Can it be? Yes ... LINKTASTIC FRIDAY RETURNS! On a Monday.

Reware Vintage (in Pontiac, Michigan) is having a sale -- that's Bethany's black lace dress up there, B40 and $36 (!) -- 20% everything using coupon code THIEF.

Wendy at PatternStash is having a sale; it runs today through Tuesday. 20% discount with code "Dressaday".

A reader (who is NOT a pattern-seller, but a pattern-buyer) has asked if I could make a post about what people would like to see in online pattern stores, and also what they would NOT like to see. If you have wishes or pet peeves, would you email them to me? I'll compile a list and post it here (and you can be as anonymous as you like).

If you missed the comments on the COPA entry, I've set up a Google group for a potential co-op, and you can sign up to join here.

Lisa gives me some of the best news I've heard in a while ... Liberty + Target? Please let it be true ...

Great new blog from the FIDM Museum ... I especially liked this post.

Trista of Sugardale is getting rid of some vintage patterns on Etsy (you remember Trista, don't you?) and you can find them here.

Do you guys know about the California Art Deco Society's Gatsby Afternoon? That's not my time period but I'm very tempted ... (thanks to Kate for the link!)

It's a dress, it's a kayak, it's a cool link from Tracey. Check it out.

Sarah (of ColorKitten) sent a link to Little Golden Book fabric! (*WANT*)

That's it for today! Enjoy your little dose of Friday on a Monday this week.

The Dress I am Wearing RIGHT NOW, Pt. 3

Yep, I'm wearing this dress right now. It's the same pattern (Vogue 9760) once more -- in fact, I made this one BEFORE I made the last two ones that I showed you. Which is why the print doesn't match as well.



I really like the orange facing. It's probably what makes me happiest about this dress. Aside from the fact that it's Liberty fabric, of course. I forget what the name of this Liberty pattern is, but it shows up on ebay.co.uk pretty often, if you are now struck by a boundless yearning for it, just keep an eye out.

And in a behind-the-scenes look, here's the hem:



I love this pattern -- probably more so than it deserves, but hey, the heart wants what it wants, yes? -- and I have one more cut out on the sewing table. I wouldn't put it past me, either, to make a couple more before I finally stop ...

Knits: the next frontier

I was lucky enough to get an eBay gift card for Christmas ... well, actually, it was intended for both me and my husband, but I appropriated it immediately and he didn't squeak -- he's not what you would call a big eBay shopper. And I figured I would spend it on -- what else? -- fabric. Namely, Liberty.

I fell in love with this pattern, and realized too late that it's jersey knit. I don't really sew with knits. I mean, I have done, but I've never really ENJOYED it. I even got rid of my serger last year, since I do so little knit-sewing. But for this fabric, I will make an exception. What kind of exception, I don't know (well, I know it's not going to be an elastic-waist skirt, I have it narrowed down that much). I'm thinking I'll be doing a lot of browsing over on BurdaStyle; they have great patterns for knits. I want a dress (duh) and I want pockets (double duh) which are hard to manage in knits, I think. (Maybe I'll line them with organza?) But I'll make it work. Fuchsia-style. Just watch me ... on a significant time delay, since there are about 677 projects in front of this one. But still! Knits!

At Liberty to Say

Peoples! Did you know there's a new book out about Liberty in the 1950s and 1960s?



To say that I want it would be an understatement. Luckily, I've pre-ordered it on Amazon (Amazon.uk also had it, but has sold out) and soon, soon, a copy will be on the way to me. (I can't believe they didn't find me and offer to send a review copy; somebody at that publisher needs a quick refresher course in online marketing, if you ask me.)

And in other fantastic Liberty news, Anna Buruma, the archivist for Liberty has kindly agreed to answer some questions for you, dear readers. I've put in the first batch below ...

What do you think has been the most popular Liberty design of all
time?
The most popular design is impossible to say, but there are some very long-lived designs.

Hera, the Peacock Feather design, first appears (not at Liberty) in the 1870s; Ianthe (the art nouveau design) was picked up by the Liberty designers in the 1960s and has been identified with Liberty ever since; I think perhaps the most typical of all the Liberty classics is Poppy & Daisy which was designed for Liberty in the 1910s and has been in the fabric range on and off ever since.

Liberty has made Tana lawn, Kingly cord, Jubilee wool/cotton, silk (does it have a name?) and jersey, that I know of ... were there other fabrics, too? Flannel? Oilcloth? Some polyester in the 1970s that nobody speaks of now? Hemp, during the war?

