Thanks and Congratulations!

A big thank you to God and a big congratulations to my husband! My husband passed his lab exam yesterday! He is now a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert, or CCIE. He is #20655. He called me last saying that had received the email that the test scores were ready. The only problem was that he took his blackberry with him and not his laptop so he couldn't log in and find out the test results. So, I logged into the site from home and got the results. It was kind of nice to share the moment together. I even got to make an announcement on his blog for his readers to see.

The whole family is happy and excited. It has been a long 16 months of studying and preparation, not only for the first written exam, but also for the second lab exam. There were times when all of us just wished it was over, as all of his free time was devoted to studying. In the end, it payed off, with him passing the exam the first time!

Parting Shots: A Welcome Home Gift. For a quick welcome home gift for my husband, the children and I made a t-shirt. He'll be arriving home while we're at school, but we left this for him. The front says, "not all monkeys were meant for space", which is a saying he's been rather fond of recently. The back features a rather intelligent looking monkey, of course.

Inside The Envelope

Advance Import #113

Thank you all for the congratulations on my latest ribbon! I'd also like to thank you all for asking about my husband's exam - it was today. He's done now, and he called me this afternoon. He feels very good about the work he did. He understood how to do all the tasks and completed them all, but still is anxiously awaiting the results. Very few people pass the first time, so he is understandably nervous. We'll know either late tonight or some time tomorrow morning.

Before we go inside this envelope, let's take a look at the back, because there are some interesting things back there. The description of this pattern from the envelope is: Princess line dress with waistline seam and short sleeves. Neckline - deeply scooped and edged with band which stands up and away from neck. Short, formal length. Extremely wide twelve-gored skirt has insets of fabric folds in each seam, and godets set into skirt edges. View 2: Regulation dress length, without insets and godets.

Here are the pattern pieces - note that there are six pieces each for the skirt and bodice which need to be cut twice for a total of twelve sections.

Here are the figures from the back of the envelope. The skirt width of View 1 (with godets) is about 13 yards! That is about 468" or 1189cm! Wow. Certainly a job for machine hemming. That also makes me wonder what sort of petticoats would be needed to support that skirt and show it off to the fullest extent. Also note that the pattern calls for about 9 yards of 44" wide fabric. Brings new meaning to the phrase, "the whole nine yards".

Now for the instructions. To be honest, this really isn't a hard dress to construct. The complexity comes in the number of pieces the must be labeled and assembled in the correct order to make the dress.

The dress is unlined, but the neckband is finished nicely on the inside with a narrow facing that covers the seam between bodice and neckband:

There are not separate pieces for the sleeves, they are "cut on" or "kimono" very short sleeves, basically an extension of the bodice side front and back. They too are finished nicely with a facing:

The dress also features a side zipper and an waist stay for the waist seam. If it didn't have one, I would have added one, the skirt alone must weigh quite a bit.

The insets and godets of the skirt seams are actually assembled and inserted separately. There are actually four inset units per skirt seam (let's see, that's 48 individual units!) The oval units are made by laying a piece of yarn in four flat rows aligned with the marking and stitching the yarn in place at the ends in the seam allowances. The unit is then folded in half with the yarn inside and basted closed.

Four units are made for each seam, with two basted to each half of the seam. The seam itself has rounded extensions to baste the units to (refer to the pattern piece photo above - there are little ear-like extensions from each skirt piece). Once the units are in place, the skirt pieces are placed right sides together and the seam is sewn. Interesting, isn't it?

Here are the godets, shorter than they seem from the envelope picture because the insets are constructed separately:

I've got a very clear idea of a gown from this pattern, but I think I might have to modify those skirt seams to do what I want to, but still keep the same look as the pattern. I might actually lengthen this to floor length, too. Any one want to guess how big the hem circumference might be for that?!? I have no idea, and might not want to know!

