Upheaval!

As those who have been following my frantic Facebook updates can attest, the month of February has been a CRAZY time. To make a long story short, I was convinced to do a very last-minute audition for the Master of Music in Collaborative Piano program at the University of Idaho. I've spent all month putting together my audition music, and this afternoon I presented it to the Idaho piano faculty. The whole trip was a little nerve-wracking, to say the least, but I'm excited. This program is exactly what I'm looking for, and I am falling more in love with the campus every minute.

Like this, but with fewer leaves and more snow.

There is a comforting familiarity in the Idaho music building. Even though I've only been there once before, when I auditioned for their undergrad program five years ago, there's a worn-in feeling, like a favorite pair of shoes. The energy of the music students feels the same as Western, where I got my bachelor's degrees. I went in yesterday evening to meet with a professor and found a familiar chaos: a high school choir concert in the midst of getting out; college students shouldering their way through; a group of pianists (I presume) lounging in the lobby and watching piano videos. They laughed with glee over a showy Chopin etude. "This one is my favorite!" They shot curious glances at me as I rounded the staircase and returned my smile.

I could be in that group, I thought. I suddenly ached for the easy solidarity of pianists, people joined in their shared love for the instrument with all its necessary struggle and success. Dr. Zavislak, the professor who has been my main contact at Idaho, assured me that the pianists here were really friendly. "Just knock on one of the piano practice doors when you need to go warm up," she said, "they'll let you in. They're really nice."

Even with as much work as it's been to get to this point, and with all the trepidation I feel about plunging right into grad school--without the extra fall to get my act together-- I can see myself falling into place here. When I originally decided to go to Western, I convinced myself of all the reasons why Idaho wasn't right: too much money, too far away from home, not enough mountains. The desolate Palouse stretches out for miles around the campus, its scraggly midwinter hills offering little variation. It was by no means the evergreen paradise that Bellingham offered. But now, I find myself comparing all the ways that Idaho will be a welcome change from my undergraduate school:

1. The practice rooms have windows! You'd be amazed what a difference a little daylight makes.
2. The offices in the main music building (or Dr. Zavislak's office, anyway) are HUGE. We're talking two-Steinways-and-a-harpsichord, couch, file cabinets, bookshelves, potted plants, vaulted ceiling, three windows huge. She was like "Sorry it's such a mess!" but all I could think about was how if you took out the pianos you could fit half an orchestra in there.
3. There is regular snow. I like snow. (the downside is that there are probably never snow days, just snowy days. this will require a wardrobe adjustment)
4. There were a lot of cute boys around campus. *cough*
5. Pretty much all the music students around the building were nice/smiled at me/said hello. 
6. I like the piano faculty! They all seem really friendly and approachable.

So, that's encouraging. Of course, I noticed some other things too. Not necessarily bad, just... different:

1. At least a third of the student body owns pickup trucks. More if you count SUVs. CRAZY. I'm putting it down to the miles of farmland surrounding U of I. Also, I guess, the snow.
2. Campus is enormous. Probably still smaller than UW, but most definitely larger than WWU. You can't just stroll to the other end of campus, it's like a good 15 minute walk.
3. You can't drive through campus (easily). Of course, you couldn't drive through WWU either... but at least they didn't have streets going halfway through and then ending because, whoops! Campus walkway.
4. Parking lots got really full during the day. Not sure how that would work out if I choose to commute. There might be a bus system, but I only saw a shuttle.
5. The practice room walls were really thin. This is a definite downside. We were kinda spoiled in the WWU piano practice rooms though.
6. The practice building is over 100 years old (constructed in 1902!!). It has tile floors, which are not conducive to lying down and napping. Neither is a Master of Music program, though, so I guess this is for the best.
7. People at U of I dress exactly like people at WWU (except with fewer North Face jackets), right down to skirts, leggings, and shorts in 35 degree weather with snow on the ground. Ladies, I admire your determination, but SERIOUSLY? I thought my face was going to fall off from the cold. 
8. There weren't a ton of posters stuck up around the buildings. Maybe there just aren't a lot of recitals at this time of the semester?
9. The housing office (the only non-music university entity I interacted with besides the parking office) was SUPER friendly and nice. Score, Idaho!

