SPRING!

The weather is warming up (82°F as I write), so I am shifting for the moment from the Fall Paris Wardrobe to Los Olivos Summer!

This outfit was inspired by my new Trippens...

The style is called Union, and it is in one of my favorite Trippen colors...

"Black Ice".

The pants are V8712, an OOP Marcy Tilton pattern...

I made View C, added a band at the bottom, and made sure to use these cute
pockets..they are particularly fun in stripes!

The fabric is a woven stripe in shades of gray on white, from Marcy Tilton.

The top is Style Arc Daisy, without the extra hems. The fabric is from the mists of time (i.e. I don't remember where I got it). It's a very drapey smocked rayon.

Hanging with Buddha...(and yes, I'm showing off the glorious roses :)

Maggie was up last weekend and we did our "fun in the kitchen routine" as
usual. The April cover of Saveur Magazine caught my eye in the market; Dave and I enjoyed our trip to Sicily so much, and particularly the food and wine, so I knew we would enjoy this:

So we made the Sicilian Seafood Stew with Couscous and Almonds (although we

substituted Quinoa for the Couscous, as Maggie is GF 

and we also made Sicilian Caponata, from the same issue.

The peas are from Dave's garden! It was a delicious dinner!

And on to the sad part...we lost our beautiful Paddywack 5 days ago...

He was only 6 ½, he went suddenly and way too soon. He was, of course, a 

part of the family, and as readers of my blog know, my beloved Fashion Accessory.

R.I.P., Paddy

I'll be showing up at Patti's Visible Monday later this afternoon, so pay us a visit!

TTYL

POSSIBLE PARIS PIECES #1 and #2

As I've mentioned before, I am going to Paris in November with Marcy and Kathrine Tilton (squeal!)My friend Shams is going, and possibly my friend Joan.
As you and I know full well, I could simply use the wardrobe from my recent trip  to Portugal...it worked well, I loved it, it was fall-in-Europe, etc. 

BUT

I would miss out on one of my favorite parts of travel...MAKING A NEW

WARDROBE...

so here is the first key element of the wardrobe...it's the Minoru Jacket by Sewaholic which I auditioned here 6 weeks ago. You will notice I am changing

my color scheme a little   by using a claret red. I fell in love with this French

Jacquard from Emma One Sock...

Linda didn't have quite enough for my jacket, but my dear friend Shams had

bought the last yard on the bolt and generously let me have it! THANKS, SHAMS!

Isn't that a gorgeous color? The fabric was quite light weight, so I interfaced the whole thing with a medium weight fusible from Fashion Sewing Supply. I will still need a heavier coat/jacket but this was the fabric that sparked my creativity.

I also made the turtleneck top, a modification of V 8691,an OOP pattern by Katherine Tilton. The fabric is a silky double knit from JoAnns.

(showing off my roses and wisteria a little...)

I wore the jacket to a funeral yesterday so that I could assess its wearability...

It got an A+!

We have been blessed here in our valley with a really superb year for wildflowers...the first in several years. Friday, Dave, Paddy and I took a

picnic up our local mountain, 10 miles from our house, and enjoyed the beauty.

This is known locally as "Grass Mountain" and right now, it's glowing neon orange from the poppies (and lupines, which you can't distinguish here)

Such a beautiful place...Dave and I spent the New Millennium Eve here,
toasting the end of the century with a bottle of champagne.

HOWEVER, there is no gain without pain, or something like that...and we have both been suffering from horrendous allergies all week. Luckily I recovered by

the weekend, as my eyes had been looking just like my friend from Papua New

Guinea, here...

Here's a photo of Paddy, me and the roses (and the sunspots)....

.

I will be hopping over to Visible Monday at Patti's Not Dead Yet Style in a few hours...come on over!

TTYL

BUSY, BUSY...

I've spent A LOT of time in my studio lately...I'm listening to "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara, short-listed for both the Man Booker and National Book Award for Fiction. It is a long, long, sad and dark book...but the writing is so
luminous, and I love the characters so much that I am hooked. I have come to love listening to Audible Books while I'm sewing; it encourages me to do a lot more hand sewing (good). When I come to a tricky bit in my sewing, I turn the book off, then start up again when I am ready. (I don't multi-task very well)

My first item was part of an ongoing attempt to find a very high scrunch turtleneck that doesn't collapse. I'll post about that later (it's pretty, and I'll wear it, but the neck isn't what I'm looking for).

Then, I made long OOP V8192, as a vest; I learned why there are only two reviews of this pattern on Pattern Review, both somewhat negative.

So, I was well-warned. I love the collar and decided to try it anyway. The main problem is that, in order to hang properly, I needed to add SIX sets of snaps to the interior. The top is essentially a double breasted vest without the necessary "buttons".

Here it is in my studio, as I figure out where to place the double-welt pockets.

And here it is, on me (with background of emerging wisteria) The fabric is a 
wonderful rayon-blend two-sided crinkle woven from Marcy Tilton which I love.