This *might* be this winter's and next spring's project - who knows? I do know that when I make it, it will be called "Cherry Blossom". Of course, I have a list of ten art garments right now that I want to make, all of which I have already designed in my mind and I even have some of the patterns. That should keep me busy into, let's see, oh, 2011?!?

Parting Shot: AQS Goodies. I know, that's not a lot of stuff, is it? You think I would have bought more at the show, but I didn't, just some thread, more straw needles, a few pieces of jewelry and some fabric dye (sorry, not shown!). I actually forgot to get a couple of spools of Superior Glitter thread in gold, but since I'm not sure which shade of gold I want of the three they make, I suppose it's not a bad thing. I need to match it to some fabric for a project for this summer. I also don't buy a lot at shows because mainly these show vendors cater to quilters and supplies for piecing and quilting quilts. I use many of the same threads and tools, but not necessarily the same patterns and fabrics. The pin and hair clip are from Quilted in Clay. Check out their website - they make all of the jewelry themselves from polymer clay and are a fantastic couple!

I'm Back!

Paducah, KY is a round trip of 2660 miles, give or take a tenth:

Place a "2" in front of that odometer at the top, and you'll get our total trip distance, 2,660 miles or so. That amounts to about 42 hours of travel time which includes all the stops for gas, rest areas, food, etc.

Here are the children at the Kentucky Welcome Center:

They were excited to see all the green grass and plants at all the places we stopped, starting in Pennsylvania. They had a great time running around the picnic areas in the grass burning off extra energy. We are just starting to see green leaves on the trees here, so all the foliage was an exciting sight!

The AQS show itself was a great experience as always. The people who organize and run the events for the week do a tremendous job. The quilt show draws about 45,000 visitors (give or take a few) to the Paducah, KY area, so it is a very big deal. The fashion show is just a small part of the whole week's events. The children were excited to see mom on the stage and were even more excited to see what I won:

I won a first place in the professional division this year. Sadly, this is the only picture I have and was taken very late in the day! These events are very busy and between runway practice and then helping others get ready and getting ready myself, doing the show and then the professional photo shoot afterwards, there wasn't much time for pictures. Part of the problem of course, is getting permission to post photos of others and their work, especially if they are not at the event!

I have put together a short list of a few of the professional contestants and judges and links to their websites for you to check out so that you can see their work. Many of them do not have websites or blogs where their work is digitally organized, but here are a few that I found:

Vince Quevedo - Vinci Designs
Rami Kim
Belinda Orzada
Stephanie Nordlin
Judi Dains
Rachel D.K. Clark

Parting Shot: Guess what I got? I finally got one of the coveted Advance Import patterns, designed by Batilocchi of Rome! Of course, it is a bust size 28, but with all those seams, I think I can size it up a bit! I do have big plans for this one, but they will have to wait a while. Tomorrow I will take you inside the envelope of this pattern!

Wardrobe Tuesday

I know this is supposed to be a Wednesday feature, but we're leaving tomorrow for our little road trip, so I thought I'd share today. This week I made a dress for my daughter, thinking she could wear it to the fashion show on Friday:

It is from the current children's issue of Patrones, model #16:

Instead of the sequin trim, I top stitched the ribbon trim on the skirt with Superior Threads' Glitter in silver, which is a sparkling holographic thread. The neckline and armholes are bound with bias binding to which I also added a row of silver stitching after it was finished.

Overall the dress is pretty basic and easy to make. It is time consuming in the matter of the trim and the shirring, but those are the details that really make the dress interesting. The shirring is supposed to be elasticized, but I saw no need to do that since there is also an invisible zipper in the side seam. Instead of zigzagging over elastic for each row, which is one way to do elasticized shirring, I gathered each row and stitched the gathers in place with a short stitch length.

My son also wanted to do something nice for his sister, so he made her a matching bracelet. He picked out and strung the beads and then had mom finish up the clasps for him:

This will be my last post until Monday. Very, very early tomorrow morning we will start our trip to Paducah. I will try to keep up with everyone as best as I can on the road, but I'm not sure how that will work. See you Monday!

