Feeling Frazzled

I know I haven't been posting much this week. I've been super-busy, feeling a bit like the Blockhead above, but it's almost all been projects for Lark Books so I can't show them until the book comes out. I will say it involves super-cute stuff for babies. . .

In the meantime, the lovely people at WhipUp (one of my favorite daily sites) put up a link to my post about Jo sewing. Whip Up is just finishing a month of posts about crafting with children (among other fabulous craft posts) and it's been wonderful - give them a look if they're not already on your list. Coming up in February - Alternative Crafting. I can't wait!

The WhipUp link led to a link at Love Shak Baby - a great site about family and kids that turned out to be just one of a whole passel of sites about home, garden, and family. Check them out! They're having a giveaway right now for a Mason & Matisse kid's chair that Jo would love and that would look great in our new house.

Speaking of the new house - no siding added because it's been freezing cold here. Brrrr. . . too cold for lifting heavy sheets of cement. . .

Anyway, many people visited Jo Sews and a few of them had questions so I've gone back and added some notes. Blogger doesn't make it easy to reply back to directly to commenters so I wasn't able to answer everyone personally - but thanks for all the lovely notes! It was great to hear that so many kids have been asking to learn to sew - and that so many moms are going to start teaching them!

Read more...

Blockheads Are Here!

I said I thought I could realistically get this finished by Wednesday night and I just managed to squeak in under the wire. And it was a special challenge this time because - after seeing the lovely design of Heather Bailey's patterns - I decided I needed to improve the design of the pattern and instructions. So check out the fancy new cover page above! And see the little logo up in the top corner? That says Afternoon Delights - perfect for when you only have a couple of hours to fool around. Future patterns will be categorized as One-Night Stands, Weekend Flings, and Long-Term Commitments. Cute, eh? It's nice living with a writer. Now I need to go back and redesign the Triangle Toys pattern to improve the layout and look of it. A task for the next few nights . . .

So what are Blockheads? They're beanbags, handwarmers, sachets, dolls, pocket pals, and more. They're as much fun to make as they are to play with.

The pattern is available now in my Etsy shop as a PDF - so no shipping charges. You get complete instructions and full-sized patterns for 11 faces, 10 hairstyles, a pair of ears, and a tongue. You also get ideas for scented mix-ins and a page of suggestions for more variations to try - plus instructions for games to play with your Blockheads. Quite a deal for $5!

These guys make me happy.

Read more...

Project Runway 4: Episode 9 Preview

Hello blue jean babies, and welcome to this week's Project Runway Preview. It's going to be a hurried and abbreviated preview this time, as I'm less than two hours away from walking out the door on a school visit trip to talk about Samurai Shortstop and Something Rotten. (Now that was some product placement worthy of Project Runway!) There's something rotten in the state of New York in this week's episode as well . . . or perhaps it's New Jersey. Well, somewhere in New York harbor at least.

The preview videos this week employ the new choppy misdirection tactic we've seen of late, but there's still lots to talk about. First, careful TV schedule investigations on the part of some rabid RunHeads has revealed that this week's episode will be a denim challenge--one which Kevin no doubt wishes he'd been around for, as he was a jeans designer before landing on the Runway.

And speaking of runways, we also know for a fact that this week Tim takes the seven remaining designers on a trip to a Port Authority warehouse. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, according to the venerable Wikipedia,

is a bi-state port district, established in 1921 (as the Port of New York Authority) through an interstate compact, that runs most of the regional transportation infrastructure, including the bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports, within the New York–New Jersey Port District. This 1,500 square mile (3,900 km²) District is defined as a circle with a 25 mile (40 km) radius centered on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Hmm. Denim and the Port Authority? Speculation on the Blogging Project Runway boards guesses that this might be unclaimed clothing, and we here at Gratz Industries think that's a great prediction. The Port Authority operates both JFK and LaGuardia airports, and we'll bet that a lot of lost luggage finds its way into their warehouses. It's a recycle challenge! Of a kind. At least this time there's real fabric to be had, disgusting though Christian may find it.

At the Port Authority warehouse, Tim tells the designers they will have a scant three minutes to stuff their laundry bags full--laundry bags, we assume, will immediately go to a real laundry to be cleaned before the designers get their paws on them. He also tells them that they will have "complete freedom," but that their look must be "wearable and iconic." Oh, wearable--there's that word again! We'll have to see how that's interpreted this time.

As for "iconic," this is a head scratcher. An icon, again according to Wikipedia, is "a graphic device that represents some object or action, the graphic device being ascribed symbolic meaning(s) beyond the object represented." Okay. Good example: Baseball and apple pie, both of which are icons of America. Both have symbolic meaning, but neither is a direct definition of America. So what's to be iconic in this piece?

At first, we wondered if the icon in question was a visible one right in the heart of the Port Authority--the Statue of Liberty. That's a little too obvious an icon to remake though, and doesn't have much to do with denim. (And Lady Liberty seems already to be draped to look like a thirty-five-year-old, thank you very much, Rami.)

Instead, what if the icon is jeans themselves? What is more iconic about American fashion than blue jeans? The first pair wasn't made or worn here, but Levi's put copper rivets and button-flies on them, cowboys and miners throughout the Old West wore them, and American kids in the 1950s made them everyday wear for the masses. They're as American as, dare I say it, baseball and apple pie.

So this week, if our guess is correct, the designers will stuff bags full of the blue jeans like the ones that were in your suitcase when it got lost on the way from Albuquerque to New York, and then they'll have to create something new and original but that still carries the iconic quality of the great American blue jean. Sounds like a good challenge. So why do some of the designers look like they've swallowed a button-fly before the models ever walk down the runway?

