Moth-erfucker

A while ago I hinted coyly about the one wearable sewing project I had completed, but not blogged about. It is the Phoebe skirt from Cal Patch’s wonderful book, Design-It-Yourself Clothes. I might write more about it another time, but for now suffice it to say that this was a good skirt, made in a soft, drapey woollen fabric, in a neutral colour that goes with everything; pockets deep and properly useful, lined in a red Liberty floral; a red silk lining so that it glides easily over tights: a very good skirt.

Good enough to….

… eat?

Fucking. Moths. Much of what is written about them is couched in very aggressive terms – ‘we are fighting A WAR on moths!’; ‘there is a BIBLICAL PLAGUE of moths!’; ‘MOTHS ATE MY KIDNEYS!!’, etc., and it’s easy to empathise with the rage. I felt very angry indeed with these insidious insects: a special, fearful, panicky kind of anger that comes from having a collection of several tens of thousands of yards of wool, and several drawers full to over-flowing with handknits. My skirt was not the only victim: they also destroyed Elphaba. She may have defied gravity, but she was no match for Tineola bisselliella.

The thing is, it’s my fault, not theirs, and that makes it all the more frustrating. It seems I was unwittingly creating a mothy Valhalla. With my central heating, I gave them a warm and inviting year-round breeding ground – a mothy Shagaluf. With all the stuff lying untouched and unworn at the back of my cupboard I provided a nice, quiet nursery for the pernicious progeny of all this uninhibited moth sex. And with the little bits of sweat or grime that I was too lazy to wash off, or too cheap to dry clean, I nourished those chomping larvae: I fed them with my own body, like, well, I hesitate to say ‘a gross mothy Jesus’, but effectively a gross mothy Jesus.

I’ve been a vegetarian since I was nine, and I try to stick up for all God’s creatures – even the unpopular ones. Pigeons? I love the graphic quality of their wing-bars, and the iridescence of their neck feathers. Seagulls? I like to watch the dazzling display of them eviscerating a bin-bag in mid-air. Mice? I think they are cute, and I admire how plucky they are, enterprisingly making a living on things like cardboard and washing powder (I once opened a box of cling-film, to find that a mouse had made a nest in it, and died. Perhaps one day I shall make it into an animated short, entitled ‘Clinging to Life’). Foxes? I enjoy how bushy their tales are, the soft russet of their fur, and their ability to imitate vocally a person being brutally bludgeoned to death (I like to think they are all engaged in a protracted game of Wink Murder). All these are models of resourcefulness, skilled adaptors to an urban environment for which they were not designed, and I find beauty in them all.

Moths, though? I know it wasn’t out of malice that they feasted on their favourite woolly delicacy. I know they were merely fulfilling their mothy natures. I also know that I hate those moth-erfuckers with my whole being from the tips of my knitting fingers to my woolly-socked toes, and that I will continue to wage a wearisome war against them with the only (ineffective) weapon available: tedious housework.

Have you ever been moth-ed? Do your clothes bear the battle scars? How do you combat the evil little destroyers? 

Me-Made-May... could I do it?

I have been debating whether to sign up to Zoe's Me-Made-May '13. In terms of knitwear, it wouldn't be that much of a challenge for me, as I already wear at least one hand-knit item everyday, and can often be found swaddled in a veritable yarn cocoon of shawls and cardigans. For sewing, though, it would be an enormous undertaking, as I only really have one self-stitched item that I wear regularly (and I've not even blogged about it - I must rectify that). I do, however, have a moderate stash of both patterns and fabric, a lovely sewing machine and a sincere wish to become better acquainted with it. 

Also, although I do have a lot of me-made knitwear, when I imagine displaying it again on this blog, I have to admit that some of it is looking a little tired; perhaps it is time to sift through my collection and make way for some new additions. Speaking of which, I am finally making some progress on Beatnik, which has been waiting patiently, sometimes in the freezer to protect it from moths.

Ugh - red is so hard to photograph. As you can see, I'm nearly finished with the front and the back, and just have to knit two sleeves and a neckband - and seam the whole darn thing together, of course. I cannot remember why I decided to knit this in pieces, but I heartily regret that decision. 

Is anyone else thinking of joining the Me-Made-May madness? Do you think it's a crazy idea on my part? I'm currently trying to formulate exactly what goals I would set myself... It's been quite an interesting exercise just thinking about what are the most gaping gaps in my wardrobe, and which of those I could conceivably fill with my limited sewing skillz. Unofficially taking part in NaKniSweMoDo* back in 2009 was a real boost to my sweater collection - I feel like I need just such a challenge to kickstart my garment sewing. Oh, and I'm finding The Great British Sewing Bee quite inspirational as well - has anyone else been watching?

