Author Archives: Jan

About Jan

Musician and geek and Juris Doctor; lover of fine art and fine craft; mother and grandmother and significant other and friend. Passionate about sewing.

It’s in the Details!

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One of the things that led to my employment at the local Bernina store was the owner’s seeing me in the store wearing garments I had made. She is also a garment sewist, so she knew just by looking that quality had gone into the construction of these garments. She told me she had picked up some apparel fabrics at the Pittsburgh quilt market, and within a few days I stopped at the Twinsburg store on my way to a Cleveland rehearsal to see these fabrics. The owner was there and we talked a bit more, culminating in her asking … Continue reading →

Summery Scarf

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Catching up on some older projects that haven’t made it to a blog post yet …. One of Wolf Creek Yarn’s weekly newsletters in March grabbed my attention. In Northeast Ohio, we were still in the depths of a brutal winter, but the scarf shown in the newsletter sang to me of spring. The scarf is made of Berroco Lago yarn, a rayon/linen blend that gives the wearer accessory options for warm-weather outfits. I made a road trip over to Grove City to visit Wolf Creek for the first time, where I bought two skeins each of the colors Papaya … Continue reading →

When is a Uniform Not a Uniform?

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When it’s a great, beautifully constructed, Katherine Tilton Vogue top. My friend, Leslie, teaches at Interlochen Arts Camp during her summer breaks from the university where she chairs the dance department. My son, grandkids, and I drove up to Interlochen earlier this summer to visit her. Now, anyone who has attended or visited Interlochen over the years knows there’s a camp uniform. Light blue shirts and dark blue pants or shorts (or, much mocked through time, knickers for the girls). When I observed one of Leslie’s musical theatre classes the first day we were there, I was horrified. No one … Continue reading →

A Present to Myself

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I have pulled Katherine Tilton’s Vogue 8710 out of my stash several times and contemplated making it, but it always lost out to a repeat of something I’d already done. Then last week I ordered a bamboo rayon/spandex stripe from Hart’s Fabric and decided I wanted to try the horizontal vs. vertical stripe scheme. Once I prewashed the fabric and felt how soft it was, I couldn’t wait to cut into it, hoping to finish the top to wear to a Saturday multi-birthday party at some friends’ cottage on the shores of Lake Erie. I love this top and want … Continue reading →

End-of-school-year teacher gifts

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For most of the past seven years, I have taken advantage of my sewing and knitting talents to create handcrafted gifts for the grandkids’ teachers at Christmas and at the end of the year. I’ve even heard that some of the teachers tell my daughter-in-law they look forward to those gift occasions. (Whew! Sometimes I worry that they’d rather have a gift card.) A month ago a Tucson friend of mine posted on Facebook a small zippered bag she had made. She shared the link to the tutorial on Amanda Niederhauser’s “Jedi Craft Girl” blog. I thought the bags were … Continue reading →

Fabric With Memories

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I posted last week about the fabric I bought in Germany last November and my lack of sufficient yardage. I pulled five swatches from Mood Fabrics and subsequently ordered “Chocolate Rayon Jersey” for the sleeves and pocket trim of Butterick 5925, View A. I finished it yesterday morning, just in time to leave for a road trip to Western NC to celebrate my mother’s 101st birthday. I slipped it on for the Spousal Equivalent to see. He—who is usually rather quiet about my wardrobe—immediately said, “But you already have one of those.” Hmmm. What I have is a similar print … Continue reading →

Digging into my memory

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My home came with a lot of leftovers from the previous owner. That was fortunate for me, as I had been living with my son and daughter-in-law for a year before I bought this house. I had gotten rid of many possessions before leaving Tucson, after doing the ship-and-store or give-away analysis. The wicker chairs on my porch are one example of the sort of items I “inherited”—items one doesn’t need in a nursing home (where my home’s previous owner went after leaving here). The cushions on the chairs were old and not very supportive, but still usable. A year … Continue reading →