No White after Labor Day?

What's up with white and Labor Day?

Coco Chanel wearing white long after Labor Day

All my life there was the unspoken ( and spoken ) rule that wearing white clothing after Labor Day was   against the rules. 

Who made the rule and why?

Labor Day was declared a national holiday in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland and celebrated on the first Monday in September. 

Eventually this September date coincided with the end of the summer season for the very wealthy. White clothing was cooler and only worn during the summer months away from the heat and dirt of the cities. Poorer folks striving for acceptance also adopted the ' rule' of wearing white only during summer months.

So the 'no white after Labor Day' is really about cliques and status and an excuse to feel superior.

Many people say phooey to this rule and Coco Chanel was one of them.

White on!

Changyeostyle; A Fashion Student Success Story

 An email the other day announced a trunk show at a local boutique by the up and coming fashion line

Changyeostyle

What made the announcement exciting is the two founding designers of Changyeostyle are BOTH former students of mine from FASH 100!

Angelina Yeo and Annie Chang met in my class years ago and now are designing and selling their own line of fashions.

Could not resist this skirt and easy top

Changyeostyle fashions are perfect for the casual SoCal lifestyle. 

The designs are easy to wear and the knit fabrics are dreamy soft.

And another easy top in very unique fabric

I purchased two tops and a skirt thinking I would send them to my daughters BUT, I tried them on and loved the feel of the fabric and the great designs. So I'm keeping them!

Angelina and Annie are very creative, original designers with a great eye for detail and fine finishing.

I truly liked all their pieces and wish I had an occasion to wear black lace pants because they've got an amazing pair!

Go to their website, check out their entire inventory, and watch for details about their next trunk show in September at The Hanger in Tustin. 

One Hour Skirt

Been super anxious to tackle some of my ever-growing pile of projects and finally had some free time to actually attempt a project.

Since I only had about one hour I decided to whip up a quick knit skirt from this great fabric remnant I bought in LA for under $1.

The width of the fabric was just the right measurement for the length of my skirt so I just needed my hip measurement for the circumference of the skirt.

With a woven fabric 3" should be added to the hip measurement for ease but, since this was a knit I went with only 1' of ease. 

Ease is the difference between your actual body measurement and the finished garment measurement.

Cut my fabric into 5 pieces; biggest piece is skirt, 2 smallest pieces will be elastic waistband, 2 larger pieces will be a hem band because hemming knits is difficult.

Since this is a single or Jersey knit the fabric curls towards the right side of the fabric. 

One quick overlocked seam and I had the tube which will become my skirt. 

Next overlocked my 2 waistband pieces together at the short ends to create casing for the elastic.
Overlocking ( or serging ) knits is the quickest best way to construct knits.

  

Left a 1" gap in a waist band seam for opening to insert elastic.

Folded the waistband lengthwise and lined up the unfolded edge of waistband with the top of the skirt.

The waistband is on the outside ( right side ) of the skirt when I overlock the waistband to the skirt.

Cut the 1" wide elastic to a comfortable length for my waist and inserted the elastic into the waistband. 

Using a safety pin on the elastic end I was pulling through the waistband made it easier to feed the elastic through the waistband.

Sewed the elastic ends together and the waistband was complete.

Decided to add interfacing to the hem band to make it a little more rigid. 

Did not want the hem band all droopy, and uneven.

After folding the hem band in half I took a minute to hand baste the hem band so no chance of hem band rippling while I overlocked it to the skirt.

  

Third and last time at the overlock machine the unfolded edge of the hem band was lined up with the bottom of the skirt on the outside ( right side ) of the skirt and overlocked together.

And my skirt was finished!

It honestly took about as long to blog about the skirt as it did to make it.

One project done and only 239,756,000 to go.

Long Beach, California International Quilt Festival

A few busy weeks ago my amazing award winning quilter Mom and I attended the huge annual

 West Coast International Quilt Festival at the Long Beach convention center.

The show is an inspirational delight for anyone with any imagination.

I always love the super traditional quilts, especially the flower themed quilts. 

If you can wrap your brain around the fact that each different color you're seeing is a HAND SEWN separate piece of fabric then you can begin to truly appreciate the skill and amazing artistry of quilting.

Painted fabric and images are starting to show up in quilts and I think that makes it less a quilt and more textile art. The bird image above is painted and the one below is a vibrant fabric pieced parrot.

I like them both but, the pieced parrot is much more than a pretty image.

And for the first time I saw what I can only describe as minimalist quilts...

I think the simplicity and composition is just uninteresting. 

My resistance makes me think of how everyone hated the impressionists when they broke away from realism in painting. But, I don't think a Picasso or Matisse is behind these unattractive quilts.

Of course never say never because I do actually like this very non-traditional quilt. 

I like that it's an abstract fabric pieced flower.

And this is a phenomenal quilt of quilting. 

It's huge, all pieced fabric and the black outlines are bias strips hand sewn around the amazing hands quilting.

It is by a quilter in Japan and you really have to see it to believe how great it is.

And out of the 100+ quilts I can confidently say that this is my most favorite.