*National Knit a Sweater in a Month Dodecathon!

Spring Sprung

The trees are bearing boughs of blossom, chicks are chirruping outside my window, and I have been experiencing a flowering or rebirth of interest in things stitchy. I went through something of a creative dry spell, and it was difficult to keep up a craft blog while I wasn't making anything to post about. There's nothing like a real, pressing need to do some work on my PhD to  make me engage in a variety of displacement activities, from knitting, to running, to putting together outlandish outfits, to emptying my penny jar (it contained £1.58). 

The weather was truly glorious today, so I dug out some crumpled summer clothes and took myself off on a promenade to soak up the Cambridge. I found my sandal-ed feet inexorably drawn to this fine fabric shop, where I managed to resist the temptation to buy, but did daydreams about handmade sun-dresses. I'd dearly love finally to befriend my sewing machine... perhaps this will be the summer of sewing.

A Home for a Mixtape

Remember I was working on a cd cover way back in February? Well, I've made several more mixtapes since then, and a few adjustments to the design. I took a few photos as I was making the one pictured above, and hope to work them up into a tutorial over the next couple of weeks (it may take me a while as I shall be in Italy with limited internet access), just in case anyone else would like to house their mixtapes in sewn sleeves. 

Sweet as a Parrakeet Skirt

I have owned this parrot-y skirt, from the awesome Covet in Islington, for a couple of years. Unfortunately I've never been able to take full advantage of its plumed charms, as the waistband was rather small on me, requiring undignified contortions to get over my aforementioned bahookie. This weekend I decided to reclaim the parrots by making them a new waistband with some fabric left over from a dress I've been working on.

I vaguely followed Gertie's instructions for a full gathered skirt, and found this tutorial on gathering very helpful - I want to gather everything now! Even though I did not sew this garment in its entirety, I am most proud to have made this skirt wearable with my own ingenuity (and sewing machine). I'm quite pleased with it aesthetically as well as practically: the contrasting colour of the waistband seems to make the parrots stand out more. Squawk!

Place Mats and Napkins

Now that the top secret parcel has reached its destination, I can reveal that it contained place mats and napkins. I made the mats in toile de jouy backed with raspberry chambray, using a combination of the instructions for coasters and mats in Bend the Rules Sewing (an excellent book) as my guide. I am pretty pleased with results, though once again humbled by the experience. Perhaps I shouldn't even be thinking of making garments when I'm still fairly inept at ostensibly easy tasks such as sewing straight lines around a rectangle.

For the napkins, I used these directions for mitred corners, and experimented with my machine's embroidery stitches, which was a lot of fun. I read somewhere that 'sewing' might more accurately be called 'ironing' - these napkins certainly bore this out: it took me an obscenely long time to press the double-turned hems, trim the corners, and re-press, then about one minute to whizz through the machine. Anyway, I do hope their recipient enjoys these pastoral-themed table accessories.

Covered Buttons

The more I learn about sewing, the more impatient I am to sprinkle my wardrobe with couture-inspired details like bound buttonholes and French seams. The gap between the knowledge I have accrued and the practical skill I still lack in the apparently simple tasks of cutting and pinning fabric and manipulating it through the machine can be a little frustrating. I have been continuing to work on the Sencha blouse, which has been challenging me in all sort of unexpected ways. The next step in the instructions is to staystitch the neckline. I am making version 3, and am quite apprehensive about stitching around that keyhole, and so I put it off to make some covered buttons. I have a whole house of buttons, but these are unquestionably my favourites. 

Swingeing Cuts

Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my last post - it's really great to know that I have some readers who sew: I may well be calling on your expertise in future! Last night, I cut out the pieces for a blouse whilst listening to the party leaders debate on Radio 4. I am so very much in love with this Liberty print fabric - it reminds me of a favourite party dress I had when I was about seven. I was more than a little nervous about hacking it up... I'll be sure to keep you posted on my progress.

My body's too bootilicious for you, Vogue Patterns.

I have been following Zoe's Me-Made-May Challenge with a mixture of interest and envy. Interest because, obviously, it's a totally awesome idea, building on her Me-Made-March success in only wearing clothes she made herself. Envy because I am very much not yet good enough at sewing to take part (I do not think my knits are eligible, because I already only wear knitwear made by me, which I suppose is an achievement but does not make for much of a challenge).

