I Have Skinny Wrists

Seriously.

Aside from having trouble getting bracelets and watches to fit, my wrists allow great gusts of cold air to go up the sleeves of my coats, even with gloves on. And, since I almost never wear long sleeves, my arms get chilly.

So, when I was looking for a knitting project for the small ball of fingering yarn I bough on our family vacation in Venice, these Frilly and Lacy Wrist Warmers caught my eye. My thinking was that, in addition to being pretty, if I wore them over my gloves, the frilly cuffs would block the wintry wind from going up my sleeves.

A photo posted by Clio (@cliophineas) on Oct 30, 2015 at 6:58am PDT

I actually finished knitting them at the end of October while on a business trip. But Autumn in NY seemed to go on and on this year. It was only when old man winter finally arrived with a vengeance this week that I finally put my theory to the test.

Thumbs up! How cheesy am I? 

And they worked! No cold air up the arms. No chilly elbows while waiting for the train or walking to my office. Woo hoo! My arms stayed cosy inside my coat. Plus, I think my cuffs look kinda cute peeking out from my coat. Yes?

Cute little cuffs. 

Other deets: The wrist warmers were easy to knit in this lovely Filatura di Crosa yarn, which is 100% merino wool. It has a soft and almost creamy feel, if that description makes sense. If I were to knit these again to wear without gloves, I would probably want to make them longer. Other than that, I wouldn't make any changes to this easy pattern.

Pretty and functional, what could be better?  Hooray! 

Oops!

Did I forget to mention that we are away for a few weeks?

I've just finished a week of work in London, and now we are on our first family vacation. Guess where.

NYLon 2014: PJ's, Sewing Bee and Name Tag

Folks, excitement is running high at NYLon headquarters where Rachel, Puu, Jennifer, Vicki and I are watching The Great British Sewing Bee in pj's.

Before we put on pj's

One of my last little projects before leaving home is a handmade name tag for the meet up. I have to confess that I felt a lot of pressure about this project because 1) I was making a name tag for Rachel Pinheiro who is the queen of craftiness and 2) I don't think of myself as being particularly crafty. Stop laughing. It's true. I don't generally join ornament swaps or other crafty endeavors, because I'm just not confident in that department. And cute is outside my comfort zone.

So, I tried to make a "name tag" that reflected my own style and the city I call home.  And what is more NY-ish than our all black dress code?

I pulled together a scrap of black leather left over from my leather jacket, a metal zipper, some grosgrain and lace hook and eye tape.  My sm has an alphabet stitch, which I put to use along with some metallic thread. Rather than making a traditional name tag, I decided to make a cuff bracelet...

 I sliced up the zipper and made it into trim.

I used lace hook tape as a closure and I backed the whole thing with grosgrain ribbon.

And here it is on Rachel, herself.

London people, we are so looking forward to seeing you tomorrow (get your beauty sleep!) and everyone else, we wish you were here!

Now, back to the Sewing Bee...   

NY-LON Meet Up: Hey London, Let's Be Friends!

Why isn't nylon a better fabric? Really, if it was, I'd have to coolest name for this post. Instead, it's synthetic. Oh well.

I just got back from a very busy business trip to London and have that place on the brain. So, it seems like a good day for this...

A few months ago, a few of my fellow NY area sewists and I were fantasizing about what the ultimate sewing/sewing blogger meet up would look like. New York and London figured prominently on the guest list. From there it wasn't much of a leap to propose a NY-LON meet up in London. Call it the American invasion.

Dragon Hippo and a new friend are already preparing.

Soooo... we're coming.. the weekend of May 16/17/18!

Right now the NY group is yours truly, Devviepuu of Puu's Door of Time, Jennifer of Workroom Social, and (possibly, if work allows) Oonaballoona. The always amazing Rachel Pinheiro has graciously offered to be our London-based hostess with the most-est!  So, mark your calendar and buy a plane ticket. This shindig is open to all. (Seriously, shoot us an email if you are interested - we are open to all geographies!)

The Great Fire of London: Fascinating to the fire-breathing set

We all really hope you will join!


PS - Dragon Hippo will be introducing his new little friend as soon as he can calm down enough to write a post and I can get over my jet lag.

Fabric and Textile Shopping in Istanbul

After our Greek Island Odyssey, we finished our trip with a few days in Istanbul. Now that I am at home (sniff, sniff) and have had a few days to reflect, here are some thoughts on shopping in Istanbul.  Other sewing bloggers (Slapdash and Selfish) have blogged about the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul not really having much to offer in the way of fabric. I concur. Aside from Gülipek Tekstil which exclusively sells silk, most of the (very few) fabric stores' stock seems to be geared toward belly dance costumes.

