The Routemaster Tribute Capelet!

Living in London, you are incredibly reliant on public transport. Londoners talk about transport almost as much as they talk about the weather, and any changes that are made to it are analysed and discussed at length.

Several years ago, our esteemed city elders decided to replace this beloved design:

Classic Routemaster

With this fire prone, cumbersome piece of s***:

 I hated these buses so much, I even resorted to making my own 'I HATE BENDY BUSES' badges and leaving them on buses and in public places - my own little stab at art terrorism/protest. I was unbelievably pleased when it was decided to take them off the road, and replace them with an all new Routemaster. Transport in this city is still over priced and unreliable, but this new bus just makes me smile, and I'm so pleased to see government taking a chance on a piece of public design which is stylish and takes risks with a classic:

Thomas Heatherwick's new Routemaster design. Read more about it here

 The back view, with the open 'hop on, hop off' platform restored

By coincidence, I made a jacket that is nearly the same shade - my Routemaster Tribute Capelet!

 

This was a stashbuster made from some cheapo red polyester that I bought locally. It was intended for trousers, but when I got it home I realised it reminded me too much of an air stewardess uniform, ie scratchy and synthetic. It languished on the stash pile until a couple of weeks ago. And I've been wearing it almost constantly - I love it!

Here are some details:

I wanted to keep the cost down, so I lined it with a £1.50/m poly cotton black and red polka dot:

  

I wanted it to be a quick project, and keep hand sewing to a minimum. But there were some things that couldn't be avoided, like the little chain that attaches the cuff to the body of the coat:

This fabric frayed and unravelled like nobody's business,involving loads of trimming with the pinking shears. In the end, I approached it the way you do when you're tidying up your home and shove everything into a cupboard or drawer - the 'out of sight, out of mind' method. I put the lining in quickly and attached it loosely with a catch stitch to the hem of the jacket:

 This is my new favourite way to do my nails - I've been watching a lot of Lana del Rey on Youtube

And to end, some more photos of the jacket in front of a double decker bus - it's not a Routemaster, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up!

                        Mr Needles says that this hairdo looks better with a 'haughty' expression...

That's it! See you soon!

A Visit to Laboratoire Needles

I buy a lot of my fabrics from stalls, remnant bins, etc, and often have to guess at what they're made up of. It's never been a problem - no cleaning disasters so far! - but the fabrics I've used in a few recent projects have made me curious about finding out more.

Then I remembered the burn tests we did on fabrics in my 'A' Level (equivalent to High School) Fashion and Textiles classes. Basically, a burn test consisted of setting a small swatch of fabric alight, then observing how it burnt and analysing the residue or ash left behind to determine the composition of the fabric. Yup - we were allowed to set stuff on fire in the name of education!

After consulting a few websites, such as Fabric University and Fiber Images, I felt confident enough to open up Laboratoire Needles and burn stuff!

These are the basic tools you need:

Tin foil, tweezers, a jar for catching residue/extinguishing flame, and fabric swatches

I pulled a few strands from the first swatch, and holding them with the tweezers, I held them over the stove bunsen burner, then watched them smoulder, drip, spark, and go up in flame:

This is what we wear at Laboratoire Needles...

...freshly set hair, red lipstick, lots of jewellery, and no safety gear whatsoever!

And these were my findings:

The scratchy red fabric

The swatch at the top, and the results of the burn test below - hard black beads

I knew this fabric was most likely man-made, but I wasn't sure what. When it was burnt, it melted, smelled pretty strong and plastic-y, and the melted bits hardened to little black beads. According to the Fiber Images website, this is most likely Polyester.

The cheap polka dot

This one was a bit puzzling; I thought it was probably rayon or viscose, but it melted a bit like the polyester, and was a bit ashy when it cooled. Maybe a cotton polyester mix?

The jersey fabric

This one hardly burned at all, just smouldered with no ash, and it left a sort of greasy smear on the foil. According to the Fabric University, this is probably rayon.

