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October 23, 2020
Ok - on to something more fun.
If you follow me on Instagram, and (Walt and I also have a Facebook Page), you'll know that we went over to the White River a couple of weeks ago. The trees were turning, and it's such a quick easy trip that we thought it would be a good time. Our guide had even suggested we take up fly fishing.
I'm often fond of saying that fly fishing is the most elegant, beautiful way of not catching a fish!!!!
How many time have you seen scenes like this on a great fishing river, and the fisherman is flipping his rod and line (called string if you're a true fly fisherman), around in the most artistic and elegant way. But the bottom line is that there is rarely a fish on the end of the line.
This is a sport that was developed by the English and it looks like it's English.
It has English written all over it! And it would only be in a work of art, that there would be a fish on the end of the line.
Plus there are catch and release areas on the river where the hook is about ½" to ¾" big. That is not a big hook. And it doesn't have a barb, which is the reverse hook on a hook. The barb helps you keep the fish.
In fly fishing what you have to do is once you get a bite, then you go into the "Statue of Liberty" pose and keep your arm up there. And when you've got a decent fish on the line and you get a bite and you go into the SOL pose, you're excited and it's hard to remember to keep your arm in the air, particularly when you're watching the fish swim all over the place trying to dislodge the hook.
Well, actually when you catch a fish on your fly fishing rod, it's a little like a 3-ring circus, it's not very pretty, but it sure is exciting. And if they're not biting after about 3 or 4 casts, then you change your fly, which is a cute little thing with bling to make it look like some sort of delicious eatable for the fish's eye.
Or maybe it's not that appealing - so you change again!
But, despite all else, our guide not only took us to a great location and had a repository of numerous, exotic flies, but also is a great teacher and I caught my first fish on a fly rod!
And I might add, very fashionably dressed!
But there's more to this picture than the fish, and yes it was fun to catch a fish on a fly rod. There's my outfit! Being a fashion nut, I have to have something fashionable.
As you might well guess this is also unbelievably functional. One morning was 39° in the air before we got to the surface of the river. And that ride up to the dam that morning was very, VERY cold! I was prepared in my fashionable hoodie and pants.
I've talked about the pants before. They have multiple buttoned and zippered pockets so that stuff in the pockets, stays in the pockets. But not about the hoodie.
There are some features built into this that make this a really fabulous jacket.
1. It has a high collar so that the "hoodie part" start right at your chin or a little higher. This makes it less likely that the cold will penetrate into the neck area.
2. What you can't see here is that the hoodie part has a very generous depth. It not only covers your head, but comes out substantially past your head, to shield you from the cold.
3. It has some very decorative ways to put in pockets.
4. It has a band around the bottom making it have a generous length, although I did add a bit to this because I like to have my jackets and tops past my hip apex points. It's a more flattering look for me.
5. It has an ingeniously located thumb slit in the sleeve. You can see that the sleeves are extra long (my thumb isn't through the thumb slits in the photo above, but when it is, I'm not pulling on the shoulder or body of the jacket to make it fit.
6. It has a double separating zip, which means that it separates at the bottom and then can be zipped up or down or both giving you a lot of freedom of movement and choice of staying warm, or loosening up the jacket a bit to make it more comfy to wear, particularly when you're sitting down.
7. It's in a really fun print - matched. This is the major clue that the jacket is made. If you see one in a print like this most often it's a pull over or at best has a zipper to just below the bust, so there's no real matching going on. One with a complete zipper up and down that is matched is almost always a sign that the garment has been custom-made. I resist hand-made because that has the connotation of being inferior to RTW, which is
hard to imagine that anything is worse that RTW, but that's the public's perception.
8. Finally not only is this matched in front, but there are a lot of matching going on here.
The back has one of the major medallion designs in the back, and although the back band isn't matched at the bottom, it is in front. Often in cases like this you have to make choices of what will be matched and what won't/can't. So it's a good idea to have matching priorities when doing something like this.
