My fourth month of working from home

The "pros" of working from home:

• I'm home when The Little Madam gets back from school
• If the weather is beautiful I can easily nip out for 5-10 mins of sunshine without having to take up smoking as an excuse

The "cons" of working from home:

• I have to consciously make an effort to get exercise, whereas before walking from work to home was effortlessly built in.
• It's hard being part of a team if you only see them for a couple of hours once per week.
• If I need to get anything in town I have to make a special trip.
• If I happen to have all of the internal helpline calls directed to a phone that is in my possession, I can't easily take the day off if I have a cold.

I have a cold, perfectly timed for Autumn. My workmates have all had it - which is surprising as we are all working from our homes and should be less likely to infect each other. 

The boy had it all of last week. "That ache-iness and the headaches - that's just the beginning", he says helpfully. But just because it knocked him for a six all week doesn't necessarily mean it will do the same for me. 

For one, I make an effort to keep up my fitness. For two, I eat lots of fruit and vegetables. For three, I'm not a man. So fingers crossed, I have had the worst of it after two days.

The need for victim blaming

• A woman was attacked while walking home from the pub? She shouldn't have been out walking in the dark.
• Someone took all the produce and didn't put money into the honesty box? It's madness to leave your stuff out where anyone can steal it.
• Young person can't get a job? They are probably lazy and entitled.

These are all examples of victim blaming. It's very politically incorrect to do so, but we've all heard (maybe even said) something like the above, often.

I think it's to do with believing in the cause and effect, and the need to have control. For example, if I work hard at my job I will get a promotion and a pay rise; if I take care of my looks, keep the house clean and cook my husband great meals he won't leave me for someone else. If I eat healthily I won't get sick.

But we all know these are not guaranteed. Good things happen to bad people. Financially responsible people can become homeless. Non smokers can get lung cancer.

I've been re-reading The Idiot Brain, by Welsh neuroscientist Dean Burnett. Quite apart from the fact that this guy writes like the Bill Bryson of medical writing (i.e. highly readable, funny and really enlightening), he provides a neuroscientist's view of why we as society victim-blame.

One factor in why we do this is is because we tend to find it difficult to empathise (obviously it varies from person to person), due to the fact that our brains are egocentric. He describes an experiment in which one person has to touch something nice while a second person has to touch something disgusting. The person touching something nice finds it difficult to sympathise with the other. However if both people have to touch something gross then it's easy for them to sympathise with each other.

The other factor is what he calls the "just world" hypothesis. The brain assumes that the world is fair, good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished. If a bad thing happens to someone then they must have done something to deserve it. Because if they didn't, then that means it could happen to us, who are most definitely behaving well. Our brain is uncomfortable with the possibility that bad things could happen to us even if we don't deserve it. So it chooses to have us believe that it must have been deserved.

So there you have it - our brains make it hard for us to empathise with someone less fortunate than us and in fact makes us blame the unfortunate for whatever has happened to them.

(That doesn't mean we should just let it happen though.)

Time to target the muffin top

For years I've been eating like I still go to the gym every day, when of course I stopped going not long before TLM was born 11 years ago.

Ice cream, cakes, biscuits (cookies), chippies - damn my sweet tooth and taste for greasies.

Just like it says in just about every bit of literature you'll find about middle age spread, the extra weight has crept up on me and it only hit me a couple of weeks ago that I really have to do something about my "clothes shrinkage".

My bum lift jeans can no longer lift my bum, because they are too tight around the waist. My NYDJ jeans  will still zip up, but it's easy to see that they are having to work a lot harder than only a year ago. And the pretty maxi skirt that fit me just right last summer will no longer button up at the back.

Yep, it is time to do something about it.