The audition itself was over with much more quickly than I thought it would be. I played through about two thirds of my Haydn sonata first movement, less than a page of the second, part of my Mozart sonata, part of my Schumann art song (plus I had to explain the plot, which makes me very glad I looked up the translation), all of my Barber art song, and none of the Chausson art song (probably for the best). Plus some sight reading that wasn't honestly my most perfect effort, but Dr. Yang, the collaborative piano professor, seemed to find passable. We had a little Q&A afterward, during which I failed to come up with any good questions, and they asked me about my motivations. I think I came off well. Dr. Yang cautioned me that the master's program would be a lot of work and I would have stacks and stacks of music to work through, that I'd definitely be sitting in on the vocal masterclass every week and sightreading--but, she said, "I didn't think your sight reading was that bad." Which I took to mean that she found me more or less up to the task. She had me sight read through a De Falla cancion, which I hadn't played before, and a Ned Rorem piece, which I was pretty sure after the fact that I had. 

Then Dr. Zavislak bid me adieu. I'll hear back about their decision at a later date. I am cautiously optimistic. My fingers are crossed, when they aren't untangling the Hindemith bassoon sonata for a recital next week.

It just never ends.

Come Ice or Rain or Sleet or Snow...

Note: This post was written on January 19, 2012. We are still without power and I still haven't made any more progress on my coat, but we do have internet, so I haven't perished of boredom yet.

What do you do when there’s 8” of snow on the ground, ¼” of ice on top of that, no power for at least two days because of the ice, and the road is impassable because there are too many fallen trees (even if you could get past the icy road)?

If you’re me, you wrack your brain for things that need to be done and haven’t because you have been too busy playing Skyrim for the last few weeks:

1. Piano practice (but I don’t have a rehearsal until February, so it isn’t urgent)
2. Laundry (but the generator can’t power the washer and the hot water heater)
3. Reading the stack of books I have accumulated in the last few months (but I can’t really focus because trees keep coming down outside and I always have to run to the window and make sure they haven’t hit anything important)
4. Sew my coat (but I couldn’t press any seams open because our iron sucks up a lot of power, apparently)
5. Blog about my coat (but our internet isn’t working, either)

BUT, I do have the option of writing up an offline post and putting it up when our internet eventually comes back. So here we are.

I always like to have music or a movie or TV show running while I’m working (because distracted sewing is the best sewing). Last year, it was Stargate Atlantis (and then Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I think). This year, due to some wonderful Christmas presents I received, it’s The Office (and if I finish that, which I probably will, then Castle). This week’s inspirational quote comes from Dwight Schrute of The Office:

“The best advice you ever gave me was, “Don’t be an idiot.” … Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, ‘Would an idiot do that?’ And if they would, then I do not do that thing.”

I’m pretty sure this is the kind of advice we can all follow.

When I last updated, I believe I left off with the Thinsulate I had ordered to line my coat with. It came super quickly, and I was able to get it cut out without much hassle, although working with the puffiness of the lining posed a slight challenge.

Puff Daddy? Puff Megan? Maybe just Puff.

This is actually a central Thinsulate layer quilted with a layer of thin polyester on either side. When I originally started looking around for lining, I could have gotten just plain Thinsulate, no quilting. But then I realized that it didn’t come in black, and I would either have to get the quilted kind, or buy even more black lining fabric to put between the Thinsulate and the see-through boucle. Since this was already getting to be an expensive hassle, I opted for the not-too-pricey quilted Thinsulate.

The good thing about the quilting is that it will give the insulation a lot of stability, which will hopefully make this a coat that I will be able to wear for a long time. The bad thing is that you can kind of see the quilting, or at least the puffiness of the quilted squares, through the lining pieces they’re sewn into.

The ripples are the puffs.

I’m not too concerned—that’s unavoidable. I’m mostly hoping that it doesn’t show through the boucle, but I think the texture of the fabric, and the fact that it won’t be tautly attached to the insulation the way the brocade is, will make it okay.

