Sewing: Peasant Tops

I love peasant tops. Especially the Huichol and Poblano embroidered ones: cool white cotton, with bright colored floral embroidery designs.

I didn't know the value of these beauties when I was little in India, but, I remember a few of my favorites, very much like the Huichol ones. Cheese cotton or Crinkle cotton was the preferred fabric which was perfect for the Indian heat, with tight and intricate embroidery. I probably had about half-a-dozen of these tops with various sleeves - short, 3/4, bell, cap - and never thought much about them in those days. How I wish I could have them now!

Anyway, I wanted to make peasant tops for Ana. I was out of thin plain cotton fabric from my stock, and I wasn't in the mood to do any intricate hand-embroidery. My sewing machine cannot handle embroidery well anyway.

However, of late, I've been recycling old clothes to make new ones - Dad's shirt to a little girls' dress, pillowcase to A-line summer dress and drawstring backpack, smaller t-shirts become a dress with tiered layers attached to the t-shirt bodice and such ...

Most recent is re-purposing my old salwars. Salwar-Kameez is a traditional North Indian outfit consisting of loose pantalons (salwar) and flowing tunic (kameez). I wear the kameez/tunic a lot with jeans/pants as I cannot handle bottoms without pockets, leaving the salwars unused.

One of my salwars with block printed design from Jaipur was sitting in the suitcase, not even earning a place in my closet or chest of drawers. By cutting out the waistband and opening out the legs, I get enough fabric to make clothes for Ana. That's how these peasant tops came about for Ana as well as Enid. These days, if I can manage it, I make a matching outfit for her cabbage-patch doll, Enid so she can play dress-up to her heart's content.

The peasant tops itself is very simple. There are many tutorials on the web by wonderful crafters and seamstresses, so am not attempting to post any detailed instructions here. Here is my favorite one that I love for its simplicity and clarity of instructions.

Basically, cut out body and sleeve pieces, attach them at the armhole, leaving out the shoulder. This was the hard part as I always tend to sew the shoulder seams first. In this case, the shoulder seams stay open to form the classic gathered neck with sort of a drop-shoulder look. After attaching body to sleeves at armhole, sew up the side seams; then make a casing at the top and thread required amount of elastic - I prefer the thin round elastic - and Voilà!

A User's Guide To The Universe

A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty

by Dave Goldberg and Jeff Blomquist

The majesty of physics - its fundamental rules that seek to describe our universe - is in itself awe-inspiring. If one doesn't see it that way, then the book presents what we know, and don't know, and may never know anytime soon, in such an unorthodox and witty way that can disarm even the staunch anti-pop-science/anti-physics mindset.

Just one equation - one all-pervading, elegantly-compact equation - viz., E = mc² is all that is presented in this book which discusses such profound topics as Time Travel, Quantum Particles, Expanding Universe, Alien (Intelligent) Life, Grand Unified Theory (GUT) and suchlike. With a direct and seemingly effortless manner, peppered with humorous analogies and footnotes that call upon pop-culture freely, the book addresses some of the profoundly confounding information many great minds have spent their lifetimes pondering on.

Some areas that popular sci-fi shows have exploited well, and not-so-well, and why, is briefly discussed in the book, which is a wonderful way to connect the complex concepts with the simple everyday experience of laypeople's entertainment (assuming any of us watch those shows).

• Nothing Information cannot travel faster than the speed of light (unless we use gravity to cheat, maybe)
• Even if we build a time machine, we cannot go back to when we had not yet built the time machine and kill our ancestor, creating a paradox about how we came into existence
• Teleportation is possible, but with current technology it takes so much energy to move a single atom across the room that it seems like we can simply carry the darn atom across without all that extra effort
• General Relativity tells us that there cannot be a "before the Big Bang", as Time as we know it didn't exist until the event we call Big Bang, which as far as we know is where/when it all started; even if we cannot know anything much before the Planck time

The cartoons by Jeff Blomquist are mostly witty, but sometimes cheesy. They certainly make it easier to catch the complicated ideas being discussed, even if in a superficial sort of way - which is more than most physics books do to help understand such mind-boggling concepts.

