Summer New York Travel Essential: Poppy Top adds California Spirit to a New York Trip (Altered M6078)

Yes, another trip to see my daughter. She is working on a graduate degree at NYU and living in Manhattan. It's only 6.5 blocks to walk from her apartment to Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met). As I have on the other several trips I took this year, I went to the Met numerous times. I also spent a day at my favorite-all-time-anywhere Cloisters museum and enjoyed a lovely day at the wonderful Bronx Zoo with my daughter - but those are too much to squeeze into this collage!

In addition to packing my new princess-seamed top - Floribunda Bouquet- and Floribunda's new black linen ankle-length pants, I squeezed in sewing up another new top, a  cowl necked California poppies bedecked cowl neck in challis. I used a favorite knit pattern (M6078) for this woven, so I made a muslin first to check side and shoulder seams. I did add some more length to the shoulder seams. It was lovely having this along, as it made me feel just a tad dressier when I went to museums and shopping with my daughter.  Also those poppies showed off my California style!  Floribunda's new pants went great with it as well. In addition to this top, cottony princess-seamed Floribunda, I packed two light tee shirts for this 8 day trip. As I rinse tops out at night and hung them to dry, I could have left one of them at home - must remember that...

Images in this collage include: street scenes, Central Park arches, Natural History Museum, a Saturday Farmers Market two doors from my daughters apartment, and The Metropolitan Museum. Oh I have so many more photos!

Countryside scenes are from Natural History Museum exhibit on Dutchess County - A place I've long wanted to go during apple picking season.

Natural History Museum, New York City - Wouldn't it be great to have walls like this in my own home?!

I love the sense of how big a blue whale would actually be - What a challenge getting a full-sized photo!

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Samplers - Early Blogs

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, Textiles: Samplers

Seems a new idea

"Look at me, I was here."

Samplers were blogs too!


Web Resources:

Exhibit Notes - "American and European Embroidered Samplers" The Met
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/american-and-european-embroidered-samplers

Images of All Items in Exhibit
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=74d331ac-483c-41e1-babd-7a6015db21fd

Embellishment Inspiration: Personable Lions - Antique Printed Fabric

 These charming lions were block printed on cotton fabric, in Iran,  sometimes between the 10'th and 11th centuries. Eventually traders imported block printed fabric on to other lands and  Europeans were inspired by the use of wooden or metal blocks, to print on fabric of their own. 

I think this design would make a charming modern fabric. A quilt for a child? Definitely! But also I can imagine borrowing this pattern for patch pockets, tote bags, or miniaturized for a border print on a skirt hem or shirt cuffs.

Web Resources: Fashion and Virtue

Textile Patterns and the Print Revolution, 1520–1620

Christmas Tutu 1 (Blue Sky Sewing)

A Christmas Tutu
Sewn in the Imagination of  LR Shimer

What I'm actually working on sewing 'wise, is my final Draping Class assignment. I'm at that hard point where I'm still creating a pattern and it looks nothing like what I originally planned to make. Funny how that is.

I'm under the pressure of a deadline to finish up that pattern and sew the garment it represents. It's just as well to have those deadlines from a class, of course, because it makes me quit changing my mind and focus on completion. Creating can be like that - Drape or cut bait* I guess.

A little fantasy sewing is definitely in order when I'm getting a little fussy about completing a project. I love daydreaming about all the other things I could be creating, but had better not be distracted by. The more impractical those projects are, the better they are for soothing any concerns over finishing up a challenging task.

Big on my fantasy sewing list this year, is a Christmas tutu. I actually do hope to learn to how to sew a tutu in the future, though probably not in 2014. One thing that inspires me to participate in this lush world of costuming is this youtube video from the costume shop at New York City Ballet.

My love of tutus is also inspired by daydreaming about the art of the ballet. When I was writing My Heart Beats Faster in Past Times, I was entranced by the scene where Larissa explores the beauties of the Lilac Fairy's classic romantic tutu, and helping the little ballerina prepare for that role in a performance of the Sleeping Beauty Ballet. It was one of those times when I didn't need to think about what to write, I just let the people in the story take it away, and the words came out.

One day I will sew a tutu. 
It will be worthy of dancing in the Sleeping Beauty. 
It's knowing that sewing fantasies can become real, that keep me...

Enchanted by Sewing

Resources

I love to pin tutus and other ballet related pages. Check out my virtual bulletin board at ... http://www.pinterest.com/lrshimer/tutus/

* If English isn't your first language, I'm referring to the idiomatic phrase "Fish or cut bait." It means stop daydreaming and finish the task you're working on.