Similar things happen at the same time, it’s the zeitgeist. So while LAMCA has it’s Reigning Men Exhibition, FIDM has Man Mode.
Much smaller of course, but the same themes, like how to make menswear exciting for the runway.
Or, computer generated desgin on printed fabric.
In the accesory catagory, it’s all about the tie, really the only place a businessman can hope to express himself.
Then there is the banyan, or house coat, for lounging around the house. He still looks overdressed, Fez and all.
At least the embroidery is delightful. Looks hand embroidered in the good sense of homemade. Good quality but a certain freedom of design.
Unlike 18th Century formal wear that was exquisitly embroidered, also by hand, but by people working in an atelier. About as close as machine perfection that you could find in those days.
So did this caftan come west? Was it worn by a man of liesure in Europe? Or was it saved from some nomads tent and cherished as a beautiful example of central Asian textile and not as a garment to be worn?
A fabulous example of the Smoking Jacket, made from Cigar silks. There ae many jackets and quilts that took advantage of these thin strips of silk.
Even with the company names stamped right in the middle. Lovely hand embroidery was used to attach one ribbon to the next. Using silk thread in matching colors, the gold and red.
And finally, a little humor. How riske are this boxer shorts. A true fantasy for any man.
Author: Leah
The colors of Maui
BLUE waiting for sunrise on the top of Haleakala, from black, through midnight blue. Of course we missed the actual sunrise, the cloud came rushing in and all was grey.
There is no deeper,richer blue than the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii.
Steel blue.
Parrot blue, we have three photos through the years with our boys and these birds, the his time, I just got pictures of the birds.
GREEN
All that moisture makes for verdant rain forest. 
The massive Banyon tree in Lahaina has had surgery through the years.
GREY
Another part of the Banyon tree. 
The silver aloe, found only on Haleakala, covered with rain drops.
Dragons teeth, created by the flowing lava.
YELLOW AND ORANGE
On a much smaller scale, this is the Chritmas cactus, here they are huge.
lichen.
Amazing Maui sunsets.
Tropical flowers.
Lantana gone native.
and the Atomic gold car we are driving!
RED
The dirt.
Chickens gone feral.
Red flower up against the pink of our building.
Yes we are in paradise.
LeahToo many quilt projects
I like to think of myself as a monogamous crafter. Within each craft, only one project at a time. So I’m knitting a linen sweater, and I might have a pair of socks on the needles as well, simply because I can travel with those easily.
Using linen yarn I’ve had forever and a pattern I just bought on my trip to DC.
I’ve been wanting to use this yarn forever, but just haven’t found the right project. Although the store sample was made of cotton, the pattern is written for linen, so why not! I have to knit this sweater in stripes because I have all these colors. This is a top-down raglan sweater, so when I knit the stripe on the body, I want the sleeves to correspond with a similar stripe. It’s a guessing game, as well a playing yarn chicken.
So far I have won! I finished the sleeve stripes without running out of yarn! although as you can see, I got pretty close to losing. You will have to wait until I’m done to see how this all works out. But now, back to quilting.
I rarely buy charm packs, those 5″ squares all cut from one line of fabric. LAMQG was having a fundraiser, people brought all kinds of fabric they no longer wanted and things were sold for just a few dollars a piece. So I bought this charm pack and got to work.
Once a quilt is finished, I’m not sure it matters which direction the seams are ironed. It was easier to simply iron the center patch out, but, by ironing the seams in, the patch stands out a little from the background. So that is how I ironed them.
Boy am I having fun with my new design wall, it does make a difference while making quilts. Looking at something on a wall in front of me is very different than looking down at the floor. This pattern Baby Kisses is from the Missouri Star Quilt company. OMG, if you haven’t watched these tutorials, you are in for a treat! Using pre-cuts and easy instructions Jenny Doan and her family have come up with a gazillion quilt patterns.