In the first of the two Bravo/Blogger previews, Victorya, Christian, and Chris all look like they've got heartburn even before the judging. Christian, in particular, does not look like his usually cocky self, and in other videos we hear him walking around muttering, "Deconstruct, deconstruct." Everyone's taking jeans apart to rework them, but Christian must be talking about deconstruction in the philosophical, analytical sense. And yes, we know, we're ascribing high-level intellectual thoughts and actions to a young man who calls himself "Ferrosh." We're guessing Tim gave him the word "deconstruct."

The videos chop up much of the praise and the slamming, but the designers are arranged in such a way that we can make guesses about who's getting groomed and who's getting grilled. Ricky smiles, pleased with something that's said. Chris looks pensive. Nina tells someone on the left they were "inventive," while someone on the right is being asked why he didn't play with fraying all over his garment. Then there's an extended "Ricky crying on the runway" edit--and are we crazy, or are these tears of joy?

Meanwhile, Victorya, who cannot seem to forget that Kit has been eliminated--or perhaps has never really taken the time to figure out who those other girls who live in her apartment are--keeps calling Sweet P Kit. (Well, they do both have blonde hair, and, um, well, yeah. That's about it really.) Then we get the "I grew up sewing at my mother's knee" story from Victorya, ringing alarm bells that Victorya is getting the loser edit. (Though we've been tricked once before!) In the workroom, Jillian is getting the "I'm too exhausted, I can't go on, I'm ready to give up" edit that Christian got during the Prom Dress challenge, so color us not-so-scared.

With only seven designers left, there's not much middle ground between top three and bottom three. We're guessing Sweet P is safe--although we really don't see anything of her one way or the other in the clips--which leaves the rest to settle out one way or another. Rami's clearly getting raves from Nina, so we'll put him in the top three. Jillian's piece, just visible over the sobbing Ricky's shoulder, with a very cool collar reminiscent of last week's Mad Max jacket, looks strong too. And then there's the sobbing Ricky, who seems to be crying tears of joy that he'd finally been validated as a designer. He could also be crying about crashing out though. It's hard to tell with "Senor Squirt."

That leaves the Maalox Triplets at the bottom: Chris, Christian, and Victorya. Chris seems to be the one getting Kors' disappointment about the fraying, while we don't have much besides a "that's what I was going for" on the runway and a bunch of moaning and groaning in the workroom from Christian. He seems really resistant to this challenge, as does Victorya--and resistance, as we know from Project Runway and Star Trek, is futile.

The past few weeks, we here at Gratz Industries have been looking closely at all the video evidence, and we've guessed the winner correctly now twice in a row. But we've been voting for the loser with our hearts, not our heads, and we've been burned (and downright surprised) a few times. This week, we resolve to put aside all our prejudices and try to just call 'em like we see 'em. So here goes. (Deep breath.)

Here's how we see it: Jillian, you're third best. Thanks for playing. Rami, nice work. Go sit in the holding cell. Ricky--and we cannot believe we're going to say this--you're the winner of this week's challenge. That's right, Gratz Industries is going with Ricky for the win. We're shaking our collective company heads even as we type that, but there it is.

As for the aufing, well, we're left with three talented designers who've all showed us something in their time on the show. Christian, you're third worst. Get your skinny butt off stage. Chris, Kors wanted to see more with the fraying, but it's not too bad. You're in. Victorya--you who have won two competitions and been high up or safe many more times--Victorya, we think your design turns out auful this week and you'll be out.

There you have it. Our fearless, heartless predictions. To tell the truth, we're not so in love with Victorya--or her designs--that it will break our hearts if she goes. It's the other part of that Bizarro situation that has us crying Ricky-tears. One more week . . . maybe two if he wins immunity! Unfathomable.

You know, last week one of the recap blogs asked us to name the designer we'd most like to see win--and we confess, we couldn't name one. There's talent here, but we don't find ourselves pulling for anyone in particular. Michael, Nick, Austin, where have all you talented and loveable designers gone?

TRESemme time: "Which designer wore braces during the finale episode?" That would be Michael Knight, who got the metalwork in the hiatus between the last regular season challenge and the fashion show at Bryant Park. As for hair? How about . . . Jillian this week.

Read more...

Dan Yaccarino Globe

So yesterday morning I had a very long To Do list. I had a report I needed to finish up for work, one more piece to finish for the Southern Highlands Craft Guild jury submission due Monday, a bunch of contracted projects to make for the Sweet Booties book for Lark Books, a wall hanging promised to Jo's teacher, and more. And what did I fixate on? This amazing Paper Globes pattern that Heather Bailey is offering for free at her blog.

She made hers in what looks like paper printouts of her lovely fabric line, but she thought they would look fun in vintage children's book pages. That's almost exactly what I was thinking! Not vintage - but super-new, not even out yet, awesome Dan Yaccarino illustrations.

A couple of notes here. . .

I am a HUGE Dan Yaccarino fan. He's one of my favorite illustrators and I'm enough of a geek that I check out his website with some frequency.

As a sales rep for Random House I get unbound samples of all of our forthcoming books to show to the bookstores I call on. I just had to repack my bag for the summer 2008 season, so that means I get to play with my spring 2008 samples. They're usually pretty beat-up after schlepping them all over the southeast for a few months, but still very usable for crafting. I've been in the business for over twenty years now and I've got quite a collection of terrific children's book art.

Anyway - one of my favorite books coming out this spring is Little Boy with a Big Horn. It's an old story by Jack Bechdolt - with new art by Dan Yaccarino! And that's the art I decided to use for my paper globe. I love it! I think I need to make a few more of these to hang as a group in my office, but I'll probably wait until we move into our new house.

In case you're wondering - the book will be available in stores Tuesday 1/22.

Read more...

