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ules and tackle this design not only do i have two great summer dresses with more to come but i put myself through my paces creating visual balance in these garments this experience clarified the process for me and i hope this knowledge will be useful to my readers as well eagle eyes will spot a high heeled shoe cassette audio tape flaming binocular old school teevee aerial this view shows the wonderful asymmetrical swoop of the hem which makes this dress so whimsical and fun to wear as i wanted to wear this piece as a dress not so much as a tunic i added 4 at the hem this alteration is simple to do and accents the indentation on the lower side hem believe it or not this dress is a big sentimental piece for me i have a dear friend of many years who is an artist often working in the graffiti style we spent many wonderful hours visiting museums together one of his favorite artists is alexander calder and we saw calder s circus made for his daughter at the berkeley art museum a few times together so between the graffiti the color palette and the cirques of this dress it reminds me so much of my wonderful friend shawn i realize when you hear sentimental dressing one expects old fashioned victorian frills this goes to show you just never know what are your most unexpected sentimental garments let us know in the comments photography by marvin quick posted by tinyjunco at 10 52 am 17 comments friday august 14 2015 a blouse for charming hummingbirds b4985 i made this blouse a couple of months ago but it has been harder to photograph than the loch ness monster and bigfoot combined poor lighting conditions gadget failure even buttoning up the blouse wrong all plagued your humble photographess i ve finally managed some decent pictures which makes me very happy as i really love this blouse and want to share it with you continuing the bird theme worn with cuckoo clock pendant i ve made this pattern up several times before the addition of princess seams below an empire waist seamline makes fitting a large bust smaller ribcage and waist really easy and the many small pieces offer a nice canvas to showcase this gorgeous border print cotton lawn from marcy tilton hummingbird blouse layered over tina givens briare slip and self drafted petticoat with no sleeves and a fine but very breathable cotton fabric this blouse is perfect for wearing in the heat the bright colors and incredibly detailed floral print charm just about everyone finding just the right buttons for this blouse could have been a problem but i used real shell ones i cut off of a old men s dress shirt i turned them around revealing the varied shell patterns eileen fisher has been creating a useful resource at their site on how to take care of your clothe s for the long haul this project is part of their philosophy of being respectful of the resources used to make their clothing i enjoyed this video on how to sew on a button and used the same technique on this blouse the little thread shanks give the buttons a bit of dangling movement i used french seams all through enclosed the button plackets and applied bias binding on the armscyes the more i sew and wear my own garments the more i appreciate a beautiful interior finish the experience of wearing a nicely finished item is so much more comfortable luxurious and sensual than floppy scratchy ready to wear combined with beautiful fabric and your desired fit this type of finish really changes the way you live in your clothes it can t compare to even the best of ready to wear because rtw manufacturers will not fit so exactly to your unique figure and do not regularly use the same quality of fabric and such time consuming techniques this level of luxury lies behind the passion of many seamsters a pattern which one knows inside and out using it many times is called a tnt for tried n true while you see the acronym pretty frequently in the online sewing world you don t see much practical demonstration of the ways in which you can really stretch a tnt and put it through its paces in creating your wardrobe erin of seamstress erin released a well reviewed swimming pattern this summer in conjunction she has published a number of articles on ways to use this one pattern to make your own undies create a tankini h ack a high waist swim bottom or undies how to add a little skirt and how to add a high waist with twists whew what i especially like about this series is how it shows what you can do beyond just changing out the sleeves or leaving off a collar by using some simple drafting skills and your creative vision really worth checking out for inspiration and to see the gorgeous fabrics she uses do any of you have tnt patterns or even more important what are the pieces in your wardrobe which are delightful enough to charm a hummingbird let us know in the comments posted by tinyjunco at 8 36 am 12 comments thursday august 6 2015 ancestress of style lauren mcintosh we all have our own style icons