Ench By Sew-019 Boning Up on Bustiers: Part 2

I'm looking forward to airing a photo
of my actual denim bustier here!
Though I've enjoyed wearing it in public,
I haven't
gotten any cute photographs yet.
Bet you know how that is...

Hey! 
The latest Enchanted by Sewing Podcast has been published!

Two Ways to Listen
Option I)You can listen to the show right on the web by clicking on this link 

~ OR ~
Option ii)  Click on this link to iTunes  to download this and other Enchanted by Sewing shows to your mobile device (iPhone, Android, etc.) free from iTunes
Did I miss any links mentioned in the show? If so, please post here and let me know, or else email me EnchantedBySewing AT gmail DOT com
~ ~ ~

A bustier is an alluring garment, one many women would like to wear - if they dare. When I began to notice that women of all shapes, sizes and ages sewed and wore their bustiers with pleasure and pride, I decided to take a chance and learn to sew this very structured garment, that can be designed to flatter a wide variety of figure types.

- In last month show, I talked about what a buster is - a strapless garment that conforms to our figure, is  supported from the waistline , and can be worn by women of many figure types. 

- I also said that a bustier is not a corset, because a corset imposes a shape on our figure.  You can follow links in last months’ show notes to other related garments like corsolette, torsolette or basque.   

-       Last month I talked about Cut and Cloth

-       This month I focus on Construction

- FIRST  Pensamientos Primero A brief review of what I talked about last month to put this show into perspective,

- ENTONCES (THEN)  Constructing my Bustier. 

- Stepping through the process of creating my bustier from beginning to end, touching on   important techniques and other sewing stuff that I figured out along the way .

- FINALLY Pensimentos Finales:  Going Beyond this project 

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Part 1: Boning Up on Bustiers http://enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com/2014/03/ench-by-sew-018-boning-up-on-bustiers.html

The Bustier Sewing Class I talked about is from Lynda Maynard, an instructor at Cañada College, San Francisco City College and also an instructor at Craftsy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEb9bypLWqE

Lynda Maynard's “Fit” Class on Craftsy, which I plan to take.
http://www.craftsy.com/class/sew-the-perfect-fit/173

Bustier Technicos - Dem Bones Gonna Walk Around

Sewing Boning Channels and Inserting the Bones

http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/03/technicos-bustier-dem-bones.html

Seams to Fit Part 1 - A Little Less Laxity - Learning Precision

http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/04/seams-to-fit-little-less-laxity.html

Seams to Fit Part 2 - 

Figuring out how to eliminate using a tracing wheel, has me making a stronger mark that is also less likely to damage my pattern or fabric.

http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/04/seams-to-fit-part-2-making-my-mark.html

Seams to Fit Part 3: More Power to Interlining- Using  stitching marks on my interlining pieces to define the stitching lines on the fashion fabric it's backing. 

http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/04/seams-to-fit-part-3-more-power-to.html

Seams to Fit Part4: - Neat as a Pin - Using pin techniques to join sections of my bustier precisely.

http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/04/seams-to-fit-part-4-neat-as-pin.html

Seams to Fit Part5:  - Staying - When a Seam Knows it's Place 

http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/04/seams-to-fit-part-5-good-weft-stay-when.html

I did a lot of hand sewing towards the end of this project. Beeswax is my thread texturizer of choice, and it's a Green option too!

http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/04/minding-my-own-beeswax-hand-sewing.html

Refer back to Last Month's Show for More Links http://enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com/2014/03/ench-by-sew-018-boning-up-on-bustiers.html

An App for That: The Pedestrian's Rope Bridge App (Priority Street Crossing)

Do you find it so unfair that walkers have to waste precious minutes waiting to cross major boulevards when we're out for a walk?

Hey! Who is not wasting the planet's fossil fuels here? We walkers deserve a special right of way, when it comes to crossing busy streets. At the push of button, and not the one on that light pole that shouts "Wait" until it's darn good and ready to give me 8 seconds to get across a six lane highway, I should be able to get immediately and safely across any intersection I choose. 

And now I can.

With the Pedestrian's Rope Bridge App, the walker rules! With one quick swipe of a finger on my iPhone, a rope bridge comes shooting out of the bottom of my mobile device, springs up from my feet, arcs over busy streets, and let's me down safely on the other side of the road. It's neat, it's easy to use, and it's guaranteed to make others wonder, "Why am I driving when I could be walking?" 

