestly had no real idea what the problems were with badly fitting clothes - but no more! It's utterly ruined shopping, of course: ohmigod I would never buy anything with that kind of armhole gape, etc etc.

Anyway, in the interests of sharing the sewing goodness, I thought I'd do a review of this book from which I have leared everything I know about fitting clothes using patterns (because I ain't even thinking about blocks and draping yet, people). You never know, someone might find it useful, and that's what the sew-o-sphere is about, no?

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The starting point is obvious, really: commercial clothing patterns, just like ready to wear clothes, are drafted to fit as many people as possible using 'standard' shapes and sizes.

However, going from that piece of obviousness to actually making something that does fit, isn't obvious at all.

Of course, you can always google full bust adjustment or small bust adjustment or whatever. But how do you know which adjustments you need in the first place? Well, like this:

Illustrated diagnosis of poor fit, both in detailed sections (shoulders! neck! thighs! bum!), and with an overview:

The pictures are dated (and these colours weirdly resemble my daughter's dress), but it's extremely clear and helpful. I'll out myself as an instructions-reader before saying this, but it's really worth going through the whole book pretty thoroughly before you even start on your actual patterns. I could identify almost immediately from the pictures which my most common fit problems are and what I needed to do about them. The full bust I was aware of. The narrow back, not at all (I had been blaming my innocent shoulders). And to realise that armhole gape is typical between sizes and easily solved was a total revelation.

Becoming aware of all this has also been a factor in making better pattern choices for clothes that will actually suit me, or be easily adjustable to fit well. Though I must say that I read the introductory sections on body shapes and styles with scepticism.

As it's been put very well by others, don't tell me how to dress!

I also completely ignore the part about paper fitting the pattern first. I don't have five pairs of hands and I'd rather just get on with it. (I do make very quick muslims out of old sheets, though).

An exciting picture of the contents page:

You've got an introduction to fitting and then sections on "Understanding your figure", "Body measurements", "Pattern adjustments", and "Fine tuning". The pattern adjustments themselves are organised by area, i.e. fitting the back, shoulders, bust, waist, etc.

Each section is illustrated with yet more dated photos showing the potential fit problems, and illustrating in 2-4 steps how to adjust your pattern to solve them.

And then there are technique overviews, like this lowdown on fitting with darts:

Other things I particularly like about it:

• Standard ease allowances are given for loose/medium/tight styles in each body area.
• For each fitting problem, there's a minor adjustment and a major adjustment, with tips on which one you should use when.
• For each adjustment, it gives figures for the maximum/minimum amount to take out or add to the pattern piece.
• The adjustment steps are very easy to follow.
• It's not hard to find or work out what changes might be needed to other pattern pieces as a result of fit changes to the rest of the pattern (e.g. making the sleeve piece smaller if you first made the armhole smaller to remove gaping).

My main query about this book and its approach is whether it's possible one could be so shaped as to be beyond its help.  Have I found it useful because my shape doesn't seem to vary that hugely from the standard catered for in commercial patterns, or would it really be useful for everyone, regardless?

That question aside, in the end my verdict on it can only be that in my experience as an intermediate-level home sewer of clothes for (mostly) myself - it's invaluable.  None of the clothes you see me wearing on this blog would have been possible without it!

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Do you have trouble making clothes that fit well? How do you handle it? Any other tips, ideas of good resources? Or do you find that standard patterns fit you well enough without adjusting? 

Also, if anyone's reading who actually knows how to draft their own 'real' pattern blocks, I would love to hear your opinions on a book like this. I bet it gives you a very different perspective!

Thoughts?

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