Finished: Wearing History Smooth Sailing corduroy trousers

Friends, I finally sewed my very first pair of trousers!

Now, I've been talking about wanting to sew trousers for over a year. They are definitely a staple in my vintage wardrobe. Last summer I bought the pattern for the 1930s Smooth Sailing trousers and blouse from Wearing History but just could never work myself up to sew them.

As you know, this last weekend I went on a blogger adventure, and bought several lovely fabrics at Vogue Fabrics. One was a very inexpensive (less than $4 a yard!) pinwale stretch corduroy. I decided I had nothing to lose at an attempt to finally sew up trousers. Talk about motivated—I bought the fabric Saturday and finished Wednesday!

But let's point out two important facts: I don't own a serger. And I've never sewn with stretch fabric. So for my very first go at sewing with trousers I was using fabric that frayed if you sneezed near it, was stretchy and didn't press well. Did I mention that once I washed and dried the fabric, I discovered it was kooky and the wales of the corduroy were woven on the bias and not straight like normal? Crazy, huh? Fortunately, it did not end up a recipe for disaster!

trousers made by me, blouse from Nudeedudee

Due to my fray-prone fabric, I bound the exposed seams with what felt like a million miles of rayon seam binding. This alone probably took longer than all the rest of everything related to sewing up these trousers combined. Seriously, those bound seams nearly did me in. But I persevered. And how pleased am I with the crotch and inner leg seam intersection?!

(By the way, if you ever do this, just snip your notches instead of clipping them out like I did, since this make some really ugly spots when sewing over them with your binding. Whatever, it's inside my legs.)

When I was looking at this fabric at Vogue, Lauren Lladybird advised sewing a size down because of the stretch content, but since I'd never sewn this pattern and wasn't sure how they'd fit, I went with my normal size. In the end they're definitely roomy, even after trying to shrink them a tad in a hot washer and dryer.

They're the bunchiest at the level of the highest point of my bum all the way around, but you can kind of see it in the side and back views. I think if I'd used a drapey fabric this would just look nice and flowy, but since this is thick but non-drapey corduroy, the excess fabric just kind of sits there in space, standing at attention. (It feels like if I had drapery weights in my hem they'd lay better. Ha!)

The back has some pooling of fabric which I'm sure I would never in a million years have noticed if I didn't read sewing blogs.

From what I've read I'd possibly benefit from a flat seat adjustment (though I didn't think I had a flat derriere!), or changing the crochet curve (read the Coletterie pants fitting cheat sheet), or doing a fish eye dart in the pattern (read Liz's post on fish eye darts). I should mention I took in a full extra inch on each back dart when it came time to attach the waistband (probably the cause of the horizontal line towards my waistband in the above photo) because I had forgotten to stay stitch so I think the pieces stretched out a bit.

Of course, these might all be non-existent issues with fabric that drapes better, so I'm tempted to make a second pair without any more alterations in some gabardine in my stash to see the difference, then think about tweaks. (Bonus = stashbusting!)

Seriously though, I've spent way too much time contemplating my mid-section since making these trousers, so these are just little nitpicks, nothing for me to lose sleep over. I'm still quite pleased with these!

The construction was a breeze and were it not for my seemingly endless binding of all those seams, these would really have taken me no time at all! The instructions were very clear. A big A+ to Lauren at Wearing History. I can't wait to try more of her patterns.

In the end, I think the Smooth Sailing trouser pattern needs a fabric with more drape than mine. But in spite of the fit issues I mentioned, I love these trousers. The pinwale corduroy is just divine against the skin, and even though they're a little baggy, I'm going to get a lot of wear out of them. They can dress up or down since the fabric is casual but classy, so I wore them both to work and to lounge on the sofa after.

And I'm no longer scared to sew trousers. I may or may not even have danced around the house singing "Pants I made!" but you didn't hear it from me...

I'm definitely going to be sewing more vintage-styled trousers! Any pattern recommendations?

(And by the way yes, I'm definitely buying a @#?*#$&! serger.)