At the same time, the book also explains the things that seem impossible but aren't, along with the things that seem impossible and certainly are, unless we are willing to break some of the fundamental laws of physics.

I've become a fan of the official A User's Guide To The Universe blog/site, maintained by Dr.Goldberg. Also, one of my oft-visited sites hosts Ask A Physicist column where readers are free to pose questions (hopefully meaningful ones in the interest of furthering our understanding) which, if reasonable, are answered by Dr. Goldberg himself.

I still break out in cold sweat thinking about the second quantization and quantum field theory for many-particle systems, Tensor calculus and Minkowski metric and such from a previous lifetime as a grad student. Sheer reverence and curiosity, not to mention the mesmerizing Australian lilt of my professor, helped me get through the Advanced Quantum Mechanics course with very few bruises. I remember carrying the little pocket book of subatomic particles, courtesy of APS (when the dues were nominal for student members), and felt like I had some privileged information, dallying with quarks and leptons.

And from all of that experience, it became clear to me that while the life-long fascination is hard to shake off, I can and must banish any thoughts of contributing anything much to my favorite areas of Physics.

Having said that, it should be easy to see why this book was on my Must-Read List. And, having read it, I wish I had Dr.Goldberg as one of my teachers back in my starry-eyed student days.

While I was awed by the authors' ability to take complex concepts, apply the known experimental and theoretical issues, and present it all in a conversational manner, I did find the footnotes a bit distracting, to put it mildly. There were too many of them, mostly pop-culture references which am not sure would be understood by international audience, even if they are entertaining and clever. I guess it is my tremendous respect for physicists that makes me protective of them, wanting them to be revered by all the world, not just in the U.S.

Having read Fabric of the Cosmos by Dr. Greene, it was interesting to note the other side of String Theory. Some promising theories explain some but not all that we know, some confirm experimental evidence while some have gaps that we hope to fill as we know more...

As the book points out, theories can't just advance an idea and leave it at that - they have to also set up possible ways to disprove these ideas so that it can stand the test of time.


[picture courtesy official A User's Guide To The Universe site]

Sewing: Gaucho Pants with Halter Top

I have a slight fascination for culottes, not sure why. Well, possibly because my school uniform on Sports Mondays involved "divided skirt", with tons of pleats, not just a modest skort.

I wanted to make skorts for Ana, but, maybe next year... she is still quite a baby and can get away with shorts while involved in active physical play. Although I have no problem with shorts, Ana seems to think it is for boys and she prefers girlie clothes.

And, for some reason, despite seeing me in jeans all the time, she seems to have an intense dislike for regular pants. Oh, she'll wear them on and off when all other clothes are in the laundry hamper, but, it is not her garment of choice. So, I think skorts, culottes, even gaucho pants won't be rejected outright like ordinary pants.

I find that gaucho pants, even culottes, are very cute when they have a fitting waist, generous flare but no bulky pleats, and are cut to calf-length or just above the ankles. Of course, culottes by definition, tend to have a more skirt-like look.

I had 2 yards of this promotional knit fabric I had bought a year ago for a dollar a yard and was wondering what to make with it. And, as usual, sitting up awake during the wee hours of the morning thanks to Oggie not sleeping, this pattern/outfit popped into my head, asking to be made.

I could potentially have made the legs flare a lot more, but, this cut seems to have come out all right. Plus, I had enough left over to make a matching outfit for Enid, Ana's constant companion, her cabbage patch doll friend. And I still have a little less than half a yard leftover for something else.

Halter top is a very simple A-line, so easy to sew that I am always tempted to sew a bunch. No frills, no fancy, just a nice neckline and elastic back to allow for a better fit.

The pants are standard, nothing fancy, except I made the legs flare a bit rather than straight leg that I usually sew. It is nice to have a standard store-bought pattern for pants so that as Sew, Mama, Sew website shows, we can get various pants styles from just the basic style by adjusting the cut appropriately. But, since I have my own little easel paper cut-out that I've been using for my daughter, I simple went with that.

Typically, it is a good idea to cut the back a little larger than front and work in the ease while sewing the two together as human bodies are shaped such that the rear is more curved than the front usually; also, I like to attach adjustable elastic waist, but only to the back, keeping the front flat.

