OMG Zac Posen

I can't even. Is this man human? Look at those features! Those glossy black waves! The glowing complexion! The cinematic arch of the eyebrows! The perfectly tailored notch on his jacket! Oh, I could go on and on . . .

Have you been watching this season's Project Runway, readers? Zac Posen, Greek God, is filling in for judge Michael Kors, the Orange Duchess (so nicknamed for his penchant for spray tans and bitchy royal demeanor). According to Jeff, no one can replace the Orange Duchess, but then again . . . Jeff doesn't turn into a giggling school girl every time the Greek God comes on screen.

Have I mentioned his smile?

His thoughtful and encouraging manner of critiquing design?

Okay, let's discuss the elephant in the room.

Obviously, Zac would not return my feelings. But guys, that's why he's my imaginary boyfriend, not my real one. If the pesky little issue of sexual identity got in the way of women having crushes on handsome and kind and stylish gay men, well . . . the pillars of Western popular culture would basically be upturned.

I have two other imaginary boyfriends, BTW. (Don't worry, Jeff doesn't get jealous. He completely understands.)

OMG Dave Grohl.

OMG Stephen Colbert.

Wait! Make that three other imaginary boyfriends!

OMG Adam Scott. (Wow, it's getting crowded in here.)

I know, readers. I have extremely good taste in men.

Okay, back to the point. Are you readers liking Zac Posen on Project Runway this season?

Ryan Gosling Meme for Crafters

Holy crap, readers. Did you all know there's a Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl" tumblr out there just for crafty types? It's called Handmade Ryan Gosling and you need to go read it. I previously thought Feminist Ryan Gosling was the pinnacle of this meme, but now I see that I was wrong. Damn, Ryan Gosling is a gift that just keeps on giving.

(If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just know that there's a whole world of blogs out there that imagine what adorable things Ryan Gosling would say if he were your boyfriend and started every sentence with "Hey, girl". Gotta love the internet.)

I'm catching a train back up to my editor's house today for more fine-tooth combing of my book, but I couldn't let this go unblogged. Can you blame me?

On that note: Hey girl, have a great weekend!

Men Who Sew: More Thoughts and Theories

Readers, I work in a female-dominated field. (I'm a children's book editor. I don't know if I've ever actually mentioned that here.) Well, let me amend that statement. I work in a field where all the lower and mid-level employees are predominantly female and the majority of the head honchos are men. Interesting, eh? It's similar to the sewing world in many ways - home sewists are women and highly-paid couturiers are men. What I've noticed is that there seems to be a certain amount of delight when men cross over into the lower trenches with the women. I love to fawn over these men, I admit it (as does everyone else). A male editorial assistant! A dude who sews for pleasure! Good god!

So it's been with a lot of delight that many of us are taking notice of the funny and fabulous Peter, who recently started a blog on his garment-sewing adventures called Male Pattern Boldness. (If you don't already read it, become a follower now, please!) Peter wrote an excellent post this week called "Why Johnny Can't Sew."

Peter outlines the ways in which sewing has historically been marketed and targeted toward women. This will come as no surprise to us. But the thought that popped into my head as I was reading it was: This is why all men should be feminists. I don't think it's common for men to recognize the damage that a misogynistic culture does to BOTH genders. In no uncertain terms: it alienates half the population from skills and trades that might be useful and pleasurable to all of us.

Peter also mentions the lack of men's patterns, that we discussed here back in November. When Jeff asked me to make him his Urban Outfitters-inspired jacket I had to radically adapt a men's shirt pattern to make it happen. Peter is pretty adventurous with patterns - 70s caftans, flower-print trousers - so it will be interesting to see how he deals with this lack of patterns as he progresses in his sewing.

But I thought Peter really hit the nail on the head when he asked: "Finally, when we wonder why men don't sew, aren't we really talking about why straight men don't sew?" Bingo! Just take, oh, EVERY season of Project Runway ever televised. There's always that one straight dude who just has to assert his heterosexuality into every conversation. There is a rampant gay panic in our culture that keeps men from sewing, no doubt.

In any case, thanks to Peter for continuing this topic from a dude's point of view. Now I can't resist adding two of my favorite photos of garments he's made.

A corduroy coat for his dog Willy. Could this BE any cuter?

And an LBD for his glamorous "identical cousin" Cathy. She's a woman of mystery!

Check out more of Peter, Willy, and Cathy's adventures at Male Pattern Boldness.

Dashing Dude

So, I finished Jeff's birthday jacket! And only seven months late too! Doesn't he look handsome in it?

As I wrote earlier, I modeled this jacket on a beloved Urban Outfitters jacket he already owns. I modified a shirt pattern (McCall's 4079) to get a jacket look.

And I lined it in a Mexican skull-print fabric, as requested.

I'm so glad this project is done. First of all, because he loves it. Secondly, so I don't have to see that sweet, pitiful, puppy-dog look in his eyes when he asks me repeatedly to finish it. And thirdly, because I made more mistakes on this project than any other, I swear. First there was the hole I cut in the middle of the sleeve with my serger. And then the mistakes just kept coming. The skull pattern on the lining front is upside-down, one of the cuff buttons is non-functioning (long story), the left side seam is felled and the right one isn't . . . oh, I could go on and on. The point is: it's a little screwy. But he adores it and doesn't mind (or notice) the flaws one bit.

