grainline

I’ve been doing quite a bit of fabric browsing lately looking for fabric for another pattern, but haven’t had much luck in Chicago so I’ve turned to the internet. I was browsing Britex tonight and I really think they have the market cornered on beautiful fabric. Right now I’m obsessing over that black and ivory polka dot for a new version of the Fayne tunic but it’s pretty hard for me to cough up 40 bones per yard for fabric when I need a new tooth (cracked that sucker in half on a taco, who does that!?!) among other things, so a dream it will stay.

Either of these wools would pretty much make my dream blazers as well. It may be time to buy a lottery ticket, then I could have new fabric and a new tooth! Double win!

Anyway, as far as online fabric shopping goes is there some sort of comprehensive list of internet apparel fabric retailers? My main purchases of this sort come from Mood, B&J, NYFashion Center Fabrics (I get my interfacings there), Denver Fabrics and Gorgeous Fabrics. What’s your favorite online shop for fabric, notions, and other things you can’t find in your town?

Right now I’m split between a zillion unfinished projects which is pretty stressful. If I haven’t finished anything in a while I start to feel sort of lost so hopefully by the end of the week I have at least one of these projects finished! To fill the void here are a few things that are making me super happy at the moment.

I got this Marimekko breakfast set in Vancouver and it is transforming my breakfast! I like to eat oatmeal in the mornings packed with dried fruits and nuts but our regular bowls are so huge I always put way more than I could ever eat in them. This dessert bowl is the perfect size and I’ve been obsessed with the Siirtolapuuthara print for a while now. I go through phases where I’ll fill my shopping cart with an 8 piece dining set at Crate & Barrel or FinnStyle and get really bummed out that I don’t have a spare $2000 for a new dining set. Haha.

Working with all this paper and fabric has been tearing up my hands for years and I just finally found something that does the job thanks to a recommendation from a friend. I am now officially obsessed with YuBe lotion. I also stumbled upon the Rosebud Salve Menthol + Eucalyptus Balm which has been a godsend this year. I know everyone is enjoying all this warm weather and all but for me it has meant year round allergies. This is great for sore noses from too much kleenex.

Um…this was a good/bad discovery. Gluten Free Oreos! Woah woah woah, I did not need these in my diet. It’s a good thing I’ve been riding the trainer, boring as it is. They taste more like my memory of Newman-O’s than my memory of Oreos but who can really tell at this point. It’s amazing how quickly you forget what food containing gluten tastes like. I’m trying to imagine what real bread tastes like right now and all I can think of is starchy. Strange.

A huge stack of magazines (minus the bottom one, that one is from Luke) from a friend who’s wedding dress I am making. I started thumbing through last night and there are some good ones in here. It’s making me finally want to start buying magazines again after my years long magazine-less phase.

Luke is back in Champaign 3 nights a week now so in the evenings I’ve been popping on some Netflix and knitting socks. I sort of can’t believe how into making socks I am right now, I really think it’s all about this yarn. Love the stripes so much!

Well, back to work now for me! I NEED to finish something before I go insane. Literally.

If you’ve tried to access this site in the last week, chances are you weren’t able to thanks to some hackers with nothing better to do with their time. I literally don’t understand this type of hacking at all, I mean, it’s not like I am some hacking supporter or anything but at least when people hack with the purpose of bringing down a specific site or trying to get information they have a reason, albeit a bad one. Our server was hacked because there was a weak point in a few of the sites and the hackers were able to inject bad code making our sites useless. Haha yeah, so funny hackers. My friend Jeff who hosts my sites along with others spent days and days getting everything back to normal and thanks to him this site went back up last night. Thanks Jeff!!!!! Soooo here are a few post hacking housekeeping things.

▲ If you purchased a pattern anytime after Monday and were unable to download it, send me an email and I’ll send you the pattern. I know a few people had trouble with the patterns downloading as jibberish.

▲ I’ve also taken down the pattern shop for now while I finish the last stages of expanding the size range offered so if you’re looking for a pattern they’ll be back up hopefully within the week and ready for purchase. If you’d like to be notified of when this happens, I’ll be sending out an email to pattern subscribers which you can sign up to receive below or in the sidebar. You will also get notifications when new patterns are added to the shop and any special offers on patterns.

▲ If you’ve purchased a pattern and are worried about the recent site hacking, don’t worry. Not only was it not the sort of hacking where people take info, there’s no info stored on this site to take.

Okay, now hopefully this means back to regular posting and no more funny business!

Well I’m back from Victoria! I had such a great time hanging out with Kari and Dave and their two beagles, checking out Victoria, spending a day in Vancouver and enjoying the super huge (by northwest standards) snow storm that hit us. I’m still pretty exhausted so I’ll be posting my photos from the trip over the next few days while I rest up and catch up on work. Enjoy!

I’ve been working on a pair of socks, they make a pretty good travel project. I bought some KnitPicks Felici Sport sock yarn a while ago and it’s knitting up SO soft and warm, I can’t wait to get this pair done so I can wear them! So far I’ve been knitting all my socks using the Priscilla’s Dream Socks pattern which has a short row heel and toe and is customizable to fit my tiny feet. There seem to be so many different ways to knit socks out there I’d like to give another way a try though. Do you have a favorite method you can recommend and if so, what makes it awesome?

I just started up a Grainline Studio Facebook page. Not too much there yet but I’ll be getting more up on it over the last few days including links to all the tutorials, tips and tricks and patterns. Perhaps a facebook pattern special as the new patterns come out. Head over and check it out and maybe give it a like!

I wish I could say that this blazer was the first project of 2012 but unfortunately I finished it at the beginning of December to send to my sister with a Stella dress for Christmas, hence just showing it here now. The blazer is BurdaStyle Magazine 03/2011 Blouson Jacket with a few changes. Inspired by this version, I lengthened the jacket and left out the darts to give a bit of a slouchy shape. The pattern was unlined so I made a lining pattern for a more finished look and used some satin wool gabardine left over from my senior thesis a few years ago. It definitely felt good to use up some of my gigantic stash, phew! One wool down a zillion to go. 2012 is still finished project-less but that should be changing soon…

After an 11 hour journey I made it to Victoria yesterday afternoon! Posting will be a bit light while I hang out and relax with Kari + Dave but I have a few things saved up and be warned, there will definitely be some vacation photos. Now we’re off to the park to check out the birds, see you later!

Here it is, my tutorial on how to line a jacket using the ‘bagged’ method. This jacket lining method gives the most professional results, requires the least amount of hand sewing and is also the quickest. A triple win in my opinion! If you look through your closet, you’ll find that almost every jacket you own was lined using some variation of this method. This method is really very simple and hopefully you’ll be making jackets right and left now that lining them is so easy! This tutorial is pretty photo heavy, so click the link below to continue to the full post.

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If you’ve been waiting for the bagged lining tutorial get pumped because it will be here on Monday morning! I had to share this mini blazer while I’m sorting through all the images though, it’s too much crazy to keep to myself. In order to make the tutorial clear I needed to get the entire blazer to fit into my camera frame without a cherry picker (which obviously wouldn’t fit in my studio anyway) so I scaled the pattern down to 60% and made this funny little sucker. It’s sort of hilarious but I think I love it. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here Monday to deliver the tutorial I’ve been promising for weeks!