Cover Designs! #39: In a New York Minute

 

Cover Designs is a feature in which I try to match up the outfit on a book cover with a dress pattern and sometimes even potential fabric matches as well. Today's pick is In a New York Minute by Kate Spencer. 

Summary from Publisher: 

Franny Doyle is having the worst day. She’s been laid off from her (admittedly mediocre) job, the subway doors ripped her favorite silk dress to ruins, and now she’s flashed her unmentionables to half of lower Manhattan. On the plus side, a dashing stranger came to her rescue with his (Gucci) suit jacket. On the not-so-plus side, he can’t get away from her fast enough.

Worse yet? Someone posted their (entirely not) meet-cute online. Suddenly Franny and her knight-in-couture, Hayes Montgomery III, are the newest social media sensation, and all of New York is shipping #SubwayQTs.

Only Franny and Hayes couldn’t be a more disastrous match. She’s fanciful, talkative, and creative. He’s serious, shy, and all about numbers. Luckily, in a city of eight million people, they never have to meet again. Yet somehow, Hayes and Franny keep running into each other—and much to their surprise, they enjoy each other’s company. A lot. But when Franny’s whole world is turned upside down (again!), can she find the courage to trust in herself and finally have the life—and love—she’s always wanted?

The cute summer outfit that Franny is wearing on the cover would be easy to replicate as a two piece set. The top is a perfect match for the Stitch Witch Atlas top - though of course you might want to make it in red!

The skirt could be made with almost any basic A-line skirt pattern; you could even draft your own. But if you're thinking patterns, try the Liesl & Co Garibaldi skirt in the short view, or the free Libby A-Line skirt from Tessuti. Or any of the many big four patterns of course! 

Garibaldi

Libby

Look for some beautiful red silk and you'd be set. Try this luscious silk noil from Gala Fabrics in BC

Or maybe a lighter weight linen from Pure Linen Envy for a more summery feel

Whichever it is, wear it happily and watch out for subway doors! 

Weekend Review: Let's Move the Needle

Let's Move the Needle / Shannon Downey
North Adams, MA: Storey, c2024.
254 p.

I bought this book recently, as it falls so much into my areas of interest -- craftivism in particular. It's written by a woman who is a stitcher (badasscrossstitch.com) and a long-time activist. It was very inspiring. 

Her area is cross-stitch and embroidery, so that's the examples she uses. But this book isn't just about the craft, it's really focused on the activism part. She encourages all artistic practices - fibre arts, visual arts, dance, music, etc, to get involved, using whatever your practice is in the service of activist ends. 

I really liked this book, it was practical, wide-ranging, and inspiring all in one. She goes over some ways that craft has been used in political settings in the past, then shares some contemporary projects, but the heart of the book is the introspection required to be effective. She has many interactive questions to go through so that you can narrow your focus down on the 1-3 main issues you want to be engaging with. It's an important element, becoming aware of what is important to you and why. And then how you'll pursue that in future. 

Once you have an idea of where you would like to focus, the rest of the book explains how to work with others - how to form groups, keep them running, use the logic model to plan outcomes (ie: know the WHY of any project), evaluate, and maybe even end a project. She incorporates instruction on tactics, planning documents and more, to make this easy for those new to organizing. 

She does mention in her opening that craftivism can sometimes be seen as 'gentle' and non-confrontational, but that's not where's she's at with it. Her craft is a tool to speak loudly about the social justice you want to see. 

With the useful tools, the logical layout, and the points illustrated with some her own hoop art, this is a great book. Very to the point, it has a goal and gives you the wherewithal to join in and, as she says, "Build Community and Make Change". Worthwhile for anyone interested in craftivism, community building and Moving the Needle! 

Stash Rearranging!

 

After tracing out a bunch of patterns earlier this week, I went into the stash looking for a particular piece of fabric I wanted to use for one of them. This led to finding fabrics for all four patterns that I had prepared. So I have a month's worth of projects organized now! 

However, this also led to some fabric being moved to find what I wanted. Then more fabric. Then before I knew it, it had turned into a huge stash dive! 

I ended up opening bins, moving piles around, filling bins again, and loosely sorting what was left into vaguely colour coded piles on my sewing table. 

These pictures show about half of the fabric in my stash. It's now a bit more sorted by colour, but back in bins and piles on top of those bins. At least I have a good reminder of what's in there. There wasn't as much to get rid of as I'd expected, maybe because I had a good clearout last year. But the yearly fabric and pattern swap at my local Garment Guild is coming up...so I'm going to be a bit more ruthless with what I've looked at and pull a few more to go. 

Considering how much I've been sewing lately, I really don't need all this fabric. There are a dozen or so that jumped out at me that I want to sew up soon, though, including the four I've picked for the upcoming projects. So I will start with those and see how it goes. It has helped to have an idea of my preferred colours and styles for my wardrobe, so I can quickly see if something is completely unfit for my stash - I still had a couple of brown fabrics that went to the giveaway pile very quickly! I found I had blacks and whites, blues and yellows, a few reds and pinks, and surprisingly, quite a lot of purple and green.

And as for substrates, I know I don't like poly so I only kept a couple of thrifted pieces because of the fabulous print, the others are heading out of the stash. A little more shuffling and I'll have my sewing table back -- then on to the first project, using the purple cotton on the top of the stack in my first photo. It's amazing how tiring this work can be -- but satisfying in the end. How about you - do you like a deep stash to pull from, or do you prefer a limited stash that you use as you go? 