I like it, although I'm not sure it was worth all the bother...it's lightweight and drapey, perfect for my climate.

 

Next, as I was rummaging around in my studio, I found an almost completed knit top which I had totally forgotten about. It's B5954, adjusted somewhat to take advantage of a paneled knit with a border from Emma One Sock. So I added a neck finish, hemmed the sleeves and bottom, and voila!

A women's group I've belonged to for more than 30 years had a meeting this month in the studio of Seyburn Zorthian. We have two paintings of hers which I've written about before.

I've known Seyburn for a long time, but I was still fascinated by her telling us of the history of her painting...

and I found a new painting to love...

As a parting shot, check out my new polka-dot cat eye specs!

I'm heading over to Patti's site, Not Dead Yet Style, to join the Visible Women. Come  see what we've been up to!

TTYL

A VEST OF VENERATION

Almost five years ago, in this post, I wrote about my dear friend, cherished role model and beautiful human being, Laura.

At 104, Laura is presently transitioning to the next life, and in love, gratitude and honor, I finally made the quilted garnet silk vest I wanted to remember her by.

Laura taught me so much, by example, by her everpresent interest and fierce support in whatever
I might be doing, by the way she dressed, and by the love which she carried within her that was unmistakeable and available to all.

I bought this quilted velvet 5 years ago and made another Vogue 1453.

I'm also introducing my new hat, a gray felt handmade '40's type hat, made by 

UnaHats and sold on Etsy.

Maggie and David were up last weekend and lots of cooking and hanging out took place. Lovely as always! I have a new cookbook, Gjelina, named after a much beloved restaurant in Venice (CA) that Maggie took me to several years ago. I dipped my spoon into the waters with

this,

Roasted Beet Salad with Avocado, Oranges, Toasted Hazelnuts and Sherry

Vinegar, recipe here.   YUMMM! It was particularly wonderful because the baby beets were from the farmstand next door to me, which recently reopened after a few months off for the winter. Their baby spinach is to die for, too...

And last night I made Roasted Mustard Chicken by The Barefoot Contessa...

which we will have tonight, also, along with a bottle of champagne, to toast 

the last (sob) episode of Downton Abbey.

I'm sliding in under the wire at the beautiful Style Crone Judith's Hat Attack...

come see who's wearing what!

TTYL

MEOW!

I'm not sure whose hide this is supposed to be...

but it would surely be fearsome to come upon the owner in the jungle...

This lightweight jacket isThe Minoru Jacket, by Sewaholic Patterns. My friend Shams recently made this and I fell in love with the pattern, particularly the collar. This is an audition for a pattern to use for a Paris Coat; I used a cotton
stretch jacquard I bought some time ago from Emma One Sock.

I made a few changes to the pattern, eliminating the hood, the sleeve bands, the elastic at the waist,and darting the shoulders rather than gathering them. I also lengthened the jacket by 4 inches, added fish-eye darts, front and back, and added two zippered welt pockets. I lined it with a lively polka dot.

The jury is still out on whether I'll use this pattern for the Paris Coat...I'll wear it for a few weeks and see what I think.

Enough people have expressed curiosity as to my "saving" the Cutting Line Designs Light and Shadow Vest  in my previous post, that I decided to explain what happened and how I fixed it...non-sewers may skip down to the Food Porn...

 The pattern consists of a right front, a left front, the back and the cowl collar. The two fronts are quite different in order to provide the asymmetrical shaping.
The problem was definitely "operator error"...even after close to 70 years of sewing, I still need to be aware!

 The fabric, a striped silk dupioni, looks the same on both sides. I cut each front out as indicated, and (I thought) labeled them with pieces of tape as I do when
using fabric that is identical on both sides. 

 One of the joys of using Cutting Line Designs patterns is the written instruction, 
which is always clearly written, illustrated and covers all details. Per the instructions, I serged the hems of the front pieces, folded up the hems, mitered the corners and used Steam-A-Seam to fuse the hems. Then I top-stitched them. When I started to join the two fronts to the back, I realized I had somehow hemmed the left front on the right side of the garment. And since I had serged, mitered, hemmed, fused and topstitched, I couldn't undo 
my work. So I covered the error with bias tape, added the same tape to the other side and to the back, so it looked (unless you were too close) like it had been planned!

My Instant Pot got more of a work out lately; for Valentine's Day dessert, I made this

It's a Meyer Lemon Cheesecake made in the pressure cooker...and it was

VERY GOOD...we seldom eat dessert, so it was a treat!

I also used the I.P. to make the herbed beans in this recipe...

Roasted Halibut with Herbed Corona Beans...also very good...

And tonight, we are having 

Swiss Chard with Borlotti Beans (Verdure con Fagioli). I am working on using

up my Bean Club beans!

A few more days in my studio, then DD and DSIL are coming up for the weekend. Yay!

I'm linking up with Patti's "Visible Monday". Come on over!

TTYL