ADAM AT HOME UK

To listen to the spoken version, please clickety-poo   HERE I am super-excited, in that all my pattern pieces are now cut out for the banyan... BUT... before going any further, it's time for an interlude: There's been a lot of chat on the YouTube costuming vlogs about dress forms. This in particular from the more... shall we say 'generously upholstered'... ladies. Being decidedly generously upholstered myself these days, I have been yearning for an oversized male mannequin for quite some time - but mannequins of any sort - any decent  sort - cost several arms and legs (perhaps that's why dress forms are always only torsos? Ha ha). In any event, 'armless fun aside, it would be very useful for my banyan project. It seems there's an enterprising American company called   Bootstrap Fashion  to whom you send your vital statistics and notes on general body shape and they email you back a pdf of custom pattern pieces for your  body... all for $24 - well, tha...

For the vocalised version of this post, try clicking just   HERE With this wonderful summer we've been having and, more particularly, the sunshine we are getting now (late September) my fig tree has been working overtime. I get five or six figs a day but have to pick them a little before they are fully ripened otherwise Mrs Blackbird gets there first 😠🤯 They ripen well-enough on the table though - and, yes, that's a glass of my favourite not-non-alcoholic tipple in the background... 😉 Needless to say, my ageing resident bird-scarer is more intent on soaking up the heat...  Can't say I really blame him! And today's music is... Napravnik's Concerto Symphonique Op27 for piano and orchestra, along with music by Blumenfeld... wonderful 'unknowns' both of them.

For the vocal version of this post, please click   HERE Oh the joys of modern technology... nicely into my blog and dear Blogger decides to hang and lose everything I've just written...Grrr... So... once more unto the breach, dear friends...! I'm starting this blog with a small proviso - that most of the photos in this instalment are garnered from the recesses of the worldwide web and often their provenance and copyright are lost along the way. So my apologies... Like much C18th clothing, for the banyan we have to rely on a few extant garments in collections dotted round the world and on painted images (usually portraits of intellectuals and thinkers). One thing that always comes across is that these were clearly comfortable, baggy garments. Some, like the first image, seem to have been somewhat structured and others, like the rather lovely yellow brocade one, are very simple 'T' shapes. There are one or two patterns out there in web-land and th...

Back in the mists of time... when the 'Lockdown' concept was something new and... exciting? no, perhaps not quite that ! Anyway, back then, I wrote down a list of about eighteen things I wanted to achieve. Some of these remain undone (going through the photo album and blog from my trip to New Zealand and Australia back in 2007 [adamabroad2007.blogspot.com if you are interested], tidying my dining room/craft space, etc) but sewing more clothes was on that list - and I've certainly done more than enough of THAT ... ha ha;  learning to crochet was another one and, finally, after a few false starts (mainly to do with finding a good 'teacher' from the myriad YouTube vids out there) that discipline has taken a firm hold - indeed, I can safely say I am totally hooked (pun intended). Bar the obligatory pot stands, my first proper piece was this triangular shawl: in a pattern called 'Rustic Windows' (thank you Fiber Spider on YouTu...

For the vocalised text, try clicking just   HERE I'm at that awkward stage shared, I am sure, by many artists and craftsmen: I am ready to start my project, but uncertain (not quite the right word) how to begin. It's a bit like being faced with a large sheet of white paper and not quite knowing where to start making a mark: cutting fabric is so VERY final !! So, as mentioned in a previous post, I have been playing around with mild tints for the chintz lining: instant coffee (left in the photo) Earl Grey tea (centre) and Rooibos (right). The results were, unsurprisingly, quite different: Coffee left very little mark once I'd washed the fabric; tea was the strongest - a rather greyish beige - and Rooibos was vaguely rusty.  Really hard to tell from the photo, as the tint IS very subtle: all I want to do is slightly knock back the rather bright white, so I think I'll stick with my dear old mother's tried and tested tea! Because the s...

For the spoken blog, click right   HERE I've been on a bit of a 'high' all this week as, finally, the really very lovely silk brocade I have chosen (well, I think it's silk weft on a cotton warp, but who's fussing?) arrived, all the way from China.   It's a rather narrow fabric, at 72cms (much as it would have been in the C18th) so there's quite a lot of it. The absolutely fabulous  lining material came last week; that's hand-printed cotton chintz, all the way from India and has a very C18th look to it. Being given the 'Benny' seal of approval:  I think I may have to do what my dear mama used to do and that is dip the lining fabric in dilute tea, just to knock back the whiteness. I think an experiment is called for... This is another 'time of plague' project, so there's no rush to get it done. To begin with Martin, who runs the local fabric shop and lets me use his cutting table, is away on holida...

To listen to the spoken version of this, please click   HERE Well now, an update is in order, which I am trying to do from my phone, as that's where all my photos reside! I even have a bluetooth keyboard, which seems to work quite well...  so here goes... At LONG last, I have finished my handsewn linen shirt, which I started back in the misty days of Lockdown. It's a very fine navy with a narrow white stripe and was lovely to work with; the dark blue piping is another linen, which I made into piping, with a fine piece of elastic inside to give it substance (elastic, simply because it was there). It's always a bit of a lottery whether a fabric will be nice to sew by hand, but this was delicious... It pairs rather nicely with my denim, 'broadfall' trousers, based on an 1890s pattern. There is another pair in the offing, with a slightly different cut but, for technical reasons, I have to hand-sew the button-holes - and I hate  buttonholes! ...