Parting Shot: The Moon. Very early this morning the moon was a beautiful orange. I tried to capture it in a photograph, but I'm afraid this isn't nearly as pretty as it was this morning.

Postcard Winners!

Thank you all for entering! I must say, that I have seen quite a few new or first time commenters in the last few weeks! Glad to see that you're around - I'm checking out all the blogs that are new to me and adding them to my reader.

My husband volunteered to pick the winners out of the hat box, so here he is with the box full of names:

He's trying not to look as he picks, but it really doesn't matter as he doesn't know any of you anyway!

Here are the winners:

If you can't read that, the winners are Elaray and Eme! Please email me with your mailing address and I'll get them in the mail tomorrow before I leave for Paducah, KY on Wednesday. My email address is: sbanks "at" metrocast "dot" net.

Now I must go back to the studio and work on the quilt and another little family project that I hope to show you tomorrow!

Parting Shot: New Hair! Today, I took my son to have his hair cut and my daughter to have her hair trimmed. She decided to go for more than a trim. This is the haircut I've been trying to persuade her to get for 2 years!

Thank You . .

and a Give Away!

Thank you so much for the kind and encouraging comments over the past few days. I really appreciate them! In turn, I have made a couple of Forget Me Knot postcards that I will give away to two lucky people:

If you would like to be included in the drawing for one of the postcards, please leave a note in the comments. The drawing will be on Monday at noon from the vintage hat box. I'll do a quick post with the winners names and hopefully get the addresses so I can mail them on Tuesday before I leave for Paducah, KY.

Parting Shot: Pix. It seems that Pix has found a soft place to lie down and still have a good view out the window! Those are actually pieces for the large quilt I'm working on.

Fashion Show Report - MQX

Last night I was on the runway at MQX wearing Forget Me Knot. What a fun show! Let me tell you, if you ever have a chance to see some of these wearable art fashion shows, you should. There is always a variety of amazing talent on display and last night was no exception. These shows take a lot of organization and everyone did a marvelous job last night at making the event fun!

A quick pose after the show at the end of the runway:

I always enter these shows for fun, not to ribbons. I make what I love and if someone else loves it, too, then that's great! When I found out the other ladies that were in my group for the judging, I knew I wasn't going to get anything. These ladies are very, very talented and after seeing their garments up close, I definitely was inspired. I apologize for not having photographs of their work, but I don't want to offend anyone by posting photos I don't have permission to post. Some of the artists weren't at the show, so there would have been no way to get immediate permission. Besides, I was busy during the show helping models change into other garments before they went back out to the runway and just enjoying being with others who love to make beautiful things.

So, you understand, I was a little surprised when I got first place for the ensembles. I never go to a show thinking I should win anything at all. I'm happy to be in it, let alone win anything. Vicki W and I were talking after the show last night and she wisely said, "The day you do that is the day you should quit competing." How true! I am always humbled by other's talent and hope to use what God gave me to inspire someone else.

Here I am with the ribbon:

Parting Shot: Vintage Dress, 1968. My mother in-law remembers having a dress like this. She might have even made it herself. Check out the contrast fabric inside the sleeves of the red dress and the great hair and earrings on the blonde in the green dress!

Road Trip!

Tonight I'll be on the runway at MQX wearing Forget Me Knot! Look for pictures tomorrow. This is the first of two shows that I'll be attending and wearing my garments in fashion shows in the next week. Next Friday, I will be in Paducah, KY for the AQS show wearing Midnight Garden.

I really love to travel, and getting away for a few days by myself to attend an out of town show is actually fun for me. It gives me a break from routine and is exciting to see what others are doing creatively. My usual plan for attending the AQS show in Paducah, KY is to fly into St. Louis or Nashville, pick up a car, drive closer to Paducah and stay at a hotel in the area. That's what the plan was for this year, too.

