A Plethora of New Stuff

My drive home tonight yielded more than the usual pickup of bills and junk mail from the mail delivery box down the street. Even though I was expecting packages, it was still a pleasant surprise to find the key in my mailbox, and not one, but two, items in the package box.

My order from Timmel Fabrics arrived from Canada, consisting of Loes Hinse patterns and fabric. The Loes patterns are the Bacall Sweater, Kimono Jacket and Bergman Blouse. Plus dark gold wool blend jersey. Now I really have no excuse to put my SWAP off any longer!

I also ordered some books from Amazon that came much sooner than expected. Since I'm still new to blogging, I picked up "The Rational Guide to Google Blogger" and "No One Cares What You Had for Lunch". Obviously the first is a manual. I heard about the other one through NPR. Margaret Mason, the author, was featured in a recent podcast. So I bought the book based on her interview skills. What does this book have to do with it? The subtitle is "100 Ideas for Your Blog."

The third book is "Forever Cool". It's a fashion/wardrobing/style guide. We sewers seem attracted to this kind of thing. Face it, I'm approaching that certain age, and while I still believe I've got style, a girl can use some outside advice from time to time. Some day, I'll review some of my books and share the love.

I also stopped in at Joann's and bought some goodies there. I blame the Sew Distracted blog for this (well, only a little. I accept my part in this). Here's what I got:

Vogue 2913 Sandra Betzina has updated her basic pants pattern to a yoke waist. And thanks to Vogue for
putting all sizes in one envelope!


Vogue 2948 An update and reissue of her popular princess seam pants from several years ago. This one has a yoked waist also. A nice basic.

Vogue 2952 Issey Miyake's take on a business suit. I love how this is conservative in the front and strange in the back.

However, I'm going to gripe about the photo styling. What's with the left sleeve, people? Could you not pin it to the correct length to match the right sleeve? Besides that, too-long suit sleeves are a pet peeve of mine. The left one should not graze the model's knuckles. And different sleeve lengths strike me as sheer laziness on the part of the stylist. Come on, you're still Vogue Patterns. Have some respect.

I'll probably make both pieces of this ensemble. Banker that I am, I'll combine each half with a more conservative mate. I think the jacket would look gorgeous with pants, and the skirt would be great with a classic twinset--classic and subversive, but not over the top.

Vogue 8322 Last but not least, a "small envelope" pattern for my final purchase today. This is a nice shoulder princess blouse whose parts can be combined in any number of ways. My mom used to love this sort of pattern, because you could make it several times and each version would look very different. There are also "fitting opportunities" in the shoulder princess. I'm not sure exactly when this one hit the book, but the copyright is 2006.