Not because of the theme or composition but, because the quilter used the most incredible mix of bright, printed, not found in nature colors to create her animal menagerie.

And again, every color is a HAND SEWN different piece of bright patterned fabric.

Matisse and Picasso would be impressed by this amazing mix of color and pattern.

And finally if the thought of the hundreds of hours of work that goes into quilts is overwhelming; 

have hope!

This extremely large fabulous quilt of the village of Berne, Switzerland was made by the quilt guild of Berne Switzerland in 2010.

One hundred fifty six different squares all pieced together make up this exquisite quilt.

Some things truly do take a village!

Kelley Osbourne's Cool Shoes

Are these not the ' coolest ' shoes ever? 

Kelley Osbourne wore them to Fergie's baby shower.

 From the front the shoe is all business; plain black but, the back is such a sweet surprise! 

AND the shoes are scented to smell fruity.

Who could see/smell these shoes and not smile?

These plastic shoes are a collaborative effort with Brazilian shoe label Melissa and Karl Lagerfeld.
$175 at Saks Fifth Ave website

Recycling 'Make and Mend' in 2013

Sustainable, recycle, re-use, and eco-friendly are all current popular phrases about combating pollution and waste. 

Recycling in fashion is an idea that is being recycled...

 During the Second World War the British and Americans were encouraged to recycle fabrics from garments in the Make and Mend campaign.

Fast forward to the 21st century and here is my 2013 Make and Mend recycled garment. 

The original sweater was a turtle neck and much too hot for SoCal.  But, I really liked the color combo of the sweater so I carefully removed the sleeves. I found a great black denim shirt at a thrift shop and removed the shirt sleeves and attached the sweater sleeves. 

The finished recycled garment is perfect for casual California lifestyle and weather.

With the success of my first recycle I eyed another sweater I loved but, was getting ratty. 

Once again I carefully removed the sweater sleeves and also the sleeves from a denim shirt purchased from a thrift shop.

Sewing the sweater sleeves into the armhole was again surprisingly simple and again I really loved the end result.

Recycle garment #2

Well now I had these nice denim sleeves so I went to my favorite resale store and found this great sweater by Cabi and you guessed it...I removed the sweater sleeves. 

*note* it is critical the sweaters have set-in sleeves with a seam between the sleeve and the armhole.

Fitting the woven denim sleeve into the knit armhole was a little challenging because the armhole grew as soon as the sweater sleeve was removed. A simple running stitch ( pink thread ) allowed me to pull up the sweater armhole until it was the same size as the denim sleeve head.

The sleeves and sweater were sewn together and again I am very pleased with the end result.

So pleased I think I will re-activate my Etsy store ( Lemon Twist ) and see if I can sell them...

Of course I made all these recycled sweater/denim tops over a period of time because I always have at least five projects going at once. In between these sweater shirts I was in San Francisco and could not resist this jacket. 

A commercially made sweater denim combo.

Nothing is ever new in fashion!

Almost a Sari Skirt

My parents recently visited India and my Mom brought back this lovely semi-sheer fabric that was finished at both ends. I declared it must be a sari ( which literally means strip of cloth ) but, a sari can be from four to nine yards long and this piece was too small.

The actual size of this fabric strip was 38" wide by 89" long which could work for a long skirt. However working with the print was a little challenging.  If the stripes went horizontal the skirt would     not be long enough so the stripes had to go vertical. 
           In the picture the fabric is folded in two with the white weights on the finished ends. I cut through the fold parallel to the finished ends so the fabric was now in two pieces; a front and back.

I didn't want to lose the stripes that ran the length of the fabric on the front and back so I used a French seam for the side seam without trimming much fabric away.

This picture is of the finished side seam with the front and back stripe joined in the middle. 

Since the bottom edge of the skirt was already finished the side seams were the only seams. 

Since the fabric was semi-sheer I purchased lining and decided to also use the lining to create the casing for the elastic at the waist. Two side seams and a rolled hem and the lining was finished.

 I went with the current trend of a short lining under a long sheer skirt.

The width of the lining was smaller than the width of the skirt ( but still plenty large enough to fit over hips ) so I slightly gathered the skirt to fit the lining. I matched the wrong side of the lining to the right side of the skirt and stitched them together. I used 1/4" seam allowance because I needed all the length of the skirt.

The lining was turned to the inside of the skirt and I edgestitched through the skirt and the lining at the top. The edgestitching reinforced the tiny seam and will keep the lining in place.

Next a parallel line of stitching the width of the elastic ( 1/2" ) and the casing for the elastic was done.

The  29" length of elastic was inserted into the approximately 70" length of casing and the elastic ends were sewn together. I manipulated the gathering of fabric on the elastic so 4" at the front and back of each side was flat. 

The flat ( not gathered ) fabric over the hips is very slimming.

A line of vertical stitching 4" from the side seam in each front and back insures that the gathered fabric cannot travel into the flat area over the hips. 

And the almost sari skirt was finished.

And while a real sari can be draped and worn more than 80 different ways;
creating one lovely skirt for one of my lovely daughters is a lovely compromise.