Lattes

You know what drives me bonkers about NYC? A good latte is nearly impossible to find. This week, however, has been full of tasty lattes. I've been at my company's "mothership" in the gorgeous city of Seattle. I have been so homesick that I leapt at the chance to come out here for a work trip and then squeezed in an extra day today to enjoy my hometown. (For those of you new to my blog, I lived in Seattle for about 8 years, and I met my husband out here. Once he is out of the Coast Guard we plan to move back... but that's a few years away yet.)

Since today was an "extra" day out here with no work, I set off to meander around and visit all my favorite places downtown. I had an apricot croissant and a REAL coffee in Pike Place Market. While I was there, I slipped into the little quilting store in the market and picked up a fat quarter set to make a Christmas table runner or some pillows.

Then I walked down to Kinokuniya bookstore in Uwajimaya and bought a book I've had my eye on for a while, Simple Chic. It has some gorgeous dresses in it & the instructions are fairly clear (think Ottobre magazine style drawings!) so I might actually make something from it.

My poor husband got text message updates on my adventures as I poked around. "Hey, I'm standing right where we had our first kiss!" "Hey, I'm having the awesome pad thai we love for lunch!" and so on. Poor guy. ;) Sadly, I have to fly back to the east coast tomorrow. See you soon Seattle, I miss you!

Snow day knockoff

This is west 38th's 300th blog post! Wow :o)

Like the rest of the east coast, we are currently getting some very heavy early season snow. It's been pretty heavy all morning and the wind is really picking up. I'm glad that it waited until this morning to snow, because last night was Lady Liberty's 125th birthday, and we enjoyed a great fireworks show for it. Here is the very very snowy view out of our window right now.

Since it's too snowy to drive to see the nieces get their Halloween costumes on for a party (which is likely cancelled, anyway, given the amount of snow we are expecting.....) I decided to break out a project I've been mulling over for a while.

I found this Derek Lam coat in a magazine at the end of the summer and loved the combination of yoke seam, powder blue, and pockets.

Then I found a similar Derek Lam coat, in an ad that has been in a few fall magazines.

Isn't it fantastic? Can you believe it's $2,000? Really?

At the NY Garment District weekend get together in September, I found some fantastic blue wool coating at Kashi's for the crazy price of $12/yard and I remembered the vintage coat pattern I had bought and then lost last year. It's longer, but I am in need of a longer coat anyway. But otherwise it's fairly similar.

And so I am working on a snowy day muslin. One interesting feature of this pattern is that there is a side panel with the pockets set into it, so you don't have to do welt pockets! And the seam between the side panel and the front, which has the pockets, is a 7/8" seam allowance. I've never seen that on a pattern before. I assume it's there so that you have room to slash in at the pocket corners.

Well, I am off to work on the muslin with a nice green smoothie. I am drinking these a lot for lunch: frozen banana + frozen pineapple + 1/3 cup OJ + a few handfuls of fresh spinach leaves. I am terrible at getting enough dark green leafy veggies and so this is a good & tasty way to get them in.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the jacket, take 2

Last year I made my niece Kate a little grey boiled wool military trim jacket.

Well, guess who now fits it as well &  loooooves stealing it from her big sister? ;)








Miss Anabear !




She had it on while we were washing the cars, which meant that there was a big puddle forming at the end of the driveway. Which, of course, her four year old little brother found. ;)

I'm happy to report that the Ninja costume is ALL DONE! I stopped off at Pearl River Mart in Soho this week and picked up a little pair of redembroidered slippers to complete the look. She may not be very stealthy with all the red, but she sure is rather cool looking. They're off to a Halloween party next weekend, so I'll try to get some nice pictures then.

Beware the fierce ninja!

First, there was yet another pattern change.  I was concerned about the jumpsuit & fitting a warm jacket underneath, as well as how unweildy it would be get in & out of.  So I poked around on Etsy and came up with this pattern.  I made view D (the mandarin collar top & pants view)  in the black cotton fabric I'd already bought.



It was pretty straightforward to put together - the pants are one-seam pants, which are zippy!  And the sleeve is an interesting drop shoulder design which meant that the sleeve was attached flat and then you zip up the side seams.  Of course, I  might be sewing a quick Halloween costume, but I did have slip in a silk organza snippet to reinforce the mandarin collar!




