The Patchwork Project Part I

My bedroom is a disaster. I have piles and piles of clothes I don't wear anymore and don't know what to do with because there is no more space in my closet. I'm sure many a girl, especially ones who like me do a lot of thrift shopping, understand what I mean exactly by disaster - don't you?

This didn't stop me however from doing a little inspiration hunting on eBay of course. I am looking for the perfect dress. I don't know what it is, but it's big and comfy and stylish and well, perfect. In my investigation I saw a patchwork dress.

In the 90s I like many of my peers dressed "grunge". I had multiple pairs of Doc Martens in an array of colours, lots of flannel shirts that I paired with distressed "air conditioned" jeans, and this one patchwork dress (it was from Express) that I adored.  It had a patch with a shade of green that matched my 8 hole DMs.  I wore it as often as I could until finally a few years later my boobs came in and the bodice was too tight.

I'm back to wearing DMs again. This is partly a fashion decision and partly because they're so damn comfy once you break them in.

TIP: Take them on vacation with you to Amsterdam and forget you put them on the terrace.  When it rains that night, as it probably will, put them on not realising they are wet and be forced to wear them anyways because for once you swore you were not going to bring 11 pairs of shoes when you will only end up wearing 1.  Then walk for hours in a city most people zip around on bicycles in.  They were broken in before dinner.

Seeing patchwork dresses made me want one, but search as I might I couldn't find the one I wanted.  The patchwork dress I bought at Express when my mother was stupid enough to give me her credit card to do my school shopping unaccompanied (we wore uniforms at my school). Problem is, if any ever made it to the year 2012 I can't seem to find it.

So I decided to make my own.  Old clothes = lots of patch fabric possibilities.  Plus I could stitch the patches directly on to an old dress I like the shape of, but for whatever reason don't wear anymore. I even went so far as to think if I couldn't find an old dress to stitch the patches on, I could make a patchwork ensemble. I almost like the idea better. I could do a blouse, jacket, and skirt. I love skirt suits.

Since it's 3 in the morning and I can't go digging through my bedroom, I wanted to get some inspiration. I drew a sketch for a dress and a sash and decided to scour the Internet to see what Patchwork Project 2012 should be inspired by.

I typed in patchwork runway and got lots of results to drool over.

Louise Goldin, Balenciaga, Missoni, Kenzo

 

Basso and Brooke

Chloe

Missoni

Dries van Noten

James Andrew

(I like the left dress better.  The right side dress is just boring.)

 Basso and Brooke

Junky Styling

Jenny Postle

Not sure who designed this dress, but I really like something about it's geometric-ness.

No mention of patchwork would be complete without mentioning a little about its history in fashion.  Patchwork has been around in "modern fashion since the 50's (The technique of making clothes and using a patchwork style has been around a lot longer.  Long enough to play a part in the traditional and national fashions of Austria, Germany, and a few other countries.) and primarily, like quilting, born of frugality. This was the era of the circle skirt and the poodle skirt, which were shortened loop skirts similar to the Southern Belle dresses worn in the Civil War era.  The amount of fabric needed to make a circle skirt could be expensive, so some crafty women bought up smaller scraps of fabrics and stitched them together.

Here's a beautiful example on sale via Etsy:

It doesn't have a petticoat underneath it to show the volume of the skirt, but the thick pleats hint at how much fabric was used to make this dress, though it looks as if the fabric design itself is patchwork.

Despite making an appearance in 60s fashion, patchwork really had it's heyday in the 70s.

And I'll end this post here.  Stayed tuned for The Patchwork Project Part II where I'll go through my clothes, sort them into ones I'll use, and be able to see my bedroom floor again.

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This Weekend's Menu

When we'd have a lot of company at my grandmother's house often our dinner parties turned into three day weekends of non-stop eating with the day's offerings always written on an antique bistro chalkboard similar to this one (minus prices of course).

I thought about wandering around my favourite flea market in the world (and rightly so) Les Puces in Saint-Ouen north of Paris (which is still the biggest flea market in Europe), but then I realised where would I put it?

I want a chalkboard wall. Like this one to write my menus on...

It looks pretty cool right?

Thursday

Appertif/Nibbles

Fougasse aux herbs Provencal de La Maisonette des Mots*

Traditional Provencal bread with herbs from the region, special house recipe blend

Olives farcies aux anchois, saucisse de sanglier de Corse, et un assortiment de fromages régionaux

Olives stuffed with anchovies, Corsican wild boar sausage, and an assortment of local cheeses

Vin rosé - La Cave d'Augustin Florent

Rosé wine

Entrée

Velouté d'asperges garni avec huile de truffe blanche servi frais

Chilled asparagus soup garnished with white truffle oil

Plat

Gigot d'agneau rôti servi avec du miel de romarin et sauce à l'ail croustillant, pommes de terre soufflées, et la ratatouille de Juliette (la recette de ma grand-mère de Juliette)

Roasted leg of lamb with rosemary honey sauce and crispy garlic, puffed potatoes, and ratatouille (made with my grandmother Juliette's secret recipe)

Vin rouge - Chateauneuf du Pape Louis Jadot

Red wine - Chateauneuf du Pape Louis Jadot

Dessert

Clafloutis aux cerises et crème glacée à la vanille et du porto

Clafoutis with black cherries served with vanilla ice cream and aged Porto wine

If you notice I'm not serving a separate wine with the first course and it's not because I'm cheap or lazy. The reason why is because this chilled soup is meant to cleanse the palate before I serve the lamb and the wine. Chateauneuf du Pape is probably my favourite appelation of French red wines and it's meant to be served with lamb, it just is. So if someone counsels you to take a Bordeaux ask them if they have a Chateauneuf du Pape and the Louis Jadot specifically. It's a bit cheaper than a Bordeaux of the same quality and I don't think you could find the same quality Bordeaux for the price of the Jadot Chateauneuf du Pape either (though I am willing to be corrected on this).