I’m not switching over to precuts any time soon. It certainly is fun to follow these tutorials from time to time. At first, I thought this would become a charity quilt.
I’m selfish, I like this too much, this will have to be a gift for someone I know and care about.
I kept changing and rearranging my blocks. Scrappy only goes so far with me, I need a certain order.
All four blocks are done.
Quilt top finished! So now this is waiting to be quilted, while I still work on my Splendid Sampler. Since that is a year long project it is fine to make other quilts, the problem is I now have two other quilt projects going as well.monogamousllen off the monagamous wagon! More on those quilts soon.
More belated sharing
As soon as I knew the birthday (same as Aytan! Yay) and Sea Monkey’s real name I got to work embroidering the label.
I thought I was done, only to discover he does have a middle name.
So I squeezed the Ezra in and sewed the label on the back of the quilt.
Before I even started the quilt I knew I had to knit an octopus or Dandy Sir Cephalopod. If I make this again, and I might, I will use sock yarn, this guy came out yuge!
Interesting construction, you knit eight legs, attach and knit up the body.
Love the bottom! I just realised I didn’t put a label on him, oh well the Other Leah will know that it was made by the Leah.
Since he is so much larger than the image on the pattern I needed to get creative with the eyes and the moustache. The eyes were easy, I simply covered a self-cover button with black fabric.
The moustache was a little harder to find. Thank God for Etsy, I think I found the perfect one. 
Great little top hat.
All this hardware means this Dandy isn’t baby safe. That is ok, he isn’t meant for Asher, he is meant for mom. A few weeks ago there was a video going around with a bright pink cephalopod, the Other Leah mentioned that she wants one. I couldn’t tell her that one was one the way. She is thrilled with how big he is, it’s part of his appeal.
Dad can claim him as well, he won’t be chewing off eyes or moustaches.
Here they are, the two cephalopods before they went to live in their forever home.
A quilt I can finally share!
Sea Monkey was born and is now Asher.
The other Leah had her baby! She and Abram went old school, they didn’t want to know the sex of the baby. Since they love everything about sea creatures, it was nine month of being called Sea Monkey.
I went to work months ago, I found this paper pieced pattern and got to work. This is one of the most complicated paper pieced fabrics I’ve ever done, but boy was it fun.
Then it was time to think about the background I went with SewKindof Wonderful, Chic Country. I love their quick curve ruler, I have had the pleasure of taking a class with Jenny. This pattern has been done in so many ways, I decided I want to create a solid circle and patterned background.
I went with an interesting color choice, as the other Leah said, this color combination isn’t in our wheel house at all. It was new for me as well, not knowing the gender, I wanted something neutral, I wanted someting that would be powerful but wouldn’t over take the octopus.
He fits in perfectly, I had no idea how perfect this would be. I thought I’d be cutting more into the background. Serendipity, perfect match.
I realize I was influenced by Luke Haynes, many of his early works were a detail realistic applique on a traditional quilt pattern background. Nope, I’m not calling this derivative (Sorry MQG – your guidelines are atrocious). This is simply me, creating in the real world, using the influences I find around me.
I am so happy with my glue basting.
I love the FMQ, and yes, my feathers are killer these days.
You get a better idea from looking at the back. I’m a dense quilter and that is how I like it. 
For the octopus, I outlined him and did some pebbles on the beach.
I have mentioned how much I love my feathers, right?
Hand binding comes next.
I finished this months ago, and I have kept it secret for months! The funny thing is, I shared this with both my quilt Instagramt LAMQG someone put it up on instagram! Yikes! The other Leah had already seen the octopus and had commented when I shared it on instagram. I really wanted this to be a surprise. Somehow she missed that post, and next time I shared the completed quilt, I asked that no one hashtag it. So yes, it did end up being a surprise.
I always piece the backs, the thought of buying five or six yards just for a back is very hard for me. I love using the leftover blocks. You will notice that the upper grey fabric wasn’t quite big enough. This is the only part of a quilt where I use any kind of improv.