Weekend blogger meetup (& other recent activities)

Hello! Before I get started with documenting a little adventure I had this past weekend, I wanted to say a big, huge THANK YOU for all of the wonderful comments I received on my last post. Wow. It's so nice knowing you're not alone, and all of your personal stories have been so great to read, and I hope helpful to others, too! I've been extra busy the last week and my plans to respond to each comment on my post or by email has not happened yet. We had a jam-packed weekend of activities as you'll see below, and have also been closely watching our pets, who are recovering from big dental surgery they had recently. They've had a few ups and downs, but seem to be doing well now, thank goodness.

♥  ♥  ♥

Saturday's big activities? A big, fun blogger day here in Chicago!

Lladybird, (AKA Lauren) was in town, up from Nashville, and wanted to have a blogger meetup. She put out the call, and we answered. Liz of zilredloh.com, Meg the Grand, Nancy of Buddha Bear Studios and I met up with her for brunch and to do a little stash swapping. I wish I had taken photos (Liz has one on her roundup of the day), but the table was full of knitting and sewing pattern carnage. It was hilarious. Really, the table was piled high! We actually had to stuff things in corners of our seats and bags in order to make room for food. There was everything from 1940s dresses to clown costumes. I made out with a few Stitchcraft knitting booklets, and was able to unload several of my own vintage knitting booklets and sewing patterns (more stash out than in, yay!).

Afterward, Nancy had to part ways but Lauren, Liz, Meg and I went on a crafty shopping adventure of the first order. Mind you, this was all pre-planned by Liz. And amazingly so. She even had bottles of water for us in her car and a treat (more on that later), for when we got famished from shopping!

Where did we go? Two ginormous sewing emporiums that Liz frequents, that neither Meg nor myself (both locals) had ever been to. I admit, I do most of my fabric shopping (and really all kinds of shopping) online. Especially in large fabric stores I easily get overwhelmed. This was perfect because I was armed with sewing buddies who were able to keep me on track. And we were having so much fun I didn't even have a chance to get overwhelmed!

The first stop was Fishman's Fabrics, a 1,000 square foot shop that's been around since 1903. Mel's mother remembers her mother-in-law taking her there in the 70s or 80s. If you've go to their web site, yes, the shop really does look like that. Scary big, isn't it? Not so scary from the outside, though.

I really wasn't a very good photographer that day, so I have no shopping photos, but I did snap a few by this fabulous wall of framed photos and letters in their entrance way. Here Meg and Lauren are checking out a letter from Ann Landers...

Here it is close up. Can you imagine typing a letter to a fabric store, requesting fabric based on a swatch? My first thought was it looked like something for Cruela de Vil...

From left to right that's Meg, Lauren and Liz decked out in handmade clothing!

I loved this photo too, take a look at that skirt!

We spent a long time in Fishman's, and Liz knew we'd need some sustenance to get us through our next stop. OMG, she baked us macarons!!



Yes, that's a tupperware full of two layers of the yummies macarons EVER. She even brought along ziplocs for leftovers for each of us. Amazing!

I totally love that we munched on them in the parking lot, too. Meg has a photo of us all eating them with UPS trucks behind us. Ha!

 

They were so good, Meg had to have a private moment with one of hers...

 

And wasn't everyone dressed so cute? I loved Lauren's dress...

And look at the double scalloped hem on Liz's skirt!

After Fishman's (where we all managed to not buy anything—it is huge but quite spendy) we went on to Vogue Fabrics, where the real shopping began. Apparently by this point I was so engrossed in shopping I never took another photo, aaargh. But be sure to check out everyone else's blog for pictures. There are lots of good ones from Vogue. We all left the shop with big bags of fabric, and I think we got some pretty good deals, too!

With fabric shopping completed, we went to Loopy Yarns for a bit of yarn shopping, and then finished the day with a beer (cider for Meg and I) at Hackney's, both in Printer's Row. It was such a wonderful day! I really had a blast. It was awesome to hang out with these wonderful crafty ladies!

And while not a sewing adventure, Sunday Mel and I met Lauren and her boyfriend Landon and Liz and her husband Felix at the Vintage Garage, a vintage-oriented flea market of sorts. Once again I sucked at taking photos there, so you'll have to pop over to Liz's blog for her roundup post. We also saw Leilani the Thriftaholic there looking lovely as always. She was taking photos of the event, so be sure to check out her blog soon, she always does amazingly detailed photo posts of the markets she attends! Look for a post from me soon about breathing a bit of new life into a Danish modern bowl we bought there.