Liberty has always experimented with different cloth bases: many different cottons from very loosely woven ones to coarse to tana lawn; different wools of which the most famous one is probably varuna wool; lots of different silks, we have three different ones at the moment; velvets, and certainly man-mades, from rayon in earlier times to nylon in the 1960s and polyester and viscose in the 70s, 80s and 90s. We don't have any man-mades at present, but never rule out any good bases.

Are there plans to put little biographies of any of the Liberty
fabric designers on the new Liberty blog?

There are no plans to put biographies of Liberty designers on our web site at the moment. Many of the earlier designers are in fact unknown as Liberty wanted to promote their own name rather than that of others.

What is the oddest thing that has ever been made from Liberty?

Lots of odd things: someone made a teapot that was sold in the shop; there was a Cacharel/Liberty sailing boat in a race in the 70s with a Liberty sail; there have been various marketing campaigns for Liberty fabric, for example one where Elvis's blue suede shoes were substituted by tana lawn ones.

Can you think of other questions you'd like to ask of Ms. Buruma? Let me know, and I'll pass them along ...

A Dress A Day: An Artist's Rendering

So, didja miss me? Sorry to be AWOL for most of last week -- I was at Pop!Tech08, and Pop!Tech is the kind of conference that is so engrossing you forget about the entire outside world, including your sadly neglected blog.

I talked for five minutes (and possibly some seconds over, although nobody would tell me how many). One of the many cool things about Pop!Tech is that they have a real live artist interpreting all the talks ... Peter Durand, from alphachimp.

So I wore this dress:




And this is the artist's rendering:



I should point out that I wore blue tights and brown shoes, and not brown tights and blue shoes as shown in the picture, but I think that's permissible artistic license. And it's not like I *wouldn't* have worn perfectly matching blue shoes if I only had a pair ...

Cool, huh? I think the artist really rose to the occasion -- and remember, I spoke for FIVE MINUTES, so he had just that long to do this picture in!

With any luck this week we will return to our regularly scheduled dress blogging. Also: I'm working on a rant about underwear: do you guys want to read it?

Fabric Shopping in Japan: Liberty!

I found this store completely by accident; I decided to walk down one side of the street rather than the other so as to stay in the shade, and, idly glancing through the shop windows, saw this:



Of course, agonizingly, the store wasn't open for another ten minutes. So I went and browsed through a children's clothes store across the street, afraid to roam further afield in case I lost my way and couldn't make it back. I did cleverly take this picture for directional reference (the shop is at the very corner of this street and the main Nippori drag):



When the shop finally did open (on the dot of 10 a.m., just as the sign said), I was the first one in the door -- to look at this:



and this:



and this:



The gentleman who was running the store when I was there was very helpful -- I asked permission to take these pictures, which was originally refused ... until I whipped out my handy Dress A Day business cards, after which everything was copacetic. I tried to explain "blog", but since I often have a hard time explaining "blog" in English, my hand gestures were not up to the task. So when he said "Magazine?" I said "Yes, computer magazine," and left it at that.

I ended up buying three meters of this:



Here's the selvage:



I am thinking that some of these patterns are Japan-only ... I haven't seen them anywhere else, not on Ebay.co.uk or on the new Liberty website. And it does say pretty clearly "Printed in Japan". Does anyone know for sure?

As Liberty goes, this wasn't hideously expensive -- I think it was about 2900 yen/meter, so about $29. Cheaper than Liberty in the U.S., that's for sure -- if you could even find it!

I accepted a business card but am unable to read it -- am posting it here for any scanlation help:



This store is the one closest to the top edge of the card, on this little map (you can get your orientation from the train station). Worst-case, you could always print this image and give it to the hotel concierge or cab driver -- that should get you to one of these stores!

Aside from Liberty, the store carried a lot of very high-end cottons -- including that red and yellow French-provincial stuff that handbags are made from, whose name I always forget -- and some wools and linens. I didn't spend a lot of time browsing other than among the Liberty, since I knew buying that piece of Liberty had already strained my fabric budget a bit ...

While I was paying for my fabric, the clerk even offered me a piece of chocolate. This is my kind of fabric store, I tell you.

A New Skirt!

I made a new skirt over the weekend, surprisingly. There were about fifty gazillion other things I should have been doing (and I came down to the office this morning to find that a deadline which I thought was next Tuesday, was, in fact, this PAST SATURDAY, oops), but when the sewing machine calls, one must listen.

