Haskell Testing

 I’ve finally gotten around to making up the Haskell shirt pattern from Cashmerette and I’m really pleased with the outcome. This is a club membership pattern and my first time completing any of their patterns — although I did cut out one of their non-club dresses ages ago and never completed it. The pattern was fine — my fabric choice was rubbish.

For testing I used a cotton shirting. I love the color and pattern, but it was an online purchase and a good bit lighter in weight than I would have liked. Fine for testing though, and it will be worn — although I will be refining the fit a bit in my next attempt.

The pattern has different front pieces for the cup sizes offered — heaven! A fba is a mandatory pattern adjustment for me, along with narrowing the shoulders, and it’s lovely not to have to do it myself. Since the Haskell has cut-on sleeves I didn’t need to narrow the shoulders either. My fit refinement though will be lowering the dart a wee bit — what can I say, gravity + age.

The pattern pieces fit together beautifully and instructions for constructing were clear (and copious!). I was a bit short on fabric, so I left off the front pockets and had to narrow hem the shirt instead of using a bias facing/binding. The inside is finished so nicely that I (somewhat) regretted not using French seaming for the side seams — maybe next time. All in all a pleasant sewing experience, and I look forward to making this again.

Linen - in real life

 I got my new ‘interim’ glasses last week, and it’s been such a pleasure to be able to see clearly for close-up work. Also pleasant is clearing up a project from pre-operation days — Zalia top by Style Arc.

It was cut out, interfaced and partially sewn previously, but I hadn’t managed to serge around the sleeves. I knew I wanted to see well for going around the exaggerated curves and the linen really need the edge finishing before any further sewing. So, it waited.

You’ll notice it looks unpressed in the photo. While I carefully pressed all seams during construction, I’m showing it as it looks straight from the washer and hung up to air dry. Mostly because that is the way it will be worn. I love the look of crisply ironed linen, but that only lasts about 10 seconds (on me anyway) and I’m trying to accustom myself to the look of rumpled linen. We’ll see how that goes —

I love the color, and love the sleeves so I’m hopeful !

Ye Olde Curiousity

 

I always like to look for vintage sewing items whenever we come across vintage/antique/junk stores in our travels.

The pictured box and its contents are totally unrelated, but piqued my curiousity and I found I just couldn’t leave them.

The box must have originally contained some type of threads — I suspect embroidery, rather than sewing — due to the Handbeitsgarne (handcraft yarn) printed inside the lid. As far as I can tell, the company was located in Saxony, from the mid-1920s until ?. 

Inside the box are a lot (!) of embroidered tapes — most are two initials, a few are single initials.

A Google image search identifies them (for the most part) as French laundry labels. No idea if this is accurate, and no idea how they came to be in a German thread box — but it’s fun to speculate.

I keep thinking that one day I’ll have a flash of inspiration and find some creative use for them, but so far they’ve only been used as labels to mark the back of various slacks. They seem too narrow to easily be sewn together to make yardage and while they could work as trim, the red thread doesn’t always work with the colors I tend to sew. Oh well — Don’t hesitate to share a comment if you have a clever idea!