And one last activity to mention, the weekend prior was Renegade Craft Fair and the Vintage Bazaar (which did a pop-up market at Renegade), where we shopped around with Liz and Felix. A woman asked if she could take a photo of Mel and I, since Mel was carrying a bag from Krrb, which we were given when we bought a set of vintage highball glasses (I'll have to show it to you soon!). I'd never heard of Krrb before, but it's a place to help people buy/sell secondhand things local to them. I'm all for more of that.

{Source: Photo compliments of Krrb.com, photo by Meg Goldberg}

Well there you have it, my rather poorly-documented last couple of weekends of fun activities! I came home with several fabric goodies from Vogue on Saturday, one of which has already been sewn up into my very first pair of trousers. (Yes, already!) I hope to take photos of them soon. They definitely aren't perfect and the fabric had me running into a series of challenges along the way, but they got me over my fear of sewing pants. Yay!

Carry on

If you've been a regular to my blog for some time, you may have noticed I've done very little outfit-related posts this year. I admit it, I've had some style ennui. Seeing as this blog revolves around style in a lot of ways (though I've never considered myself a "fashion blogger" by a long shot), that's made blogging kind of difficult.

I spent a long time trying to figure out what was bothering me. In the end, I think it was a combination of things, only some of which had to do with fashion but they manifested that way in some respects.

Devoting a lot of time to our new house. Moving to a neighborhood where fashions or trends of any kind are mostly, well, absent. Having a really difficult time finding anywhere in the house or yard with suitable lighting for blog photos. Having our closest friends from Chicago move to Wales. Not having any friends to hang out with who are into vintage (note: most of this navel-gazing pre-dates getting to know the lovely Liz of zilredloh.com, which tickles me). Working from home at least three days and not having a rip-roarin' social life leading to few opportunities to feel like I should even bother to dress up. Vintage-themed parties, events, etc? Gosh, I wish!!

And so, I think my motivation has been kind of low.

To be honest, I've had a lot of "why bother?" moments this year when it comes to my personal fashion. Who cares if I dress up vintage or not everyday? When I'm working from home, I don't get any complaints from the dog or the cat if I'm wearing jeans (albeit Freddie's of Pinewoods) and a tank top, and am wearing my hair in a messy ponytail.

I even found myself waffling a bit about my style in the last few weeks. Maybe I needed to be a little more modern, or just go a little more 50s, versus the earlier leanings I've had over the last year or two. I was lazy about setting my hair, so in a misguided attempt at hair happiness, I even went so far as to cut Bettie Page bangs again about a week ago.

A peek at our new living room color that we love... scattered light courtesy of small glass block window nooks

And then one day, I snapped out of it. I decided I needed to just carry on. 

Partially inspired by Sunni's excellent Everyday Wardrobe challenge, I decided I needed to be putting in some effort into how I looked even on days I didn't have plans (more days than not!). I decided I didn't care if I dressed like the 'odd man out' most of the time when I did go out.
 

And I realized I needed to just go ahead and do it for me.

I love vintage fashion. So what if I feel like an anomaly in my real life? Life can be fun that way. And it's not like before I wore vintage I fit into any molds, anyway. ;)  And so what if I'm wearing a cute outfit to sit around the house? It's not like I'm not talking about ballgowns here. I can be cute and casual at the same time.

See? These photos were taken Tuesday this week, a day I worked from home. Trousers, a blouse! Jewelry! Set hair! Lipstick, even. Yeah okay, the lippy came off before lunch and never went back on again... gotta draw the line somewhere.

I'm sharing this open, heartfelt post in the chance it might help someone else out there who has ever felt frustrated about their love of vintage-influenced fashions to know they're not alone. It's for any 40s gal who's ever wondered why they bother, for any 50s sweater girl who's just wanted to laze around in a t-shirt, for any flapper who's wondered why she was the only one flappin'.