Coincidence: Display of hand crank sewing machines in the lobby of our hotel.

However, Istanbul is not a bad place to fabric shop (more on this at the end). In addition, there are plenty of opportunities to buy textile products at the Grand Bazaar, where it seems like every other stall sells pashminas. I found that having sewist's fingers was immeasurably helpful.  In fact, aside from a few knick-knacks for my nephews, all of my purchases were fabric and textile oriented. Here's what we bought, interspersed with some completely unrelated pictures from the Istanbul leg of our trip.

L to R: Hers and His Peştemals

Peştemals - There are loads of places to buy the traditional Turkish towel/sarong used at a hamam (Turkish bath) in either cotton or bamboo. My sister, Calliope, and I bought cotton peştemal bathrobes for our parents for their 65th birthdays which just passed while they were on the Camino. The opening ask price for most that we saw at the Bazaar was $40 Turkish Lira (about $20USD), but they were thin and the fabric was kind of stiff. Most were one size. We kept hunting and found significantly better quality ones for $60TL - they were thicker, softer and a better/more dense weave. Also, they came in sizes that will fit our tall parents. We negotiated the shop owner down to $50TL each. Perhaps we could have gotten them for less outside of the Grand Bazaar, but definitely not in the US. Not for this quality.

Fabric close up

Carpets - One of the most fun things we did was shop for a teeny tiny hand knotted wool carpet for Calliope. She ended up buying from a shop owner who spent a lot of time with us explaining the differences between kilims (woven) and carpets (knotted), and hand vs machine made. It was easy to see. On the hand-knotted ones you could see the small imperfections on the back side. Again, sewists fingers helped. She's not going to let me do a burn test, but I am pretty sure that the carpet Calliope bought is, in fact, wool.

Phin outside Sultan Ahmet's Mosque (aka The Blue Mosque)

Ikat - My one fabric purchase was a meter + 10 cm of silk, hand-loomed ikat.  It is only a little over 15" wide and is meant for home dec applications. The price was non-negotiable ($60TL/meter), so I negotiated for an extra 10cm of fabric. The shop owner thought I was funny and gave in. I think this will become some kind of purse or other accessory. Suggestions?

1 meter+ of ikat

 Leather - There are loads of leather shops in the Grand Bazaar and at least one that sold fur, too. My final textile purchase was soft leather baby booties for my brand new nephew who was born while I was away. Obviously, being familiar with leather helped.

Where the Bosphorus meets the Black Sea (Lunch in Asia)

Suzani Fabric - I didn't shop for any, but there were any number of shops selling Uzbeki suzani fabrics and textiles. These are very heavy weight and really only usable for home dec. Stunning, but not for me.

Other Fabric and Notions - So, what to do if you do want to shop for fabric while in Istanbul? Well, there were plenty of fabric and notions stores on the blocks between the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar, and from there up to Sulimanye Mosque. I didn't go inside, but there were stores specializing in trims, zippers, buttons galore and, at least from the street view, a normal array of fabric (ie: cottons, wools, knits, lace, etc and nary a belly dancer to be found).

If luxury is more your speed, there was a much more high end fabric shop with beautiful wool suitings and high end cottons in it's window right on İstiklâl Caddesi, the main shopping street in the older part of Istanbul. So, the sense that I get is there must be a vibrant sewing community in Istanbul. In fact, look at this funny piece of kitch that I bought from a vendor while walking across the Bosphorus Bridge.

Get yours here. At just $5TL ($2.50USD), I couldn't resist.

It's a stapler sewing machine. He he he.

OK, here's a few parting shots...

Topkapi Palace

Calliope and Phin at the Bosphorus Bridge

 

Phin outside Sulimanye Moque

Bosphorus Cruise: Vacation frame of mind

Pattern Pyramid and a Little Me Made Vacation Recap!

Some very exciting news: Before vacation I won one of the Pattern Pyramids. Woot!

This one came from The Perfect Nose and it was waiting for me when I arrived home. Here's what's in it.

Pattern Pyramid

I need to pick one pattern to keep for myself, then I'll add at least one into the trove and host the giveaway. Check back because I want to pass this along pretty quickly - as soon as I have a minute to sort thru my pattern stash.

And now a little vacation recap. I've noticed that sewists in my area are starting to turn their thoughts to Autumn patterns and cooler weather sewing. I am still stuck in summer. I'm more productive during the hotter months, probably because I have more time and less work travel. But perhaps there is a correlation between vitamin D and mojo. Anyway, I've sewn a lot of summer clothing over the last few years and never seem to have a long enough season to wear it all, so it lasts for several years. This vacation was very me made. Here's just a sampling from our days in Greece (Athens, Rhodes and Santorini)... a gratuitous way for me to re-live/share how wonderful a trip it was. 