"Was" is the important word in the last sentence. My plans have changed. I am now going to drive to Paducah and bring my children along for the trip. Now, why on earth would I do such a thing? Paducah is over 1200 miles away, about 18 hours of freeway driving. Several reasons, really.

First, we will be on Spring Break next week. This allows me to take the trip and not have to take any time out of my regular teaching schedule. Second, the children like to go to shows and see what their mother is doing. Third and most importantly, I'm doing this for my husband. That sounds odd, but let me explain.

My husband is a computer network engineer. In his line of work, certifications from software and hardware vendors such as Microsoft and Cisco are important. He is currently working on a certification from Cisco known as a CCIE, which stands for Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert. This is a very difficult certification that requires two separate exams, a written and lab. It is just about the equivalent of a doctorate degree My husband passed the written exam last July. The lab exam is an 8 hour exam in which the person is given a notebook and a rack of computer equipment and told to complete all the tasks in the notebook, with very little reference material. The exam is pass/fail, with 80% being the lowest passing mark. On the average it takes 3 tries to pass the lab exam. The exam costs $1200 to take, not including travel expenses to one of two locations in the US (there are other test centers worldwide). When a person passes the exam, he or she is given a number. Currently there are only 15,000 to 20,000 active CCIEs in the world.

You can see that this is a very big deal, and has been in our household for the past 16 months. My husband's lab exam is scheduled for Tuesday, Apr. 29, which is the week after the AQS show in Paducah. Next week, he has taken a week of vacation to make final preparations for the exam. If I fly out on next Thursday and come back late Saturday, he'll have to figure out what to do with children for 3 days and that is a major problem when he needs peace and quiet to study for the last few days before the exam. So, I've volunteered to take the children to Paducah with me. My hope is that this will give him extra preparation time with no distractions. I'll leave home Wednesday morning and be back Sunday night. He flies out the next day to be on location for the test on Tuesday. Let us hope and pray that he passes this exam the first time!

Parting Shot: Another 70's Treasure, 1974. I remember wearing similarly styled dresses in the 70's when I was a little girl. My mother would make dresses like this for me for special occasions and holidays like Easter.

Wardrobe Wednesday

The Easter Suit That Wasn't - Blouse

Now that SWAP is all over except for the voting, I sort of miss working on a garment each week. I've decided to start a new feature on Wednesday, Wardrobe Wednesday to share some of the things I'm working on for my own wardrobe. I will be adding pieces that coordinate with the SWAP wardrobe and rebuilding my church wardrobe over the summer, plus making things for the children, so there will be plenty to share.

Today, we'll start out with the blouse that was supposed to be part of my Easter suit. Because of all the details to the suit and the my lack of time, I postponed the suit and made a dress instead. I've finished the blouse and here it is:

The blouse is from Advance 8920, c. 1960 made in crepe back satin, satin side in, bound and trimmed with silk dupionni. The jacket and skirt will be from Patrones, I'll show you those another week.

This is a really neat blouse with interesting details and construction. First, the side details, there is a zipper, of course I used an invisible zipper, a covered snap (instead of the hook and eye called for), and a tie:


As far as the construction, I thought the way the neck was constructed was interesting. First, you attach a facing to the back neck only which is clipped, pressed to the inside and the raw edge bound. Next, you stitch the shoulder seam in a 1/4" seam, which you can see below. The shiny side is the facing on the back, and the straight piece of crepe is the right side of the front. Another shoulder seam is stitched further down the shoulder from the first seam. The narrow seam is then bound.

Now the front is turned to the inside along the second shoulder seam, making a self facing for the front neck edge:

Here's the entire neckline from the inside, with the front neck in the top portion of the picture, and the back neck in the bottom portion:

Parting Shot: "New" Pattern. I love the simple style of this Vogue; there are released pleats from the neck and waist on the bodice, and front buttons only - no zipper. The green version with green shoes, white buttons, belt and earrings appeals to me. I find it interesting that it was also styled with a pink printed handbag.