I'm glad I went through some head-scratching moments, because I feel sure of myself in a way I didn't before. In fact, it's given me a more positive outlook on lots of other things as a result. I'm looking forward to sharing more outfit posts, planning more knitting and sewing, spending more time gathering inspiration from you, my friends, and working on trying to be fabulous in as many aspects of my life as I can.

And along the way, I know I'll just keep on carrying on with my vintage-loving self!

Simple beauty of a steek in my fair isle knit

I sat down to do a post catching you up on our painting success after my retro fail living room post, but on the camera I found photos Mel and I took a couple of weeks ago when I was cutting the armhole and neckline steeks for my current fair isle project.

So instead, I just wanted to share with you the beauty you can find (or at least I can find) in knitting photos. A simple, traditional task in a fair isle knit, cutting a bridge of stitches in your knitting to open up an armhole, neckline or cardigan front, looks so serene and pretty when followed in just a few pictures. Well okay, maybe the scissors do look a bit scary.

Armhole before the snipping begins...

Snip, snip...

Armhole after the cut....

I'm (slowly) knitting plain red sleeves (the same red as in the body), out from the armhole with shaped sleeve caps, a method outlined well in Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. I initially planned to knit the sleeves flat two at a time, but having just done that for my Knit It In Flag Colors pullover, I needed a change. That's just too many red sleeves knit flat, two at a time! So I switched it up for this one. I'm going slowly because I haven't had much time for knitting lately (too much planning on the home decor front), and because they're kind of boring.



Sorry, not much of interest for non-knitters in this post... hm, well, here's one tidbit: that's a vintage blouse I'm wearing (probably from the 50s, and I believe home sewn), with a delightful mini strawberry and diamond print. And it's reversible to pink on the inside. How clever is that!

Our retro FAIL living room

I have a confession.

But first, I wanted to thank you all so much for your delightful comments on my Knit it in Flag colors pullover! I was really tickled. I think it's going to be really great this autumn, and I think it needs a nice pair of wide-legged trousers to wear with it! Hopefully this autumn I'll be back in sewing mode, but right now I'm in knitting and decorating mode. :)

Now, onto the confession. You're dying to know, right?

Readers, our living room is one big, huge, FAIL. There, I said it.

As I've mentioned, we're only just starting now, after five months in the Golly Ranch House, to really think about painting and decorating. We've made a few furniture purchases since we've moved that we thought would work out, and we've been trying to make our previous furnishings work since of course we can't go out and buy all new (or old) stuff.

Our living room is long, and much more sizeable than the living room in our condo was. When we moved in, it was a catch-all room for things that didn't fit elsewhere. We setup our television in the den, and first talked about doing a more "formal" sitting room for the living room with no television.

Five months in, we realized this was a stupid idea. This was not us. We can only comfortably sit three adults in the den. So friends over for a movie? Difficult. Not to mention it's a small room, so setting up our Wii (which we don't use a ton, but we'd like to be able to when we do want to) or our turntable isn't possible. Dumb.

We considered swapping the t.v. into the living room, but the fact remains that it's the coldest room in the house (a fact that will not change, though will hopefully eventually be improved by lined pinch pleat drapes). In winter I want the option to be able to cozy up in the warm den to watch a movie. This meant a new t.v. for the living room. We struggled for a bit with being a two television household but whatever. We got over it.

But something else was bugging us about the living room, other than the lack of a t.v. and inability to play any music whatsoever, since of course we didn't bother setting up music in a room we never seemed to use. We were trying to cobble together too many things that didn't work. For awhile, we thought "oh no, art and color on the walls will perk it up". That wasn't it.

Eventually, we faced the fact: our living room is a retro fail. So here I am, airing my dirty retro decorating laundry. This is the living room that we hate.

Incidentally, this week I learned there is actually a time of day I can take semi-decent photos in this room, yahoo!

It's not horrifying, no. Sure, any of the pieces on their own are pretty fabulous. But all together? It doesn't work for us. It's awkward and uncomfortable. It doesn't make us want to hang out in it. Here's why.