And look! More video! We went up on the roof of our apartment building on Sunday to get some photos, and we played around with the new video recorder a bit as well.



P.S. Thanks for all your sweet and encouraging comments on my first video post! I very much appreciated your suggestions for future vlogs (I still can't believe that's a word). More to come!

Sewing for a Dude

My husband's birthday is in April. This year, he requested that I make him a jacket based on a beloved navy Urban Outfitters jacket he already owned. He wanted it in black, with skull lining. (He has a thing about skulls.) I made a plan, zipped through most of the construction, and then promptly made a fatal mistake: I tried to set the sleeves in with my serger (WTF was I thinking?) and ended up cutting a whole in the upper sleeve. So then, naturally, I shoved the whole project into a bag and it hasn't seen the light of day since.

Well, now hubby has been begging for his skull-lined jacket, and I decided to be a big girl and come up with a solution. It was actually very easy: I ended up setting the sleeves a bit higher in, which hid the hole. Luckily, the fit was still good. (Actually, my client ended up preferring the more fitted look it provided.)

Here's the original inspiration:

And here's the pattern I ended up using:

I had to make some design changes to the pattern, including adding welt pockets in the front and adding a lining. And getting the fit right was challenging: this pattern is quite oversized, so I did a lot of fitting with a muslin. But now I'm in the final stretches of this jacket! It's a perfect sewing day here, kind of chilly and overcast. Wish me luck! Hopefully I'll unveil the results very soon.

And here's a kitteh update! Here's Professor Henry Higgins looking quite handsome:

And Pip, looking like she's having a particularly lovely dream:


We all hope you're having a lovely weekend of sewing!

Patterns for Dudes

I loved all your varied responses to this post, where I asked if you knew any men who sew. I was also pleasantly surprised to get quite a few responses from readers who are men who sew.

Commenter "d" had the following thoughts to share on the lack of male sewists:

Mostly it's cultural: men aren't supposed to sew, so they don't. And those who have some interest get discouraged by the treatment they get from people like the clerks at fabric stores (who look at me like they think I'm going to rob the place, until they get used to me.). And the *total lack* of decent patterns for men's clothing.

Interesting, eh? I think there are some good points here, even though I'm a humorless old feminist who bristles a bit at men complaining about getting poor treatment because of their gender. But I see what d is saying . . . we live in a culture that has certain expectations of traditional masculinity, and those expectations do not include being interested in sewing.

But what I really liked about his comment was the point that men's patterns suck. From what I've seen out there, I would have to agree. Even vintage patterns for men are pretty boring (though their envelope illustrations are unintentionally hilarious, usually involving pipes and ascots - or both!).

From what I've observed about contemporary men's pattern collections, they are either:

1) Boring.

2) Containing a highly disproportionate ratio of vests and Hawaiian shirts. (Fun fact: of the 12 patterns for men that Simplicity offers, 6 of them include a vest. That's a whopping 50% vest rate!)


3) Um . . . whatever all this is.

But, let's face it, men's clothes are just not so exciting in general, unless you get into advanced tailoring and custom flourishes. But perhaps I'm showing my gender bias here. What do you all think about the state of patterns for dudes?

Do You Know Any Men Who Sew?

Let me rephrase that: do you know any men who sew as a hobby?

The only men I know who sew are enrolled in design school, and they intend to become professional designers or patternmakers. They don't do it just for the pleasure of it, and they certainly expect to move on to more glamorous parts of the industry once they've paid their dues. This strikes me as a curious thing.
It's like cooking: women have done the brunt of it for the history of time, but people who become rich and famous for their cooking skills are usually men. Likewise, women have done the majority of garment work in the U.S., but famous designers in this country have typically been male (and white). Luckily, the field has gradually opened up more to women - and at a slower rate, people of color. But, as shown in the sculpture at the heart of the Garment District (photo above), the face of the garment worker is still, oddly, male.

So what about sewing for pleasure? Certainly there are many men who cook as a hobby now (my husband included), but I can't say I know any men who sew just for the sheer enjoyment of it. And there's something about this that I find troublesome. I've heard men laugh about their shoddy attempts at sewing in Home Ec (at least the ones who actually took home ec, once it was required for both girls and boys), and there seems to be an undercurrent to their amusement: that boys just physically can't sew.

My husband claims he doesn't have the manual dexterity required for sewing. But he also has absolutely not a single iota of sewing knowledge. I once asked him to pin something on me while I was fitting it, and he didn't know how to pin fabric. He actually just poked the pin once straight through two layers of fabric, and then seemed befuddled when it didn't stay put. Whether or not this is a question of manual dexterity, it seems so foreign to me not to know how to pin two pieces of fabric together. As a child of the female variety, I spent a lot of time around my mother's sewing. I took a sewing class as a ten-year-old, and I did sewing activities in Girl Scouts. It would have been quite impossible for me to grow up without any sewing knowledge whatsoever. But I think it's a fair guess that Boy Scouts aren't learning to make quilted potholders.

So. What say you on this subject? I would certainly like to hear of men you know who sew as a hobby, if you indeed know any.