This is some Liberty twill I bought from my old friend Julie at Little Shop of Treasures, on eBay.co.uk. It's called "Enchanted Garden," and here's a closeup:



And yes, it has all my favorite (bright, cheerful) colors.

And I used orange rickrack to edge the pockets:



And an invisible zipper (which I am only lately a convert to):



And of course a bright blue facing for the waistband:



And for the pocket, too:



I used New Look 6410, which I modified to add front scoop pockets. Doing that wasn't hard -- I think it worked on the first try, which was nice. I've probably made this skirt two or three times, although never with fabric that I love as much as I love this fabric.

The whole skirt probably took about two and a half hours to make, with about twenty minutes of that time spent looking for a pattern piece that had fallen behind a piece of furniture. (I had the pattern pinned to a corkboard instead of put neatly away, for some reason -- probably laziness.) The invisible zipper went in very cooperatively. Once you resign yourself to the necessity of basting (and, in my case, of digging out the screwdriver to change the presser foot shank), invisible zippers aren't really any more trouble than visible ones, and they look so much nicer!

I plan on wearing this skirt with brightly-colored polo shirts with differently-brightly-colored tees under them, and my orange Jack Purcells. At which time it will be really, truly summer.

Aye, Kalumba!

Ebay seller laluthan has, by some arcane process, not only managed to turn up tons of the (discontinued) Liberty twill, but also has some of my favorite, favorite patterns available right now, including the "Kalumba" print, above.

So far, I've bought this in orange (twice), green/lavender (once), blue (in silk! I can't bear to cut into it!), and now, the brown/teal here.

The first time I bought some Kalumba (orange #1) I made it into a very simple and comfortable A-line skirt. Unfortunately, I endowed it with insufficient pockets, which FILLS me with remorse every time I pull it out of the closet. (I was so young then, so unworldly! I thought all I needed was my ID, twenty bucks, and a lip balm!) Now that I'm older and wiser and carry too many personal electronic devices, I need more pockets, so I plan to make MORE Kalumba skirts. Maybe I'll even make one in each colorway, and wear them all the time, like Diana Vreeland wearing the same Balenciaga shift dress (but in different fabrics) every day.

I recommend laluthan highly -- her stuff is gorgeous, comes quickly, and she's very good about shipping overseas (fast, too!). And last time I ordered from her she threw in a little scrap of blue twill Kalumba, just because ... which is going to make a perfect waistband facing on one of these skirts.

And thank you all, so much, for your sympathetic comments on yesterday's post. Dad never did quite figure out exactly what "that blog thing" was for, but now I think he probably gets it. Obviously, the blog is "for" proving how kind people on the internet can be; I consider it now established beyond all doubt.

Brand Extension

You all know the hippo effect, don't you? You have one ceramic hippo on your desk, because you thought it was a bit silly and cute, and then in some kind of group delusion (and over your feeble protests) everyone suddenly thinks you collect hippos? And you get hippo-related items at every gift-giving occasion for the rest of your life (or until you put a ceramic owl on your mantel ...)

Anyway, I think that I have now benefited from the hippo effect, since Anna kindly pointed out to me the eBay auction for a Liberty scarf (don't bother clicking, I bid and won already). On the one hand, I don't really wear scarves (although I have a Scrabble-print one I'm understandably fond of). Printed scarves usually need a plain outfit, and you know how many of THOSE I have (not many). But, on the other hand: Liberty! Fountain pens! In bright colors!

So perhaps I have transitioned from someone who merely sews with Liberty fabrics to being someone who collects Liberty-print *things*. (With any luck only flat ones ...)

And did I ever tell y'all that my darling husband got me THESE for Christmas? And that the current state of "Always winter and never Christmas" here in Chicago is pushing back the date when I can start wearing them every day?

Too bad I can't conceive of an outfit (other than a Halloweeny "Homage to Liberty" costume) that could include BOTH these items. Suggestions welcome in the comments.

Anna Buruma! Paging Anna Buruma!

Dilly recently posted a comment to the effect that the V&A had recently hosted Liberty archivist Anna Buruma, who spoke about the history of that company and their designs.

Needless to say, I was just shattered to have missed this (leaving aside that taking a trip from Chicago to London for a two-hour event would not have been very ecologically responsible of me). But it got me to thinking -- someone who reads this blog must have contact info for Ms. Buruma, yes? And if we asked very nicely, don't you think she'd like to do a Q&A with us?