Once I've crossed the street, another quick gesture on my phone and the bridge springs back into the base of my phone. Remember those retractable metal tape measures we used in the old days before we calibrated everything with laser beams? Yup, it slips back in pretty much the same way.

You can call this app a fantasy if you want, but just give it a couple of years...

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Yes, many of my fantasy apps are inspired by other great thinkers. Like those of this author....Smithsonian Magazine - There Was an App for That: Apps That Changed the Course of History http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/there-was-an-app-for-that-75586616/?no-ist=

iPhone Apps Development https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action

Cream Cups - Ideal for Fairies

Platystemon californicus - Cream Cups

Poppy heritage
Local fairies dwell herein
Cream cups shine in spring
~ ~ ~
Web Resources
Fairy Housing http://www.hikingedgewood.blogspot.com/2012/11/fairy-houses.html

Fairy House, Tood's Stool or Spoor's End http://www.hikingedgewood.blogspot.com/2013/11/fairy-house-toad-stool-or-simply-spoors.html

Edgewood http://www.friendsofedgewood.org

Co-published with Hiking Edgewood and The Simple Romantic Travels Through Time

But... What Would Beethoven Print? (3D Printing)

You just know the kind of organ
Beethoven would have chosen to print

There's been quite a lot in the media about wonderful advances in 3D printing in the medical field. No doubt about it, these are indeed noble uses for technology. Imagine being able to just pop that new appendix, still warm from the printer, into the fella on the table before you. Sure applications like print-on-demand bodily organs allows for great advances in medical science. But what really strikes my fancy, when it comes to 3D printing, is the creation of our own musical instruments. I'm not so much interested in the bodily organ as I am in the pipe organ.

The idea of a musician being able to design and create that pipe organ is what really intrigues me. Thinking about pipe organs  naturally leads to thoughts of  Beethoven. I'm guessing Beethoven would also have been more interested in printing a pipe organ than a fresh new lung or kidney.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken

Tochter aus Elysium!

(Joy, beautiful spark of the divinity,

Daughter from Elysium!)

These lyrics, from Beethoven's famed 9'th symphony, enhance one of the most beloved classical music pieces in the western world*.  Beloved by people, that is, who have access to classical music training. Outside of choral singing, for those who come equipped with the right sort of vocal chords, that training requires access to a musical instrument. 

Though this symphony has words, the emotions that stir in the hearts of the performers as they come together to make this music happen, can't be accurately described. In fact, it spoils the experience if you try.

Yes indeed, there are musical folks working on rolling their own instruments. Check out the beautiful creations on Six 3D-Printed Musical Instruments, and what 3D Printing Could Do for Musicians. Sure 3D print-your-own-instrument technology isn't yet exactly at the affordable-for-the-masses stage, but neither were cell phones just a few years back. Maybe it won't be too long before that day, a few autumns from now, when the kids line up to pick up this years social studies text, the math workbook, and their sixth grade instrument. There just waiting for Mrs. O'Houlihan to come back from the staff room with that replacement box of liquid brass for the classroom 3D printer.

Any parent who has ever ponied up for an organ, clarinet, french horn, string bass, or flute knows that a child's access to an instrument of her own can make all the difference, when it comes to  being exposed to the wordless and wonderful joys of making her own music. Will many kids give up before the age of 10? You bet. Is there any guarantee that an individual will make it to even third chair violin in a small local symphony? Nope. 

But I know that if, at the age of 8, more kids are given the opportunity to play a hundred renditions of Frère Jacque on that french horn they printed at home, then one day the freude! of Beethoven's 9'th symphony is going to be waiting out there for one more kid looking for a little wordless wonder. 

And one more kid is going to get a chance to be a part of a wordless spark of divinity, at one with the daughter from Elysium.

* Classic western music is extremely popular in Asia as well.

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

3D Printing Organs, Other Medical Applications http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/12/opinion/lungs-chip-3d-print-organs/

Wikipedia: 3D Printing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing

Six 3D - Printed Musical Instruments and what 3D Printing Could Do for Musicians  http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/10/six-3d-printed-musical-instruments-and-what-3d-printing-could-do-for-musicians/

Beethoven's 9'th Symphony Rules Supreme, as far as I'm concerned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven)

Native Power! Poppies and Red Maids (Hiking Edgewood)

Enjoy the lovely details by clicking on the illustration above

Poppies, shout it.