Rotten Samurai News

It's been a good couple of weeks for Something Rotten and Samurai Shortstop here at Gratz Industries. First, the mail brought copies of the Rotten audio, produced by Listening Library. It's a fun listen, as we found when we put it in for a drive down to Asheville recently. Jo even enjoyed it; I turned it off after the first chapter, thinking she wouldn't really be following it, and she asked to keep listening to see who killed Hamilton's daddy! Later she fell asleep, which I won't take too personally.

The same day I got a package from editor Liz--advance copies of the Samurai Shortstop paperback due out this February! They kept the same great cover, but the spine is black, which I think looks great.


And this week, both books won national acclaim from YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association! First, the Samurai Shortstop audio (also by Listening Library) was named to the 2008 YALSA "Selected Audiobooks for Young Adults" list. The same day, Something Rotten was named to the 2008 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list!

Thanks once again to the librarians of America for showing me and my books the love. Right back at you!

Read more...

Project Runway 4: Episode 8 Preview

Hello my fellow fashion vanguards, and welcome to this week's Project Runway preview. Bravo's getting stingy, comparatively, with what they're giving us in advance--or, it might better be said, they are getting trickier. Still, there are hints and clues in this week's batch of teaser videos, so let's get to it, shall we?

First, we'll start with the episode name: "En Garde!" For some, those words may bring to mind images of white-clad fencers, epees, and ripostes. For others brought up on Warner Bros. cartoons (like me), those words may conjure images of Daffy Duck. ("Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!")

Daffy and Porky: Two classics of American design.

My guess though is that the fencing reference is a ruse this week--or else a double allusion to two things that have nothing to do with fencing. First, we see a couple of designers sparring with each other--namely Rami and Sweet P. In that sense, "En Garde!" is fair warning for each to be on guard against each other.

The more subtle allusion of course is the fashion one--"garde" as in avant-garde. You'll pardon me while I go all high school newspaper on you and offer up a definition in my lead. This from Wikipedia:

Avant-garde in French means "front guard", "advance guard", or "vanguard".^[1] The term is commonly used in French, English, and German to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics. Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm.

That title, plus that definition, plus the hints we get about the challenge this week from the teasers, all add up to challenge in which the designers must create innovative, experimental fashion that pushes the boundaries of what is accepted. In fact, as Tim Gunn tells the designers in one preview, "this look does not have to be practical." Doesn't have to be practical? Wow. We're going way beyond the question of wearability then, as recently discussed over at Blogging Project Runway. It looks like we really are going to get that parade float challenge Michael Kors and Zac Posen talked about in the Hershey's challenge.

Duchamp's infamous 1917 avant-garde piece, Fountain, which is in fact a urinal. This form of artistic expression is not recommended for this week's contestants.

A further reveal comes from television listings, which savvy viewers have discovered often give one-line weekly challenge spoilers. This week's SPOILER: The fashions the designers create must be inspired by their models' hair styles. Hmm. Do I smell some extra-special TRESemme Hair Salon product placement this week?

It's clear this week is a team-up episode as well. We're down to eight designers, and the episode pairs them up into four teams. Piecing together runway scenes and workroom scenes, it looks like the teams are Sweet P and Rami, Kit and Ricky, Jillian and Victorya, and Chris and Christian. With those pairings it's not too far a leap to guess that these are randomly selected. In one preview Heidi comes out onto the runway with Ye Olde Velveteen Bag, which might be used for that purpose, or for the selection of models.

In almost every clip, Rami and Sweet P. are shown having trouble working together. What's the beef? We don't have any more clue than Rami not liking "the way she's working." All the other teams appear to be getting along just ducky, with the Chris/Christian pairing appearing to be where the party's at. That's until Tim comes into the workroom and lays down a bomb--something we don't hear but that clearly rattles many of the contestants. Some have speculated he's announcing this week will be a double "aufing," but I doubt we're going to see that. Jillian's reaction, in the moment, is to ask, "And we have to do all this by the end of tomorrow?" That seems to indicate more work or a tighter deadline than they had anticipated.

I have a wild guess here--one that might explain both the Rami/P problems and the reactions to Tim's announcement. What if the teams are told that the lead designer may not, from that moment on, do any of the physical work to build the dress? That would mean that only one person could cut, sew, hem, fit--all of that--while the lead designer had to step back and watch the dress come together. It's an intriguing idea, I think, and one that would make the judging very interesting. One team member would be judged solely on the design, while the other would be judged solely on the construction, obviating the usual "only the lead designer is in danger" complaint. Building a complicated, "impractical" dress would be quite a chore for one person alone, especially with the designers standing over their shoulders telling them how things should be done.

The only thing that seems to controvert my guess is the Kit/Ricky pairing, where we see Kit making adjustments to a dress on the dressform while Ricky stands worthlessly nearby, complaining to us in a voice-over that he doesn't approve of the fabric and color choices Kit made, but "because we're telling Kit's story, that's the story." That seems to point to Kit as the team leader, and the clips show Ricky as a passive bystander.

And "we're telling Kit's story?" Yes, it's another of those "make up a story to explain your creation" challenges, like the Season 3 challenge where Angela made up some crack-headed story about an French art school principal having a birthday party or something to explain some arts and crafts bubble-skirt debacle she threw together. And considering that this classic disaster was considered avant-garde . . .



. . . I'm anticipating some real doozys from this challenge.

If I'm right about the overseer/worker relationship, the team leaders appear to be Rami, Kit, Jillian, and Christian, with the other four, Sweet P, Ricky, Victorya, and Chris, being the worker bees. If not, Sweet P might be the leader of that team, as she's shown running around Mood with a sheet of paper that looks like her version of a color palette, not Rami's. Their problems then might not stem from her slow or difficult work style, but instead her lack of leadership or vision, at least in Rami's view.

