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Ruffles to Rebellion thedreamstress.com, images by http::facundo.pixieset.com/

Help restore the Katherine Mansfield House & Garden

Published by The Dreamstress

There was a lot of damage in New Zealand in the recent earthquake – some obvious, some that is only beginning to be apparent.  My nearest and dearest came through relatively unscathed – but one place that is close to my heart was rather battered by the quake.

The Katherine Mansfield House & Garden Museum on Tinakori Road, had a spectacular old-fashion garden, bordered on one edge by the neighbours  old brick wall.

The wall, plastered and painted grey, made a lovely backdrop for photshoots amongst plants mentioned in Mansfield’s writings.  Unfortunately it came crashing down on the house in the quake, crushing the garden and damaging the house.

The museum is raising money to remove the wall, repair the damage, and erect a new (earthquake safe) boundary wall.

If you’ve ever visited the museum, enjoyed my photos taken there, or at a benefit talk I’ve given for the museum, or simply loved Mansfield’s writings, and feel moved to help repair the museum, you can:  donate here on their Boosted page.    

Here are a few of the photos that Facundo got after my Ruffles to Rebellion talk last year, in front of the now-collapsed wall:

Ruffles to Rebellion thedreamstress.com, images by http::facundo.pixieset.com/

Ruffles to Rebellion thedreamstress.com, images by http::facundo.pixieset.com/

You can see how tall the wall was in this image:

Ruffles to Rebellion thedreamstress.com, images by http::facundo.pixieset.com/

For more posts on the Katherine Mansfield House  & Katherine Mansfield see:

How to sew knits with a straight stitch thedreamstress & scrooppatterns.com

Sewing knit fabrics with a straight stitch: ‘stretch-as-you-sew’ stitching

Published by The Dreamstress

Following on from last week’s post breaking down the benefits and drawbacks of 4 ways to sew knit fabrics for the Scroop Miramar dress & top, here is a quick little video tutorial* on how to do ‘stretch as you sew’ sewing, where you build the stretch into a straight stitch by stretching the fabric as you sew it:

It’s a great technique, and does work well if done right – the fabric stretches beautifully, and the seam is lovely and smooth from the outside, and can be pressed completely flat and open if needed.

The drawbacks are that the stitches are really small and hard to unpick, and it can be hard to control the fabric and to stretch it evenly.  You can mitigate the first by lengthening your stitch slightly, but this tends to make the control issues even more of a problem.

The stress of stretching the fabric as it is sewn can also cause ripples in the fabric, but these can almost always be fixed with a bit of steam ironing.  Occasionally I encounter a fabric with good stretch, but poor recovery, where the lack of recovery and the stress placed on the fabric as you stretch and sew it result in permanent warping and ripples.

The solution is to practice, and test.  Practice the technique until you can stretch the fabric evenly and smoothly, without wobbling about, and always, always, test your fabric with this stitch before committing to your garment.

Four ways to sew with knit fabrics, thedreamstress and scrooppatterns.com

The fabric stretches nicely

* my first video tutorial! It makes me dreadfully nervous, but I think I did pretty well considering I was holding the camera, talking, and sewing, all at the same time!

Rate the Dress: Celebration green in 1912

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week’s Rate the Dress was  a tailored walking ensemble, ca 1900, with raised detailing, all in one fabric.  There was a bit of discussion about whether it would look better with contrasting details, or in a brighter colour, but pretty much everyone was in agreement that it already looked pretty darn fabulous as it was.  It came in at 9.5 out of 10, which is pretty much a perfect score these days.

It’s definitely pretty close to perfection for me: it desperately makes me want to rush out and buy a bunch of oatmeal wool, despite the fact that oatmeal is possibly the worst colour possible on me (I just go oatmeal all over.  It’s awful.  )

Tone-on-tone was the only (occasional) complaint about last weeks ensemble, so I’m going to test the theme again, and see how it does this week:

This evening gown (according to my ability to translate google translates ability to translate Finnish – if I have any Finnish readers, please do  clarify/confirm/elaborate!)  was worn to an event celebrating the centenary of the Finnish Cadet Corps, on the 16th of October 1912, by Signe Maria Lindh (nee Fabritius, b 1887) who accompanied her husband Lieutenant Karl Axel Alexander Lindh.

The embellishments of the frock are much more elaborate than those of last weeks suit: as befits an evening outfit, but once again the designer has stuck to a single colour, using perfectly coordinated satin to form the sash, bodice draping, and to create echoes of the scalloped edges of sleeve and neckline.

What do you think? If you thought last week needed contrast, is this week the same? Or is the all-in-one colour scheme better with different textured fabrics? Or worse? Or are they both perfection? Or simply not at all comparable!

There is some awkwardness in the lower front, but I think that is just poor presentation: please ignore it.

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10