Seersucker pants at the Acropolis, Athens

Tube Top at the Temple of Zeus Olympian, Athens

Red Linen Pants in Old Rhodes

Linen "jeans" trousers, Old Rhodes

Burda top from 2009 at the Acropolis of Lindos, Rhodes

BTW - Mood shopping bags make excellent beach bags.

Flowered pants in Santorini

Perissa Beach, Santorini. I was wearing my black swim skirt (I'm the feet on the right)

Since we didn't really take pictures after dusk, there is a boatload of me makes that weren't photographed. But I can assure you that 3 of 4 tube tops were worn as well as a maxi dress I made in 2009.

If you have never been to the Greek Islands, it is so very worth it. There were sights to see in the morning, beaches to cool off on in the afternoon and wonderful food and perfect summer weather in the evenings. I've already decided that I will make it back to Santorini in the next three years. Two days in the most beautiful place I have ever been was simply not enough.

Another view from the jacuzzi in Oia, Santorini.

Next up: Shopping for fabric and textiles at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

Greetings from The Lost City of Atlantis...

Better known as Santorini, where we are watching the famous sunset over the caldera from our private jacuzzi.

This is the view. Don't hate.

View of the volcanic caldera from our terrace/yard in Oia.

Sewists, Latest Knit Socks and Airports

Anyone who thinks traveling for work is glamorous needs to consider: at this moment I am sitting in the airport in Toronto. I've been here for 5 hours, the first spent standing in line. Flights back to Newark are being cancelled right and left which puts my plans to take the afternoon off to spend with Phin and then take my sister out for a birthday dinner in jeopardy. Airport restrooms are the opposite of glamorous and drinking mediocre airport coffee only increases the need to use them. Beer and wine, too. Plus, flight is very dehydrating (read: increased hangover risk.) I'm not even going to talk about the culinary wasteland of airport food; I am starting to get hungry. At least there is wi-fi.

Travel for work is a trade off.

BUT on the immensely positive side, I had an awesome dinner last night with Kristin of K-line, who is every bit as fun and fierce in person as on her blog. And she was wearing this sweater, which was so pretty in person. I was so excited to meet her that I forgot to take pictures.

So instead, and since Kristin is a recent convert to the joys of hand knit socks, here is my latest pair. I finished them in flight to London.

Socks!

The lace pattern is Welt from Socks a la Carte. It was very easy and knit up quickly. It actually made me realize that maybe I'm not as slow a knitter as I've always thought.  I just seem to have a talent for picking more and more complicated patterns as my skills have improved. Naturally they take longer to knit up.

My new learning experience for these socks was an eye-of-partridge stitch on the heel. It is supposed to be sturdy and these socks are meant to be worn.

Ooh, they just announced that the plane will arrive here at 1:30 and will turn around quickly.  No further delays expected. Anyway, I hope you have a great weekend and please cross your fingers for my journey home!

*Edited 3/16 - I did make it home yesterday afternoon and out to Bday dinner with my sis.  It's good to be home!

Sewing while Not Sewing

March through May always seems to be my busy time of year at work.  I'm back from London and on to Toronto. I love travel, but it's always hard to be away from home and the regular ebb and flow of my creative output. Plus jet lag is detrimental to sewing mojo.

So my question is: What do you do when you have a forced separation from your sewing machine?

The three things I am doing during this travel spell are:

Meeting other sewing bloggers for fabric browsing and sewing chat, which is more fun than I could begin to express.

Image courtesy of Rachel of House of Pinheiro

Taking my sewing machine in for maintenance. Honestly, this is so much easier to do while I'm gone and not at home to pine for it.


Knitting.  The whole reason I took up knitting was because it is transportable.

The beginnings of a knit hippo for Phin

Naturally, I'm also doing a lot of fantasy sewing - planning future projects and stalking patterns and notions on line. 

Anyway, what do you do when you've got sewing on the brain but can't actually sew?

Greetings from Paradise!

I'm cruising around the Caribbean this week, but will be back for Labor Day. Have a great week everyone!

Wet Greetings from London: V&A

Greeting from Merry Ole (Rainy) England!  Today was my one free/non-work day on this trip. So, I spent the first half at the Victoria & Albert Museum seeing the Ballgowns exhibit. It was pretty great.

Some of the dresses in the exhibition had accompanying pictures of who wore them on the red carpet. It was fun to see these dresses in person. The collection ran from vintage (1950's) right up to the present.