You can see clearly here that the key areas are: neck, hood facing front, center front, hoodie, back medallion, then pieces like the sleeves and side front and side back and under sleeves are considered low priority. It's important to make this list, but this is a list that is so personal, that I recommend you make this list matching your personal preferences. You may find that it's not that important to match the hoodie or that it's further down
your list of priorities which might be as much do to the design of the fabric as it is to how much fabric you have. You may have to chose between center front and hoodie back, and that's an easy choice.
Now fabrics. This has a slight stretch and most of all a delicious design. To take you down the stretch on the design decisions on this jacket I started with some of the garments from the series Yellowstone.
 Incorporating western design with a Native American motif for fabric makes a very consistent and true design, as both of these designs fall into the same period of fashion. One of the things I love to do when I'm designing is keep to the original style and to a similar feature in both designs. For example, campaign furniture and Nordic design
furniture are great combinations, because they are both sleek and both have very clean and basic design.
 
This doesn't mean you veer far from it, it simply means that you keep to one theme of the design, color, style, period - that sort of thing. If you do that, you can combine styles very successfully. In this instance, this is kind of a Cowboys and Indians look. Western style in the pattern and cut of the garment with Native American used as the fabric, makes for a great combination.
Doing a search on fabric.com, I found some really fantastic ideas for fabric for this kind of thing. I did order in about 4 yards so that I would have plenty of fabric to match the design, and I needed every yard of it.
Sooooooooo - talking with the Bernina store manager, I decided it was time for another class. This is the Hoodie Class that I was scheduled to do last spring before everything went catawampus! So why not do it now when all we need a little something to keep us warm and have the time to do some nice detail on this. It will be an hour long, and yes it will be videoed and there will be
the accompanying Google Doc with it so that you can ask questions after the class and get answers as you trek on the path to making your own jacket. Go over to Bernina of OKC Friends (you must like the page to see the class) and click here for more information about the class.
I have loved this jacket and it's warm when it needs to be and highly fashionable all the time. When I was on the river fishing, there were a lot of people who said that they wanted the jacket. When I told them I was a clothing designer and it was my design, they were like, "Uuuuuuuh" but I told them I would teach them how to make it!!!!
Here's the details:
Date: Saturday, November 14th
Time: 10 am CST
Supplies: Check out everything on the post link on the Bernina of OKC Friend page - here.
You'll need to be a Bernina of OKC Friend cause that's where the class will be live. If you aren't already, go over there and be a friend. You must be a friend to see the class.
So when the site gets working and back up, I'll put that here, but in the meantime, I've been thinking of some fun things to do while the site is under construction.
One of the things that's happened since the Covid thing started is that I've met so many of you through Zoom Live Videos, and I can't think of anything more fun than getting together and us getting together once a month. These are a blast, and you can give me your questions ahead of time here (that makes it nice cause you can also upload photos and
talk about what is specifically you want to know), but also that allows me time to set up a demo or explanation if I have to be at the drafting board or the sewing machine. My little zoom account can't handle all of you, so those who want to attend will need to send me an RSVP so that I can give you the password to enter the Zoom call.
Simply Respond to this Email with this in the topic:
RSVP Monthly Live Video Zoom
Now, you don't have to ask any questions, sometimes it's fun to simply lurk silently and listen to what others are asking cause this will often help you. As a matter of fact this is how I learned sewing. There was sort of a home-room classroom style where some were very advanced, some were beginners like I was in the beginning, and what I learned was what I didn't know and didn't even know to ask. So sometimes I might be working on fitting a dress, when
another student was doing a tailored jacket, and in a later class I could ask my teacher, "Hey, you were working with Suzy and she was wanting you to teach her how to stay stitch the collar?....how do you do that?" I learned all sorts of things this way.
Simply respond to this email with this in the topic:
RSVP Monthly Zoom Live Video
and I can send on the information.
For November we'll be doing the first Free-for-all video on November 9th at 11:00am CST, so RSVP and I'll send on the password and the meeting information.
Lastly in building the site, I want to put up a video on the landing page of the site. Take a look and LMK what you think. Simply reply to this email and LMK!!! Too long, not descriptive enough, too short?....anything you think!
Thank You!!!
PS - I do a lot of posting on Facebook as SewingArtistry - like my page to see more goodies!
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