• The vintage two-piece sofa. It's a great (dare I say downright stunning) shape, but needs to be reupholstered as the color is faded and gross (a fact that wasn't apparent of course until it was bought and put in the living room). We could get it reupholstered for this room, but it won't change the fact that it's just not the comfy couch we really craved in the living room. We want to love it in our living room... and we don't.
• A rug that doesn't work. It's a lovely rug, but not our style. Let's call it a family heirloom (so it's not going anywhere), but it just doesn't work in this room, so it needs to go elsewhere. (Sorry it's rumpled in this photo, you can tell by that and the painter's tape, tape measure, IKEA catalog and laptop what we've been doing in this room lately.)
• Floral Danish modern chair. I love this chair, but hate the upholstery. It seems to bring everything down around it and doesn't match anything we have possibly come up with for ideas, plus the fabric is not in very good shape in the first place and already worn through in one corner. We bought it this summer with the idea to eventually get it reupholstered. Eventually is now.

And the other half:

The awkwardness continues:

• Red/green chair we've had forever. It's comfy, but could also stand to be reupholstered, and having had this chair for at least 12 years, I'm just sick of the fabric.
• Mirrored walls. Okay, this is easy to resolve. We actually like these gold-flecked mirrored wall panels that came with the house, but it's another awkward spot right now for sure. The length of them makes designing around them weird.

(And in fairness, the chartreuse Eames repro chair is only next to the other chair for color inspiration purposes, so it looks awkward where I put it but it's not an actual design issue in the room.)

Like I said, we thought getting some paint up on the walls would help, so we diligently went through two rounds of paint samples, initially staying with lighter greens because of all the green we already have in the furniture and our two lamps, and then trying some darker greens and greys in a second round.

But wait, that photo needs a caption.

Yeah. Yesterday, I came to terms with the fact that I don't want another green living room. I don't want the green lamps in the living room. I don't want the green pillows in the living room. I don't want green walls in the living room. And Mel was in complete agreement.

We did that in the condo, why do we have to do that in the house?!

But if not green, what? How do we incorporate the furniture and decor we own and mix in new things? What needs to get reupholstered, and what just needs to leave the room already?

This has been our struggle for the last few days. And finally, we hit on it. I'm not going to go into details yet, but we're comforted in seeing some examples after countless hours of trolling the Internet for images and ideas to prove that our ideas aren't completely crazy, nor completely out of touch for our modest vintage ranch.

All I'll say now is we're going to mix a bit of contemporary with a bit of vintage. We're going to breathe new life into our older comfy sofa (the green one above) in three ways, and get the Danish modern (don't know if it's exactly Danish modern) chair reupholstered in a nice, bright color. Actually the shape is so cool, it's worth a closer look...

We now know the piece of furniture (once we find one) that will make the mirrored wall work, and how we'll use it to make a second focal point in the room, instead of the strange space it is now. My dad will be in town briefly over Labor Day weekend, so we're enlisting him in installing our new t.v. on the paint samples wall and fleshing out the idea we have for an entertainment center, inspired by a suggestion he made.

In the end, you can see the only things that will actually remain in the room from the two photos I showed above.

Newly purchased plants will get vintage planters. The Danish modern chair will get reupholstered. The Eames repro rocker will stay. My grandpa's painting that's between the mirrored panels (it's only up there currently so it's not sitting on the floor) will be reframed. The bamboo end table and coffee table set will stay for some months most likely, eventually to be sent to their original intended location in the basement (where they will hang with the pink sofa), to be replaced by other solid wood vintage pieces. Everything else shown will get re-purposed in other rooms.

After weeks and months of having no idea what to do with this room, we finally have a shared goal in sight. We have struggled and struggled in this room. Seriously, dear readers, I was growing to hate my own living room! Not now. I can envision almost every single thing I want to happen in this room. I'm so excited, I'm about ready to pop. (I promise I won't.) Slowly over time, I'll share our plans as they develop.

First up? Painting next week. A color I would never in a thousand years have thought I'd paint on the walls in my home, until we made a joke in the paint department of Home Depot and realized we may actually have hit on a good idea: grey. It'll be our neutral palette to bounce off of. Somehow freeing ourselves of color on the walls opened up a world of possibilities for us (who knew?). It'll work, it'll rock with our other colorful plans, it'll be awesome.

And when we're done with it all, hopefully we'll have transformed this retro fail into a retro win. Stay tuned to find out if we can pull it off. I have plans to share every step along the way!