Next the patches were ironed on & then sewn down....


The back has a phoenix on it:



and the front has a little dragon:




Behold! The fierce 8 year old ninja!!




We will finish it off with a red belt & a ninja hood.  I made a size up so there's room for some winter underwear and fleece underneath. We wouldn't want a frozen ninja!! ;)


I have to say, I'm now eyeing the kimono pattern that this came with. How adorable would a teensy kimono be as a cute addition for their dress up trunk?

Shower Curtains

Things I have not done: Finish an 8 year old's ninja costume. Figure out a decorating theme for my hatchback for said 8 year old's school Trunk or Treat extravaganza in school parking lot. Sew myself a new autumn coat. Sew myself a new black skirt.

Things I have done: dropped a bottle of pink nailpolish in my bathroom, ruining my white terry shower curtain. Discover that Amy Butler makes shower curtains (!!!!). Purchase a replacement shower curtain. Rejoice that it fits in perfectly with my bathroom - look, it even nicely coordinates with all the artwork I have in there!

Which reminds me, another thing I have not done - sort out a decent wide angle lens for my camera.

And one more thing that I have done, which is purchase two new blouse patterns from Colette Patterns. I'm working on embracing sewing for the wardrobe I actually wear, which given that I'm a software engineer is "jeans and a top". So my plan is to sew fewer dresses, which I never wear, and sew more tops that can be worn to work. Right after I finish that ninja costume!

Two years ago I posted about a silk 1980s Liz Claiborne dress that I was un-assembling for some refashioning. Here's the dress top, sitting on my dressform in 2009.

And.... I finally finished it up! Here's me with my new tank top. I added a band at the bottom that's some nice purple and black floral that I bought at Elliot Berman at the re-scheduled fabric shopping trip.

It has little buttons on the shoulders:

In those two years, I took off the puffy sleeves, folded under the armholes and stitched them down, re-did the side seams, and attached the hem band. Am I the world's slowest re-fashioner or what?

Next up, the Ninja Halloween costume for my niece! Supplies are trickling in...

The City Quilter

NYT features The City Quilter in a sweet little article on the store: Where Novices and Artists Indulge the Quilter Within

Flower girls

I realized I never did show proper pictures of my nieces in the flower girl dresses I'd made them. The girls wore Oliver + S dresses that I made from turquoise silk taffeta (Kate) and navy blue silk taffeta (Ana), along with yellow rose flower crowns and carried (more like twirled and bounced around (; ) pomanders that I'd made.

The dress pattern is The School Photo Dress from Oliver + S. Definitely one of my favorite patterns! If you ever make it, it has one of the most ingenious ways to incorporate an invisible zipper, a collar, and a lining. I've followed this method of assembly for a few other dress patterns now since it works so nicely!!

pictures by Stephen DeVries

The girls LOVED the flower crowns. They were definitely the big hit with them. All the time I'd spent picking out cute blue hair bows on etsy.... they just wanted the crowns on!

The dresses were actually very easy to sew, but I'd made this pattern a couple times before. I still adore the little kangaroo pocket it has, although the girls were busy with the flowers and didn't end up using the pockets much that day. We had matching white cardigans and little lacy white socks for them that I found on sale on jcrew.com. And adorable little black maryjanes. I definitely had a lot of fun picking out their little outfits. It made the day really enjoyable to have the munchkins around. They were interested in what was going on, got really into dancing after dinner, and stormed the reception in their PJs before going home, which was just too cute.

I'm thinking that Christmas dresses this year might be white silk School Photo dresses. Maybe with some red piping across the front yoke seam?

More Quilting

What I did with my weekend... I worked a little on a quilt:

Kate was very very busy running around playing space wars with her little brother, but she did consent to show off the dress I'd sewn her. She allowed that this was a nice pattern and I could make another one for her. ;)

And I missed my friend. I took this picture in 1998 with a twin lens roloflex medium format camera - if you were my friend in college, you had to sit for frequent portrait sessions for my photography assignments and art shows. This is my friend Esther, putting up with me needing another portrait again.