 Red Maids love serpentine soil! 

We're the one percent!

We're so lucky to be able to enjoy an historic wildflower bloom at Edgewood, where rate serpentine soil  does it's best to keep invasive non-native plants at bay. Only one percent of California plays host to the rock type that produces this special dirt. 

Let's hear it for the natives!

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Edgewood Rocks: Geology and Soils

http://postcardfromcalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/edgewood-rocks-geology.html

Edgewood Nature Preserve http://www.friendsofedgewood.org

An App for That! Plumber's Friend App Saves the World

I'm in the final throes of finishing up my Edgewood Secrets iPhone app. Today I'm beginning the job of submitting it for approval. 

I created Edgewood Secrets as a companion for folks hiking at Edgewood Nature Preserve, here in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. I hike at Edgewood quite regularly and I'm also a wildflower docent there.  In the app, I share stories of different experiences I've had in the preserve, as well as tales I've been told by other folks. 

As great as it is (and I should know!) Edgewood Secrets is a pretty straightforward app. Like most developers, I have plenty of plans for other mobile device creations along similar lines. It's not challenging coming up with ideas for great apps, it's challenging doing the work involved to get those ideas implemented. And despite the typical claims of the folks who create the software development environment I use, the technology isn't easy.

The ideas, however, spin away. I keep lists of course. Yes, I have lists everywhere on my laptop, and iPhone. Most of them are quite practical. It's a matter of getting on with them. Then there are those....hummmm what can I call them? Speciality apps, I guess.

One of my favorite specialty app plans is the Plumber's Friend App (PFA).   Here's the user experience I envision...

Have you ever been brought up short while speeding out the door - your laptop zipped into it's case, your lunch packed in that outside pocket (so the avocodo doesn't mash onto your keyboard),  your teeth (hopefully) brushed, your hair at least looking brushed, and shoes that more or less match on both feet - to the call of "Mom, the toilet's backed up again!". Why oh why, you wonder for the hundred thousandth time, are we stuck with the retro fifties, only-one-bathroom apartment model? (Surely it couldn't be affordability.)

What to do? The metro isn't going to wait while you get out the plunger. And the folks at work aren't going to keep a chair warm for you in the 8:15 meeting. In fact... if you arrive late at that meeting, you're going to get volunteered to put on the Friday night Management Achievement Awards banquet. How fun will that be in addition to getting your already-behind-goal project fully functional before the project status meeting next week?

PFA to the rescue. You simply pull out your iPhone - now which pocket did you put that in? - aim it vaguely at the wall, and with one swipe of your finger you launch the Plumber's Friend App. PFA does it all for your. As you streak along making a beeline for the metro station, you hear from the open window above, that blessed sucking of air, a mighty flush, and the noise of your teenage daughter cheering (I did say this was pure fantasy, right?) as PFA once more saves both the world, and your day.  

I haven't quite identified the foundation kit classes I'm going to need to write this app. Perhaps they haven't quite yet been created. But you can be sure once they're out there, you'll be seeing a new app in the store. 

Do you think I'll be able to charge more than 99 cents for it? 

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Hiking Edgewood http://www.hikingedgewood.blogspot.com/

Yes, many of my fantasy apps are inspired by other great thinkers. Like those of this author....Smithsonian Magazine - There Was an App for That: Apps That Changed the Course of History http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/there-was-an-app-for-that-75586616/?no-ist=

iPhone Apps Development https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action

A Checkered Past - Edgewood Checker/Chocolate Lily

Fritillaria affinis

Checker or Chocolate

Lily is my beloved

Fritillaria.

Are you more checkered or chocolate? Once the Lamishin people dug your roots and bulbs for supper. But they ate a lot of things I'm glad I don't have to.

I prefer just enjoying your exotic checkery blooms, that I see only occasionally along the Edgewood Nature Preserve's oak woodland trails in the early spring. I'm awfully glad I don't find the need to turn you into fritillary stew.

~ ~ ~
If English isn't your first language. "A checkered past" refers  to people who have done improper things in the past - either unacceptable social behavior or illegal things - but now are somewhat reformed.
~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritillaria_affinis

Edgewood Nature Preserve http://www.friendsofedgewood.org