The printed fabric

This was the only one that turned out as predicted. I assumed it was cotton; it burned like paper, and left a grey ash. So, pretty sure that's cotton!

It was getting a bit too crazy and experimental in the Lab at this point, so I closed it for the evening and went back to watching telly and drinking tea - I mean, researching future tests. But I hope that my cutting edge scientific research was of some help. The next time you buy a fabric of unknown origin and you want to know what it is, SET IT ON FIRE!

Style 4782 - It Reminds Me of Something...

Style 4782, from 1974

I made version 3 of the pattern above several weeks ago, but I've been enjoying wearing it so much I didn't find time to blog about it. Here it is:

I love this little dress! I wanted something I could just throw on at any time, so I didn't use any lining, just a facing on the bodice out of a light poly-cotton. I used run-and-fell and French seams, so that they didn't have to be finished inside, and I tried to keep the hand sewing to a minimum, only using it on the hem and to put in the zip.

Here are some details:

-There are 2 little pockets on the front, which are machine stitched directly on:

They're not much use, except for maybe holding a phone or small camera, but I thought the dress was a bit plain without them.

-The neckline is a wide squared off shape, and the seam under the bust dips into a point:

After several times wearing this outfit, it suddenly dawned on me that it resembled something:

Source

Yep, except for the white buttons, this dress is pretty similar to the one Hello Kitty wears! Have I inadvertenly become one of those child-women who spends her time dressing like cartoon characters? I hope not...

I'll leave you with a more grown-up version of the dress, under some beautiful vines in Lisbon.

 Take care!

 

Exploding Thighs

Exploding thighs - that's what happened to my trusty black skinny jeans. A few weeks ago I was pottering around the house, probably occupied in a sewing-based task, and I heard a rip as I sat down. There goes another pair of jeans......

I'm not really rock 'n roll enough to walk around with my inner thigh hanging out, but there was still a lot of life in these jeans. I hate throwing away clothes! And I didn't have the heart to give them to charity with a big hole in them. So I folded them up, put them in the wardrobe, and forgot about them.

Until I was getting dressed one day, and realised I needed a black skirt for slobbing about in. Didn't I have some old jeans somewhere??

Turning old jeans into a skirt

First, I unpicked the inside leg seams. This was the longest step in the whole process - unpicking overlocking is so tedious! And messy! I tried tearing through the layers with my stitch ripper, but couldn't get very far because the stitching was so tight. I slowly unpicked, and snipped, and so on until it looked like this:

Then I unpicked the center front seam to the base of the zip, and the centre back seam until somewhere past the curve, where the seam straightens out. I also left long ends to pull through to the wrong side. I laid the jeans flat, and then overlapped the front and back sections so that the skirt was flat. It looked like this:

Front, with centre front overlapped

Back, with seat area overlapping.

Luckily, it worked out so the big hole was covered up!

Next, I estimated how long I wanted the skirt to be (roughly knee length), and chopped off the legs, leaving a bit more for a hem:

I used these leg pieces to fill in the gaps front and back, pinned them in place, and stitched it all:

Turned up a hem of about 1"/2.5 cm, and voila:

Front view

back view

And there you go - an easy way to add to your wardrobe without spending any money!

Keeping Cool in Lisbon

...And failing. Big time. Even though I spent my first 14 years in California, I am hopeless in hot weather. In fact, hopeless doesn't even begin to describe it. I bloat up, and moan about it like a teenager. I feel like an internal sweat tap gets turned on and left to run endlessly. My make-up runs down my face. My hair frizzes. Overall, not a pretty sight.

 Despite this prior knowledge, and also being gripped by Olympic fever, Mr. Needles and I headed off last week to Lisbon, where everyday was at least 30 celsius (that's roughly 1,000,000 fahrenheit) And it was BRILLIANT!