Still, Rami's the one defending the design for his team when Tim Gunn comes around, portending doom with a "This worries me." Tim wants Rami to push the envelope. Rami thinks the envelope's pushed far enough, telling Tim, "But you've never seen me do corsets." Rami seems to be missing the point of avant-garde. The idea is not merely to go above and beyond what you've done in the past--it's to go above and beyond what everyone has done in the past. Corsets, my Israeli Palestinian friend, have been done. (Sorry about getting your nationality wrong, Rami--I misunderstood! My sincere apologies!)

This is not avant-garde.

The other team having trouble is the Kit/Ricky team. Or perhaps I should say, the other person having trouble is Ricky. We barely see Kit in the teasers, but Ricky gets a lot of play, even telling us as he stands on the runway for the judging, "I don't want to go home." And yes, there is a tear in his eye. If this is a separate designer/builder challenge, Ricky would be the builder in this equation, and we've seen before that his construction often leaves much to be desired.

Like a zit inside your nose, Ricky is painful and hard to get rid of.

The best clue to those in danger comes from the second of the Bravo/Blogger videos. Four people are on the firing line, and it's just who you'd expect from the other teasers: Sweet P, Rami, Kit, and Ricky.

Conventional PR wisdom says that the leader on a team is by far the most vulnerable, but if this week does in fact divide the challenge between design and construction, each person is as vulnerable as his or her partner. Thus the question becomes is the design of Rami and P's dress worse than its execution? Is Kit's design worse than Ricky's construction? With what little we have to go on, I'm guessing that among those final, bottom four, it's Rami's conservative design and Ricky's poor construction that stand out as the worst elements. At the risk of being wrong about the aufing twice in a row with the same pick, I predict that this week will (finally!) be Ricky's time to go home. He's fooled me before, and Kit is definitely a dark horse surprise candidate to go home like Kevin last week (say it ain't so!), but Ricky's my pick and I'm sticking to it.

Damn I'm good. Especially when I don't have to design something a real woman would wear.

The two best teams appear to be the four designers standing to the right of the stage, as that's the direction Kors and Co. seem to be directing all their accolades. Chris smiles, Jillian smiles, and Victorya, off screen, even responds to one of Kors' compliments with, "So we should win! Ha-ha!" At the same time, a contest where wearability and practicality don't matter clearly favors Team Drag Star, aka Chris and Christian. Christian's got the avant, and Chris knows how to go large. So who is the most fashion-forward of the bunch? Even if they consider the design and the construction separately, I'm guessing it's the winning dress's designer who will take home the immunity, and I predict the winner of the avant-garde challenge will be Christian. It'll be an almost-worst-to-first story, and play to Christian's strengths--namely making fashion we've never seen before and never want to see again.

If you're playing Fantasy Runway at home, things are a little confusing this week. The question is, "In Season 2, the designers designed for a beauty pageant winner. It was . . . ?" The problem here is that the beauty pageant winner episode was in Season 3, not Season 2--unless I'm missing something here. In season three, Kayne won by designing a winning dress for Tara Conner, the then reigning Miss USA. The dress would go on to be worn in the Miss Universe pageant, which she did not win. Thus the only listed pageant she did win was Miss USA, and that should be your answer.

Unless I'm forgetting something from Season 2? Was Iman perhaps a former Miss Universe? No, wait--I seem to recall Jay McCarroll is a former Miss Florida . . .

Miss Florida 2001

As for Best Hair this week . . . how can there be one if the designers have to base their designs off the hair designs the models already have!?

Read more...

Meet Bruce

Check out the very cool shark the talented Marion Gillins made from my Triangle Toys pattern!


Here's a snippet of the nice email she sent me:

I was immediately inspired to make these, it's just a matter of finding the time! I managed to get both kiddos to sleep AT THE SAME TIME today and I made one! I don't have much quilting fabric in my house, I usually sew with more "unusual" fabrics so I made do.
I have attached pictures of a shark, who I have named Bruce (not from nemo because as my daughter reminded me, "fish are friends, not food", but from Jaws. Or because of the Monty Python sketch. Or both.) I am also plotting an octopus with ribbon loops instead of points, a fish, and a mermaid. My daughter has requested princesses which I think will involve tulle coming out the top like a cascade from a hat and fancy fabric for the triangles.

I am having so much fun thinking about these and it is so nice to be able to sit down and whip one out in one sitting!

First of all - can I say that it was absolute GENIUS to change the sweet mama kangaroo pocket into the rick-rack-lined gaping maw of a shark?! Here's a picture of the kangaroo for those who haven't seen the original post.

Ms. Gillins did exactly what I hope people will do with my patterns - make them their own! I was inspired by the Built By Wendy (no relation) book with sewing patterns. She gives basic patterns for a shirt, a skirt, and a pair of pants - and then shows readers a kajillion different ways to modify those patterns. Add/subtract/gather the sleeves, lenthen/widen/narrow the skirt, etc. It's inspiring and fun - and freeing. With the Triangle Toys I showed how to make the basic shape, how to add feet, a beak, back plates, and a pouch, and how to embed rick-rack in a seam. I hoped that seeing one shape and several variations would invite people to come up with their own variations - and look what happened! A shiny silver shark named Bruce is now chomping down on a little orange fish who is NOT named Nemo. Awesome!

Read more...

Blockheads Are Almost Here!

I've finished making the blockheads and a pattern is on the way. I'm on the road for work this week - meaning no access to my home computer with its photo editing software, etc. If I were being optimistic I would say the pattern will be available on Sunday night - but I'm trying to be realistic, so I'll say next Wednesday instead. In the meantime, here's a bit of a sneak peek.

