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Top Ten Things For Your Wardrobe

Jun 5th, 2011
by htwollin.
1 comment

It doesn’t matter if you read news sites, fashion (or non-fashion) blogs, but I think at least once a week, I see a headline which reads: “The Top Ten… that you must have in your closet this season” (or, next season, or this year, or..).

And it doesn’t matter what it is or what they are touting but I have to tell you when Aunt Toby goes down through those lists of items, invariably, the little voice in her head is saying, “Nope…nope…are they kidding?… nope, that’s another useless item…only on women under the age of 30 who are over 5’8” tall… I’d break my ankles if I wore those…even if I liked that I wouldn’t be able to find it or find it in MY size… nope …and where did she get those clavicles?” (more…)

Sustainable Sanitary Products

May 1st, 2011
by htwollin.
7 comments

Are we sustainable yet?

And now, Aunt Toby is going to discuss something ‘ooky’ – which is personal sustainability. No, not the ‘in the kitchen’ sort – this is the ‘in the bathroom’ sort.

One statistic out there claims that at least 1/3 of all sanitary napkins (or “Kotex” or ‘pads’ if you will) purchased in the US are bought by women who haven’t had a period in a very, very long time. The manufacturers know this – it is not a secret to them. If you look at the packaging, look at the descriptions of the ‘anti scent strips’ or the absorbency ratings that they are putting into the napkins. This is not just for women who feel that their menses have an odor, believe me. This is for women who have one of the forms of incontinence and who are not ready to either move to a more absorbent product or go see their urologist or OB-GYN to start discussing surgical intervention. (more…)

In Search of the Warm Blouse

Feb 13th, 2011
by htwollin.
1 comment

The dress code (such as it is) in my office is pretty casual: The guys wear chinos or other casual pants with the occasional blue jeans, golf shirts in the summer/casual buttondowns in the winter. On the distaff side, it’s mostly pants all the time, with knit tops and sweaters in the winter. If someone shows up in the skirt or dress, it’s either one of us older types with things left over from the 90s in our wardrobes or someone suspected of being on their way to a job interview. I try to dress a couple of steps up for the only reason that I’m really short and rather round and I feel more formal clothing suits me better. I’d like to wear blouses with my dress slacks in the office but at this time of the year, most blouses are just not warm enough. At that point, I’m starting to layer on a vest, a jacket or sweater and I’ve lost the entire effect. (more…)

Peacoat Done and More Paper Dolls – for pockets

Jan 30th, 2011
by htwollin.
Comments are off for this post

For those of you who followed my last little paper doll experimentpaper dolls for peacoats
to deal with making the changes in my son’s peacoat, here is the final result. (more…)

Using Paper Dolls to Improve Sewing

Jan 9th, 2011
by htwollin.
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Sometimes, my eyes are definitely bigger than my ambitions. I wanted to make my son a coat that would be nicer than what he wears for work and he pointed out a coat in this bookMen’s Coat Book that he wanted.

A pea coat. But I wanted to make it a bit more stylish than that (yes, Aunt Toby realizes that the pea coat is a men’s style icon but if I’m only going to get one shot at making my son a coat that he can wear for everything from a concert to a trip to a restaurant, then I want to make it a bit more fashion forward than a pea coat), so I looked through all my Burda pattern magazines and found a man’s jacket with what we’d refer to as ‘princess seams’ (if it’s a man’s garment, do we get to call them ‘prince’ seams?). My son is a bit more narrow in the shoulders than he is in the hips, so having extra seams would give me more fitting spots for him. So, being not the ‘forward thinking person’ that I should be, I just frankenpattern’ed the two of them together, making a new pattern. (more…)

More Wool: A Prince of an Idea

Oct 12th, 2010
by htwollin.
7 comments

It’s time to ‘fess’ up, as they say. Aunt Toby has never..ever…met HRH Charles Philip Arthur George, the Prince of Wales.
Never.
We just don’t move in the same, as we might say, circles.
But on the other hand, if we did meet, we’d have a lot to talk about.
He’s a organic gardener. Aunt Toby’s an organic gardener.
He believes in good solid architecture. I’m into barns, too.
He’s been a fierce advocate of protecting the ecology for years; moi aussi.

And he believes that the world would be a healthier, happier, warmer place if people wore more wool. (more…)

More Mommy Sewing

Sep 29th, 2010
by htwollin.
4 comments

Once I got started looking for non-preggo patterns (I should trade mark that) that can work for the ‘in process’ moms, I got more and more ideas, which I thought I’d pass on. One of the advantages of using a regular pattern is that ‘post arrival’, you will still have clothing that fits, looks non-maternity and cute. Here are a few I found today – these are from vintage sites but they are not ancient history fashion-wise; you’ll be able to find ones in the current pattern catalogs that look pretty similar. (more…)

Mommy Sewing

Sep 28th, 2010
by htwollin.
3 comments

The home sewing ‘market’ has changed a lot in the past 25 years: large numbers of independent pattern designers, some of whom specialize, smaller numbers of local fabric stores (which in the old days used to be staffed by people who actually sewed more than quilts), sewing may (or usually may not) be taught in Home Ec in junior and senior high schools nationally. A lot has gone ‘by the way’ – on the other hand, the Internet has spawned a huge Renaissance in personal sewing with sites and blogs and fabric stores. It’s enough to make you dizzy. (more…)

What a Waist! (waistband, that is)

Jul 29th, 2010
by htwollin.
Comments are off for this post

There are places in sewing an article of clothing that I like to call “drop dead points”. These are places where if you make a mistake, you might as well pitch the entire deal as trying to fix the item becomes truly onerous. The first one is at the cutting out stage; if you don’t measure your important bits on the paper pattern, you could end up cutting out the wrong size. Even if it’s too large, it’s a pain in the neck to fix. One of my favs is putting on a waistband. There have been a number of times when I’ve made slacks or a skirt which ‘seemed’ to fit me perfectly and then after I put on the waistband, the item looked hideous. (more…)

Vintage Sewing Patterns – Thoughts

Jun 27th, 2010
by htwollin.
2 comments

There are a lot of sewers out there who buy, collect and use vintage patterns (and no matter what the online retailers call them, I’m not sure you can consider Nolan Miller “Dynasty” sewing patterns from the 1980s to be exactly ‘vintage’ but that’s a discussion for another time). Everyone looks for something different. Some people are just looking for a particular style of dress from the 1950s or 1960s. Other people are more focused on sizing and pattern measurements (for the reason that people are just bigger and taller than they were 50-60 years ago, though for some people, it’s exactly the opposite problem). Other people have armed themselves with ‘how to redraft patterns’ skills so that they don’t care what size it is since they are going to redraft the pattern in their size in any case. (more…)

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