Montreal Meet-up (way overdue)

The First Montreal Meet-up took place on May 25th, and despite the cold and rain, we managed to still have a great time.  (did you expect anything less of a sewists' meet-up?)

Monserrat, Julie, me, Heather Lou, Catherine, Suzie and Shannon

Not only did I get to finally meet Heather Lou after what seems like years of blog communication, but also Shannon, whose *other* blog about lactivism I was reading years ago and never made the connection until the day before we met!  Monserrat (on the far left) and I have a standing lunch date whenever I am downtown working at Biochemistry, because she just so happens to be another sewing scientist on that campus. (what is it with sewing scientists?!?)  Julie, it turns out lives just down the road from me, and although Catherine lives on the south shore, we had a lot to talk about and I'm sure it won't be our last visit. Suzie is relatively new to Montreal, and has a brand new blog that you should check out too! 

And no, I did not leave empty handed:  I grabbed this Burda Classics and a few envelope patterns....

Yes, I know that one of them is a maternity pattern.  No, I don't ever plan on being pregnant again.

....and got a graphic shirting weight cotton in white, turquoise and black.  Me Made May showed me that I need more patterned tops, so this should fit the bill.  Shannon bought the same fabric, so we'll have to do a compare/contrast when we've both made it up! I also bought this fake batik for a home deco project, but that's too boring to blog about, so you'll probably never see it again.
 
We are planning another meetup for the summer, which takes me to my next item.....

I'm putting her avatar here because you'll probably recognize it from blog comments.  And because it's super awesome.

Carmen Bouchard of CarmencitaB is planning a late summer trip to Montreal and was wondering if we could get our shit together again while she's in town.  She didn't actually use those words, since she is so much classier than I, but that was the gist of the conversation we had on Twitter the other day.  More to come once times and dates are closer, but if you follow her, you'll want to get in on that action!  Let me know if you'd be down for a meet-up.

Do not assume that my lack of blogging means lack of activity

In fact, it's just the opposite:  I've been doing so many more IRL things than usual that it's getting in the way of my online life...IFL?  (in fake life?) 

I had a mega update post drafted in which I tried to cover everything that's been going on for the last two months, but then I realized that it would make sense to break up all the info into a few posts.  That way, I hopefully won't forget anything important or exhaust you with reading 1000000000 words at a go!  

Starting back in May:

Debbie J. from Sew Debbie, who I met at the Toronto meet-up back in February, was in Montreal for work for a few days, and we managed to have a somewhat hectic dinner together on the 13th.  I wore my red cotton pattern-less leggings and Debbie wore a charmeuse Pendrell that made me want to dig out my copy again and give it another try.  My one and only Pendrell was a quickly made muslin from an old pillowcase, which I've worn a few times, but it isn't quite right.  Time to work on the fit again.

 

I say hectic dinner because I had to bring my kids along, and had to rush back home before bedtime.  They were fairly well behaved, and we even managed to get a few complete sentences out between kid crises.  Then my daughter crawled under the table and took about 1000 close-up shots of Debbie's tights! 

 

(Luckily she's a mom too, and knows the kind of things that come with the territory.)

The next day, I flew to Tampa on a business trip, and while I was there, I managed to meet up with Myra from Simple Inspirations and Andrea from Satin Bird Designs.  They found me through the Map the Sewintists project, which just makes my day!  I'm so glad that people are using it to find each other, despite all the bugs that I haven't been tech savvy enough to solve!  

Here are a few quick iPhone photos that I grabbed from them because I was stupid and forgot to bring my camera:

Although this is MMMay, I was cheating and wore a RTW maxi dress...but I did make the necklace.  You can't really see it in this photo, so you'll have to take my word for it!

You can't really see in this photo either, but Myra is wearing a beautifully made twist front jersey top, which Andrea and I both admired.