I love a quilt that isn’t wavy or funky, so yes, having this beautiful square corner shows good workmanship. For me the accuracy and the workmanship are very important. I don’t call myself an artist, I’m a crafter who is very very proud of my craft.
Having the right model never hurts. When Leah and Abram settle down to being parents they will share pictures of Asher on his quilt.
Reunited with an old quilt
31 years ago I made this quilt for my friends, the ones we just visited in Washington. They paid me for it, at the time, neither of us had much money, so they paid for the material and then some. I didn’t make it for the money. The fact that they paid for the material meant I could make it at all.
It is a queen size quilt, they no longer use it on their bed since they now have a larger bed as well as a different color scheme. This is very 80’s, the southwest color influence.
hThery have been taking very well care of it, the quilt is in excellent shape.
Here is the block I used, a modified Ohio Star, no sashing, so the pattern blends.
My binding is much larger than traditional binding. I learned how to quilt from Quilters Newsletter Magazine, which is sadly printing it’s last issue this fall. I bought the fabric in Washington, probably at G street Fabric in it’s original location on G Street. By then I had learned that batting is pretty thin, but I didn’t know how thin the binding is supposed to be. 
Embroidery has been part of my labels forever. I think this may have been the third full size quilt I ever made. At the time I lived in a nieghborhood called Ramot in Jerusalem. I was hoping our friends would move to Israel as well, hense the request to bring the quilt back. They have stayed in DC, and we moved to California, to my husbands hometown. Life is full of surprises.
I’m pretty sure I machine pieced the top. My original quilt (sadly gone) was all made by hand and it fell apart quilckly. I didn’t do heavy quilting here, but I did quilt by hand.
My feathers have gotten so much better! This is the back of the quilt, so you are seeing the back of the stitches, pretty impressive if I say so myself.
Hand quilting means switching colors is easy to do. I bought the cotton quilting thread along with the fabric. At the time neither were available in Israel. Today things are very different there, there is even a vibrant quilting community.
I put together a quilt group, most of us where originally from the US, although Sholmit, the one with the red afro was a native Israeli. I’m on the far right, look how young I was! I also knit that top I’m wearing, some things never change! The woman second from left is Ann, she has since moved to LA as well and we are very good friends.
I don’t remember what we did with the quilt, I know that I made the blcok with the curves, I was into curves from the begining. This post is bringing back so many memories!
Here I am, wrapped in the warmth of an old friend.
Family getaway
Even though we are all fortunate to live in the same city, finding a weekend to get away has it’s challenges. But we did it!
A quick jaunt down to Aliso Viejo. We found a business hotel that has a nice workout center and just the right kind of pools and splash pads for little ones. I brought the tripod and we had a very ragtag session trying to get a family photo. We got the photo, we clearly are real people, not one of those beautiful staged settings. 
Resting with Aytan.
Fair skinned and blond, Westley is covered head to toe.
Grandpa loves the pool.
Fair skinned uncle could use the same kind of cover ups.
Clearly I’m an amature photographer, couldn’t get the shot with Yoch’s eyes open.
Enjoying the pool.
And the splash area.
To my delight, when we went down for bagels and coffee, we saw a classic car club with all their gorgeous cars.
Probably looking much better than they ever did new.
How iconically Southern California is this?
Or this?
Great weekend, so full of blessings.
LeahPattern testing
Sara Lawson of Sewsweetness is the master of purse and bag patterns. She sent out a call for pattern testers. Of course, I signed up, I have enjoyed making her patterns and thought it would be fun to get in on the ground floor.
Not an easy one, the Cumberland backpack. I decided to try the larger size. I tried to stay true to her requirements, but later in the process, I realized that I have the wrong mesh. This may have caused problems for me, since what she called for is lighter and thinner.
I didn’t take a lot of in process photos. I will say right here, that I had a problem fitting the center band to the front and back. Of course I worked things out so those little pleats that aren’t supposed to be there – aren’t very noticeable.