The dress I was most excited to see was this:

Alexander McQueen

This is a version of the dress that Daphne McGuinness wore to the MET Costume Institute Gala the year they honored Alexander McQueen (2011). She got ready for that gala in the window of Barney's New York as an art installation. Crazy, no? Don't get me wrong, I would not wear this dress, but it was absolutely fabulous to see in person.  (By the way, if you love red carpet fashion and like to laugh, you should be reading the Tom & Lorenzo blog.)

Should you be passing thru Londontown anytime soon, the V&A is definitely worth a visit. 

Hope you are having a good time, wherever you are this weekend!

San Francisco - A Sewist's Town!

Sorry for the radio silence while I was in San Francisco! Even though I wasn't blogging, sewing was on my mind from the moment I got of the airplane at San Francisco International Airport. In just a few steps, I found myself face to face with a vintage Singer sewing machine!

The museum at the airport has mounted an exhibit called Threading the Needle: Sewing in the Machine Age. It's got any number of beautiful early sewing machines, notions, advertisements, 1/4 size dress forms and a beautiful example of a dress sewn with some of the earliest home sewing machines.

Somehow this puts my sewing efforts to shame.

By the time I made it to baggage claim, I was already in a fabric frame of mind.

My first fabric opportunity cropped up pretty quickly when I realized that Britex was just blocks from my hotel. So within minutes of checking in, I was browsing it's very well organized 4 floors - sumptuous wool and silk on 1; exquisite cotton, poly and rayon on 2; just about every kind of notion you can imagine, plus trims, patterns and some sewing books on 3; and faux fur, vinly, and sale on 4.  I really thought I'd hit the jackpot with the sale section until I realized that the 1 yard remnant of (the most gorgeous and buttery soft) silk that I immediately picked up cost $99. On clearance. Yeah, talk about a downer.

Wool and Silk on the first floor

Overall, there was little to buy that was less than $20/yd, and most was more than that. Now don't get me wrong, all of the fabrics were luscious. But just not in my price range. At one point, I flirted with some orange wool/viscose/poly that was in a small area of 50% off wools, but decided that for $12.50, I could find something I was happier with at home. Some have compared Britex to Mood, but I think it's much more like Rosen & Chaddick or NY Elegant Fabrics - it's where you go when working on something special and cost is not an obstacle. This is not the kind of place that I would buy basics at or really buy anything at all at unless I knew what I was sewing and what yardage I needed. So, I left empty handed. Oh well! 

My second fabric shopping adventure happened on my last day in town after my business was concluded. I headed out toward Golden Gate Park to hit two fabric stores and then drop in on the de Young Museum.

Satin Moon Fabrics

First, I stopped by Satin Moon. It's a small shop, but with very high quality fabrics. Again, there's not too much at less than $20/yd. But if you are interested in beautiful fabric and open to what may suggest itself, this is a great place to shop. They have a well curated selection of beauties at the ready. While I was there a decorator was buying home dec fabric for upholstering a couch for a client and another sewist bought some Ponte Roma knit (which was $18/yard, I think). But after some browsing, I moved on.

My second stop was down the street to Fabrix. This was more my speed. Fabrix is stocked with yards of discount fabric, including a whole table of $.99/yd bolts. A few weeks ago, Mikhaela over at Polka Dot Overload posted a few times about sewing with cheap fabric, and I'm pleased to say I have truly jumped on the cheapo bandwagon with this white burnout which feels very soft (like rayon, but I could be wrong). 

$2 for 2 yards

The final tease with San Francisco was the de Young Museum which was opening an exhibit, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From Sidewalk to Catwalk just 2 days after I left! How unfair is that!?!?!? Doesn't it look phenominal? Oh well. 

Anyway, at this point my time in SF was at an end. But it was fun to indulge in some fabric pawing in a new city. This week it is Montreal for me and hopefully more fabric pawing. Also, I've got some updates on my leather jacket project to post later this week - there's been some setbacks which just adds to the adventure. Stay tuned.

More Work Travel = More Fabric Shopping?

Work travel is not always fun. But fabric shopping is!

Business trips will bring me to San Francisco and Montreal in the next two weeks. If you are in either location and want to meet up for some fabric shopping, give me a holler at clio[dot]phineas[at]gmail[dot]com!  Or if you have any suggestions on fabric and notions stores in either place, let me know!!

Happy Friday, everyone!

PR Weekend in my Hometown!

It seems like I'm out of town every time there are other sewists visiting NYC.  But not this time! Not only is PR weekend in my hometown (yay New York!), but it's also on a weekend that I can make (double yay!)!  I've already registered.

Now, I just have to plan what to wear. (Seriously, I'm already having fits of angst about it. And May can really go either way in NY - it could be deliciously summery or cold and damp.)

I hope to meet some of you there! Holler if you're in! I shall grill you about what you plan to wear at a later date. ;-)

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