Balticon, gardening and dressmaker forms

The crab apple tree in our backyard is in full bloom, its blossom-laden branches hanging over our back deck, an explosion of colour. I love this part of spring.



My seedlings are all sprouting now. I can almost hear the squirrels outside cackling merrily, rubbing their little talons together as they eagerly wait for me to transplant them outside.

This morning I found that the rain had washed away some of the cayenne pepper I had sprinkled in part of our new planter, and a squirrel had dug up the earth, exposing one of my nasturtium seeds. Guess it didn't like the taste.

Grr.



Woohoo, congrats to Seanan McGuire on her multi-book deal with DAW Books! I've already raved about how much I love Seanan's music. This woman is just way too talented. :-D

One week until Balticon! Allison, Jodi and I are pretty hyped. Not only are we looking forward to being the Music Guests of Honor, but we're excited about checking our first Balticon.

We'll be involved in the following programming, in addition to open filk:

Friday 7 pm: Everything You Wanted To Know About Filk
- Gary Ehrlich will be joining us.

Saturday 2 pm: Musical Guest of Honor concert

Sunday 11 am: Kids' Concert
- We'll be hosting a kids' concert with our friends Gary Ehrlich, Dave Clement, Sue Posteraro and Tom Jeffers

Sunday 9 pm: Theme Filk - Literary Songs

Monday 12 pm: Enhancing Your Musical Performance workshop

There will also be concerts by Maugorn, Gary McGath, Stone Dragon (Tom Jeffers and Sue Posteraro), Dave Clement, Peter Beagle, and Rob Balder/Sudden Death, among other music-related programming.

Tons of other programming as well, of course! I'm looking forward to trying medieval dancing, for example, and checking out some of the comics-related panels. Hope to see some of you there!




My dressmaker's form arrived! Jeff was amused at how excited I was. Anyway, the photo above is of my first attempt at sewing with knit fabric, which is DRIVING ME INSANE. For one thing, I've discovered that it curls when I cut it. I think the fabric I bought is a bit too stretchy and thin for my skill level but I couldn't resist because it was on sale and soooooo pretty! But I'm suffering for it now.

I've also discovered that it is a MAJOR PAIN to pick stitches out of this knit fabric; they bury themselves into the fabric and I have to be incredibly careful not to pick the fabric instead of the erroneous stitches. I've gotten into the habit of hand-basting seams first, THEN machine-basting, THEN machine-stitching/serging.

Anyway, the top above turned out ok, but needs some alterations before I'd be willing to wear it in public. The size ended up being way too big for me.



Above: my first attempt at making a dress. The top part is way too loose, and the back hangs all wrong:



After a few minutes of fiddling with the dress on my form, however, I think that shortening the straps will fix a lot of the problems. We'll see.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Babylon Five Virgin update

SPOILER WARNING: The blog below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click below.

Season 3, Episode 65: Shadow Dancing
Season 3, Episode 64: And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place




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Escape Pod and an audio podcast survey

Thanks for all your feedback about vanity sizing; I'm going to post a round-up in an upcoming Blathering.

Virtual Walk Update

So I've walked from Toronto to Thorold my Virtual Con Walk so far; I've found that tracking my route on Google Maps has been a great motivator and a lot of fun.

My friend Luisa was the one who suggested I visit Thorold (it's her hometown) since it's on my route and I could check out the Welland Canal. The Welland Canal is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and enables ships to avoid Niagara Falls by going along the Niagara Escarpment instead.



Thorold locks, Welland Canal - Photo by Danny McL.


I've been listening to a lot of spoken audio podcasts during my walks. So far my favourite is Escape Pod, a science fiction podcast magazine that Jeff told me about.

I've been trying a number of different audio podcasts, but I've found that many have too much "noise" - chit chat without real content. Some people may enjoy that sort of thing, but I just get impatient.




Anyway, I've found that I've enjoyed nearly every one of the stories on Escape Pod. Some make me cry, some are thought-provoking...pretty much each one is engrossing enough to make me walk for longer than I otherwise might.

You don't need to have an MP3 player to listen to these stories; you can just go to the story page and listen to the streaming audio right on the site.

Some of my favourites:

Save Me Plz by David Barr Kirtley.
End Game by Nancy Kress.
Friction by Will McIntosh.
The Sweet, Sad Love Song Of Fred and Wilma by Nick Dichario and Mike Resnick.

Escape Pod is also a paying market for writers (see submission guidelines) and survives on advertising as well as donations; I made a Paypal donation today. I've also just subscribed to Pseudopod (horror fiction podcast) and Podcastle (fantasy fiction podcast).

What about the rest of you? What audio podcasts do you regularly listen to these days?