A couple hours of Google searching ("lose spare tyre") and three fitness-over-40 type books later, I have settled on a plan of attack:

• I already make sure I go for a walk every day - from here on every other day my walk will be interval-training style. Every time I hit an upward slope I'm going to go up that as fast as I can, then slow down for the flat and downward bits. Interval training is supposed to be good for targeting belly fat.
• Will try to do stretches and mobility exercises...
• I'm going to cut right down on the sweeties and greasies. None at all during the week, but letting myself have a treat or two during the weekend so I don't go postal. This is the bit that I expect will make the most difference.
• I'm keeping a food journal so if I do fall off the wagon, it's all there on paper so I don't forget it.
• I'll only have one between-meal snack mid-morning and another mid-afternoon (rather than whenever I'm bored or slightly hungry)

This only started on Tuesday so it's early days yet. I know that last time I tried to go sugar-free I only lasted a week. But that time, I was motivated only by the desire to be healthier. Fear of falling down the roly-poly black hole is a much stronger motivation for me at the moment. (Okay I also don't want to get Type 2 diabetes.)

Wish me luck!

Another summer top (just waiting for actual summer)

Yesterday, at the start of this stormy long weekend, I made this top. It's made from a Liberty print fabric that was on sale at the Fabric Store.

I used Kwik Sew pattern 3161 (I've used this to made three other tops already); this time instead of having slits in the lower portion of the sleeves I sewed them closed, and I widened the neckline slightly for more room around the neck.

This is a great length for me as it ends at my upper hips (a proper tunic length just makes my legs look shorter). It's got the practicality of a shirt, without the bother of buttons or the discomfort of a shirt collar.

I'm so glad we went north for our holiday as thats really the only time we got to be in summer temperatures. Yesterday I was wearing corduroys and socks!

Three nights in Roto-vegas

In the second half of our family week 'o' fun, we stayed in a two bedroom, two bathroom motel unit (Ascot on Fenton) that was close to town, the supermarkets and the shopping mall.

 Not that much non-food shopping was done though. The fruits of our shopping labours from this time is limited to:

• one pair of tramping trousers with zip off legs for TLM, to replace the ones she'd paced because they are now too small.
• one iPhone USB recharger because I mistakenly thought the boy was looking after packing the rechargers ("they're only, like, two bucks" he said. No they weren't. They cost 25 freaking dollars).
• A Nintendo DS game for the boy because he finished playing the one he'd brought with him, and he'd foolishly neglected to pack any reading material.

The highlights of our time in Rotorua:

• swimming in the Blue Lake
• walking around Lake Rotorua
• visiting Wai-o-tapu thermal valley
• going up in the gondola and taking the luge down

We did also stop off at Huka Falls on the our first day coming into Rotorua - it was before that guy was arrested for boogey-boarding down the falls.

I'll leave you with a photo of the Champagne Lake...

One night in Turangi

On our way to Auckland we stopped off in Turangi for one night. Our motel (Judges Pool) was just across the road from the Tongarairo River so I had multiple walks along there. At this part of the river it was relatively calm and quite a few people were there sunbathing and swimming.

Unfortunately the long drive didn't do the boy's back any favours (yes I did some driving, but not as much), so he missed out.

Two nights in Onehunga

I haven't seen my elderly aunt in many years so the aim of our summer holiday was to go see her before it becomes impossible. We'd never been there before, but when we found her house and peered through the glass in the door it was pretty obvious that an elderly Chinese lady lived there.

It looked like a much tidier version of my mum's place, plus I could see some chairs that had been covered by a protective layer of plastic. A yellowing photo of her late husband had pride of place on one of the low tables which were otherwise decorated with doilies and Chinese ornaments. The remote was covered in a layer of clingfilm.

Once we were inside I was amused to see that she - like my mum - had a second fridge. It was in the garage, along with an assortment of pots, pans and woks, a cupboard full of dried ingredients and a couple of gas cooker thingies. The sheets on our beds smelled like the parcels we used to get from Hong Kong when I was a child and were decorated with florals on a peach background.

Needless to say we were pretty well fed those days, on pork ribs, soy sauce chicken, stirred green beens, almond cakes, coconut jelly and lashings of Chinese tea.

In case you were wondering,  I didn't get a chance to go to DressMart, which came up at the top of Google's list of things to do in Onehunga.

A new hat for summer

After my hat got covered in ice cream at the beach yesterday, I decided to make another one so that I could have one to wear while the other is in the wash. TLM is modelling the new hat.

The crown is made from strips of linen/cotton that I've woven into a grid (after first tidying the raw edges). The band is made from super-stretchy denim left over from my jeans-making and the brim is made from non-stretch denim also left over from jeans-making.