Massive amounts of searching have failed to turn up a contact email (I suppose I *could* just CALL THE STORE, but that seems so twentieth-century). If, in fact, anyone does know Ms. Buruma and could effect an introduction, I'd be very, very grateful. And in the meantime, you could leave the questions you'd want asked in the comments, just in case ...

[Fabric is Liberty Mauverina, from eBay seller laluthan.]

UPDATE: I have exchanged emails with Ms. Buruma and she is willing to be interviewed ... please leave any questions you'd like me to ask in the comments! Thanks so much to LondonGirl for getting us in touch!

All's well that ends well

So I'm heading home from London today, but I had half an hour last night to go to Goldhawk Road -- and all you Londoners who told me to go there? You were right. I owe you all a drink.

I went to Classic Textiles (44 Goldhawk Road) where they had Liberty (in a very, very snug basement) for £5/yard! (Or possibly £5/meter, not sure.) They also had some limited Varuna wool and some £10/y-or-m Liberty as well, upstairs. Mostly florals, to be sure, but plenty of the abstract and figural prints, as well.

Sadly, though, I was The Difficult Customer, because I saw a roll of the pattern above (Splash) which I've wanted FOR-ever .... behind every other roll of Liberty. And so the poor guy, at closing time, had to shift about twenty rolls of fabric to get and cut me my four meters-or-yards. But he was nice about it, possibly because an even More Difficult Customer was in the shop, trying to get swatches of about fifteen different shirting cottons. (Him: "Now, y'see, I need to you cut me bits of all these, and make me a list, so I can call you up and say "I need 11 meters of #2," right?" Shopman: Nodding uncomprehendingly. Him: "Now, y'see, I need you ...")

The woman at the register also confirmed for me that Liberty wasn't making any more twill. "And their prices are silly," she said. I nodded sagely.

I did some brief poking around in some of the other shops (as they were vacuuming and rolling down grates) and saw this incredible flocked linen wallpapery print, but at £9 a yard-or-meter I couldn't justify it. I didn't have my camera with me so I took some not-so-great camera phone pictures ... remind me and I'll post them when I get home.

Home. As much as I love London, I'm looking forward to being in THAT place again!

Dear Liberty

I finally got over to Liberty, and ... well, it was disappointing, to say the least. They've reduced the space given over to dressmaking fabrics again, to about 3/4 of what it was the last time I was there, which was itself about 3/4 of what I saw on the visit before that!

Look at how anemic (or, as I'm over here, anaemic) the shelves are:






And when I asked about twill, the clerk (who I recognized from previous visits) told me that Liberty isn't making twill any longer -- "no one was buying it," she said. Well!

So, being in the UK, I've decided to write a sternly-worded letter to Liberty, in the hopes that they will reconsider their decision to essentially abandon the home dressmaker ...

Dear Mr Williams:

I visited the dressmaking fabrics department of Liberty in Regent Street this week. Liberty is usually the highlight of any trip I make to London, and the fabrics department is the highlight of any trip to Liberty.

However, I was tremendously disappointed. Not only did I walk away without having made a fabric purchase (which has never happened before!) I was also greeted with the dispiriting news that Liberty has decided to stop producing their designs in twill.

Although I have lately seen Liberty prints available through partnerships with other manufacturers (Lands' End, Converse) and I think that is a lovely development, I would hate to see Liberty abandon the home dressmaker, especially as interest in sewing and dressmaking has been surging recently, on both sides of the Atlantic.

I was told that people haven't been buying the twill, and that's the reason for stopping production. Might I suggest that people aren't buying it because it is so difficult to obtain? Liberty does not sell online, and I have been hearing from independent shops in the US and Australia that Liberty is also reducing the number of patterns available to them. If you want to sell your fabric, you ought to be making it more available, not less! I buy at least twenty yards of Liberty lawn, twill, and wool fabrics a year (and I buy at least sixty yards of fabric total in a year, and often more, mostly online), and I would buy more Liberty if more patterns and weights were available to me. If I could, I'd sew with nothing BUT Liberty!

Liberty is by far my favorite fabric. The prints are outstanding and the quality of the weave is unmatched. I, and many other home dressmakers, will be heartbroken if this downward trend in the number and availability of patterns continues.

Sincerely,

etc., etc.

I'll print this out and mail it on real paper (more likely to be taken seriously) when I return to Chicago. So suggestions welcome in the meantime. I wanted to start it with the very British "Sirs:" but since the name of the head of customer service is available, it didn't make sense not to use it. If you'd like to write or email as well, details are here ...