 This was the second time we visited this amazing city, and this time we did it even better. I think what I love most about Lisbon is the fact it still feels like a secret, undiscovered destination, relatively unspoilt by hordes of tourists and commercialism. Whether this is a conscious effort on the part of the Portuguese to limit outside influences on their city, or just the result of sellf imposed isolation as a result of political history, I don't know. But there aren't many European cities where you can find shops in the centre like this:

Beautiful fabric shop, specializing in evening fabrics, mostly covered in sequins

 or this:

A candle shop, over 200 years old

or this:

A teeny, tiny glove shop!

or even this:

A haberdashery shop. This was one of many on a WHOLE STREET of similar shops! The problem was, it was Sunday, our last day, before I realised they were there, and they were all closed...

Here's a quick run through of other cool stuff to do in Lisbon (If you don't like other people's holiday snaps - well, you've been warned) :

Drink great coffee and eat cake -

You're never more than a few paces from a pastellaria, where you can get coffee in various formations (always strong), as well as lovely custard cakes. Every park and square seems to have a kiosk with a few tables where you can while away the hours.

Have a cocktail in the Chinese Pavillion:

Or if you prefer, have a pot of tea! 

This is the most fantastic bar I've ever been to! It's like walking into the house of a very organised hoarder. Room after room is filled with loosely themed collections - toy soldiers, military hats, toys, statuary, porcelain trinkets. You name it, there's a cabinet full of it. There's a never ending menu, with cocktails and exotic teas, and even a couple of pool tables in the back room, so something for everybody. A lot of on-line comments mention the expense of this bar, but I really didn't think it was that bad, and considering the time and effort put into the displays, I think it's worth every penny.

For non-vegetarians - eat great seafood -

A devoured gilthead (I don't even know what that is, but it was tasty)

Besides gilthead and octopus, I also stuffed myself with sardines, clams, squid, and stingray, and I loved it all.

Admire all the beautiful tiles -

Tiles - 'azulejo' - are everywhere, not only inside, but on the outsides of buildings, covering whole facades. I particularly liked some of the mid-century examples, like this panel outside a shoe shop:

The subway also has some beautiful modern examples. This was my favourite one, at Cais do Sodre station, a busy station at the port, hence the big Alice and Wonderland rabbits, checking their watches:

Ride the 28 tram - 

No, this isn't the actual tram...

It's a really touristy thing to do, and the gangs of people with cameras probably get on the locals nerves, but the 28 tram is the closest you can get to a rollercoaster disguised as public transport. Lisbon is hugely hilly, on a par with San Francisco, and like that city, it has trams and cable cars to deal with it. The 28 is brilliant, in that it runs from the peaks in the east of the city, through the centre, and out to the west. 

The route in Graca, to the east, is the best part - the tram belts along tiny little streets that it just about fits on. You skim so close to the houses and shops, you can put your hand out and pluck a sardine from a dinner plate!

Drink in Barrio Alto -

Boca do Inferno - our favourite bar.

Bairro Alto is similar to London's Shoreditch, in that it's a once rundown area which has been transformed by little bars, restaurants, and shops. But where Shoreditch has become over run by binge drinking hipsters braying loudly from every corner (that's just my opinion), making it a bit of a young person's ghetto, Bairro Alto manages to keep a balance between young and old. I saw gay and straight, students, families with children, all out having a good time, with little hint of trouble that usually comes with these situations. You can go in one bar and jump around to techno, or go next door and listen to mellow jazz and drink pina coladas. There were even police out having their photos taken with visitors!

Some of the bars and restaurants are tiny, most the size of a small living room, with just a few tables and chairs. Our favourite was Boca do Inferno, a punk/metal bar with a really friendly owner and great decor:

I think that's enough for now. We did loads more - a day in the mountains of Sintra, walking along embattlements built by the Moors; we ate great ice cream; we even spent a day at the seaside.

I always have trouble finishing off posts, so I'll leave you with a picture Mr Needles took of me knitting on train coming back from the beach - any opportunity to get a few stitches in!

Take care!