a tale of two Laurels....
I am going to QuiltCon next week. If you don't know what QuiltCon is, check out this link. I get to escape the cold and SNOW(!!!) of Maine for a long weekend. I will hang out in Austin with hundreds of the fabric obsessed, fondling, admiring, manipulating, buying, and basically worshipping fabric. I am taking four (!) workshops: Japanese Sashiko Stitching with Maura Ambrose; English Paper Piecing with Katy Jones; Alturas with Carolyn Friedlander and Plain & Perfect Binding with Susan Cleveland. Whew! My brain is going to be so full, and my hands tired by the time I fly back to Maine. That is if I can even get out of here. Please send all your snowless vibes to Maine for Wednesday.... The eagle eyed of you will recognize Carolyn as one of the teachers for our Slow Stitching Retreat in August. I don't know how much stitching time I will get that weekend, so I jumped at the chance to do some hand stitching with her in Texas. Yeehaw!
While I would love to get giddy about my impending travels, I have other fish to fry at the moment. (besides I feel if I talk too much about the trip the weather gods will smote me and send a blizzard on wednesday....) There have been many completed items enter the wardrobe in the past few weeks. I am not happy with my current photography process. I love (LOVE) my Canon G15 camera, but it does not have a wireless remote, and no one has made a universal that works with it. This means that in order to take photos (real photos, not phone photos- I am a bit of a snob) I need to set the thing to timer and do some running around my tripod. Either that or take the ridiculous in the mirror shots that I don't really love. This set-up has been inhibiting lately, so the things I have made have gone unrecorded, although certainly not unworn.
What you are seeing above is not actually a new make. I made this version of a Colette Pattern Laurel last winter with some lovely wool I found in my stash. It was made around the same time as the Deep Water cardigan by Cecily Glowik MacDonald in Peace Fleece, and so in my mind they go together. Two layers of such warm wool tend to only come out in the heart of winter. If the beginning of February with upwards of three feet of snow on the ground isn't the heart of winter, I don't know what is. I am posting these photos to illustrate my attempts to look 'stylish' in frigid temperatures. But the real heart of this post is this....
A Colette Pattern Laurel with the Mod Hack.... This is, to me, on its way to being my favorite dress. I say on its way because I believe that I need to do a FBA (full bust adjustment) on this pattern to make the front fit the way I want it to. I also need to do a bit of fiddling with both the drop of the skirt and the V at the neckline. With these adjustments, which are all in process in one form or another, I feel this dress will get huge rotation in my closet. The dress as I have made it, needs no zipper, and yet skims my curves in a way that pleases me. That is why I have shown that more-than-a-little-wrinkled version on the right. This dress is not made to be worn with tights, but I wasn't going to take those babies off, sorry. I am standing a bit strangely to show the curve of the back properly. Without tights, it hangs like a dream. I made a swayback alteration a while back to get this fit. It has pockets! It has a V neck. It has 3/4 length sleeves, that could be shortened, or lengthened, as needed. Oh my.... Yes, I do love this dress. This puppy is going to Austin with me! [I may have also made a By Hand London Victoria cropped jacket to go to Texas as well, but we'll have to see how long that takes to get photographed.] For those who keep track of such things, this fabric is a cotton I bought at our local discount chain, and the dress is made up in a size 12 bodice/size 14 bottom.
When I saw the hack on the Coletterie blog last August I got all sorts of ideas for this dress. As life would have it, I didn't get to actually making one till December (there is another lined, purple baby-wale corduroy version yet to be photographed). Now I want to make dozens of them. I'm scheming a version with the skirt cut on the bias. A couple of linen versions. One in wool. A color-blocked version. One in Shibori. A Tie Dyed one.... I'm on fire with the Laurel Mod Hack!
This is an apt indication of how my mind works. I cannot keep up with the fast paced world of modern fabric and pattern releases. I don't have the bandwidth to absorb all the ideas being floated. Nor do I have the literal time to do the sewing, and run this business and get some sleep (not to mention give my husband some loving). So I look at everything as it comes across my line of sight, bookmark the ones I don't think I'll remember, and then go back to what's on my sewing table. I tend to be a muller, I let things macerate in my mind for a while before I act on them. I do love that there is so much going on in the world of sewing these days, but I cannot keep up. I will muddle through, moving at my slow, deliberate pace....
A parting shot....