Crafts We Can Believe In

We hope you’ll humor us for a moment while we diverge ever-so-slightly from our regularly scheduled programming…

From the “Crafters for Obama” badge that’s been on our site since Julie Ree created “Crafters for Obama” back in January, you’ve probably noticed that we’re supporters of Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for the Presidency. We believe that his leadership can help our country move in the right direction. We’ve been personally affected by many of the tough issues that are facing our nation, and many of our friends and family have also been directing impacted by the poor economy, lack of accessible and affordable health insurance, the expense of a higher education, among other issues. We’re also fairly typical Gen Xers, we think, having never really been thrilled about the dialog and personalities in American politics, and generally feeling like politicians at all levels don’t speak to the issues that matter to us. We both went to college in Washington, D.C., and grew to loath many of the politicians on both sides of the aisle–since politics is so very “in your face” all the time (Joe Lieberman cut us in line at the supermarket once, so some of those loathings are more personal than others). We were both very excited by Senator Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004, and were thrilled when he became a viable candidate after his win in the Iowa caucuses in January.

This weekend, Sarah decided to take that enthusiasm for the candidate into our crafty/sewing/screen printing world, and made some old school pennants to hang in the window of her home office and support our candidate. (Everyone–and in our neighborhood we sort of mean everyone–has a yard sign, no one has craftastic handmade pennants.)

Sarah made these creating a pennant template, using our flag making book as a resource, pinking the edges so they wouldn’t unravel/look snazzy, and then screen printing the Obama campaign logo on each one in white. The screen was created using the stenciling technique from Printing by Hand, but utilizing Tyvek instead of mylar. The way the logo is designed, it was a relatively simple one to cut. The tough decision was, however, how to attach the pennants together. Twine just seem a bit lazy, bias tape seamed bulky, but rick-rack, that was just right. Sarah stitched the pennants onto the rick-rack a couple of times so that they’re nice and secure and the pennants hang flat.

They’re now hanging in the large window of Sarah’s office. They look pretty sharp.

(Once the campaign season’s done, Sarah’s wanting to make some Portland Trail Blazers pennants to replace these. With the retro logo, of course.)

We know we’re not the only crafters out there who have been making all sorts of items celebrate the historic campaign by Senator Obama–whether they’re knitted, sewn, printed, embroidered or some crazy plastic canvas. In fact, pretty much every day we see something new and fabulous on Flickr or one of the blogs we read. We thought it would be nice to have a central place to feature some folks’s work, so Sarah’s set up a quasi-photoblog over here, called “The Obama Craft Project,” where she’ll be featuring some fabulous Obama inspired crafts. Stop by and check it out. If you know of anything that we should feature, send us an email at sewersewist@gmail.com or pop it into the Flickr pool.

The Obama Craft Project is obviously focused on our support of this particular candidate that we believe in, and we know that not everyone who reads Sewer-Sewist agrees with us. However, that’s one of the beautiful things about our country on a macro level, and sewing and creating “stuff” on a smaller scale — it takes a diverse chorus to create a vibrant country and community.

“It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”

–Barack Obama

~S & J

Sewn House = Fun House

As if the Tacoma News-Tribune telling us that “sewing is the new knitting” wasn’t enough, the new-found coolness of sewing is rearing its head in the latest Anthropologie Home catalog. Yep, the retailer that’s so great for sewing inspiration (love their styles, hate their pricing, really hate their bizarre fitting) featured a completely stitched together “Fun House” in the pages of their latest catalog.

If the Sewer ever neglected to trim his threads like Anthropologie did for this photo-shoot, he’d be in big trouble, but I guess that’s artistic license for you. Actually, I just bought The Alabama Stitch Book (I’ll review it soon, I promise) and while I really like that book, one of the things that drives me nuts is their not trimming their threads as a “design element.” I know this makes me profoundly uncool, but leaving threads untrimmed drives me nuts.

Anyway, my weirdness aside, it’s interesting to see sewing and general craftiness used in marketing. Sort of shows that even the illusion of handmade is appealing on some level, which in a sense is positive thing. (Even though I take issue with the fact that Anthropologie’s stuff is not, in fact, handmade, and is actually likely from factories in China or wherever .)