The wool boucle fluffed up quite a bit after I washed it, although that didn’t make it any thicker—just a little loftier, I guess. I had a moment before I started cutting out the boucle pieces where I considered actually using the wrong side of the fabric for the outside of the coat. The first fabric I had my sights set on was a beautiful crosshatch, vaguely plaid-ish design. The fabric I ended up with is a definite plaid, but the wrong side of the fabric has a softer look to the design:

Wrong side and right side, for comparison. 

I finally decided to just go ahead and use the right side, because I didn’t want it to look like I was wearing a flannel bathrobe for a coat.

I didn’t make any fitting adjustments to my pattern before cutting, which my old 4-H sewing instructors would probably berate me for. I was too anxious to get started. If anything, I will have to take in some seams since the pattern runs a little large, but I tend to need that room around the bust. My plan is to wait until I have the lining and shell constructed, and then check the fit before I sew them together. I suspect I may need a little extra room for the thicker lining than I would have without it.

I don’t have pictures yet, but so far I’ve finished putting together the outer shell and undercollar, and most of the lining and facing. I still need to put in the lining sleeves, which I’m finding is a huge pain because of the insulation thickness. Most sleeve heads require some degree of gathering the top of the curve so that it hangs nicely, without pulling (if you put it in without the gathers, the fabric would want to stick straight out, which would put a lot more strain on the seam). Gathering that thick insulation, however, is problematic. Even with very long stitches, it’s difficult to pull up the ease (essentially, bunch the fabric along the thread like a curtain on a rod) without breaking the thread.

After doing my ease stitches in one uninterrupted line and having them break when I tried to gather the ease, I then tried doing them in halves: sewing from each bottom edge of the gathered area to the top of the curve, so I only had half as much to gather. That seemed to do the trick.

I still hate putting in sleeves.

I also put together the tie belt and attached the belt carriers/loops to the coat, although if I have to take in the seams I’m just going to be tearing them off again.

Next on the agenda: THE FITTING, or, probably, How I Discovered that I Should Have Made a Muslin.

Every Cloud Has a Thinsulate Lining

This is how you purchase fabric online for a project (hypothetically speaking, let's say a coat):

Step 1: Search the Internet for the exact kind of fabric you want at the price you want.
Step 2: Broaden your range of possible fabrics.
Step 3: Broaden your range of acceptable prices.

Repeat steps 1-3 until you find an outer fabric and a lining fabric that you like.

Step 4: Carefully determine how much fabric you will need. Allow a little extra, because it will be a huge pain to get more if you run out.
Step 5: Order fabric (grimacing at exorbitant shipping cost optional).
Step 6: Receive email from supplier that they don't have enough of the outer fabric that you need, and can you make do with less? You cannot. Ask if you can backorder. You can't, and furthermore, once they run out of fabric, it is gone forever. Do you still want the lining? Of course not. Cancel your order.

Repeat steps 1-5.

Step 7: Track your fabric shipment obsessively. (optional)
Step 8: Pick up your package at the post office after weeks of waiting (at least, it feels that way). Try to restrain your surprise and dismay at the fact that you paid $12 shipping for a glorified plastic bag.
Step 9: Discover that the supplier's definition of "coat-weight" fabric is roughly equivalent to your definition of "airy shawl-weight."
Step 10: Order Thinsulate to put between the lining and the flimsy wool outer layer of your coat so you can wear it in temperatures below 60 degrees.
Step 11: This time actually grimace at the shipping costs because they are almost the same amount as what you're paying for the fabric itself.
Step 12: Remove "lower cost" from your shrinking list of benefits to creating your own coat versus just going to Macy's and buying one.

Interim Projects: Apron and Goodie Bags

My fabric is apparently taking the scenic route from California to Washington, because the last Fed-Ex update I have is from when it shipped from Sacramento on the 12th.

To keep myself busy in the meantime, in between all the Christmas shopping, pre-feast dieting, and decking of the halls, I've been puttering around the sewing room. First up was an apron made from scrap fabric we had around, done in the same pattern as an apron I made for my friend last winter.

Because I strive to be a domestic diva in all things possible.