while some of them are constantly at front of mind isak dinesen amelia earhardt others work their magic in our subconscious for decades until one day they decide to stroll out into the spotlight and take a bow most of you are quite familiar with my love affair with beige beige the perfect low contrast neutral to go with my low contrast coloring beige keeps me from feeling overwhelmed when i pile on the details or play with an outsized silhouette which is why i felt perplexed at my choice of daily uniform the last six months have seen me ever more reliant on uniform dressing nine days out of ten i m in a dress or a full skirt and white linen blouse even better if it is a full black skirt with a white blouse black and white while this combo indeed comprises neutrals it is the quintessential high contrast look why did i love wearing it so much why did it feel so me i knew not why but continued sporting this combo in hopes it would trigger some insight it didn t what did was a post by marcy tilton sharing with her facebook readers her love of designer carolyn quartermaine via a little video while the focus of the video was carolyn quartermaine s promotion of toile de jouy the calligraphy ms quartermaine favored reminded me of lauren mcintosh s own artwork lauren mcintosh co owns berkeley boutique tail of the yak with fellow artist alice erb i of course remarked that lauren mcintosh s personal style was also something to behold lauren mcintosh with her artwork via hat designer momoca s blog while searching for a picture or two with which to illustrate my point my abiding love of the ensemble black and white stared me square in the face the pictures of ms mcintosh i found online while scarce solved the mystery of my black and white love affair in an instant if you walked into tail of the yak today you would be awed by the exquisite taste in everything from water glasses to victorian era mourning jewelry to hand cut garlands and 1920 s era french ribbons by the yard but you would not be shocked with a through the looking glass punch to the gut because tail of the yak has been so influential and copied through the decades not so in the early 1980 s i grew up in castro valley half an hour south of berkeley to which we d go on the weekends i found being so out of place at home then just another weirdo a few miles distant to be more comforting than strange and in tail of the yak i got a glimpse of people living the type of life in which my talents and preferences would at least be accepted maybe even admired the idea of living with people who didn t actively scorn me was arresting enough but what i really loved about tail of the yak was looking at everything i loved the taste and aesthetic and thirstily drank it in from remodelista lauren mcintosh artist doyenne of berkeley on the best visits lauren mcintosh would be working in the shop she s strikingly beautiful but more than that i loved her outfits when first i haunted the store she wore crisp full black cotton skirts with white cotton petticoats black leather booties and white or black cotton blouse she braided her long black hair and sometimes topped it all off with a straw hat painted black jewelry influenced by tail of the yak and ms macintosh herself this stark ensemble created the perfect setting to showcase her incredible collection of antique not vintage antique european and mexican jewelry pearls cameos rose cut diamonds antique paste earrings from the mexican jewelers who sold to frida khalo in business since the days of spanish colonialism i have a pair myself thank you mom photo from the real isabelle allende s blog i haven t the words to convey the atmosphere of tail of the yak i did find a few pictures which may give you a taste of it here is isabelle allende sprucing up ms erb and mcintosh s macquillage for a photoshoot later published in american craft magazine that s tail of the yak in a nutshell 6 places to check out in the elmwood from sfgate intoxicating and it seemed at the time utterly beyond my reach i didn t have the budget of the target customer so never got to know anyone with the store aside from a few conversations with the ethereally delightful alice erb partner in tail of the yak and the gentlest sweetest of souls so i consciously put aside the idea of being influenced by that milieu happily my unconscious was having none of that i find it so wonderful that our subrosa selves can take inspiration from people and places no matter what we make up our minds to do or not in this instance certainly my subconscious had very strict and correct views on the matter and i am grateful to it for showing more common sense than me up here in the brain i made this double layered skirt as part of a lagenlook sew along organized by garden girl rene on the stitcher s guild sewing forum t hese sew alongs started in january and have been quite active check out the threads for a ton of eye candy inspiration and helpful advice for this double layered skirt i chose 100 cotton