Laurel Loves London (PODCAST - Enchanted by Sewing)

Co-Published with MeEncantaCoser/Enchanted By Sewing

Laurel Love's London's Liberty

Hey, the June 2013 "Enchanted By Sewing" Podcast is available in the pod-o-sphere!

You can listen to the show right on the web by clicking on this link. Or, download this podcast free from iTunes, to play on your favorite mobile device/mp3 player (like an iPhone or an Android), by clicking on this link to iTunes.

~~~
Did I miss any links? If so, please post here and let me know, or else email me at,  EnchantedBySewing AT gmail
~~~
London's got what a sewist yearns for, historically inspired fabric and fashion, not to mention the regular inspirations we bring back from vacation tripping in an historically rich area. When this California sewist vacations in London she does more than promenade along the Thames. She visits historic Liberty to buy soft delicate Tana Lawn fabric and the Victoria and Albert to study historic fashion. She also looks both ways before she crosses the street (cuz she can never remember which way the traffic flows) to check out street fashion.
~~~
I prepped for travel to London by sewing

• http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2013/05/el-debut-my-pearly-wannabe-jacket.html

• http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2013/06/sewing-for-travel-butterick-5526.html

In the 'cast I talked about the hand sewing I took alongfor plane and train- a buttercup purse. I've loved sewing many MadeByRae's buttercup purses. Busy sewing my CA Romance Dress (yes it's done! the posting will be out in a few days on my MeEncantaCoser blog), I haven't yet finished the purse strap, though I finished the rest of the sewing and embellishment on the trip.

Here's my detail showing a few of the buttercup purses I've made in the past, and more info about accessing the free pattern. I wrote this when I was prepping my bluebird buttercup purse http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2012/09/do-you-love-butter-in-praise-of.html

Here's something more about the vintage tatting I added to the finished purse http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2012/09/tit-fortatting-embellishing-my.html

Fashion Fabric Buying in London 

• http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2013/06/lovin-londons-liberty-fabric-shopping.html

http://www.tillyandthebuttons.com/2012/05/fabric-shopping-in-london.html

Liberty's Tana Lawn
Poppy and Honesty on the left, Strawberry Thief, right

Historical Fashion Inspiration in London

Victoria and Albert (V&A )  

      Search the V&A Collection http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/t/the-collections/

      V&A organizes beautiful stuff by design styles http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/d/decorative-and-design-styles/

http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/exhibitions/in-fine-style-the-art-of-tudor-and-stuart-fashion-QGBP

In a London Mood

• I like the book...Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge by Lindy Woodhead as much as I like the show "Mr. Selfridge" I've been watching on PBS 

• D.E. Stevenson is a classic British author who wrote traditional women's novels for about 30 years. If you're unused to old style class and racial label references however, you may be surprised by some of the attitudes that this author sometimes expressed so casually. Does it reflect attitudes among the power structure of the time? You bet it does.

• Other classic British Authors include: Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie and M.C. Beaton (modern)

Travel Thoughts

• Portobello Market in the Notthinghill area, is a popular shopping spot, especially on Saturday's when many small vendors have booths. On many other days you can still buy good produce there

• We've rented flats short-term in London on several trips, usually for a week through A Place Like Home http://www.aplacelikehome.co.uk
• Contours Walking Holidays setup our walking trip along the coast in Cornwall . They make reservations at B&B's, arrange for our luggage to be sent from place to the next, and gave us directions and an itinerary. We did the walking and self-guiding. http://www.contours.co.uk/walking-holidays/south-west.php We used another agency Mickledore two years ago when we walked for three days along Hadrian's Wall and were very happy with them. Mickledore doesn't do trips in Cornwall however. http://www.mickledore.co.uk/walking-holidays/hadrians_wall?gclid=CIDjsZ2k77cCFSeCQgodV3YAyA

Technicos Threadin' The Needle (Hand Sewing)

Co-Pubished with my Sewing Blog 

Me Encanta Coser/Enchanted By Sewing

http://MeEncantaCoser.blogspot.com

Bet you already knew that Thread the Needle is an old children's game, and also a dance step patterned after the game. I always get a kick from learning more about common events in daily life, by reading about old recreational pastimes. 

Though, in historical times, working with a sewing needle was probably about as typical an activity as other domestic tasks, I've never heard of a game called Wash the Dishes (though let me know if you've heard of one!). I'm guessing that's because dish washing is a more straightforward process. Hand needle threading has always been just ever so slightly challenging. And of course you often come up against it when you least want to deal with that finicky little task. These days we can typically change into another shirt if we rip a seam heading out the door, but only a generation or two ago, that might not have been an option. It was your day clothes or your Sabbath garment. So you quickly threaded a needle and ran up the seam. And it was just as important as it is today,  to get that thread into that needle eye quick-like-a-bunny.

As I've already mentioned in my post about threading a sewing machine needle, a little spit goes a long way. Yes, I lick the end of the thread (and I do wash my hands before I sit down to do this), but I also spread a little, well I just have to say it again - spit - over the eyehole of the needle. Just as in the case of the machine needle, the water molecules want to buddy up, and the thread is more likely to be attracted to the eye of the needle.

My other favorite needle-to-thread technicos include... beeswax. You can buy beeswax in the notions department, but I keep the stumps from the beeswax candles I buy from the farmer's market and use those. (I like to support those businesses because, and I know you know this too,  local honey promotes good diverse hive health, which is one of those save-the-planet kinda things. Agricultural mono-culture is a big concern for the future of my favorite fruits and vegetables.) Beeswax stabilizes the thread and makes it easier to push through the needle - less fibers on the end of the thread to push against that tiny needle eye.

Also I always make sure to cut the end of my thread at an angle. That makes a point that slips through more easily. I learned this from the same Viking Sewing Machine dealer who taught me the spit trick!

These are the tips that keep me in stitches. 

About.com has needle threading tips, including - but not limited to - those I use
http://sewing.about.com/od/beginner1/tp/needlethreading.htm

Definition
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thread-needle

Dance Description and cool wood cut illustration from Webfeet
http://www.webfeet.org/eceilidh/dances/thread-the-needle.html

Togetherness: Mother-Daughter Sewing (Ench By Sew-008 )

(This post is co-published with my sewing story-journal, Me Encanta Coser,  http://MeEncantaCoser.blogspot.com)

Hey, the May 2013 "Enchanted By Sewing" Podcast is available in the pod-o-sphere!

Why so early this month?

We Want to be on Time for Mother's
- or is that Daughter's? -
 Day!

You can listen to the show right on the web by clicking on this link. Or, download this podcast free from iTunes, to play on your favorite mobile device/mp3 player (like an iPhone or an Android), by clicking on this link to iTunes.