It looks deceptively simple for all the work I put into it. The top has an interfaced facing, those straps had to be turned and pressed, and the ties in back and the whole flounce along the bottom (which is the whole reason why I picked this pattern) have narrow hems. I must have done a million yards of narrow hems by now, but they never get any quicker or more fun. On the upside, quilting cotton is pretty stable and easy to work with, so I had that going for me.

Once I finished that, it was on to the next project: goodie bags for an upcoming cookie exchange. I wanted to make drawstring bags that could hold 3-6 cookies each and could be reused, and they had to be simple, because I needed to make 14 of them. I haven't sewn things en masse since I was 8 and made blankets for every single one of my toy horses.

Toy horses are notoriously vulnerable to the icy winds of winter.

My original thought was getting some pretty festive organdy (a stiff, sheer fabric somewhat like chiffon) to use, but Jo-Ann's was surprisingly deficient in the holiday fabric department. Which was strange, because normally you can find holiday fabrics up the wazoo there (for Easter and Halloween, at least).

While their organdy selection was sadly lacking, I did find some cute homespun fabrics in green and red, and I finally picked one that has shiny red and green threads running through it.

The "pattern" I'm using is just a rectangle, 10-1/2" by 14", that will be folded in half to make a 9-1/2"x6" pouch. At least it was until I laid out my fabric and discovered that I wouldn't be able to fit my pattern piece on there enough times to get 14 pouches out of 1-2/3 yards of fabric. I shaved off half an inch so that the pattern's new dimensions were 10"x14", and that did it. By cutting conservatively, I was just able to get my 14 pieces out. 

Rectangles are the best.

After I cut out the pieces, I finished the top edge of the bag by pressing under 1/2", sewing close to the raw edge, and then zig-zag stitching over the raw edge to keep it from unraveling. It's not as elegant an edge as a narrow hem, but I couldn't be bothered to do that much pressing.

Step 2 was to sew up the sides to form the actual bag. That went quickly because after the first few, I decided to stop using pins and just hold the edges together while I sewed them up. LIKE A BOSS

If I was making just one of these for myself, I would have pressed the seams flat... but I wasn't, so I didn't.

Step 3 was to put in casing. Because I am lazy and also wanted to conserve fabric, I decided to sew on a wide ribbon as the drawstring casing, rather than pressing down more of the bag top and losing volume. The wide ribbon also adds a bit of decorative flair.

Again... no pins. Skillz.

After that, I just threaded in my thinner organdy ribbon, tied it off, and voila! 

The color is weird because my camera hates incandescent lights and the color red.

My original plan was to do a double-drawstring bag, but in the interest of finishing the project before midnight, I decided to just do a single drawstring and call it good. It cinches up nicely, and I added a little extra ribbon so that the bag can be fastened with a knot, if desired.

After putting together 14 of those suckers, I'm really glad that I went for a reasonably simple pattern. Sometimes my ambitions get the better of me, but this time I actually started a project and finished it quickly. Go me!

Real Talk: Losing Weight Is Hard To Do, or, Sometimes I Bite Off More Than I Can Chew

Preliminary note: Still haven't heard anything from Fashion Fabrics Online, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that no news is good news. In the meantime, please enjoy the following musings.


I'm on a diet.

This isn't the first time I've attempted to lose weight, but I'm hoping it will be the most successful. I scouted around the web for a while before settling on a fairly easy-to-follow program: exercise 6 days a week, cut out all refined sugars, and make sure every meal contains a good source of fibrous carbohydrates (fruits and veggies), protein (lean meats and eggs), and healthy fats (raw nuts, extra virgin olive oil, eggs, avocados, butter). Complex carbohydrates, found in potatoes, beans, grains, etc (again, as un-processed as possible) are allowed if eaten within an hour after the workout session.

I started on Monday (I know--I'm always enthusiastic at the outset) and so far I've been out on daily walks with my brother. I'm working in some interval training: after a good walking warm-up, I'll trade off jogging and walking every minute for about 12-15 minutes. I'm pretty out of shape, so I'm starting with this and I'm hoping to work up the jogging intervals over the next few weeks. The gravel road that I live down is very hilly, which keeps things interesting and is pretty good on my glutes.

My motivation stems from a desire to do something with myself--I can only spend so many days vegging out and playing Xbox before I start to get stir-crazy--and a nostalgia for the body I had before starting college.