I also have a fun update on the Triangle Toys, but I can't post the photos until I'm in a hotel where my email works. Hopefully tomorrow!

Read more...

Jo Sews

Alan and I aren't the only ones sewing here at Gratz Industries. Jo's got her own machine and she's been working on a twin-sized quilt since last year. She's more than halfway done now and she's eager to finish before the school year ends so that she can bring it in for show & tell. Here it is so far - enough to cover her!

There was a bit of a problem a couple of months ago when her cheap, plastic toy machine went kaput - but Dot came to the rescue and gave Jo her old Singer - a real machine.

The theme at Whip Up this month is crafting with kids, so I thought I'd post a few notes about how I "help" Jo sew. She's five now and she got her first machine when she was four.

She started out sewing on paper. First I just drew straight lines for her to follow, then we moved on to gentle curves. Sewing on paper was not so much fun for her after the first few sheets, so it didn't last very long, but it was a good way for her to get a feel for how the machine would pull things through, without also dealing with floppy fabric right off the bat.

The first machine was technically a toy (i.e. cheap and all-plastic parts) but it actually worked and there were a couple of features I liked in it. It had two speed settings (I always kept it on slow) and it had a safety presser foot that made it absolutely impossible for Jo to get a finger under the needle.

The new Singer sews pretty fast, so I put a little stop in the foot pedal so that she couldn't floor it. It's just a fat piece of felt with adhesive on one side. You can buy packs of them to put under your furniture so it will slide and not scratch your floors. I just stuck it in the pedal so it wouldn't go all the way down. Easy peasy.

I didn't search for a special presser foot, but I do have the walking foot on there. Everything works better with a walking foot so I use it all the time. I just told Jo to be careful with her fingers and she is.

The other thing I do is draw her stitching line on the fabric and pin it for her. She could MAYBE learn to use the seam allowance lines now, but I'd rather have her eyes glued on that moving needle so I draw the stitch line for her to sew on. Here's a batch of squares from today - all marked, pinned, and ready to sew.

I get it started for her under the presser foot and then she's on her own - though I'm usually in the same room working at my machine. She sews up to a pin, takes it out and puts it in HER pincushion (an important detail), checks to make sure it's still all lined up right, and then sews up to the next pin and repeats. And here's one are all sewn up.
You can see that her stitching is right on the line. Her first seams were REALLY wavy but she's got it down now. She always checks her seam when she finishes a block and if she's off my drawn line at all she gets pretty frustrated.

I also always iron for her. I've never stitched my finger with the machine, but I burn myself on the iron almost weekly, so that's the sewing room hazard I'm really concerned about.

And that's it. Slow the machine down with a bumper in the pedal, draw on the stitch line, pin it, remind her about the needle, and let her go. She's really proud of how big this quilt is getting.

Note added 1/31: Thanks to the many people who visited from WhipUp and Love Shak, Baby! I love hearing that so many kids have been asking to learn to sew and that so many of you are going to be teaching them! A few of you had specific questions that I'll try to answer here.

I drew on the markings with a regular ball point pen. The water-soluble didn't make a dark enough line on the darker fabrics, chalk rubbed off too easily, and air soluble is no good because sometimes Jo will set this aside for a few weeks and the marks will go away. Since every other block is black I didn't worry too much about the pen bleeding a bit.

Jo's first machine was a Bratz machine that we bought at Toys R Us. I don't know if they still make them (I think they said something about it being discontinued when we bought Jo's) but they may have others too. Jo's was about $40 and it made it through a couple of pairs of jammie pants and half a quilt before dying. And the bobbin winding and machine threading was NOT FUN.

Not a question, but someone mentioned "the right table and chair" on the comments at WhipUp. I didn't mention that, but it's pretty important. Jo could never do this at the "big" table. I've got her set up at a kid-sized table with a kid-sized chair and it makes a huge difference. You can see it in one of the pictures but I didn't mention it specifically and it's worth a mention.

Read more...

Project Barbie 06 - I Want Candy!

In Episode 6 of Project Runway, designers went on a field trip to the Hershey's Store in Times Square and made their dresses with whatever they could find in the gift shop. We went to the slightly less touristy Target and made our dresses with whatever we could find in the candy aisle. And since we (unlike the Runway designers) are on a budget, we did not grab everything we could stuff into our suspenders. Here's what we came up with. . .

Wendi's design

I didn't have anything in particular in mind when we went shopping for materials - except that I was pretty sure I wanted to use a brand of candy that was iconic - something that immediately said, "Yay! Candy! Yum!" I liked a lot of the shiny bags that the loose candy came in, but I thought that material might be a little hard to work with. Then I saw the Tootsie Pops. I love the round, recognizable logo and I thought the scale would be right for Barbie. Plus I thought that waxed paper wrapper would work well for slightly gathered shaping. My challenge now was to think like Uli - the master of working with bold patterns.

I pieced together the wrappers, matching up the logos as best I could. I laid out the underdress so that the row of circular logos would run right down Barbie's center, and then I cut the overskirt so that those logos would be cut in half.

I was especially happy with the placement of the logo centered on her bust - and the paper wrappers behaved exactly like I hoped they would in the gathering at the neckline. The colors and the logos and the shape of the dress conveyed exactly the tone of lighthearted fun I was shooting for. And the Tootsie Pops have been tasty!

Alan's Design

I too didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted to create before we went to the candy aisle--either in terms of design or in materials. I did know I wanted color. I was tired of doing drab outfits and wanted something that would really pop. Luckily, candy comes in many bright, poppy colors. I settled on Starburst, with their brilliant yellow and red color combination, choosing to use the larger plastic bag as my fabric source, and not the the individual Starburst wrappers.