As you can see, I topstitched here and there in bright yellow but left the brim edge unfinished. I've encouraged a bit of fraying so that I could do some pre-emptive fray-trimming.

I won't show you the underside because it's pretty rough.
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There's no getting away from the fish-eye dart

The last pair of jeans I posted about were wrinkly at the backs of the legs - as you can see if you scroll down a bit to look for the blog post. But I was able to fix it, by taking in the inseams by about a centimetre all the way down and by resizing the back pockets.

When I say "taking in the inseams", it sounds like a simple thing to do - but it's not if the inseams are flat fell seams. Because they are, it meant unpicking the topstitching and seaming of the inseams, then unpicking the outer leg seams in order to restitch the inseams and re-do the flat fell stitching. In other words I practically took them apart and put them together again.

Unfortunately I don't have a non-blurry photo of the improved back view, so you are left with the saggy old lady butt view in the last post.

I made a second pair of jeans, this time using some rigid (but not raw) denim. It was way easier to work with than the super-stretch denim because the rigid stuff doesn't stretch out when you stitch over it.

Unfortunately I have not learned from all of the pants-making that I must do a fisheye dart on the back leg pattern piece in order to remove all of the excess fabric that results (which comes from having an apple-shaped body) -

Because it's rigid denim, simply taking it in at the inseams will make them uncomfortable to wear, so I'm thinking of just sewing a massive dart in the back of each leg so that they look a bit like this -

See - they are much less wrinkly now. But there is a crease under each bum cheek (which will become a seam if I proceed with my possible plan).

In the meantime I have been wearing them in and they are pretty comfortable now, though not as comfy as the leggings-like fabric of the stretchy jeans.

Time slowing down

For a long time now I've often felt that time was going way too fast, that I was running out of time to do all the things I want do in my life. Its made me anxious, panicky and sometimes (when I feel that time really has run out to do some thing) sad.

But I haven't felt this since I started working from home (due to our office closing down until certain repairs are done to make it quake-safe).

I'm not sure why, but I think it's to do with there being slightly fewer or different events to mark out the different points of my day - mostly not having to travel to and from work.

It's also helped by the fact that we are in the middle of Christmas and New Year holidays, and aren't doing anything much during this period.

The effect is probably going to wear off in a while, but in the meantime I'm happy with the feeling of time slowing down and allowing me to relax more.

Patchwork jeans for The Little Madam

Just so you know that sometimes I am quite successful in my sewing projects,here's a pair of too-skinny Pumpkin Patch jeans that I bought off TradeMe for TLM.

  I inserted a long triangle of mixed denim patches down each leg and turned them into flares. 

Actually the pocket topstitching is quite fetching and I might try to copy that for a future garment for myself.

In case you're interested, I did manage to improve the fit of my jeans (in the previous post). After buying and reading the Closet Case Files guide on sewing jeans I tried taking in the inseam along each leg. It seems to have worked. I'll post up a photo some time.

Merry Christmas!

These are not the jeans I was looking to make

I decided to have a go at making my own jeans, since there are now quite a few sewing patterns for jeans.

The really popular ones are from Indie designers and they cost about $30. So, despite hearing great things about Morgan jeans from Closet Case files (and others), I went for a cheaper pattern to save money.

McCalls 6610 has had a number of positive reviews so that's the one I bought from PatternPostie.

I first made a test pair in stretch navy needlecord, because 1) I got the fabric cheap, and 2) since I don't much wear cord I wouldn't care much if it didn't work out.

Unfortunately it's really hard to see fitting issues on really dark material which hasn't got any contrast stitching on it. So I made a second test garment in stretch indigo denim which I also got cheap on sale.

As before, I cut a size 12 at the hips (going up to 14 or more at the waist and down to a 10 at the legs) even though my measurements would point to a 14 at the hips. But I possibly should have cut a 10 at the hips because the whole garment looks oversized in my opinion (you'll see when you get to the photos).

I did a bunch of fit adjustments, after following a page of fit instructions that came with the pattern. I also made the same adjustments that I'd made on my previous trouser makes e.g. scooping the back crotch seam to accommodate my low-hanging bum, going down a size on the legs and going up at least one size up the waist, adding to the front crotch seam to accommodate the inner thighs, removing from the back crotch seam because there's always too much fabric in the back, shortening the crotch depth at the front, adding to the crotch depth at the back (because the last pair didn't come up high enough), shortening the legs...