I didn't post this weekend about why the 10th anniversary of 9/11 is so incredibly painful to me. A few days after it happened, my dearest friend Esther was killed in a car accident. We met in college in 1995, and when I was living in Seattle in the summers working at internships, and she was living with her grandma in Portland, we drove up and down the coast to see each other. We lived in the same dorms in college. We took computer science classes together, hung out in the photography studio together, and most of all we baked and cooked dinner together as much as we could. We cooked so many Thanksgiving dinners together in those years, always with lots of college friends around. We had grand plans to grow old together.

The weekend before 9/11, she stopped by my apartment in Seattle with her dad. We sat around on my sofa and chatted about nothing in particular. I think I'd just made a blueberry coffeecake and we were eating it and talking about the recipe. I never saw her again - a few days later her father called me to tell me that she had been hit by a car and died. She was 25 and I was 24. So there you go - I really flinch every year when 9/11 rolls around, because it means in a few days it be the anniversary of losing her. She loved quilts and sewing. She would have gotten SUCH a huge kick out of the sword arch surprise that my sailor pulled off at the wedding. Brian and I were talking that day about how much she loved boats and would have loved the waterfront wedding we had. I miss her to pieces.

keys

Aren't these Sandi Henderson prints gorgeous? I bought a half yard of each recently from Pink Chalk Fabrics with the idea of making some new cloth grocery bags. Most of my supply of cloth grocery bags has been swiped by my sister, my nieces, and my mom! I do need to pick up some more canvas webbing to use for straps for them when I get into the garment district again. Hopefully soon.

I really love all the prints in this line, and I'm debating buying a jelly roll or some more half yards, but then my "to make quilts" box is already overflowing. Hmm....

Next, you may remember from my wedding day write up that my sailor had a big surprise to me at the ceremony. My uncle recently sent me this little video clip he shot of me walking out with my dad & seeing the dress whites for the first time. The sailor has been getting a big kick out of watching my reaction here. ;) I will warn you if you click play, there are some VERY LOUD BAGPIPES in there. My family is scottish, you have to have loud bagpipes at the wedding or it isn't a real wedding!

The tenth anniversary of Sept 11 is in just a few days, and since we live just across the river from the WTC site it's been a bit unescapable. Looking at the wedding video and seeing my best friend in it reminded me of that day. In the early 2000s my best friend (who was my "Man of Honor" at the wedding) and I were sharing an apartment in Seattle, since we both worked as programmers for the same Seattle dotcom. I was up extra early the morning of Sept 11, 2001, for work and saw the whole thing on TV. It was unreal. I'd been to the observation deck of the towers & been through the PATH station downstairs many times as a kid, and I remember at first explaining to him what the area was around the towers as they showed commuters pouring out of the buildings. Then we saw that something happened to the Pentagon and got really worried, because both his parents worked there. I remember we were unable to reach them for hours, which was just terrible. We eventually got them on a phone landline, and they were fine. Neither of them had ended up going to work at the Pentagon that day because their jobs sent them elsewhere for the day. They were lucky.

It was... well, weird, being on the West Coast but having grown up so close to NY, and watching TV all day. At some point I remembered that I had to walk my dog, and we went out to go around the block. The dissonance of doing something that normal - just strolling down the sidewalk like we'd done hundreds of times - and what we'd seen on TV all morning - it felt so disconnected. And of course I never in a million years would have imagined that 10 years later I'd be married to a USCG captain who worked in NY Harbor, or that I'd be living only a few hundred yards away from the towers. Life is crazy. We will be having a quiet weekend- I'll be trying Kate's new corduroy dress on her and helping my dad around the house. I hope you all stay safe and have a quiet weekend with those you love!

Pear Dress

This is a little dress up day at school dress for my niece, Kate. I used New Look 6907, view A and some adorable baby cord fabric from the Lisette fabric line at JoAnn's. It's got little green pears mixed in with the blue polka dots... so sweet.

Other than the corduroy and the pattern, everything came form my stash. I used a tan colored invisible zipper and lined the bodice with some quilting fabric scraps. The sleeves were hemmed with some bias tape scraps and the trims are all from my big "ziploc bag stuffed full of random trims" stash.

The assembly was pretty straightforward so it went together quickly - no fussy leaf shaped pieces to cut & sew for this skirt, unlike the Tinkerbell costume yesterday! Just a very simple A-line dress for Kate to wear to school on dress up days when she doesn't have to wear her uniform.