Originally I wanted to make this a short-short skirt, but then when I put the whole dress on Giada I loved the look of it so much I just "hemmed" the bottom and left it as is. I worked very hard to get the center of the top part of the Starburst logo to run right down the middle of the dress, and had to really get tricky with my second bag to get the bottom of the logo to split well, because that's not a straight seam in there, especially up around the waist.

My real inspiration here was that belt--taken of course from the factory-sealed end of the bag you usually tear off or tear open to get at the candies. (I'll forgo any other parallels to the ripping off of candy wrappers to get at the candy to the removing of Giada's belt . . .) The candy wrapper/belt piece was much longer than it needed to be, and my original intention was to snip off all the excess--but then I really liked the look of the belt sticking out to one side. I felt it gave it a hint of a bow, or perhaps of a fancy candy wrapper, so I left it--giving the end a little diagonal snip for fun.

Overall I have to say I'm extremely happy with how this came out. The plastic bag wasn't the easiest thing to work with or to sew, but the look, I hope, is both elegant and playful. And Starburst are popular enough to be iconic, I think. If not, the color alone carries it. Oh, and just so you don't eat this up too much, I put the Nutrition Facts on the back!

Vote for the tastiest Eye Candy design in our poll at the top left of the blog, and bon apetit!

Read more...

Project Runway 4: Episode 7 - Prom Dates from Hell

It was Prom Night on Project Runway this week, and it proved to be a night some designers won't want to remember. We enjoyed the top ten list format last week, so we're stealing the idea again. Here now, from the home office in Penland, North Carolina, the Top Ten Moments Episode Seven:

"Look, I know Jersey proms, and if all goes well you can use this as your maternity dress afterward --"

10) One of the most important days in a woman's life? As we noted in our preview, wha-huh? Prom may be one of the biggest events in a high school girl's life, but please--besides some tedious fumblings in the back seats of cars there really shouldn't be much you look back on in high school as "the most important" anything in your life. And as reader Anne pointed out, how wrong is it to encourage this kind of thinking in young women? Prom can be fun, but it shouldn't be a young woman's end-all, be-all. Prom is something you look back and laugh at, not something to fixate on as one of those moments in time where everything must be perfect and timeless. It's that kind of thinking that leads to insanity like that "My Sweet 16" show.

9) Embarrassment that lasts a lifetime. We didn't have to go further than the designers to prove Heidi's words wrong. How many of them really looked back on their proms as "one of the most important days" in their lives? Well, none of them, actually. But it was sure fun to hear their stories. Sweet P told us she had a great time at her prom, and then waved off the hot flashes. Chris stayed home and watched old movies and drank beer. Kit was a prom princess. (!) "It was very Orange County," she says. Christian? He was the best dressed person at his prom. He knows because there was a vote. It was a great idea for the producers to dig up embarrassing pics. And speaking of embarrassment, we're pretty sure the girl who wore Victorya's dress is already regretting flashing that peace sign--or was it a V for Victorya?--at the end of her runway walk.

8) Teenage girls are dogs. At least that's what the background music implied. Did anyone else notice the "Meet the teenage girls!" music was exactly the same as the "Meet the dogs!" music from Season Three's Pooch Challenge?

"If you feel a pin prick, that's me stabbing you in the back with a needle."

7) Irresistible "fierce," meet unmovable object. The fix was in. We're sure of it. Christian so completely deserved his client that we absolutely refuse to believe that wasn't a set-up. When the girl started to question his design within the first five minutes--and then took the pencil out of his hands and started drawing in his book!--we were sure of it. We cracked up when Christian's client told him she'd been studying design for two years. Um, sweetheart? Even though Christian looks twelve, he's got you beat there. The result, of course? A disaster of a dress, and the usually cocksure Christian rolling around on the floor in agony. To his credit though, he never got nasty with his client in the workroom. He may have blamed her on the runway, but he never got snippy to her face, which, considering this was Christian, we thought was positively Herculean. (Which means super-fierce, Christian.)

You cannot out-pity Mr. Pitiful.

6) How low can you go?

Sweet P: I really need to do well this week! I've been on the bottom, you know?

Victorya: I've been on the bottom twice with my group.

Chris: I've been voted off!

Um, yeah. Chris has totally got you losers beat.

5) They didn't! Did anyone else catch that slightly revised Levi's commercial in the ad mix tonight? Usually we tune out the commercials to discuss what we've just seen, but for some reason we were both looking when a commercial we'd seen a few times before came on. At least, we thought we'd seen it a few times before. The one where the cute guy pulls his jeans up and the cute girl in the phone booth comes crashing up through his floor? Yeah, only this time there's another cute guy in the phone booth! We couldn't believe it. This is the first overtly gay commercial we've seen since SNL did "Schmitt's Gay" -


SNL - Schmitt's Gay

Kudos. And, we suspect, there were few better times and places to show the Levi's ad. (Something makes us think we won't see that one during the Super Bowl.)

And while we're on the topic of interstitial stuff, that millionaire matchmaker lady needs a Tim Gunn Guide to Style intervention--stat!

"I want you to look sexy, but don't get sexy!"

4) "Give it up" for Sweet P's dress. Her client wanted Hollywood style that showed off her bootie, but P drew the line at ivory. "This isn't her wedding," P told us. "Hopefully she's not even losing her virginity!" Great line, P. But that dress is so good her corsage might not be the only flower she loses on prom night.

3) Youthful excess. One of our favorite exchanges of the night:

Chris: Do you want it low in the front or low in the back?

Client: Both!

You stay classy, girlfriend.

"If I was gay, I would totally wear that clubbing. Wait --"

2) And speaking of . . . Yes, Ricky drives us nuts, and yes, we predicted he'd be gone last night, and yes, we'd rather still have Kevin around. But one of the absolute best lines of the night belonged to Ricky:

"When I had a girlfriend, I made her prom dress. That should have been a clue right there."