I even went as far as taking measurements from a shop-bought pair I like the fit of, and using these to help me decide on the adjustments for the pattern.

From here they look pretty good, eh? (I haven't hemmed them yet as I want to put them through at least another potentially shrinking wash first)

Below is a close-up of the front. You can see that my top-stitching is great except when it's located in an extremely visible place i.e. the fly. You might be able to discern that I've used two different colours for my topstitching thread - bright yellow and bronze.

And below is a closer-up, where you can see I didn't have much choice in jeans buttons. It was either the spares that came with previously bought Max jeans or these cheesy USA! buttons like the one you see below.

You'll also notice I didn't quite manage the sewing tension right - I had the thicker topstitching thread in the top and normal thread in the bobbin. I didn't want to muck around with the bobbin tension so limited myself to adjusting the top tension. It didn't really work, but the stitches seem strong enough.

That's the relatively good news. Don't look at the following images if you are offended by old-lady butt.

I'm not proud of this butt. I think I will have to do a flat-butt adjustment (it's a real thing) next time. Last time I tried that there wasn't enough room in the back, so I will have to do more research. The pockets are also way too big and maybe a little too low ( I should have listened to the blogosphere). Also, those damned wrinkles just above the knees. 

The front view is not quite as bad, in my opinion.

The legs are also way wider than I would like, even though I was going for a straight leg. It's probably not helped by the fact this is a super stretchy denim, so it stretches out a lot with wear (it's really best used for skinny jeans I think).

Conclusion

I'm pretty sure my shop-bought jeans fit way better than this, so I must be the only sewer who can't make her jeans fit as well as her ready to where.

I don't want to work with high stretch denim any more (the only reason I have any is because that's what was on sale). A little bit might make fitting easier, but lots of it makes fitting harder and also makes topstitching harder to do without causing it to stretch out of shape. If I do use this stuff again I will cut the pieces on a single layer of fabric rather than folded double which is the usual procedure. These legs got a bit twisted, which may or may not have caused some of the back leg wrinkles.

I have some really rigid denim but I'm aware that no stretch at all will make it hard to get the fit right too.

I think this pattern is probably no worse than any of the other jeans patterns by the mainstream pattern companies. I just need to find one that is close to ready to wear in cut.

Sewing successes (2)

Here are a couple of photos of one of my more successful trouser sews (mentioned in an earlier blog post.

Here's a closeup of the button, button fly and contrast waistband lining. The same fabric lines the pockets.

This is Simplicity 1430, made in very stretchy denim that I got from the Fabric Store on sale. I cut a size 12 at the hips (widening up towards the waist) and blending into a size 10 on the legs. I also shortened the legs, of course.

Normally I wouldn't wear them with cow-skin slippers, so just imagine I've got stylish slingbacks on my feet 

instead. No doubt the trousers would have looked better if I didn't have my hands in the pockets, but I wanted to show off that there were pockets... they are slant pockets.

I didn't interface the waistband and I may end up unpicking that bit of the waistband and adding some layer of stiffening to keep the button end of the band from folding over when I bend.

I'm pretty happy with the fit.

Next up, some tunics.

This is KwikSew 3161. Once I worked out that I needed to cut a smaller size at the shoulder (which was a revelation, as I'd always thought I was broad in the shoulder), I liked it so much I made second one. This one's in an organic cotton I bought at Spotlight, and the other one was made in a purple linen (not shown).

Then I wanted to make a long sleeved version of the top that came with Simplicity 1430. Rather than try to adjust the pattern to fit a sleeve, I decided to modify the KwikSew pattern to make it more like the Simplicity top. Below is a close-up of the neckline detail I was after.

The Simplicity top has a zip at the back but I didn't want to put a zip in mine, so I just re-cut the neckline to ensure I could get it over my head. This fabric is actually a cotton bedsheet that I bought from the Salvation Army Family Store for $5. I still have half of it left for another project. The only thing about this fabric is that it's a bit see-through so I have to wear something under it.