All the Pattern Prep!

One of the things I tend to avoid, but that is very necessary to new projects, is all the pattern prep! I have a lot of projects in the queue that need to be traced out, either from my Burda magazines or from pdf format (as well as a couple of tissue patterns that I need to cut out).

I decided to specialize this week and just focus on all this tracing and cutting, to get a handful of projects ready for the next step - all the flat pattern measuring and fitting before finally cutting out my fabrics. 

I was able to trace out three Burda patterns and one pdf before I lost energy for more ;) But that's four projects now in the actual queue, and that will keep me going for a while, especially considering how much (or little) I've been sewing so far this year. 

Two of my traced projects are items from my #MakeNine2025 -- they are winter dresses so I would like to get to those right away, while I can still wear them. Although since the snowbanks are now as tall as I am, I'm not expecting winter to vanish soon! 

Tracing takes time and can be tiring, which is why I like to do it in short spurts. But I do have one trick to share when it comes to Burda pattern sheets -- when they are super confusing, I just trace over the pattern piece with a Frixion highlighter. It makes it easier to trace, and when you're done just iron them off and start on the next one! I do find that the Frixion leaves a bit of a white mark on the paper once you iron it off but it's almost unnoticeable. And it makes tracing much easier. But four is enough for me on this recent weekend. On to the next steps. 

Weekend Review: Supreme Models

 

Supreme Models / Marcellas Reynolds 
NY: Abrams, c2019.
240 p.

Something a little different today - rather than strictly sewing, this is a book about fashion. It's a beautiful book, full of fashion images from varied magazines. It's laid out as a series of features on, as the subtitle says, "Iconic Black Women who Revolutionized Fashion". This collection of models covers those from the early days -- the 60s and beyond -- to current, new faces on the runway. 

Each feature gives the name and working dates of the model, the main designers & magazines they are known for, then a summary about them. About half of the entries have more in-depth info, and some feature interviews as well. And of course, there is at least one brilliant image of each woman. 

This was put together by fashion stylist (and former male model) Marcellas Reynolds. He talks about how important seeing black women on the runway was for him as a young man, leading him into fashion as a career. And his joy in this world and the women involved shines through. 

If you love fashion history and beautiful images, and want to learn about the development of Black-friendly modeling agencies & the powerful women behind them as well, this is a great read. It's inspiring and entertaining. Perfect mix! 

Heart Shaped YoYos

This was a quick and entertaining project to try, just in time for Valentine's Day! I picked up some interesting tools at the thrift store just close to the end of last year. So I really had to try them out and see if they worked! This one is a Clover yoyo tool, specifically for a heart shaped yoyo - apparently there are many of these tools for all different shapes. I had never even heard of such a thing so had to see if this was actually doable. 

The tool took me a minute to adjust to, but once I understood the rhythm of the stitches all went well. It's a pretty quick way to create something that turns out quite uniform. The fabric is placed in the template, you trim the fabric close to the template,  stitch around the edges (there are openings for your thread so you aren't stitching it right in, that's the part that confused me about this concept!) and then carefully remove your fabric from the template and gather it into your shape. And you zhush it a bit to get the shape just right.

I can see the potential uses of this kind of tool - I'll probably keep my eye open for any other kinds of yo-yo makers at the thrift store from now own, to see if other shapes might come in handy for anything I might want to make. If you like your yo-yos to be uniform, this would be a great tool to have. For just basic circles I'm not sure I'd bother, as they are quick to make and I do like the slight variations of making them by hand. But it would be fun to compare, if I found a set of templates at a reasonable price. Maybe some day! 

Dust covers for the closet

After finishing my recent boxer short project using Butterick 5027 I was looking at the pattern, a real combo of options. I noticed that there was a pattern for a hanger cover included, and thought this might be a useful addition to my closet.

I made a few samples from some old sheets in my stash; the first one followed the pattern, but I added a 1" band between the front and back pieces to give it a little more width. This is designed to be a close fitting hanger cover, lined with batting, to hang your clothes over, possibly to avoid wire hanger marks? Well anyhow, it wasn't quite what I had in mind. I didn't use batting as I was just testing it. And then I made a number of changes. 

First try 

What I was really after was a dust cover to put over a hanger with something already hanging on it, to protect the shoulders and top of a garment from dust if it isn't worn often (those things at the edges of the closet). To do this, I realized I would have to enlarge the main pieces as well and widen the band connecting them. I tried one more, still not quite right, and then finally got it to sit correctly for what I wanted. 

Second try: not quite right yet!

I ended up tracing the pattern and adding 2" of length to either end of the main pieces, 1" to the height, and making the top band 2.5" wide. I sewed it all up using a 1/4" seam, leaving one edge of the band unsewn while I folded down the edges of the opening at the top and stitched that -- the trickiest part, messy no matter how you do it. Then finished up with the last seam. 

Because I was using sheets, on some of these I just used the deep sheet hem for the edges of the main pieces. Then I just made a quick hem on the bands before attaching them. This is a fiddly home decor project but it is something I need in my house and I am happy to have finally figured out a way to do it! I think I might make a couple more from the rest of the sheet that I used and then should have enough - just a couple for the more rarely worn items. I spent a lot of time in January making unusual (for me) projects! Onward to some garments in February.