That and the way you cried every five minutes.

"Here, this should really accentuate your slouch."

1) You chose . . . wisely. Even so, our favorite moment of the night came in the form of some brutally awkward teenage honesty.

Victorya: So, to start with, I'd just like to know why you thought we could work well together.

Client: Well, um, actually, I got the last choice.

Priceless. Now, on to the runway!

"Dear Michael--Will you go to prom with me? Check Yes or No."

Turns out choosing last wasn't so bad after all, as Victorya took home the brass key and immunity for next week. We have to say though, her dress wasn't even in our top three--and Tim Gunn agrees with us! From his Tim's Take blog:

Frankly, the decision to toss Victorya this win eluded me. In my view, the electric blue textile said “superhero” not prom. Furthermore, the jewel emblazoned panel on the front of the halter made the dress look more appropriate for a hostess at a Vegas cocktail lounge than a teenager attending a suburban prom.

Who did we like better? Well, certainly runner-up Sweet P impressed us. We thought her dress was really beautiful and classic. A real knock-your-socks-off prom dress, and the color was great on the girl.

Sweet, P.

Better, we thought, was Chris's green creation. We would have given him first place, and the judges didn't even think enough of his design to put him in the top three! We know, it sounds like we're starting to lap Chris up around here, but we promise we judge on the dress alone, and for two weeks we've been really impressed by what Chris has brought to the table. And Tim agrees with us again!

His design was superb in my view. The silhouette was sleek and elegant, the slit up the front was sexy without being even remotely vulgar, and the proportion of the train (almost always a risky design element) allowed the dress to still be navigable. Go, Chris!

And we'd give third to Jillian, partially because the dress grew on us in a second viewing, and partially because there just wasn't another dress anywhere near the top three. (Including Victorya's.) Wendi liked the way the dress flowed when the girl walked and thought it would be fun to dance in. The colors were pretty too, and worked well together. But Jillian was among the three sent off as safe, along with Chris and Kit.

"I know I'm making you look 35, but trust me, nothing interesting happens between 18 and 35 anyway."

As for the losers? Wow. Good thing Rami had that immunity, since he put his teenage girl in a dress meant for a lady who lunches. Great dress, great color, great hair--for a thirty-five year old. Rami didn't have a clue about what a prom was--and didn't really care. Yes, immunity means you can take chances, but we think he was maybe using it as an excuse to just do the kind of dress he wanted, appropriateness be damned. Let's hope he's learned his lesson.

"--and I didn't even cry, I swear!"

Ricky and Christian were in the bottom, just as we expected, joined by Kevin, whom we hadn't guessed would be there. (At least before we saw his dress.) Ricky's design was washed out and strangely rouched. Christian's was a "hot mess," to coin a phrase. And Christian might have been able to skate by a little better if he hadn't come out attacking his teenage client from the start. Add to all this that Ricky had been getting the loser edit--including a feel-good call home to mom in Espanol--and we thought he was a goner for sure.

You're only as fierce as you look.

But when Ricky was sent off as just the third worst design, we knew we were in trouble. Christian and Kevin left on the runway!? Those two have been bandied about by prognosticators as possible final four/final three material. But one of them was going to be gone, and it proved, rightly, to be Kevin.

The token straight guy is finally gone.

What a stunner! Not because this dress was good--it wasn't--but because he'd shown such potential. We thought he was a real break-out candidate. Kevin hadn't won a challenge, but he'd been second on his own twice (Menswear and Weight Watchers) and been in the first place team twice (SJP and Fashion Don'ts). That's four top two finishes in six episodes! But honestly, that red dress was the worst of the lot. Bad color, bad shape, bad styling, bad finishing. Kevin was just as blown away by his collapse as we were, stammering through a desperate "This won't be the last you've seen of me!" speech before he left the runway. We sympathize, Kevin.

And then there were eight. And next week, it looks like another dreaded team competition--but we'll save that for next week's preview!

Read more...

Project Runway 4: Episode 7 - Preview

Hello teeny-boppers, and welcome to Week Seven of Project Runway Season 4. Six designers down, nine left. It's certainly getting tight. This is no time to lose your poise--and yet lose their poise a few designers will this week, if the previews are any indication. Let's go right to the video, shall we?

This week's episode is reportedly titled "What a Girl Wants," and in the Yahoo preview we get a couple of good looks at a teenage girl in knee socks and a skirt back behind Christian, who's fretting in the foreground. In the MSN preview, Heidi tells the designers they'll be creating looks for "one of the most important days of a woman's life," and that this challenge is about "creating memories." The speculation? Prom dresses.

Okay. I have to stop right here. First quibble: "One of the most important days in a woman's life?" Seriously? Okay, one of the most important days in a teenager's life, maybe, but if your prom night proves to be one of the biggest days in your life, you need to get outside more often. As for "creating memories," the only memory I have of my senior prom is ending up on the eighteenth hole of a golf course around 1 a.m. dodging sprinklers in my rented tux. I suppose your results may vary.

Second quibble: We don't get the models? Again? How many times has this been now? Let's count them, shall we?

Episode 1: Models.
Episode 2: Models.
Episode 3: Male models.
Episode 4: Models.
Episode 5: Weight Watchers.
Episode 6: Models.
Episode 7: Teenagers.

Four with, three without. Gee, remember when not using the models was a novel thing? Remember when there was actual drama in the snatching of someone's favorite muse? Kind of hard to have a muse when you see her once every other episode--and in team challenges may never use her at all. (Like Episode 2: SJP.) Understand, we at Gratz Industries are not looking for fifteen minutes of America's Next Top Model at the beginning of each episode. But there is a rhythm to these things, and we're not feeling the beat.