On shaky ground

In case you are concerned about the welfare of me and mine since the massive earthquake at midnight on Sunday - we are fine. Our house shook a swayed a fair bit on the night, sent us gentle reminders throughout Monday, and had us diving under our desks today at work.

Work and school were cancelled on Monday, which was a relief because we were all very sleep deprived (that's what happens when your daughter crawls into bed with you and, over the course of the night, steals your duvet and leaves you clinging to the very edge of the mattress).

At home only a couple of knick-knacks fell off the shelf. At work we were mainly affected by a big water tank upstairs falling over and leaking its contents all over our kitchen - though I noticed that two of the big round windows in the stairwell were either cracked all or blown in and boarded over.

We really should replace our emergency water at home.
At least at work I have replenished my civil defence kit with five Whittakers peanut slabs. If I ever get stuck at work in a natural disaster I will have enough to last me maybe a day...

Anyway, this is pretty small stuff compared to what's happened closer to the epicentre of the quake. Huge cracks and rifts in the roads and farmlands, seabeds lifted up into the air, landslides destroying road and tunnels, livestock stranded on quake islands - my heart goes out to the people who live there.

My holiday was pants (and tunics)

After the last two pairs of trousers I sewed up (the first - a basic style with a back zipper and no pockets or waistband -  was successful; the second - more ambitious but ultimately fitting failure), I was on a roll. Then the latest season of Great British Sewing Bee started here, so there was no stopping me.

During my week off (ostensibly taken to spend time with TLM, who is on school holidays, and the boy, who is still between jobs) I was hellbent on sewing more trousers until I produced more pairs of fitting successes.

Trousers number 3 were based on the muslin that produced trousers number 1 (which fit me well but for which I was a bit slack with recording the adjustments), in a light poplin-y fabric of navy with with dots. I was finding it a bit loose around the highs and waist. Then I decided it was because that fabric really wanted to be elastic waisted jogger-style trousers.  So I took out the zipper, put an elasticated waistband and inserted elastic cuffs into the hems. They now fit alright, although it would have benefited from a decrease in the front crotch.

(Lesson: definitely shorten the front crotch next time, maybe lengthen the back crotch).

For trousers number 4 I used an old Vogue pattern which offered two views: high waisted, jeans-style pockets and tapered; hight waisted, inseam pockets and tapered. Because it is an old pattern. The only other time I used this sewing pattern was to make some faux leather trousers to wear to a pre-millennial Village People-themed pub crawl. That's how old it is.

Guess what - it fit me almost perfectly, once I'd let out the front inseam, scooped out the centre back curve, taken in the outer leg seams quite a lot and drafted a new waistband to fit my wider waist. Although they fit well in the sense that it is relatively free of bagging and wrinkles around the crucial hip and thigh areas, the legs are still much wider than I'd like. These were made in a light grey denim. I have effectively made mom jeans (though I made the view with the inseam pockets rather than the jeans pockets). Also the back wants to fall down a bit and the front is a little high.

Nevertheless, I'm calling this a great success and will wear them to work.

(Lesson: I really really should shorten that front crotch and lengthen the back the next time. And work out how to slim down the legs without creating new wrinkles).

Then I made two tunic tops in a row. I used a Kwik Sew pattern. It is great, except for these things:

• the seam allowance is 3 mm. That's crazy narrow, and obviously intended for sewer who overlock (serge)
• It was way too big at the shoulders, yet fit fine everywhere else. So for the second top I cut a small in the shoulder and armscye then a medium elsewhere.
• The sleeve would not fit into the armscye. Both times. This meant I had to take it in further at the sides in order for the sleeves to fit.

I do intend to put some photos up, but I just can't bring myself to ask the boy or TLM to take any more pictures of my backside.

The last of the knits and lessons learned in pants fitting

After I finished knitting this scarf (from an unravelled failure. It's edged in i-cord,  but you can't see it because the sides roll in so it looks like a narrow tube. I do like the tweedy texture though - from a stitch in the first Barbara Walker book - so might use it one day to make a Chanel-type jacket).

I knitted this cardigan -

Then, because I was on a yarn diet (for budgetary reasons), have way too many hand knits anyway, I am switching codes - to sewing.