I have never been a slender, willowy person, but in my freshman year of college I was a comfortable size 12 and on a good day, I could squeeze in to a size 10. I was, I think, more or less content with my body. The "freshmen 15" were inevitable: dining hall buffets, campus cafes, and stress certainly didn't help my eating habits. Although I paid for access to the school gym every quarter, working up the energy to go was difficult. I either had to get up early and go before class (and I am most definitely not a morning person) or work in a time in the afternoon, which I usually spent doing homework or socializing. I probably went a handful of times in the last four years.

By the time I got out at the end of this summer, I was an admitted size 14 (even my comfy Gap size 12 jeans were a squeeze) with a belly that is serious business. Looking back on pictures of my senior recital, in the dress I thought was great, is somewhat horrifying. How did I get so fat?


I guess it's easy to deny because I can't face a mirror without sucking it in. In the right clothes, I can still define the dip of my waist. But when I let it all hang out, so to speak, the grim reality sets in. I definitely need to lose weight.

I want to feel comfortable and sexy in my own skin again. I don't have any excuses any more: I have time and money to pick out and prepare meals that are healthy. I have nothing to do but exercise. I no longer have to depend on hourly caffeine infusions to get by every day. The closest Starbucks (or any fast food, for that matter) is a 20-minute drive away. I have all these jeans and skirts that I want to wear again, no muffin tops allowed. And I'm already thinking of warmer weather, of recitals I'm planning to play in, of summer vacations where I can wear shorts and tank tops and swim suits without shame.

So I'm dieting. It's hard. It requires, as Mad-Eye Moody would say, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" I have to curb my cravings. I'm a serious snacker, and bread is one of my favorite things to eat in the whole world. No more bread. No more ice cream. Sometimes I think, "Just one scoop wouldn't hurt." And then I think, "Do you really want that ice cream more than you want to be skinny?" And the answer is no.

The nice thing is that the diet and the exercise depend on each other. If I want carbs, I have to earn them. So it motivates me to get out there and run for a while, because I know that when I get back, I can eat my baked potato and feel that I truly deserve it. It's like a reward.

The sugar is a little harder to kick, because I definitely have a sweet tooth, and sugar lurks in more things than you'd expect. Teriyaki sauce? Sugar. Lunch meats? Sugar. Dried nuts? Sugar. Stevia, a kind of herbal sweetener, is okay; but the Stevia-in-the-Raw that I have also includes dextrose, which is a form of--you guessed it--sugar. It's hard to get away from, but so far I'm doing alright. I'm drinking my morning coffee with just a splash of milk, no sugar, and I've been eating a ton of fruits and vegetables. Fortunately, fruits are A-okay.

But so far, it's working! The numbers on the scale are inching down every day. It's so gratifying to see some success. I suspect a lot of this is due to the no-sugar, few-carbs approach, but it feels good to get out and get my blood pumping again. At the very least, I'm starting to feel as though I'm accomplishing something, and that is as good a reward as any.

The Coatmaker Rides Again!

Well, after the last ordering fiasco, it took me a while to look around and decide what I wanted to do. I couldn't just lay aside this whole coat idea, because I just bought a new pair of boots for Christmas and I need something to wear with them.

Jo-Ann's continues to disappoint me with their complete lack of the boucle fabric I so desperately desire, and a bit of web scouring has convinced me that, unfortunately, Fashion Fabrics Online has the cheap fabric market cornered. So it was with some reluctance that I scanned their offerings to see if I could come up with a second-best choice to the lovely abstract plaid I'd picked out before.

I found another plaid, one which I'd actually considered before. It follows the same black/white idea of my previous boucle choice, but the pattern is a little bolder.

It's 100% wool and had the added bonus of costing only $10.75 a yard, so I've got my fingers crossed that this one goes through. I did purchase a little more fabric than I attempted to last time--5-1/4 yards versus the 4-7/8 that I technically need, so that I can match up the stripes, hopefully, when I'm cutting everything out.

For the lining, I was initially considering a light silver fabric, but I decided to go dark this time: a burgundy check by Ralph Lauren and, apparently, imported from France:

Ooh la la!

