Blue. Bleu. Blau.

"I found I could say things with colours and shapes 

that I couldn't say any other way - things I have no words for." 

(Georgia O'Keefe).

Tartan: Take Two

I bought the skirt pattern I had my eye on with regards to that fabulous tartan fabric - it paid to wait a bit, as lo and behold, it was half-off! Then again, I had gone in to the shop to purchase elastic for another project and ended up spending more money than anticipated, so it remains to be seen if I actually saved in the long run. (Sewing paraphernalia is fast becoming my recreational drug of choice, and Fabricville my go-to connection). Anyway, it so happens I like the pattern very much and it falls under the 'easy' category, which pleases me no end.

As I was thinking more about tartan - and yes, I have been - I have pondered why I've had it on the brain. I think, first of all, it's because I love time-tested, durable fabrics - English woollens, Scotch plaids and Tweeds - I love them in their classic forms, made with integrity by hand and woven in colours that reflect their natural environments. But I'm noticing I also really respond to the work of designers who use these classic fabrics in new ways - who value the history and workmanship that have made it was it is today, but aren't afraid to use it in entirely new ways. I think the first time I encountered this was with the American designer Vera Maxwell, a key figure in the development of American sportswear and the subject of my master's thesis at NYU. Maxwell had a classic sensibility, some would say a bit stodgy at times, but she was not afraid to kick things up a notch. She created a simple evening gown in loden wool, with a matching coat - a nod to her Austrian heritage. In the 1940s - or '50s, I'd have to reread my work - she began travelling to Scotland to work with a small mill, commissioning the company to create classic tweeds in brilliant colours. It's hard to describe why this kind of thing drives me crazy, but it does...

I came late to an appreciation of the late Alexander McQueen's work, really only looking more closely at it when I was asked to write a short profile about him for the Grove Art Online database. I came away from it with a greater appreciation for him and his work, for his desire to stay true to himself and not please everyone, for his dedication to finding beauty in dark and unexpected places, and perhaps most importantly to me, for the fact that he dug history. His Highland Rape collection was a nod to his ancestors, but also to the brutality he felt they'd suffered at the hands of the English.

Vivienne Westwood is a piece of work and one of the most creative, fascinating and seemingly unafraid individuals in any profession (as far as I'm concerned). If I get started on her here in a big way, I won't stop. I only want to say that she takes tweeds and tartans and uses them in the most fabulous, humorous ways. She's fascinated by classic British textiles, British and European history and combines them uses them in the coolest, most kick-ass ways imaginable. I love that woman, I really do.

But because I want to include only images here that I took myself, I am going to show you my favourite designs - and there were a lot of fabulous ones - featured in the recent Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition here in Montreal. Let's take a look at my my current plaid crush, shall we?

Exquisite workmanship, detail, quality, but who the hell has ever seen a bias-cut, one-shoulder tartan evening gown? Punked up with a Whiting & Davis mesh biker jacket that smacks of tough and elegant, all at once?

Oy, Govnah. This is crazy. Crazy good.

There's a cameo on that scary, spiked clutch. This is tough-looking, but fun-loving all at the same time. And garters? Seriously, stop right now.

Plaid mohair waistcoat, high collar approximating the 19th century dandy, equestrian top hat, feathers as mohawk.

The cut of the waistcoat is about the only thing that's traditional here - woah, Nelly. I love that. And the shimmer of the silver blouse and gold mesh jacket is soft and ethereal - dreamy and beautiful, really...

One last look...I shall let you know how my skirt turns out.

Old Stuff. I Tend to Like it.

I stopped by a shop on Sherbrooke in NDG today called Kavanagh Vintage and man, do they have some cool things. An embroidered teal, touristy-style jacket from Mexico, ca. 1940s, a genuine Tweed gentleman's hat - too small for my noggin, unfortunately - brooches of all variety, and well, just a ton of stuff. I thought this chair below was pretty darn fine - someone not only managed to reuse those belts, but did so in a way that actually looks really, really nice. And like me it's functional, not just looks! Two thumbs up for this chair.

Further below is a bowl of buttons and buttons, particularly displayed in such a way that invites investigation, are right up my alley. Note the pretty gold one just right of center, which came home with me along with a set of very sweet pearly-white ones. A gift from the shopkeeper, no less! I think the gold one might be Bakelite, which is a resin (or plastic, I suppose), but tends to be a bit more valuable than your usual plastic. There exists some fantastic Bakelite jewellery from the '30s, '40s and '50s which goes for big bucks at auction (I know this from my working the auction floor student days in NYC - those Bakelite fans are crazy, too, let me tell you). If I create something fab with my new buttons, I shall let you know forthwith.

I'm a Tart! (But only when it comes to tartan - heh, heh, heh).