Seeing Green

It's that time of year again... time to visit JoAnn's during the Labor Day sale and purchase sparkly cheap costume satin.
Fight with wiggly polyester...
And sew up Halloween costumes for the nieces!

Here's the pattern I used:

Ana asked to be Tinkerbell this year, so this is Simplicity 2872, a Disney fairies pattern. Honestly, I didn't look at the directions other than identifying which pattern pieces were necessary for view A. I ignored their facing pieces and fully lined the bodice. I'm planning to sew in a snap or two at the neckline to close it- the mantra here was "costume not couture!!" which I had to keep reminding myself of. The "leaf" shapes in the skirt were a little annoying just because there are eight of them and the poly kept threatening to melt onto my iron. And of course the crystal bits stuck to the underskirt made sewing the underskirt a massive pain.

The costume calls for sewing a green belt, but I'm fairly certain that my mom has some green grosgrain ribbon floating around, so I'll find some of that to use as a belt. And instead of sewing wings I will be buying some cute Green Pixie Wings for $6 from amazon. I figure that's worth it to not fight with wing construction!

Kate has asked to be a ninja - I might just make her black leggings, tshirt, and a ninja hood.

Irene visits NYC

Well, that was exciting. Some of you may have noticed that we had a small weather event run through NYC recently. ;)



I first heard about it on Tuesday when my sailor called and said "Make plans to go to your parents house this weekend." We watched the news as it became more and more likely that NYC was going to really get a whallop, and I did end up clearing out, which was good because my neighborhood ended up with an evacuation order. I brought along my friend who lives in Hoboken - the same friend who sewed her wedding dress last October - and we had a fun weekend in the rain that was like an extended camping trip at times.

Let's see- I baked up chocolate chip cookies for the guys on my sailor's ship and dropped them off at 6 AM on Saturday AM. I hear they were gone before the ship even pulled away from the pier, so next hurricane I'll bake a double batch, I guess. ;)

Then we put my fish into a ziploc bag, packed some snacks and bottled water, drove out to northern NJ. My dad has decided that my fish's name is Anchovy (it's really Horatio, but that's my dad for you!), so the weekend became "Operation Anchovy Extraction" as in "operation rescue the fish from the huge storm!!"

Here's my dad checking on his sailboat before the storm starts:


We lost power early on, and a dam near by broke. And so here I am checking on the sailboat in the rain to make sure the lines are secure:



The lowlight of Operation Anchovy Extraction may have been the 5 AM run to get more ice to put into the fridge and freezer. Nothing like loading massive bags of ice into the back of your subaru in the rain at the crack of dawn. At least the place we got ice from had hot coffee! Our coffee making method this weekend was pretty convoluted: Send someone out into the rain to turn on the gas grill. Fill camping pot up with water, put pot on grill. Ready french press. When we thought the water might be boiling, send someone outside to check. Commiserate when the water wasn't quite there yet. Check in a few minutes. Boiling! Carefully carry water inside and pour into french press. Drink coffee and listen to the radio some more.

The sailor is back on dry land and busy grumping that it was just a large rain storm, to which I've been countering that anything that prevents me from taking a shower for two days is more than just a large storm! I hope you all had a safe & dry weekend!

weddings, earthquakes, and other stuff

I did not finish a dress to wear to my cousin's wedding. Instead I wore a Tahari dress and took a bunch of pictures of family. Can you believe this is only a few of my cousins? We were joking all weekend about how crazy huge our family is.



My parents also celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary the night before my cousin's wedding. Happy Anniversary, mom & dad!



So, did all you East Coasters feel the earthquake this afternoon? I was sitting in our company's cafeteria, eating a late lunch, when I felt the floor and the big wooden table I was at start shaking, and I KNEW what it was. Honestly, it really freaked me out. I was on the 9th floor of a very old brick building in Seattle in the 2001 Nisqually quake (6.9, baby!), and saw the building get trashed around me - broken pipes, air conditioning ducts ripped out of their mounts, collapsed shelves, broken glass, all that fun stuff. My mom called this evening and asked if I had felt the quake, and then asked if I was OK. I had to tell her that I really had hoped to never experience another quake again in my life. This one was pretty tame, though, other than the crazy surge of "oh no not again" it produced in me. ;) In fact, after our building was evacuated, I may have sounded like one of the jaded West Coasters in this NYT article.