We had a great Mexican dinner at Miguel's, let Andrea give us stuff without bringing anything in return (d'oh!), and talked the night away.  Here I was thinking it would be great to spend the night with some non-scientists, but it turns out that (without giving away their personal information), they have both worked in scientific fields and we ended up talking about diet and immunology, travel (me being able to fill them in on a lot of information about Cuba, since they can't travel there), kids, grandkids....oh, and or course sewing!  It always amazes me how interesting and friendly every single sewintist I've met has turned out to be.  

We are the coolest bunch, aren't we?

BTW, for anyone else living in or visiting Florida, there is a new FB group (Florida Fashion Sewists) that are trying to arrange a get-together sometime soon.

OK, that's enough for today.  I'll post about my second Me Made May experience next time I get an hour or two on my computer.

Montreal Meet-up!

I came back from my business trip to Tampa to find an invitation from Shannon @The Finished Garment for a meet-up this Saturday.   Woohoo!  Just the thing I need to carry me through a cold and grey Montreal work week.

If you'd like to spend the day shopping, drinking, eating, talking, shopping, drinking, and talking some more with the coolest group of sewintists in La Belle Province, then get yourself over to Shannon's blog and leave her a message.  Then meet us at rue St. Hubert on Saturday and prepare for some fun! 



View Larger Map

See you there!

 

Me Made May is imminent

Well, here we go again:


'I, Vicki of anothersewingscientist, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear one handmade garment or accessory each day for the duration of May 2013'

In case you're not familiar, Zoe is hosting Me Made May 2013.  Get all the details here and join the flickr group here.  At best, it's a great way to get a little handmade variety in your wardrobe.  At worst, it's a way to finally decide to ditch those not-quite-right projects that never get worn.

Wait, that's kind of a best thing too, because it clears out the clutter and leaves room for better things for MMMay14.

MMM12

Red pants/trousers fail/success

I know that Tempest's Bowiealong ended on April 8th.  I also know that since the Sew Weekly wrapped up last year, I've been cutting myself a lot of slack when it comes to creative deadlines.  I'm doing it for fun this year, not for a challenge.  Deadlines are dead to me. 

Way back in March when I decided to do a Bowie inspired make, I pinned these images:

I thought about doing red pants/trousers and some kind of feathered piece.  Like this:

or this:  

...but then practicality overcame fantasy.  Or to put it in sewcialist terms, I opted for cake over frosting. Also, I could only find cheap white chicken feathers at my local fabric store, and haven't had time to make the journey downtown to a better notion shop.  I'm still keeping my eyes open though, and may try to put some feathered creation together.

For now, I settled on just making myself a pair of red trousers.  It's a trend that may be fading, but I still wanted a pair; I just couldn't find the exact right shade of red.  You know what I mean?  Not too brown, not too orange, just right.  I had some cheap red twill that I bought in Cape Town last year that would do nicely for a (wearable?) muslin.  Yeah, what made me think that my first pair of fitted fly-front trousers ever would be wearable?  Naive optimism, I guess.

I won't even humour you with a photo of said trousers.  They  hang about 2 inches too low in the front and give me a mega wedgie in the back.  Not a flattering look to say the least. 

Leggings, however, I can whip up in about an hour, even after a busy day (who am I kidding, all my days are busy.  That's why I blog about once a month at best....)

 I traced a pattern off the best-fitting pair of RTW leggings that I own, tweaked the proportions a bit, and now I've got a pair in just the right shade of red, with just the right fiber content.  Is it only me that hates buying leggings that are almost 100% nylon and feeling itchy all day?  This fabric is medium weight cotton with a bit of lycra - not quite the weight of ponte, but thicker than T-shirt jersey.  Just right.  I overbought because it was on sale for $7/m, so there is enough left over for a few pairs for my little miss who just turned 4 and has decided that she will only wear pants if they are tight all the way down.  Since when do 4 year-olds have such strict fashion requirements?!?