London Fabric Shopping

Through no actual planning on my part, my hotel here in London is an easy twenty minutes' walk from the amazing Shaukat Fabrics, so guess where I ended up fairly soon-like after arriving in London? That above is a picture of ONE of the Liberty Tana lawn walls; please to be clicking here and here for other views.

I bought half as much as I did on my last trip, but, considering that 1) the dollar has sunk quite a bit since then and 2) I haven't exactly sewn up all I bought last time, I don't feel as if I wasted my opportunities.

I bought a nice big chunk of this lovely Varuna wool:



And three other pieces: two of the cricket-balls print (possibly called Schlesinger? Anyway, I want to make a BIG shirtdress in that) and one (about three meters) of the neuron print (that's not its actual Liberty name, but that's what I call it).



I could have bought fabrics that I *didn't* already own in other colorways, fibers, and weights, but what would be the fun of that? In an ideal world, I'd only wear Liberty print everything ... the same patterns in wool, babycord, cotton lawn, and cotton twill, over and over again.

Yesterday I went to the INCREDIBLE V&A "Golden Age of Couture" show -- if you have any, any, any chance of going, GO. Go twice, if you can. I am not joking here, people. There was so much there -- it just went on and on like a really good dream -- and it was beautifully mounted, up to and including little line sketches on the information cards so that you could better understand the construction details. Cassie (from the V&A's web site) and Melissa kept me company (and indulged my geeking out over all the pockets), and it was just wonderful. (Disclosure -- Cassie got us free tickets, but I would have definitely paid the special entry fee anyway ...)

Yet to come: a trip to actual Liberty, and possibly Muji -- anyone want to tell me which branch of Muji in London is the best?

Liberty: An Essential Part of Any Complete Fabric Week

This seems to be part of the new Liberty range for 2007; the auction for this colorway is over, but the seller, laluthan, has some in brown, still. (I've bought from her before; she's very nice!)

If I make it to the UK this year (hoping perhaps in September) I know what I'm buying. I only hope they have it in the twill as well as the lawn, so that I can make a nice heavy skirt out of it. And maybe a green colorway? Or an orange one? That would be perfect.

This one really reminds of my favorite Liberty print ever, the one with the stars and dots (I wish I remembered its name!) ...

Don't mind me; I'll just be over here daydreaming about Liberty prints.

First Prize!

So, I forgot (again) to tell you (or at least the Chicagoland-area you) that I would be on Chicago Tonight on WTTW last night. (I was only talking about txt-messaging abbreviations, LOL.)

But, I figured, I might as well wear a Duro. (A Duro, as some of you have asked recently, is a kimono-style dress with contrast banding, as popularized by the designer Duro Olowu. That makes 'Duro', like 'cardigan', an eponym.)

The Duro worked fine on TV (as far as I can tell, being no expert on production values, and only being able to watch myself for a few minutes post-show, before it was time to put the little boy to bed). I'm sure someone helpful will tell me if it didn't ...

The only problem with wearing dresses on TV is that the mic guy doesn't have a super-convenient place to put the mic. With a Duro, though, you hang the box on the back sash, and run the cord & mic through the wide sleeve to the front vee. Works fine! (Occasionally when I've worn dresses to speak they have to hang the mic box from my back bra strap. Not ideal.)

The print fabric here is Liberty, a pattern called "First Prize". Here's a non-flashy photo:



The banding is quilting cotton. It's a little rough next to the fine lawn, but I haven't been able to find good colors in cotton lawn, unfortunately. And it's probably one of those things that I'm the only one who notices, too. I'm also convinced that either my mannequin has a decided list to one side (or maybe I do?), or the floor of my sewing room is slanted. (Or maybe I just can't hold a camera straight? My worldview is skewed? Something's going on.)

I'm also showing it here with the tank I usually wear under this one; a plain milk-chocolatey one from H&M. (I don't think you can tell here, but it matches a brown tone in the center of the First Prize rosettes.) Lots of you have commented about how deep the Duro necklines are, and I wanted to show you how I manage to wear them without being, in the classic words of somebody-or-other, a "cleavage-y slutbomb." (Not that I think cleavage is necessarily slutty, and of course it's the patriarchy that defines sluttiness anyway, always with an eye to perpetuating itself and controlling uppity women, but I just really like the word slutbomb. ) I also like having a chance to throw another color into the Duro mix with various tanks. Not to mention being far too lazy to alter the pattern to have a higher neckline.

I can't remember if I posted this one before, or not! (Do I repeat myself? Very well then, I repeat myself.) If I have posted it before, I'm sure someone helpful will post it in the comments.