Rather than weep into a knitted hankie about my sorry lack of sewing skillz, I decided to do something about it. 

Enter Vogue V8240, a halterneck dress with a daringly plunging neckline and a pleasingly full skirt. I read through the instructions, and was somewhat surprised to find I more or less understood them, which is progress in itself, as until recently sewing patterns might as well have been written in mystic runes for all the sense they made to me.

Then, however, I took my measurements, and everything started to go pear-shaped...

I am quite well-acquainted with the measurements of my upper half, as I check them quite regularly for jumpers and cardigans. As for the rest of me, I was vaguely aware of being a classic British pear-shape... seeing this translated into a sewing pattern size was something of a shock, though. It appears I am a size 8 at the bust, a 12 at the waist, and somewhere between a 12 and 14 at what pattern manufacturers refer to as the 'Hip', but which I prefer to call the bahookie. Now, I would like to stress that I do not normally have a lot of body hang-ups: I like and do not wish to change my shape. Part of the reason I so want to learn to sew is to fit it better. Late last night, though, as I was debating which size to cut out, I did begin to feel a little bit bad about covering such a wide size spectrum. Was I freakishly disproportionate? Did people wonder behind my back whether I was two differently-sized figures crudely welded together as the result of a cruel medical experiment? 

Leaving aside these body issues, this discovery also threw another obstacle into my path towards sewing wisdom. I have traced out the midriff piece, and attempted to graduate from an 8 at the top of it to a 12 at the bottom... I suppose I'll just have to make a muslin to see if that will fit my form. I have ordered Fit for Real People off of the internet in the hope that it might address this issue, but in the meantime I would absolutely LOVE to hear from anyone with a modicum of sewing experience on the matter.

Cream-crackered Crafting

Late-night crafting and me do not mix, it seems. I had been feeling so smug about Kingscot: 'Why would anyone knit it in pieces when it's such a piece of cake doing it seamlessly?' I thought to my smug self, smugly. I finished the armhole decreases last night and stopped to check my stitch count. Both fronts were A-OK. The back... hang on a second, that can't be right, let me count that again. No, I still appeared to be short not one, not two but TEN STITCHES. Part of me was upset and more than a little mystified. Another part - the fearless, nocturnal adventurer part - saw this as an exciting opportunity to do what this blog's name suggests: to drop stitches, and hook them back to the path of righteousness.

It was rather enjoyable watching stitches that had been bound together reassuming their own separate identities, as I crocheted them back up the rungs of the dropped-stitch ladder. I was nearing the end of my knitting emergency rescue, when I glanced down to double check just how many stitches I should have. And saw that I had been looking at the wrong bit of the pattern. And had had the right number of stitches to begin with. So I had to drop all of my newly-created stitches and re-decrease them, by which time I think I may have been wielding my hook with more than a little frustration, resulting in this slight pulling of stitches. Stitches which had of course been totally fine to begin with.

So this evening I decided to change crafting tack and get better acquainted with - or, rather, introduce myself to - my sewing machine.

Other than giving a foot pedal a nervous little tap in the shop where I chose my machine, I hadn't done any sewing since my last Home Economics class when I was about 13, and even then I wasn't really paying attention (out of laziness masquerading as ersatz feminism). Since I have started perusing awesome sewing blogs, such as 'So, Zo...' (she made pants!) and Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing, and have become aware of the repository of gorgeousness that is Colette Patterns I have been longing to learn. I bought myself some inexpensive muslin, and screwed my courage to the sticking-place. A cautious straight stitch went fairly smoothly. I tried seaming two pieces together; also ok. This sewing malarkey was not as tricky as I thought! Then the curvaceous form of #26 caught my eye. I popped on my satin stitch foot...

... with a bit less success...

I was a little indignant at that woeful, shrivelled leaf. #26 wasn't going to get the better of me. I tried again... I'm almost too embarrassed to show the result.

I forgot to drop my presser foot, and my fabric was sucked down into the hell-mouth of the needle-plate. Instead of a playful leaf, I basically created a monstrous muslin arsehole. There was a hairy (maybe not a good word to use so close to arsehole) moment when I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to liberate the offending scrap from my machine. Just as I managed to unwedge it, my desk lamp flickered out, plunging me into stygian gloom. Curses.

So it hasn't been a very productive couple of nights. I know I'm more liable to make mistakes when I'm exhausted, but then it can be hard to find time during the day... have you found a solution to this? I'd also love to hear about other people's nocturnal crafting mishaps, to stop me feeling so sorry for myself.