I do really like what they did with the walls in this shot, though…

Looks like they took fabric pieces and adhered them like wallpaper. Wouldn’t that we great in a sewing room? And if you didn’t want totally trash your walls, I’m thinking that you could stitch together some canvas the size of your wall and use spray adhesive to attach your fabric scraps to that, them tack the whole thing up on your wall for a similar effect. It would be a totally interesting backdrop for photos, too. Actually, that could be kind of cool on a small scale as well—sort of a fabric collage. Hmmmm… Something to think about, huh?

This is not how I store my spools of thread, by the way.

(You’ve gotta love that the sewn together house is the “Fun House.” As if you needed to tell us that!)

~Sarah

Sewing Emergency

Have your sewing troubles ever gotten this bad?

From the The New Zealand Herald:

A woman in a rush to get to a garden party called 111 to ask for help with her sewing.

The woman, who has not been identified, called police in Rotorua yesterday pleading for help to thread her needle.

Now our friend Bryan, who recently deserted us for the greener pastures of Auckland, New Zealand, tells us that dialing 1-1-1 is like dialing 9-1-1 here in the States.

But the best part is the police response to her panicked call:

No one was sent as the local police lacked the necessary skill, the spokesman said.

So are we to assume that if someone had known how to sew they would have responded? Perhaps the Sewing Police? What if they needed to call for backup? Like for a bound buttonhole or something? One can only imagine!

Well, aside from when Josh “Incredible Hulked” a shirt, we can’t say it’s ever gotten quite that bad here at Sewer-Sewist, but we’ve been close.

How ’bout you? Ever had a doozy of a sewing emergency?

~Sarah & Josh

Ready for the runway?

Well, I guess if I really were a contestant on Project Runway, this top would be ready for the runway… Just use the glue gun on the hem (this never fails to enrage me when they do it on the show—I scream, “Put down the damn glue gun and sew your stupid hem!”) and call the unfinished arms an edgy/youthful design element and I’d be ready for Heidi, Nina and Michael…

I’m working on a quick project, one of Simplicity’s new Project Runway-inspired patterns, this one being number 3535—a lovely top/tunic/dress thingy that’s pretty much identical to a style I was eying at Nordy’s this fall. I was looking for some rich blue silk like the Nordstrom top, but haven’t been able to find just the right color. However, during my search, some raspberry colored silk/cotton from Robert Kaufman’s “Radiance” line made its way home with me. I haven’t ever used the cotton/silk blends before, but this stuff sure is yummy… It’s got all of the lovely drape of silk but some of the sturdiness of cotton.

Anyway, it’s progressing nicely and is a really quality, albeit simple, pattern. It’s well designed with some nice details.

What this project really got me thinking about, though, was an article I read recently on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s web site about Project Runway and the revival of sewing in recent years—especially among younger people (like me). What the P-I contends is,

…[Project Runway] has touched off a home-sewing renaissance among young, urban hipsters eager to add fabric draping and bobbin winding to their repertoire of craft skills.

I think that it’s fabulous that the show has inspired people to think about sewing, but I also think that the timing was right for P.R. to become popular. Many of the young people that I know really are fed up with everything in life being mass-produced and, well, boring. If this frustration hadn’t been building, would the Bravo series have been such a hit? It’s a desire for self-expression and something different that gets a lot of people excited (me!).

The Post-Intelligencer echoed this sentiment a bit (although the “girls night out” thing annoys the crap out of me),

Rising from the ashes is a new brand of sewing that emphasizes self-expression, individuality, digital technology and girls-night-out camaraderie (though a surprising number of men have take it up as well).

Anyway, I’m being a smidge stream-of-consciousness here, but I guess my point is: Project Runway has helped sewing come to the forefront as a hobby. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if once the show has run its course (I’d hate to see it go—it’s definitely on my Netflix queue), hopefully the groundwork has been laid that people are still feeling energized and excited about sewing. I like these new Simplicity patterns because they do encourage creativity (apparently, I’m a minority in this—most sewing people I’ve talked to are really annoyed at the way these patterns are put together, with the individual elements and add-ons). I hope that they help inspire people new to sewing to stay excited about what they do, to build on their skills (because I think this is key to staying interested) and experiment (also key to keeping one’s interest up). Although, for Josh’s sake, I do wish they would put out a couple of these patterns in menswear, too.

Simplicity does need to include a note in the Project Runway pattern instructions reminding people that a glue gun has no role in hemming. Just in case anyone’s a little too inspired by the show.

~Sarah

If they’d only learned to sew…

Here you go, folks—another in our intermittent series of sewing-related tidbits in the news.