If you're interested in making your own, there are loads of tutorials on Youtube.  One of the best ones for drafting your own pattern is here. I just took my leggings, put one leg inside the other and traced them on paper, starting with the inseam and rolling the leggings on the paper as I went.  That way, I have one pattern piece with a seam up the inside of the leg and a crotch seam.  Then I just have to finish the waist with elastic or a fold-over top, hem the legs and I'm done.  Easy peasy. 

Maybe I'll do a step-by-step tutorial some time, but frankly, it's pretty damn simple to figure out yourself.  Hell, if I can do it, anyone can.    

In lieu of said tutorial, here are a bunch of photos of the red leggings in action.  Bowie I ain't, but I think it's close enough to pass Tempest's rigorous requirements, n'est-ce pas? 

three generations of bird watchers

Most Bowie-along participants had furry models, so I tried to include my obviously reluctant Moe

Rear view with disdainful feline model

Coming up next time on the old blog:  Me-Made-May2013 planning! 

A Mapping Solution and a Sewcialist Humiliation

The Map the Sewintist project has been ongoing for about 2 months, and pins are still dropping!  I've finally discovered that there is a way to view all the pins at once, and I'd like some feedback about how it works for you.  Please take a few minutes to try this and let me know if it works or not:

See the KML button here on the map?

Click on that, and a file should open in Google Earth (I assume that you must have it already installed).  Mess around a bit with your setting to see the pins more clearly.  I had to remove all of the layers except the borders in order to see the blue pins.  It should look something like this screen grab:

Here's another image of the downtown Montreal area, with all the pins together:

Hey there Heather Lou, Shannon, Monserratt, Yet another sewing scientist.

I've already spent way too much time at work today browsing for pins in all the locations I plan to visit this year.  Please take a look!

Now, on to less successful sewing news.....Karen has had the audacity to pull my name from the Jar of Sewlutions for 2013.  C'mon!  We're only 3 months in!  *embarrassed blushing*

Needless to say, I have done nothing except fondle said silk dupioni a few times since I made the pledge to use it.  I have the pattern chosen, but that's as far as I've gotten.  I'm selfishly hoping I'm not the only one who flunks the Sewlution test in 2013!

Not to glorify busy, but...

...soooo much has been going on in my sphere of influence lately that blogging had gone down to the end of the "to-do" list.  After the Toronto meet-up, I went back to work just long enough to develop a new assay for our research project, interview and hire a new tech to work with me, then fly with my two kids to Florida to spend Spring Break with my parents at their winter house.

Shaky iPhone photo of a huge alligator. 
Should add that I was in a big boat, *not* swimming.

I didn't get any sewing done while I was down there, obviously, but I did manage to visit a Joanne's for the first time ever.  Man, do I feel sorry for people that live in the middle of nowhere and have only a Joanne's for fabric.  I mean, they have lots of quilting cottons, but there wasn't much of anything else there I would buy.  And there seemed to be an almost equal floor space devoted to scrapbooking, but perhaps that was just the Florida retirement town demographic being served.

My kids trying to coax a giant tortoise out of his burrow. 
Hard to see, but he's there.

Anyway, after an initial flurry of pins, the Map the Sewintists project is slowing down, but we are now up to >100K views and ~500 participants in the first month alone!  Astounding.  I've already received a few messages from people thanking me for putting them in touch with other sewists that they never knew of before.  Tanit-Isis was the first off the mark I believe, blogging about meeting with Trumbelina in the wilds of Saskatchewan.  I know that I'm going to make checking the map for pins part of my next trip planning session.  Ummm....probably back to Tampa for a few days of work at USF....any south Florida sewists reading?



View Map the Sewintists in a larger map
 
Sewing news?:  haven't been doing much, except catching up on the mountain of mending and alterations that I ignored last year while hanging with the Sew Weekly bunch.  And I don't think that a mend or a hem constitutes a minimum blogable unit, do you?  ;)

I *am* planning on doing a bit of sew-alonging with Tempest during her March Bowie Sew-Along.  Why don't you join in the fun too?