I can’t sing the praises of how Sara designs these bags. She really thinks of every detail and all the hardware makes the backpack look very professional.
There are no interior shots, because my inside finishing is not the neatest.
Except for the front pouch with it’s lovely inserted zipper.
I know, as a home sewer, I shouldn’t expect the perfection of a mass produced product. I don’t, certainly not on my very first try. Most people will never notice the imprefections, I just mentioned them to Sara so she would know where I had problems. That is part of testing.All in all, a lovely backpack, but what to do with it? 
Give it to a very happy six-year-old.
It still is a little big, but she will grow into it.
The next day she loaded it up with toys and went over to her friends house to play. I can’t think of a better compliment! I love it when people use my gifts.
I don’t recommend this a first bag, but Sara has so many wonderful patterns. From easy to difficult. Go over to her blog and give one a try. If you are like me, you will rapidly advance to her more complicated patterns – she is that good of a teacher and her patterns are very well written. Pattern shop.
LeahFlora and Fauna
One of the fun things about travel is seeing things you don’t see at home, well, the coneflower is also found here.
But this alien flower is new to me.
It appears to be some kind of rapid growing vine.
Like these vines that have taken over a staircase in Georgetown. I guess it doesn’t get much foot traffic anymore.
We have hibiscus here of course, but this one was so red and huge.
Then there is the cattail, often considered a problem because it expands so rapidly.
I saw quite a few of these massive spiderwebs that seemed to capture more plant material then bugs. Maybe the bugs are too small to see or they are consumed instantly.
The common sparrow, eating crumbs that someone dropped.
I don’t know if this is a heron or some other river bird.
A mama and baby deer, yes we have plenty of these around here.
But like all baby animals, who can resist something this cute?
Speaking of deer, the yarn store sure knows how to make a display.
Art of Television costume design.
TV shows on the independent channels, like Netflix and Amazon, are so much better than movies these days. The same can be said about the costuming for TV shows. FIDM has been putting on the movie costume show for 26 years, the TV Costume show is celebrating it’s the tenth year, and it is so much better than the movie show.
I’ll start with Outlander. No, I haven’t seen the show, I hated the first book and left it at that. But this isn’t about the show itself, it’s about the costumes. I was with my friend Ruth who taught costume design, she thought she was boring me with the details. I loved it. She said the 18th-century silhouette is here and is captured beautifully. As for the embroidery – that is a modern embellishment.
This man’s waistcoat is a sight to behold.
From the embroidered images I’m thinking bad guy? The Designer certainly knows her illuminated manuscripts very well. Both the bird and the bat are straight from medieval European manuscriptsNo one ever saw those teeth on TV, which is why these shows are so wonderful, getting such a close-up view of very well made costumes.
Since Cumberbatch wasn’t part of the show, the only thing we care about is the Deer Stalker hat – that wasn’t in any of the books.
I think this was mid to late 19th century. Of course, for me, it’s about the details.
20’s style dress, great use of bias tape.
Ruth complained about this set, it will look flat on camera she said. She is right, here is my image from my camera and the dresses have no depth, even though they have great detail in real life.
Fantasy shows are always fun (I think this is from Defiance) take the Scottish Highland outfit, kilt and all, but knock it up about ten notches. 
Wool, leather, snakeskin, an amulet from the Himalayas (or a facsimile of one). Once again, a pleasure to see up close.
The joy of Sci-fi is as much in the costumes as in the story.
Someone had a lot of fun working this leather.
Someone else had a blast distressing all of these items of clothing. This I do know is from the Walking Dead. But was it worn by a zombie or someone trying desperately to stay alive?
Killer nails, fake of course but part of the hand, not the glove, the glove has holes at the tips of the nails.
Men’s costumes rarely get the love the ladies receive. So I’m always looking at the details. I’m thinking this would fly off the shelves given half a chance.
The show is running through October, do yourself a favor and go!
Leah