We knew it! Sewing is an essential survival skill. EarthSky blog is reporting that it turns out that Australian researchers have discovered that Neanderthals would probably not died out if they’d picked up a thread and needle and stitched themselves some warmer clothes.

…when the last ice age hit, modern humans were well-equipped to produce clothes warm enough to fend off the cold. Because Neanderthals… [had not developed] advanced sewing technology. When the temperature dropped, they were stuck with clothes that didn’t keep them warm enough and didn’t know how to improve on the clothes they already wore.

In the spirit of today’s game in which the Green Bay Packers take on the Seattle Seahawks, UniWatch Blog has a great interview with Marge Switzer, the Packers’ team seamstress. There’s some real gems in this interview, and Marge has a pretty tough job. Who knew that the players wear the same jersey all season, and Marge just keeps stitching them up? The rips and tears and battle scars of sorts. Turns out, she’s just as neurotic as the rest of us stitchers:

…there have been times when I’m watching the game and I’ll go, “Uhhhhh [deep gasp of shock], we missed a thread there!” So I do see that sometimes, and the average person, I’m sure, wouldn’t have a clue.

We’re so happy that our missed threads don’t face the scrutiny of tens of thousands of cheese-hat wearing Packers fans!

And finally, CNET is reporting that we sewers and sewists have finally hit the big time at the Consumer Electronics Show. (Note: Sewing machine reference and photo are at the very end of the post on CNET.) Turns out, Brother is showing their fancy new ultra computerized sewing machines for the first time at the annual geek fest of gadgets in Las Vegas this week. Gotta love how CNET (which is a great and very useful site, so no offense here) marvels at this fact.

And just in case you missed it, yes, they have sewing machines at CES. From Brother.

The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail is also amazed at this display at the CES.

Are we the only folks out there who are utterly baffled by these writers’ wonderment over the fact that sewing has evolved technology-wise right along with everything else in our lives?

Cool Blue

So it seems that the powers that be at Pantone (the folks who track color trends) have declared that the color for 2008 is “Blue Iris.” You know that bluey-purple color of, well, a Japanese Iris (I’ll probably embarrass the Sewer here, but I have a soft spot for that particular flower because when we were in college he used to surprise me with Japanese Irises).

You can check out the color here in Pantone’s news release. While it’s a lovely color, I think that this may be a slight overstatement:

…Blue Iris satisfies the need for reassurance in a complex world, while adding a hint of mystery and excitement.

Anyway, I’m glad that the New York Times is reporting that blue has apparently eclipsed the popular green of the last year or two—you’ll remember green is not exactly my favorite color, although I will make exceptions for very dear friends. Blue is one of my favorites—especially for clothes for me, and it certainly justifies the fantasies I have been having about making Hot Patterns’ lovely Denim Diva Camden Coat in a rich blue corduroy. (I haven’t purchased pattern nor fabric for this, so it’s really a pie in the sky thought.)

Although, come to think of it, I still haven’t made my Chili Pepper Red trench coat in last year’s Pantone Color of Year. I believe that one was supposed to add “excitement” to my wardrobe as well.

What do you think? Will you be getting your excitement from Blue Iris or sticking with the Chili Pepper Red?

On The Newsstand…

The first in an occasional series of posts on stuff we find interesting.

What can we say, we still love a good magazine or newspaper. In a “paperless” world, there is still nothing like getting a magazine through the mail slot. A bath isn’t complete without bubbles and some light (or not so light) reading. Here are few things that we came across this month.

Having trouble finding jeans that fit? Virginia Postrel has an article in December’s Atlantic about changing ready-to-wear sizes, technology and $900 jeans for sale in England. There is an interesting data about how different in shape we all really are and how “in a tough apparel market ‘better fit’ has become the latest competitive weapon.” Truncated version available here. Guess we sewers/sewists have an edge here in the whole effort behind “better fit.”

Surprise, surprise Amy Butler lives in an incredibly cool looking house. You can see it in the November / December issue of Martha Stewart’s Blueprint. We found that this magazine is kind of uninspiring but worth looking through in the check-out line or browsing at the store (if only we could organizer our life ala the “tipometer”). The Sewer’s favorite part is the “winter themed” pics that were obviously taken in the summer heat. Big props to Amy Butler and husband for featuring their Arbor Snowboard, we are big fans of Arbor’s long boards and nice to see them in an unexpected spot.

From USA Today, always double stitch the crotch of your pants!