Books on Audio: At Home

I recently listened to Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life on audio, read by the author, and I really enjoyed it. It’s something I could probably listen to multiple times. In At Home, he provides a rich perspective on things we take for granted today, like why we live in houses, why we have flush toilets, furniture, electric lighting, gardens, and so on, by taking a deep look into the history of his home – a rectory built in 1851 in England. He talks about the architects and inventors that made all the comforts of home that we enjoy today possible. Prior to the 19th c., most people scratched out a living and had very few comforts to speak of.

Things to add to the bucket list:

Visit Skara Brae
In At Home, Bryson talks about some of the earliest known homes – Skara Brae being one of them.

Visit Catalhoyuk
This is another curious site of early homes found in Turkey – Catalhoyuk - Bryson referred to.

Catalhoyuk dates back to 7500 BCE – 5700 BCE, and Skara Brae dates back to 3180 BCE–2500 BCE. Both predate the Pyramids, and Stonehenge.

BurdaStyle bag: finished

And here is the finished bag:

Made from an old coat that my mom gave me (to recycle). It looks surprisingly expensive, and it was practically free! I used the bag pattern from the new BurdaStyle book, and I had the other materials on hand.

I love the new Singer Heavy Duty machine, which made possible completion of this project.

What I’m working on: the BurdaStyle Bag

The bag pattern from The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook:

Continuing to feed my bag obsession. I found an old leather coat that was very worn, with the intention of cutting it up and making something out of it, and this bag came to mind. I had cut the pieces out before I left on the trip to San Francisco, and started assembling them when I came back. Not quite finished yet, but I’m liking how it’s turning out. 

In other news, my primary sewing machine (Janome My Excel) continues to fail me on heavy fabrics (and leather). It was made for home deco work, but it’s 10-15? years old now and I’ve done all I can. I bought some time by taking it apart and thoroughly cleaning it, but the needle plate on it is warped and I think that is contributing to the problem of skipped stitches. So…

I went for the very affordable Singer Heavy Duty 4423. I seriously don’t need a lot of bells and whistles. I just need something to get the job done, and it’s doing it. 

Travelog: San Francisco

You sometimes find the darndest things in airports. Like, for example, this week at SFO (San Francisco International airport), I spotted this lovely exhibit of sewing machines and other sewing stuff: link opens the whole Google+ photo album. They had an impressive collection of early sewing machines, most of the major brands represented, an array of vintage accessories like thimbles, needlecases, patterns, and such. Here are just a few photos that I snapped with my phone camera.

Beautiful Singer

A pattern drafting system

19th century gown

Lovely sewing kit

Toy sewing machines

Chatelaines

Patterns

Another 19th c. gown

That’s not actually why I’m in San Francisco this week, but it was an unexpected bonus.

Making stuff out of other stuff: upcycling mens shirts

Taking my inspiration from the Cut-Up Couture book, I completed a couple projects over the weekend that took a few very ordinary mens shirts and transformed them into interesting clothes for me.

This long coat was made from two plain black sweat shirts that I got at Kmart, on clearance, for $2 each. It’s really cuddly, too. The deviated quite a bit from the version that is described in the book. I kept the long sleeves, added the lapels, and did not include the patch pockets. 

front

back

This top is made from two different mens shirts, also $2 each from Kmart, and it’s a little more obvious how they went together. Once again, I used an idea from the book as inspiration, but added my own touches. I had to add the buttoned panel on the front to make it fit around the bosom, and I added the ruffles on the sleeves to make it look more girly. 

Note: I draped the shirts onto my toile before cutting into them, because the measurements given in the book were definitely for a smaller person than I. I made adjustments accordingly.

Bug-building and book-buying continues…

My multi-part series on working with foam floor tiles to make an alien costume is coming along over at the d-Infinity blog. This project is quite a departure from my usual skill set, but I’m enjoying it. I’m pretty much making it up as I go along, but the results are pretty cool-looking. 


In other news, I splurged on a few new sewing books.

Cut-Up Couture, Yamase

Do you have a lot of large-to-XL men’s shirts lying around that you would like to recycle into wearable clothes? Well this is the manual for that. This book takes more than just a cut-apart-and-piece-together approach. It deconstructs the garments in clever ways to remake them into modern couture-looking dresses, skirts, and tops. I already dove in and made up one of the projects using a couple of t-shirts. The only criticism I have is that all the projects are one size, and need to be adjusted to fit real people. It inspires and challenges me to look at recycling old clothing in new and different ways.

The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook, Abousteit

I have been wanting a copy of this since it came out, just to have it. I follow the BurdaStyle blog and have downloaded and used many patterns from the web site. There are at least a few styles in here that I would like to make for myself, and it includes the pattern sheets and lots of ideas for variations. 