Knit it in Flag Colors - finished Ravellenic Games project

Well hello my friends! I know, it's been awhile! I expected to share with you my progress on my project during the Ravellenic Games, Ravelry's knitting version of the Olympics that coincide with the Olympics. However, not only have I been caught up in watching the Olympics (London, you're doing an awesome job!), I had to change my project. I started off with fair isle legwarmers for autumn, but then couldn't watch the coverage while looking at my colorwork chart, so I pulled out a long-languishing work-in-progress sweater that I hadn't touched since winter of 2011. I had the body knitted but no sleeves and no collar, so in the last week and a half I finished the sweater and crossed the finish line!

It's a vintage pattern from Australian Women's Weekly in 1942, called Knit it in Flag Colors. And though initially intended for a different flag, this project couldn't be more appropriate for the London Olympics, don't you think? It's a free pattern, available here.

Here's the original sweater:

And now for mine, knit in fingering weight yarn and a slightly looser-than-normal gauge of 6.5 spi. The body is shaped with paired increases from the ribbing to the armholes, like an inverted trapezoid (which I talked about last February in the Briar Rose KAL). My Ravelry project page is here.

Obviously, I made a few changed, including flip-flopping the red and the white (my white is actually un-dyed yarn, but looks very bright next to the blue). One fortunate occurrence of not knitting on this for a year and a half is that when I picked it back up, I realized I was trying to decide what to do about the sleeves when I last worked on it. This time around I opted for long sleeves since I almost never wear my short-sleeved knits. I was talking to Liz from zilredloh.com last week when I met up with her (incidentally, I adore her and can't believe it's taken this long for us to meet!!), and we commiserated with one another about this. So, long sleeves it was. (Which I knit slightly too loose at the upper arm, oops.)

I opted to carry the stripe and color changes across the sleeve cap instead of knitting the intarsia stripes up the sleeves like the original pattern. To do this for a highly patterned project, the sleeve cap has the be the same number of rows from the armhole to the cast off as the body is from the armhole to the shoulder. That means the sleeve cap is going to have a bit more ease in it, which worked perfectly if you're into 1940s styles, because you can just gather that bit of excess up into a beautiful gathered sleeve cap. Of course that wasn't imperative for this project since the last color change was further down my arm, but I still used the same technique.

Another alteration I made was the collar. Instead of knitting two pieces flat and then seaming them to the neckline, I simply picked up stitches (along the inside, since the collar rolls out) and knit it out from there. Instead of folding under the edges and hemming it, I used ribbing as the border and bound off very loosely. When blocking, I had to roll the collar exactly the way I wanted it to lay so that the white from the inside didn't show at the roll line. I also took a little stitch at the very center front to get the two halves to lay perfectly butt up against one another.

I fretted about the collar color and solicited advice from friends on my Ravelry teams, and in the end I'm really glad I went with red. Blue (which I started with) was too flag looking, and white would have faded into the background.

The back has a little surprise! (Other than my messy hair.)

A four button placket! Now, remembering that I knit the body a year and a half ago, when I went to put it all together I realized my top two buttonholes were slightly closer together than the others, and I have no clue why I would have done that (unless it was on accident). But the top button is mostly hidden by the collar, so I don't really care.

I used a hidden snap closure at the upper edge of the band so that it didn't pull open slightly from the weight of the collar on the left side. Per the pattern, I used a double crochet stitch the edge the buttonband. These are cute little  moonglow buttons from my vintage button stash. I'm so glad I went with red buttons! I love the little 'pop'.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with this pullover! It's not the most exciting thing in the world, but I think it will work nicely for autumn. (Crazily, it is cool enough here today that when I took photos, I actually wasn't dying from heat like I would have been any other day this summer!)

I hope to get back to more regular blogging soon. I've been having a bit of style ennui which has translated into blogging ennui. I know I've completely failed with keeping up on my Made and Making posts, and I've wanted to post again for the Vintage Knitting College series for ages and haven't pulled that together yet either. Sorry! I've also been really on a knitting kick, which means no sewing has happened. It all just means I haven't had much of anything to share.

Anyway, I do hope you're doing well and enjoy my latest knit!