For yoga pants or martial arts, of course, it is nice to add the diamond-shaped gusset, which used to be the standard Patiala shalwar cut that one of my SUPW teachers showed me way back in high school that I never had the pluck to try and sew by myself.

Well, I am rambling... anyway, Summer is almost coming to a close, so, I have to start thinking of Fall and Winter wardrobe... usually, it is the same summer clothes with extra layers - maybe an undershirt, tights, plus a crochet or knit jacket.

I am sure a full sleeved shirt under the halter top might look ridiculous, but, I don't think it matters... it feels criminal to discard clothes from season to season.

Sewing: Halter Top with Handkerchief Hem

I've always loved the asymmetrical handkerchief hem in flowing long belly-dancing skirts. It takes a lot of fabric to get it full and round. I've made a couple of asymmetrical hem skirts for Ana, but, when I decided to make a halter top this time, rather than the usual A-line, I wanted to add an extra dimension with the handkerchief hem.

Halter tops are terribly cute on little girls, and the simplest A-line cut is quite darling, no frills, no fancy, yet adorable. And this butterfly print fabric Ana picked out was quite special that I didn't want to sew something ordinary again. My mind was set on halter top or halter dress and since I didn't have enough for a halter dress, halter top it had to be.

There are a number of websites offering ideas and tutorials for the handkerchief hem:

• fold the required* fabric in half and half again to form a smallish square that has 4 layers due to the folds [* I had a yard of 45"-wide fabric, so, I cut a 36"x36" square piece of this fabric to fold in half to form an 18"x36" rectangle, then fold again to form a 18"x18" square]
• using a piece of string tied to a sewing chalk or pen, draw a small arc with center at the folded corner point; the radius of this arc is important as this part will form the circular waist opening when we unfold the fabric; make it small, we can always make it bigger; we can invoke the waist-circumference = 2Πr equation to find the radius r for this arc; but, even then, I was conservative and made the r smaller than the result of the calculation above for the first cut
• ideally, for a skirt, at this point, we'd do the elastic casing, thread the elastic and be done; or, I'd make a fitting large waistband that forms a yoke and attach the asymmetrical skirt part

But, for this halter top, I cut out the top yoke front with a V-neck - two pieces sewn right sides together to form a lining, but no interfacing as I didn't want it too stiff; then, attached this to the handkerchief hem skirt part; added elastic to the rest of the handkerchief hem skirt part that forms the back so it fits around the body well rather than hang loose.

For the halter top part, rather than the traditional bare back with tie at the nape, I added a 1-inch wide strip of fabric casing with elastic which helps with the fit around the body, and helps her feel not so... bare :)

The leggings were made with white ribbed knit fabric - simple cut, much like pants, except fitted to the legs and waist. As ribbed knit is a bit stretchy anyway, it works out well.

This was a great learning experience for me. Not having learnt any formal sewing, and getting just a few tips and tricks from my mom who taught herself sewing as well, I tend to work on projects that challenge me a bit and take me from my current level to the next.

I am not good at pattern drafting yet and many of the simple easel paper cutouts I have made for the kids' measurements would be laughed at and dismissed by experienced seamstresses... but, I do this for fun.

Being on a budget, I tend to get the fabric remnants and other promotional fabrics (read: On Sale) that are not much more than 2$/yard. This limits my choice... there are such gorgeous designer textiles that I'd love to have, but, that's just a dream for now. And, the threads have gotten expensive as well, so I rarely match the thread with the fabric colors - black and white serve me fine, easier to have matching bobbin threaded and ready.

Of course, there was just enough fabric left over to make one for Enid as well! But, she didn't get the fancy handkerchief hem, just a round skirt part for the halter top. And her knickers seem so darn adorable with this new halter top.

The nice part was that, the circular piece cut out from Ana's was perfect to form the circle-skirt part of this halter top/dress for Enid. All that was left was to add the yoke/bodice/tie.

The halter top for Ana, and the matching little one for Enid used just about one whole yard of fabric, which is all I had, with just enough to spare for the little headband that is in the picture.

Anyway, the satisfaction of having made a lovely outfit and seeing it worn with pride and joy by the kids makes it worthwhile for now.