I saw this beautiful plaid fabric on sale about a week ago and couldn't stop thinking about it. (Alas, the pattern I thought I'd use with it was not on sale, so it'll have to wait). Still, I am having fun thinking about what I can make from this - it will probably be a skirt, but I'm thinking a jaunty capelet would be kind of cool (think Nanny of Nanny and the Professor, but not prissy - say more vintage Bonnie Cashin with leather trim and toggles). 

There is so much to like about this fabric. Not just the colours, all of which I love - soft mossy green and slate grey squares bordered by a warm chocolate brown, but the good feelings it brings, too. I can't see tartan without thinking of grade school and high school, at which time I pretty much always had a plaid skirt of some sort. Typically in shades of red with green, I'd wear it with woollen tights in the winter, tights which would usually pill, come to think of it. In high school it felt very 'Seventeen magazine'  September back-to-school issue to wear a plaid skirt, good for those days when I wasn't wearing my Lee corduroy overalls. 

My memories of grade school cannot be separated from colour or smell - the colour of my crinkly faux-leather, square-toed ruby red shoes, the diamond pattern in my nylon Tam o' Shanter vest, the one inherited from my cousin; the brown, rust and gold striped body suit with the snaps at the crotch I had to wear on gym days and rubber yellow slicker that fit loose over most everything. The smell of wet woollen mitts drying on the radiator, sometimes with a string and sometimes without, or of the cable-knit scarf still laden with clumps of snow. 

I will wear this tartan with a sweater - grey or brown, green or maybe a nice cream - and my comfy brown boots. I will wear tights that do not sag in the seat. And I'll really like that whatever I make, no one else is going to have the exact same thing, ever.

As it looked, still on the bolt.

Looks a bit too Fred MacMurray meets Julius Caesar.

Way too Rob Roy MacGregor - Mel Gibson with a mullet - all it needs is a sporran. No.

We're getting warmer! I love the way it's off-center (I'm dying to say 'off-kilter!') and the fabric gathers and tumbles down the side. It can't trail on the ground, though, not unless I'm having dinner at Balmoral. 

Cat just plain likes it any old way.

The Stash

A short essay I worked on today.... 

Chocolate brown baby-whale corduroy hosts a flock of chirping canaries, crisp cottons discombobulate with heady mixtures of celery, rose and aqua, while the gentlest yellow beguiles with the palest of blue buds. These are a sampling of the fabrics that make up my ever-burgeoning stash, one which had been growing in direct proportion to my fear of using it. Mad for colour and fashion since I was small, and inspired by four older sisters who let me tag along to the fabric shop, I have oft believed that my passion for textiles was unavoidable, if not genetic. 

My Quebecois grandmother was a seamstress not just for her own family, but for many of her neighbours as well. My mother tells me how how she sat at my grandmother's feet as she sewed, the fabric spread, then cut, on a freshly washed kitchen floor. I have come to appreciate Grandma Kelahear's skills through the white-cornered, mono-chromatic photos that document my family's progress before I joined it. One of the earliest images depicts my grinning, newlywed parents posing at the door of a perfectly polished automobile, she in a pencil-skirted, smartly-tailored going-away suit.  A photo taken the following year shows Mum wrapped in a flared, camelhair maternity coat, trimmed with oversized buttons that I have determined reveal a dynastic flair for the whimsical. Dog-eared snapshots of giggling moppets sporting short bangs and impossibly sweet, billowing party frocks proliferate from the mid-1950s onward.

My penchant for surrounding myself with beautiful fabric began in my twenties, gathered speed in my thirties - a hazard of working mere blocks from the fabled fabric shops of New York City - and settled to a constant craving in my present forties. None of this would be particularly notable were it not for the fact that while I accumulated it, I was too intimidated to use it. My high school home economics class sewing module was decades past and even then, the blouse that resulted could best be described as a nice try. This crippling fear of enacting a fabric cutting faux-pas was aided and abetted by an inherited sewing machine that seemed to resist all my attempts at securing the proper tension. Patiently, doggedly I would review the section of the manual that detailed the process, over and over, pulling the thread down, tugging it up and through the eye of the needle. As for the bobbin case, time and again I pinched latch Q and pushed the bobbin case onto stud R, making sure cutout S pointed upwards. And each and every time the thread clenched in angry fists where straight stitches had been promised, the cock-eyed tension in the air cut only by the pitiable and increasingly unintelligible moaning that seemed to emanate from the deepest recesses of my soul. Away went the machine, only to reappear on my table whenever the memories of my last attempt had sufficiently dimmed.

But last spring, I had my machine tuned, the first step in vanquishing my fear of cutting and sewing. I soon understood that while my machine worked, I still lacked confidence. The antidote? Lessons! Now, I have just completed several smashing cushion covers, and just this summer a woman who passed me on the street complimented me on my ‘60s-inspired halter dress. Without thinking, I swung around and shouted back, “I made 

it!” I like to think my grandmother knows the small girl she hardly knew is now a sewer, I only hope she doesn’t know that she may have created a monster.