I have nearly finished a pair of curved-waistband trousers, in a stubby linen/cotton blend. These took way too long to fit, seeing as I based then on my curse-busting muslin (see earlier post). I bought three more lots of fabric to practice pants-fitting on: some non-stretch grey denim,  some blue organic cotton and some navy poplin with tiny polka dots. It's fantastic that Spotlight is right next door to the Fabric Warehouse.

Going by the last two pairs I made, I've concluded that my main pants-fitting modifications should be:

• extra space on the inseam (for my generous inner thighs), just down to the knee 
• less space on the outseam (for my stingy outer thighs), also down to the knee, and 
• a deeper crotch curve (for my low-hanging bottom). 

That's aside from the obvious shortening of the legs (which are so short they only come up to my knees).

Also - baste! Using thread in a contrasting colour! Definitely not using the thread you need for your final sew!

The next step up in trouser-making will be to add pockets with pocket stays (to keep my slightly protruding tummy from falling out).

The lifting of the trouser curse

I have tried, and failed, many times to sew a pair of trousers that would fit be well. There were near-misses and epic fails, but never a finished product that I was happy with.

In Season Two of the Great British Sewing Bee, the contestants had to made velvet trousers for themselves. This challenge was meant to test their ability to sew with difficult fabrics, but I was terribly envious that they could make themselves trousers at all.

As any sewer will tell you, it's not the construction that's a pain in the butt - its the fitting of them.

Today I had a trouser triumph, and that came about when I realised that I have been cutting a size too big. I don't know why it took so long for me to come to this conclusion, because I've already made a few tops that turned too roomy even for my tastes.

Not that going down a size was a magic bullet though - I still had to made some tweaks:

• take some width from the outside leg seams from the hip down
• add some width the inside leg seams just around the inner thigh
• add a tiny bit of width at the centre front, from crotch to about half way up.
• remove about an inch of the top

I'm so happy.

Am I too old for denim jackets?

I'm already thinking of what I want for my birthday present, even though it's a couple of month's away. I want a denim jacket. I've spent a number of lunch hours scouring the range of denim jacket styles on offer, including frequent visits to opportunity shops and on TradeMe.

And the one I want is the Levi's Boyfriend Trucker denim jacket, in mid-blue rigid denim (rigid, so it will take longer to lose shape with repeated washing and wearing). I've figured out that if I only ever button it up at the two middle buttons, it can look shapely rather than boxy.

Now, I have tried and failed a couple of times in the last few years to sew a light jacket suitable for spring and autumn, in both denim and other fabrics - but neither of them have turned out to have the right silhouette or amount of structure.

I've since discovered the Style Arc Stacie sewing pattern and now know to look for 14 oz denim, so I could sew it myself and make it exactly the size, shape and style I want. What would be great is a collarless version of a trucker jacket with waist shaping, mid-hip length and in a really dark blue. But that's never going to happen as I don't have the time or patience at the moment (and that's assuming I can find the right denim). Plus my fitting skills are less than genius.

So anyway, how old is too old to wear a denim jacket?

A break from knitting

After I used up the last of my Malabrigo Arroyo yarn to make myself a cardigan, I ran out of virgin yarn. So when I wanted to make TLM a new pullover for winter, I decided to unravel two older cardigans that she had stopped wearing because they weren't oversized enough. But since I finished that (photos later) I seem to have lost my need to knit.

It's probably partly because I now have too many hand knits, and partly because the weather has been so spring-like that I just don't want to think about cold weather garments any more.

In the meantime, TLM turned eleven and acquired a bike. She is only just learning to ride, and the bike is big enough that she is only just tall enough to ride it. But I'm optimistic. It's gotta be easier to learn anything at the age of 11 than it is at middle age!

I have been neglecting my kombucha bug. Ever since I found a supermarket that sells miso paste in decent-sized tubs I've not felt the need to drink kombucha - but I'm sure that will change once it gets a lot warmer. In the meantime I'm sure the current batch is aging into some powerful vinegar.

Brrrr...

We were having a wonderfully mild winter, when suddenly winter just crashed the party and drank all the alcohol. Since then it's felt like we are getting a crash course on coldness, wetness and windiness.

And funnily enough, all this happened soon after the spring fashions started appearing in all of the shops...