PS - Remember that vintage Simplicity 6672 gown that everyone had such fond memories of? There's one on eBay for auction!

Play Day!

I took a day off from work today to meet up with VickiW and SueB for shopping and lunch. VickiW has come to New Hampshire for the MQX show, and SueB lives in Massachuesetts. While we all work with fiber, we all have slightly differently specialties, which makes for fun shopping and interesting conversation.

After touring Sue's wonderful studio and experiencing studio furniture lust, we first went to the Franklin Mill Store, which has an amazing selection of ribbons: embroidered, double face satin, grosgrain, organza, velvet and everything in between, not to mention fabrics of all sorts, plus notions and section with stationary that can be custom printed. Here's what I bought there:

There a couple of custom cards, a boxed set of cards and envelopes, some satin/organza ribbon and two woven ribbons. The horse ribbon is for trim for my daughter's fall wardrobe. Check out the image on the boxed set of cards:

After taking time out for lunch at 3 (yes that is the name of the restaurant!), we went shopping at Tatnuck Bead Company and Necessities for Needle.

I picked up these pink beads at Tatnuck along with a few findings for making jewelry. I bought the pink beads as I'm percolating a few new projects. Part of the process is to collect bits and pieces whenever I see items in the colors that I'm envisioning. The beads are part of that.

I had a great day - I needed a day off! Thank you both, Sue and Vicki!

Parting Shot: The last snow! This is all that's left in my front yard. I think spring is here.

Q&A

I've had quite a few questions over the past week and haven't been able to keep up with them, so I thought I'd just answer them in one post. So, here we go:

Regarding my SWAP photos, from Sherry in Little Rock, AR: "I love every piece and especially love the last outfit and those gorgeous, baby-doll wedge shoes!!! Are they vintage?" Alas, no they are not. They are a pair of BCBGirls that I picked up last year. I can't resist a shiny shoe, especially a pair of red ones!

Tara asks, "I have been looking for people's information and opinions on linings and underlinings and have found some good tutorials, but I'm still looking for advice on types of fabric to use. Any help would be most appreciated!" There is no straight forward answer to this one. You should use the type of lining or underlining that works with the fiber content of the fashion fabric and the type of drape you are hoping to achieve. Underlinings can dramatically effect the drape of a fabric and make fabrics unsuitable for a project due to too much drape or fragility usable again. I routinely use cotton batiste and silk organza as underlinings. You will have to do some experiments and drape one fabric over the other to see if you like the effect. Use the fabric that matches the look you're trying to achieve, whether soft or more structured.

I received some questions concerning the sequined buttons:

Vicki - "Do you have any tips for threading those small eyes? Do you use a needle threader?" This is a good question - the eyes of the straw needles are very small! I do not use a needle threader, although this would probably be a good application for one. I do cut my thread at an angle rather than straight across, which sometimes helps to be able to send the thread through the eye.

Designdreamer - "How exactly do you "Bring needle up through the fabric"? Isn't that button form metal?" Yes, the button forms are metal. The beads and sequins are stitched only to the fabric covering the button form. Because of this, the needle actually goes between the fabric and the form to complete every stitch, not actually through the metal button form itself.

Paco (this has been translated and the syntax has been corrected) "Do you collect buttons? I like searching the Barcelona market for vintage buttons, there are some true wonders. Some of those I have found in the market, I have sewn to the clothing that I make." I do have a small collection of vintage buttons, although I like to collect all sorts of vintage sewing notions. Shown below are some of my other notions. The real prizes are when I find the old belt kits that have all the supplies to make a belt, complete with buckle to cover to match a dress. I don't think Dritz makes these anymore, if they do, I haven't seen any for sale in the United States. Some of these notions are used when I make vintage patterns.

Parting Shot: More green! These are the irises. By the beginning of June, I will have beautiful blooms.