~~~

• This podcast episode is dedicated to Lori Van Monan, a mother who has influenced my sewing, blogging and podcasting tremendously. Lori is the creator and producer of the long time Sew Forth Now Podcast, as well as the Girls in the Garden Blog, which she continues to host. Lori  (who recently became a grandmother !) continues to sew for her four daughters, who are now young women. She also often shares ways that her mother and grandmother influenced her sewing. Thanks again for sew much inspiration Lori!

Daughter Kristen and her mother Tammy
are sewing cohorts and classmates
in the Cañada Fashion Sewing Program

In celebration of Mother’s Day… Laurel reflects on her own experiences with mother-daughter sewing. She also finds out that this relationship doesn’t always fit into a traditional pattern. This conversation with sewing cohorts, who happen to be related, may surprise you as much as it did the show hostess.

   

• In this month's podcast I spoke with daughter Kristen, and her mother Tammy in the  Cañada Fashion Sewing Program lab. In the illustration on the left, Kristen is wearing the dress she sewed for class, that we talk about in the 'cast. Below you'll find the alteration Kristen made to the sleeves she wasn't happy with.

•  Kristen is a died-in-wool Romantic, like me. You'll hear us talking about this Romance of Hats book just before our official interview time began. Kristen and I both took the millinery class on campus through the Cañada Fashion Sewing Program

The romance of hats / the editors of Victoria magazine ; foreword by Nancy Lindemeyer. http://catalog.plsinfo.org/search~S1/?searchtype=Y&searcharg=millinery+victoria&searchscope=1&sortdropdown=-&SORT=DZ&extended=0&SUBMIT=Search&searchlimits=&searchorigarg=Ymillinery+hat%26SORT%3DDZ

–       

Updated sleeves Kristen created for
her purple dress

Stone Mountain and Daughter is a fabric store in Berkley,  is a favorite of many in the Cañada Fashion Sewing Program

o   Tammy is a fan of Katie R. who works there and has helped this new sewer feel confident about choosing fabrics

o   Kristen likes the cotton sateen sold at Stone Mountain and Daughter

-       Tammy is sewing Kwik Sew pattern, hoodie style 3693

o   http://sewing.patternreview.com/patterns/29811

o   “Easy and great for beginners”   http://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/66379

Yes! I admit that I bought this pattern from Pattern Review, after hearing about Tammy's plans!!

-         Sewing Velvet

o   Woops, Laurel, when it comes to pressing velvet,  it's a nail BOARD not a nail brush!

• Tammy and Laurel are both into crinkly/ruffled knits

Laurel's Fashion Forward Mermaid Tee
This is the kind of fabric Tammy and I were talking about
sharing a liking for

* This "Bisou Stretch Mini Ruffle Knit" (the link below is for Fabric.Com) is one of the styles of ruffled fabric Tammy and I were talking about. I bought my mint-green version at Stone Mountain and Daughter, and made my "Fashion Forward Mermaid" tee shirt  (above) with it, using a deconstructed (non-finished edge) at the neckline and sleeve edges. (Sorry I can't find a link for this fabric there. If you can find it there- or at some other favorite source- feel free to post a link)

http://www.fabric.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=1958a8df-d243-4199-a706-f422e4357168

This Morton Salt Girl's dress, may well have been Mama's inspiration for my own butter yellow outfit as a kid.