Fabric-by-Fabric One-Yard Wonders, Yaker

This was an indulgence. There’s something in here for everyone, from fashion accessories, to stuffed toys. There are a lot of patterns for children’s clothing, which I don’t have much use for, but plenty of other useful patterns, and it comes with the pattern sheets. I think I like this volume more than the first iteration of One-Yard Wonders because it has more things in it that I might use. 

Building a Sci-fi Bug Costume

I am writing about another project that isn’t exactly about sewing here:

http://roll-d-infinity.blogspot.com/2012/03/building-better-bug-costume-part-1.html 

http://roll-d-infinity.blogspot.com/2012/03/building-better-bug-costume-part-2.html 

Building a Better "Bug" Costume, Part 1: Inspiration

Reposted from d-Infinity blog.

Being a seamstress for many years, I typically address all of my costuming needs with a sewing machine. I can transform fabric into just about anything I need. However, as I become more deeply involved in sci-fi and fantasy costuming, I find that mere fabric is not quite enough to create the effects that I’m going for. Specifically, I want to build a better “bug” costume – an alien with insect-like exoskeleton or armor – without spending a fortune on new tools and materials. It also needs to fit a range of human sizes: Medium to 2XL.

As I set about my task, I will share what I learn with you here, in this multi-part series. Suggestions and comments are welcome! Now let’s begin.

So What Does it Look Like?
I want my design to suggest something that my audience will be familiar with, but still be original. So I am mining the Interwebs for photos for inspiration.

Our old friend

Our other old friend

Check out this collection. I will be adding more photos to it as the project rolls along. I have found that Pinterest is a great way to save and organize photos like this for your projects.

What would you use for inspiration? Feel free to share your thoughts and comments here.

I am now working on some rough sketches for what I want my “bug” to look like. When I figure out how to scan these sketches into the computer, that will be the subject of Part 2 in this series! Stay tuned.

Recent adventures in Orlando, FL

Even though I was in Orlando all week, I wouldn’t call it a vacation. It’s more like a job that I love.

MegaCon had it’s moments. I rocked the “Mad Men”-inspired dress that I made, and got lots of compliments. I like being recognized for my mad sewing skillz.

Me with Space Marine from Warhammer 40k, I think?

Otherwise, I helped run registration for the USMSC event, and on Saturday, I put on a monster suit and played “alien” for a few rounds, to give some of the other NPCs break. Playing “monster” is a physically demanding job, maybe more so than playing marine. I really enjoyed doing it at my first MegaCon, and that’s kinda what got me hooked into playing this game, but after I got banged up pretty I good, I went back to the registration table. I didn’t get to see much else of the con. I walked around the exhibit hall for maybe 20 mins., ogled the Star Wars stuff, and that was it. I saw lots of very young Doctor Who’s, a few good-looking super heroes, and TONS of kids in bad wigs and mediocre anime costumes.

So MegaCon, was MegaCon. It was a good team-building experience for our crew, if not a great success for Mindgame Productions.

The following week in Orlando was like any old work week, except that I was sitting on someone else’s couch, and I had a really bad cold. It seemed that lots of people had gotten sick that week. “Patient Zero” was probably at MegaCon. I am still hacking up the remnants of said virus. The only marginally interesting thing that I did was go to Skycraft - a candy store for tech nerds. This is the place where junk from old data centers and Radio Shack stores goes to die. This is the place where you go to find parts for building your robot, props for filming a science fiction movie, etc.

We picked up what Stefan calls a missile case, for $40. This is a big plastic “Pelican”-style shipping case that was probably used to ship servers or large electronic equipment. I can’t imagine what it would cost to buy new. They had stacks of these cases there.

Last Saturday was the Amerika airsoft milsim event at Wayne’s World of Paintball in Ocala. Now that was hella fun times. After helping out with registration in the early morning,

Check-in at Wayne’s World. Photo by Brian Gilbert.

I actually got to go out and play!!! It had been a long time since I had that kind of fun. My gear performed well. I managed to stay in the game a lot longer than I thought I could. The nice weather was an extra added bonus.

Here, I am holding another player’s rifle while he is “interrogated,” while my own M177 dangles from it’s sling. Photo by Chantal Jost. I’m wearing black, because I was playing a “bad guy,” LOL.

…and then it was a long drive back home.

"Mad Men"-inspired dress

Mad Men + USMSC…and here it is:

 

Made from this pattern:

Why the digital camo fabric you might ask? WHY NOT?

And the black velcro patches on the front and sleeves are for morale patches. Stef suggests that I wear boots and duty belt with it, but I want to go the other direction – pumps and a frilly hat…