lawn embroidered in a kind of eyelet wallpaper stripe it is easy to sew and very comfortable to wear click here to see some photos showing the skirt details more clearly i bought the fabric at stone mountain and daughter at 9 a 54 wide yard an excellent value even more as it has been wearing quite well no pilling on the embroidery twisting etc i had been kicking myself for not buying more when last saturday i went upstairs at stone mountain to find the same fabric on sale for half off i snapped up four yards to make a dress thank you fabric fairies do any of you want to take a guess at what style icons lurk in your own subconscious working patiently while awaiting the right moment to burst upon your awareness maybe you ve had a similar realization please share posted by tinyjunco at 8 35 am 9 comments saturday july 25 2015 tina givens zelda slipdress luxe in silk this make of tina givens zelda slip dress embodies slow sewing to begin i d had the fabric for over a year and a half before i cut into it i also decided to accent the dress with some lace i found a beautiful lace which only came in white i knew from experience that the lace s rayon cotton blend takes dye beautifully so i used rit dye in navy to create something more in line with the look i had in mind dyeing took some time as did stabilizing the silk crepe de chine at hem neck and arm openings with spray starch cutting my own bias trim of the same stretch denim i used for my marcy tilton v8876 frock coat took more labor than buying pre made hand stitching the bias binding also added minutes and hours as did arranging all those gathers on the ruffles but what really pushed this one over the slow sewing edge were the changes i made after the dress was nominally complete the wrap blouse is noanoa a gift from gorgeously generous sheila of ephemera 3 as soon as i finished this dress i loved wearing it i bought the fabric at stone mountain and daughter and it is simply luscious heavy without feeling weighed down delicious soft soft surface incredible drape and it turns out it is virtually fray proof never leave that store without going upstairs to check out the silk on sale the sinuous motion of the hem mesmerized me while simply walking around the house and it s so practical for my life i can wear it as a nightgown then toss on a jacket or cardigan and be perfectly presentable to drop mr e off at the transit center for his early morning commute fairly swank for a just rolled out of bed look if i say so meself however as close as this dress was to perfect i had a couple of thoughts on how to improve it the whole line is so dramatic but the color was meh i wanted to see it in an equally dramatic hue and loved the navy of the lace that was an easy choice dyeing easy but time consuming the original shorter less ruffly lighter version the other thing i didn t like was the length in front my knees felt like they were kind of poking out at center front and that is not a spot i like my hems to hit generally that s why i m wearing leggings in the pre navy pictures i had a fair amount of fabric left after the first round of slip making when i measured this remnant i had just enough to add another ruffle at 6 1 2 behind the original 3 ruffle so i set to as this silk has a fairly bouncey reaction to being gathered it poofs out instead of falling straight down i made random hand pleats for the added ruffle instead of running stitches and gathering as i did for the original row of ruffles seeing as i was there hand pleating already i sewed the ruffle on by hand as well it took about an hour but i like this length so much better than the shorter version how much that three and a half inch increase affected my reaction to this dress struck me it s such a small amount compared to the height of my body yet made all the difference like letting out a too long held breath i did a bit of calculating of which accuracy i am not certain and it looks like three inches is just under 2 of my height five feet six inches which leads me to posit that the difference between looking good and having fabulously killer style is that last two percent any thoughts the one part of this dress i m not so hot on is the neckline it is fine just not as excellent as the hem i m mulling over converting the bodice part to a strappy cami type of affair which would be less obtrusive under layering garments as well as cooler and more flattering to wear on it s own this operation could be trickier than it would seem upon first glance as tina givens wonderful hemlines derive their shapes in part from the length added by the trapeze shaped side seams here you can get a feel for the shape of this dress my favorite part of this dress is the hem it s not at all complicated a very flat curve along the back and an upside down u sweep in the front somehow these lines and the way they intersect constantly surprise with new shapes i m particularly enamored of the squareish garland bit which hangs off the corners great origin...