There two more days of cooking after this massive welcome meal (whose leftovers will be packed up for a picnic) that will feature Cajun cooking and Korean BBQ. By Sunday I will most likely pass out from exhaustion, but for friends like ones who are willing to come from so far just to visit, the effort will be worth it.

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Bibliomania: Building Bookshelves

While searching for ideas for bookshelves I recently stumbled upon this quote on a blog,

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”

Anna Quindlen

and began to realise how my life revolves around the bookshelves. 

But bookshelves are a must.  We've run out of room and now books are sitting in the basement (cave in French).

Here are a few things to consider when building bookshelves.

1. How many books do you own?

Now who says you don't use math outside of school? After a few calculations based on bookshelves in our current apartment that we love, we realise for our massive collection of books we'll need at least 62 shelves (based on 40 books per shelf).


2. How long do you want the bookshelves to be?

This is a very important question because the length of shelves will determine which kind of wood you will have to use. Note I said have and not can. One thing you'll notice quickly as a bibliophile is that soft woods or particle board will sag under the weight of books. This sagging will worsen based on the length of your shelf unless you use hardwoods that can handle the amount of weight and stress you will put on the shelf, especially towards the center.

3. How much space do you want between the shelves?

If you're like us you have books of various sizes, but standard format for books is usually less than 30 cm high (which is just shy of 12 inches). Oversized books such as coffee table books can range in size and of course there are smaller format books. Separate your books and see what percentage of your books are standard format, oversized, or pint sized.

4. How deep do you want the shelves?

Do you like to have extra space in front of the books? We will be restricted to the depth of our bookshelves because of the space we have designated, but if you have a more bountiful floor space we hate you you can play around with the appearance of the shelves.

5. Where will the bookshelves go?

Our answer will probably be everywhere they can, but if you need less shelves, you will have more options. I like making the most of wall space and especially like using difficult spaces. A recessed area in a wall, a corner between the doors, or even where you might least expect them. I've even seen pictures of books stashed under the stairs (which is clever except for the dust and dirt the books will accumulate under there, so it's not practical). Find where the shelves will go and a lot of your questions will be answered because the space will determine your options.

Here are some bookshelves to inspire you and get your project started.

Do yourself a big favor and draft out a plan for your bookshelves. Even if you're not Louis Kahn you can still make a rough draft that will give you an idea of what you want your bookshelves to look like and calculate the dimensions. We're lucky that a professional carpenter will be helping us with this project, but if you're not you will need to plan out your shelves perfectly in order to save yourself money. Even with a professional carpenter we want to be as economical (and more importantly) and as environmentally friendly as possible.

Here is the 1st draft:

This draft was sort of like the dream draft where our books vs. the amount of space duked it out and the amount of space won because we then had to make another draft.

The wall we will use for the books is the most difficult wall in the living room because it's blocked on every side. It's blocked to the left (the draft is facing the as yet not made bookshelves) by a small cupboard and the slant of the ceiling. On the top it's also partially blocked by the slant of the ceiling. To the right it's blocked by a corner and a doorway to the terrace.

What I decided to do is to divide up the space based on the slant of the ceiling on the left-hand side. The shelves cannot be as tall, so what I've drafted here means building the sides of the bookshelves as high as they can go and placing the shelves based on the smaller sized books we have. The top shelf can then be used for a decorative object or to put more books. The first three columns of shelves are for smaller books, the fourth column for odd/oversized books, and the last three are for the standard format books.

Keep in mind this set up isn't a bibliophile's dream. It means the books cannot be placed on the shelves with the same organisation. For example alphabetical order or the Dewey Decimal System is not an option. In the end I think this is the most practical option because it allows us not to waste the space under the slant in the roof and will display the books in a sort kooky way without losing the whole "wall of books" impact your library can give to your apartment or house.

"Books are awfully decorative, don't you think?"

from Auntie Mame with Rosalind Russell (a must see)

Whatever your budget or plans, look online for inspiration, and for the DIY-ers to get material and construction tips. Stand alone bookshelves and customised bookshelves can be very expensive and in my experience places like IKEA have cheap options but they look cheap very quickly. I bought some cheap temporary bookshelves made of particle board in February and already in July they have bowed dramatically in the center. We're only renting, so we plan on using good quality hardwood that we can take with us when we move to either reuse as shelving or for another project. Keep this in mind as you build because while a great bookshelf is very cool, wasting wood and depleting the world's forests not so much.

As we say in France, bon courage (literally good courage, but really means "crap you have something difficult ahead of you, I hope you survive and/or get what you want)!

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