TMI

Watering my pencil cacti this morning.

The pink silk lining was all hand sewn at the seams.  This time around, my rule was to only do the hand sewing at a table so the seams came out straight.  My previous couture jacket I hand stitched the lining in a car during a road trip and it shows.  Everything needs to be flat and relaxed.

Full view of the interior of the jacket.  If you want to see how I quilted the lining to the tweed check out the links below.

If you had been reading the Sam Harvey blog in 2011 you would know about the tweed jacket project. If you are new to Serbin Studio Blog, you need to know that I, Lara Serbin the Founder of Serbin Studio and writer of this here blog love to sew when I am not working on your architectural project.  I am not exaggerating at all here friends. 

Susan Sprenger, my cousin who lives in Switzerland asked "Did you ever finish the tweed jacket?" last week.  I promised to deliver.  I have been done with this tweed jacket since November of 2012.  I had to dig up old posts from Sam Harvey and they are here if you want TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

This is the second jacket where I taught myself the ins and outs of couture sewing.  Learning to sew horse hair canvas to a collar to give it structure is no different than understanding how a steel beam is going to attach to an existing brick wall.  

The only way I finished this jacket was putting away all obstacles in my path like other patterns, patterns and other patterns. All last summer I worked on this jacket.  

The links below are my fabrication process.  I put this jacket together from initially cutting out the tweed with a light table to match the plaids to figuring out how to bound a button hole.

http://lara-serbin.blogspot.com/2011/04/roundabout.html

http://lara-serbin.blogspot.com/2011/04/bound-button-holes.html

http://lara-serbin.blogspot.com/2011/09/beards-with-long-goats.html

                      http://lara-serbin.blogspot.com/2011/07/bound-button-holes-before-bed.html

As far as the skirt goes, I did not sew it.  I found a lovely lady named Aneta in Glendale, Arizona who does alterations and has a love for sewing like I do. Sometimes I like to see what she is up to.  She had a tailor make the tweed skirt.  The skirt is not quilted but it hangs really nicely.

About half the clothing I wear is sewn by myself.  I love the variety, fast turn around and hearing the hum of my sewing machine relaxes me. Right now I am sewing knits which do not require lining.  Perfect for a busy schedule.

Photography by Lily Serbin who thought I should do push ups on a steep mountain.

I had a crochet necklace made for it too but it is not really needed. So I am told...

You want to see the crochet necklace...DAMN! Ok I will be right back.

Wearable Fiber Art Jewelry by Elena Rosenberg

Elena Rosenberg is the talented artist that I met at Weston Craft Show in New Hampshire last October. I sent her a swatch of the tweed and look at what she did! It is lovely to feel and wear.

The Push

The ball park had turned into a "Jumpy Town" with blow up play houses with make shift hoses taped to the primary colored slide runs. Naturally we were the first to arrive at the gates.  Lily loved it.  There were lots of kids lined up grinding their toes into the mud as they waited for their turn. Most of the slides ended in a muddy pool.  My Clarks *kinda rubbery heel* we're halfway submerged in mud just watching.  I mean the grass was really soaked from the pools sloshing out water and the dump of rain from the morning showers. 

Lily Serbin, self portrait, 2007, this is what she looks like when she goes down a Jumpy.

Lily's hands were clenching with delight as she slid down.  There was this toddler boy child that managed to climb to the top of the jumpy wet slide and he was having second thoughts. He was just staying put and not going down. The kids started to form a slide jam.  Lily was peering over the toddler's shoulder wondering what to do.  The toddler's mother was telling Lily to just push him down. I gave Lily the nod to go ahead and just push him.  So Lily gave him a little push...

She pushed him ever so gently.

His red Super Man cape was soggy and trailing his little bullet of a body as he rocketed down the slippery slope. He had a mask but I think it got lost in the mud somewhere.  His eyes were pushed way out and his blonde head reared as he splashed into the muddy pool.  The first thing he did when he came around from the shock was look back up the slide at Lily waiting at the top.

You just knew in his wise toddler mind he was thinking "Why the hell did she do that!".

"Oh wait...I kind of loved what just happened.".

Tomorrow brings us all closer.

Building Poche

Today I am sketching up an alley improvement for Historic Buckeye on Monroe.  Actually, this is a continuation of the beautification which started at Benbow Veterans Park.

My light table is perfect for tracing the main components like buildings, trees and streets.

I am at the point when I poche all buildings white with my Prisma pencil. Poche is to block out with pencil. I am here to show you a short cut that I love to do. It would take too long to block out in pencil.  Copy the trace paper *you will see why I prefer to use yellow trace* with the right side up.

Cut out the buildings.  Remove chipped nail polish.  This is a fake photo of me cutting. How was I to do this with only 2 hands? Somebody had to snap the photo!  

My nails got chipped during my pancake party over the weekend!

Place the cut out under the same building outline on the trace paper.  You are not seeing the greatness yet. I KNOW! It is there.  This is where you need a very expensive leased Konika Minolta Bizhub C220. I have said too much.

You must slide in a piece of chip board *cool way to say ultra thin card board* under the trace paper.  Notice the white cut out is taped to the back side of the trace paper.  This would not be as cool with white trace paper.  The yellow trace gives it warmth and more contrast.  Now after I go make BBQ sauce for Wednesday, I will cut out all the other buildings.  I still have more color to add too.  Sometimes I need a diversion.