Hard to tell if it's reddish or purplish in that picture (with a name like "burgundy," you'd think reddish, but I guess that's one of those colors that is open to interpretation), but either one should go nicely with the black and white of the boucle. I also wanted a darker fabric in case if shows through the looser weave of the boucle. That's a problem I didn't have with the uber-thick melton coat I sewed last year, but I'll have to keep it in mind until I actually see the boucle in person. The price was pretty decent on this one--$3.95 a yard--so I'm hoping it turns out to be a nice sturdy lining. The skimpy polyester linings I've tried from Jo-Ann's just don't hold up to constant wear and tear.

Now that my order is all sent off, I just have to cross my fingers and hope they're able to get enough fabric. And in the meantime, I'll clear out the sewing room in anticipation.

Number (and wallet) crunchin'

After a fabulous weekend spent shooting, drawing, reading, and going to see an orchestra concert, I woke up this morning and realized that I needed to hurry up and calculate my coat fabric yardage so I could order it while it was still on sale.

The pattern I'm using is Simplicity 2311, which is a Project Runway design:

The cool thing about the Project Runway designs is that they are set up to make you feel like a fashion designer (even though in reality, you're still cutting out pre-drawn pieces). This means that each element of the pattern is calculated with separate yardage, so you can mix-and-match for your own final result. The things you can choose in this pattern are:

Short length (mid-thigh) vs. long length (knee)

Double-breasted (with one-point lapel) vs. single-breasted (with two-point lapel)

Gathered-top sleeve vs. smooth sleeve

Tie belt vs. sewn-in faux belt (or, I suppose, no belt at all)

I decided to do the short length, single-breasted, smooth-sleeved coat with tie belt. On the pattern picture, it's the bottom right drawing, but shorter.

I may also change the tie belt to a buckle belt, if I can find a buckle that I like.

Instead of just taking the pattern yardages from the back of the envelope, I decided to open up the pattern instructions and see if the yardages looked reasonable. They're usually good, but last spring I made a purse with some seriously terrible yardage estimates--I had to scrape to get all the pattern pieces in the fabric I'd purchased. Since I'm working with much more expensive fabric now, I wanted to make doubly sure that I had the right amount of fabric.

The main coat part looked good, but I noticed that they had you buy two separate amounts of fabric for the sleeves, 7/8 yard, and the tie belt, 1 1/4 yard. Because the tie belt is long and skinny, it needs that length of fabric--but then you have a lot left over. The boucle I'm getting comes in a 60" width, so on a hunch, I measured the widest part of the sleeve pattern. It came out to 18". That, plus the 6" for the tie belt, and 3" for the tie belt carriers (though I can probably fit that onto another part of the layout if need be) only comes out to  27" wide. The fabric, when folded in half, will be around 30" wide. 

This means that I can actually cut out the extra 7/8 yard called for in the sleeve layout, and just combine the sleeve and belt layouts! That saves me almost $14. 

Adding up my total yardages, I get 2 3/4 for the coat and 1 1/4 for the belt/sleeves--4 yards total. I decided to throw in an extra 1/4 yard just for breathing room. 

The other thing I need to order is lining fabric. I've never been really happy with the lining I have bought from JoAnn's, so I'm going to risk ordering some from the same website where I'm getting my boucle. The lining calls for 1 7/8 yard for the short coat plus 7/8 yard for the sleeve. I don't need lining for the belt. My total yardage there is 2 3/4 yards of lining. 

I also need 3 1/8 yard of interfacing, but I'm going to wait and buy that at JoAnn's so I can feel the weight of it.

My total fabric cost (before interfacing) was $80.94. Not super cheap, but still less expensive than buying a brand-new coat at the store; and I saved about half off, getting my boucle at $14/yd instead of $30, and my lining at $3.95/yd instead of $8.  Interfacing will probably be $15-20, and my pattern was $12; so my cost so far is around $108. I need to get buttons and thread, too, but so far I think this is shaping up to be a little cheaper than the melton coat I made last year. 

I doubt I'll get this finished before I take off for my Hawaii trip in November, but if I can at least get the fabric in and start cutting pieces out, I'll be happy!