But back to the most important moment in these women's lives. Before the clips appeared with the young girls in them, I actually thought this might be a maternity challenge. Now that's an important moment in a woman's life, although I doubt even Heidi Klum was wearing a Vera Wang and four inch stilettos when she had little Leni, Henry, or Johan. There was also some speculation that this might be wedding dresses, but mercifully, no. Ditto bridesmaid dresses. (Ouch.)

No, it's pretty clear it's prom dresses. And interestingly, the models may not be chosen randomly out of ye olde velveteen bag this week. There's a clue in the strange "Chris in drag" montage in the MSN piece. "What did you think when you looked at my portfolio?" Chris asks with a laugh, and then we're shown images of him in a variety of costumes with exaggerated hair and boobs. Is it possible the girls have been shown portfolios of the designers' work and actually chosen their designers? It would be an interesting twist. If not, perhaps Chris is just explaining to the viewers why he's chosen to put his teenage girl in a Carmen Miranda costume with a triple-D bra size. (It would certainly be a night she would remember.)

The teaser at the end of last week's episode focuses on two designers who are having trouble with this challenge: Christian and Ricky. Christian's having trouble because he got a pushy "client" who wants glitz and glam ala Kayne Gillaspie, and because Christian doesn't know the word compromise. (Like, seriously, his fierce vocab isn't big enough. bitches.) Ricky, on the other hand, is in trouble because he too apparently thought this was a maternity challenge, at least based on the empire-waisted brown sack he's building on his dress form.

Christian rolls around on the floor. He whines to Tim. He whines to Victorya. He whines to the camera. Everybody else thinks this is fun, but to him it's just "horrible, tacky, and gross." Well, at least he's not getting carried away with hyperbole or anything. But while Christian may be in trouble, Ricky is in serious peril--he is getting the dreaded "loser edit." The MSN preview has Ricky telling us, "I came on Project Runway because I thought it would better my life." Uh-oh. We're getting the "why fashion is my life speech," which, as everyone knows, is reserved for winners and losers. And based on the grievous looks on Ricky's face during the runway judging, I'm guessing it's definitely the latter with Ricky this week.

What else can we intuit from the runway judging clips? Again the judges' comments are choppy, but in two of the three videos we do see five of the six designers left on stage: Sweet P, Victorya, Ricky, Christian, and Kevin. But who is mysterious number six? There are always sets of three winners and three losers. Aha--last week's brief teaser and the hard to find MSN preview reveal his identity: it's Rami, doing strange things with his big powerful neck as he writhes under the judges' commentary.

Rami, in trouble? The golden boy? We do see Tim questioning Rami's design choices in the MSN preview, and Tim knoweth all. Rami is already on the defensive with him too: "Well, I like it and the client likes it, so I've already won." Um, no Rami, you only win when the Nina tells you you've won. Ah, but let's not forget--Rami won immunity in last week's challenge! He could put his high schooler in that dumpy outfit Daniel V. made for Chloe in Season 2 and not get booted off the show. Is that why we don't see him in the judging clips as often? In Season 2 they brought Daniel out to take his lumps, but that was a late season episode and all the designers were kept on stage for review if we remember correctly.

If Rami is in the bottom three, we've filled out the losers' bracket: Rami, Ricky, and Christian. Two of the show's bigger names fall in that bunch. That leaves Sweet P, Victorya, and Kevin as the finalists. Wait--which name doesn't belong here? Historically, of course, it's Sweet P. We like Sweet P, we really do--but she's very close to being the weak, slow antelope that's killed when a lion thins the herd. Will this be her swan song? She's practically beaming in a couple of the clips--but one of the reasons we like her is that she wears her heart on her sleeve, so it's possible that any praise will elicit a strong reaction.

Victorya is inscrutable as usual. Her facial range goes from scowling to blank to . . . well, scowling again, so she's tough to read on the runway. And is it us, or does it always look like Victorya has been crying? She's also in just one brief clip this week. Jillian got a similar teaser edit one week--and that's the week she won as the leader of her "fashion don't" group. Is Victorya a similar dark horse?

And then there's Kevin, who by default (at least by our reckoning) gets placed in the winner's group, although in the few clips we get of him he looks very nervous. That, however, could merely be due to dealing with a teenage client for two days. Some people have picked him to win this one, and we can certainly see him having the chops to do it. (The muttonchops, that is!) But we think he's in line for a third place finish.

That means it's down to Sweet P and Victorya, and while we think a Sweet P win would be the most stunning worst-to-first comeback in the history of Project Runway, history alone forces us to predict that Victorya will win for the second time in the prom competition.

In the losers' bracket, there's no telling just how low Rami might have bottomed out since he has that "Get Auf of Jail" card, but he'll be sent off first with a stern reprimand that will probably make him even more determined and hard to beat in the coming weeks. That will leave Christian and Ricky on the runway, and we just don't think this is Christian's waterloo. Really, how could he totally miscalculate on a dress for a teenage girl? He is a teenage girl. Therefore we predict that Ricky will be aufed this week, finally putting us out of his misery.

And if there's one thing we can predict with certainty this week, it's that we'll see a lot of Ricky crying.

Oh, and speaking of Kayne Gillaspie (we did, much earlier, if you'll recall), this week's guest judge is still a mystery. Could they pull the popular Kayne back as this week's judge? The man does design prom dresses! He would certainly be a fun addition to the episode--and might possibly be the only person capable of talking as fast as the teenage girls.

For those of you playing along on the TREsemme Fantasy Runway site, the answer to this week's trivia question--"Which designers' sisters modeled in the Everyday Woman challenge in Season 3?--is Vincent and Robert. As for best hair design? We guess Sweet P!

Read more...