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Vanity sizing

Learning to sew has continued to be an enlightening experience in more ways than one. For example, I've been stupidly assuming that my regular clothing size matched the sizes on sewing patterns. This assumption was WRONG.

When I shop for clothes in a store, I usually look for sizes 6 through 12. One of the reasons I hate clothes shopping is because in order to make sure something fits me, I have to try it on. It seems like every brand has its own sizing methodology.

Jeff, on the other hand, can often buy clothes without trying them on. He explained that often men's clothing is sized by exact measurements. The neck size, for example, or waist size.

Anyway, I've discovered that some of the patterns I've purchased are too small for me. After investigating further (I should have done this in the beginning, I know), I realized that my sewing pattern size is about 16 on the standard measurement chart (and I have to do some alterations since my body shape isn't standard).

Apparently "ready-to-wear" clothing sizes in stores carry "vanity sizes" instead (putting smaller numbers on bigger clothes) -- mainly so we women can feel better about ourselves.

Augh, how silly is THAT? I don't care whether I'm a Size 6 or a Size 20 -- as long as the clothes fit me, why should it matter? Or am I being completely obtuse about this? I find the whole "vanity sizing" issue vaguely insulting.

It seems that over the years, dress sizes have been shrinking even though our actual shapes haven't because some fashion companies believe that a woman will be more likely to buy a smaller size number. I suppose their reasoning is that the woman can then tell herself or her friends, "Look! I fit into a size 6 now!"

But the truth is that the term "size 6" is pretty much meaningless now. What's size 6 now used to be size 20 twenty years ago, and size 6 would probably be some other size if the woman tried on something else.

Curious about what your "standard size" should be? See this Wikipedia entry of U.S. standard clothing sizes. And check this entry for the European standard sizes.



Related info:

Wikipedia entry on vanity sizing

Urban Dictionary entry on vanity sizing

Boston.com article: "0 is the new 8: As waistlines grow, women's clothing sizes shrink incredibly"

Columbia news service: "Clothing stores shrink size labels to lure vain shoppers"

Times Online: "Vanity sizing: There's a good reason why you are a size 12 in one store and a size 14 in another.""

Babylon Five Virgin update

SPOILER WARNING: The blog below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click below.

Season 3, Episodes 62 & 63: Walkabout and Grey 17 Is Missing
Season 3, Episode 60 & 61: War Without End



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Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day's to all you mothers out there! I'm in awe of all you do.



Speaking of amazing mothers, check out the cover that my sister did for Joy Kogawa's recent book, Naomi's Tree (Fitzhenry & Whitside):



I was going to spend all day yesterday sewing, but it was just so GORGEOUS outside that I couldn't stay indoors. Jeff and I did shopping for housestuff and then did some gardening outside.

We also picked up this cool stackable planter for our back deck:



I immediately planted some of my herb and flower seeds (flowers: nasturtiums, which are edible!) as well as splitting and transplanting my chives. I'll also be transplanting the seedlings I've been nurturing indoors, once they get big enough. Look, my forget-me-nots are sprouting:



I've sprinkled cayenne pepper around my outdoor planters to discourage squirrels from digging in the freshly potted earth. When I woke up this morning, the planters were untouched -- I'm going to have to find a bulk supplier of cayenne pepper, I think.

After doing gardeningstuff, I went for a 5 km walk, picked up some seam binding and groceries, then came back to do some serging. I found out how to remove the needles from my serger and learned how to do a 3-thread overedge, rolled hem, narrow hem, picot edge, and flatlock. Some of the stitches required disengaging the upper knife. I love typing that sentence because it sounds way more impressive than it really is. "Don't bother me, dear; I'm disengaging my upper knife." Heh.

I was most intrigued by the rolled hem and flatlock stitches. I can easily see using a rolled hem as decorative edging for seams on lightweight fabrics but also on ruffles and lettuce edges. I want to learn how to do lettuce edges -- those are the slight ruffles you see at the bottom of gauzy and other light/knit fabrics. I'll need to experiment with adjusting the differential for that, I think (another impressive phrase).

Flatlock is also an interesting stitch. A flatlock is a reversible stitch (has two right sides) and you basically serge the pieces of fabric together, then open them up and press the seam flat -- the serged part is the right side (it's not hidden but part of the garment's decoration). I've noticed a lot of sportswear with flatlock stitching these days.

Jeff's amused by my new obsession with stitching. I was upstairs on the couch examining the quillow that the Gladney clan kindly made for me some years ago. In the old days, Jeff just would have thought that I was admiring it in general. This time he said, "You're trying to figure out how it was made, aren't you?"

Anyway, I also cut out and started a dress. I almost cut out the pattern from the wrong side of the fabric BUT didn't because I'm now in the habit of checking a zillion times. Also almost sewed the interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric (as usual). I'm still making mistakes, but not quite as many as before.

I have both my sewing machine and my serger out on my craft table these days, going from one to the other, depending on the stage of my sewing projects. I feel like such a Sewing Goddess as I switch back and forth...at least until my seams inevitably start wobbling around curves and I have to unpick them (happened twice yesterday).

But for a few brief and glorious seconds at a time, I can pretend I almost know what I'm doing.

It's quite the heady sensation.

Babylon Five Virgin update

SPOILER WARNING: The blog below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click below.

Season 3, Episode 58: Ship Of Tears

Season 3, Episode 59: Interludes and Examinations




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Books, walks and dressmaker forms

Finished Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements recently and enjoyed it. Basic premise of Things Not Seen: a boy wakes up to find himself invisible. Now I'm curious to check out Frindle, which is apparently the author's best-known book.

I've fallen behind in watching B5 because I've been spending more evenings reading, sewing, and doing Urban Tapestry prep for Balticon. Other recent reads: The Complete Serger Handbook, Sewing With Sergers, Quick and Easy Sewing with Your Serger, and New Techniques for Wearable Art:.

Plus I've been browsing for useful sewing-related sites. I've fallen in love with PatternReview.com. Lots of info and recommendations about sewing patterns, including user reviews, plus everything else to do with sewing and sewing machines.

The site also has a great online community for newbies as well as experts. Hugely inspirational!

Meanwhile in my Virtual Con Walk, I've nearly reached St. Catherines.



While passing through the village of Vineland (which gained notoriety in 1956 when it was revealed that radioactive material was found in one of the landfills), I decided to take a tour of John Howard Cellars Of Distinction. John Howard's home (see photo below) is really a castle! His recently launched Megalomaniac wine series won design awards last year.


Photo by Paul Joyce.

His wines have intriguing names like Narcissist Riesling, SonOfABitch Pinot Noir and Vainglorious Cabernet Merlot.

Sadly, virtual wine tastings aren't nearly as satisfying as real-life wine tastings.

Today I'm going to do some more experimenting with my new serger. Poring over the user manual (have I mentioned before how much I love user manuals?), I've discovered that my machine can do three-thread overlock stitches...I just have to figure out how to remove one of the needles. I figure it's something I need to learn anyway since serger needles wear out pretty quickly.

Also going to sew with a knit fabric for the first time! For non-sewers: knit fabrics are different from cotton because they stretch, so are supposedly a bit more complicated to sew with. BUT one of the things that I keep reading about sergers is that they're good with knit fabrics so hey, I want to try!

I went to the mega-sale at Fabricland yesterday. One of the clerks (who was there when I went to claim my serger prize) there asked me if I was understanding my serger instruction book okay, and I updated her on my serger adventures. :-)

Didn't buy much fabric (I've decided that I need to use up the stuff I have before getting more) but I did put in an order for an adjustable dressmaker's form. I was thinking of making my own as well as frequently checking eBay, but couldn't resist the mega-reduced price.

They didn't have my size but said they're expecting more in next week. I figure I need to get a form that's my size or smaller; I can always add padding to fill the form out to match my shape, but I can't shrink a too-large form.

Jeff thinks that I should store the form in our sunroom, dressed up like a headless person.

Hey, just think of the possibilities at Hallowe'en! :-)

Some of you probably are thinking that I'm crazy to consider buying a form after only having been sewing for, oh, a month. But believe it or not, I'm already realizing how useful one could be. I can't really expect Jeff to wear my dresses and skirts -even if he could fit in them- while I pin up hems, for example.

It's also going to be much easier doing alterations and fittings if I don't have to try doing them on myself while I'm wearing the clothes. Plus putting on and taking off clothes repeatedly is a major pain -- one of the many reasons I hate clothes shopping.

Plus...(brace yourself)...I'm getting all kinds of ideas for clothing designs. Bizarre, I know, considering I've never really cared about fashion. But as I'm fingering the fabrics in remainder bins and sale racks, I keep imagining all the cool stuff I could do to turn old t-shirts and plain dresses into something more interesting, patching together different-textured and different-coloured bits into artsy vests. Cutting up old sweaters and making new ones.

I have a lot to learn. I can only use so many clothes myself, of course, but it's the sewing and creating I love much more than the actual wearing, so maybe (once I get better) I could start putting some of my creations for sale on Etsy.

But of course I'm getting ahead of myself. First I need to learn the basics so that I'm able to accurately translate the ideas in my head into real life. My "Beyond Beginners" sewing class starts in a few weeks, so that should help. Meanwhile, thanks so much to everyone who has been giving me advice and tips! It's been hugely appreciated.

Speaking of tips, I've added some advice to yesterday's post from starmalachite.

Have a great weekend, everyone!