{"id":204,"date":"2008-08-21T21:10:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=204"},"modified":"2008-09-10T08:14:56","modified_gmt":"2008-09-10T08:14:56","slug":"home-from-naples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=204","title":{"rendered":"Home from Naples."},"content":{"rendered":"

I always love to come home from a holiday, but one of the things that makes that homecoming extra special is a good bit of post.<\/p>\n

For instance, a letter from the AHRC saying that yes, I have funding for the remainder of my PhD studies.<\/p>\n

That’s the very best sort of homecoming to be having after what’s been a great holiday, helped especially by everyone’s suggestions in my Messy Tuesdays post about what to read, and about how to think about clothes.<\/p>\n

I thoroughly enjoyed Justine Picardie’s ‘My Mother’s Wedding Dress,’ recommended by Colleen<\/a>… thanks very much for that, it was a very helpful reference. And I also enjoyed learning about my body shape from the eminently sensible and no-nonsense Trinny and Susannah<\/a>, recommended to me in part by the lovely Katie of Oxford Kitchen Yarns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I also conquered my fear of the sewing machine by making up my very first garment from a paper pattern. Given my newfound knowledge of body-shape, I can see that this unflatteringly large and billowing shape doesn’t celebrate my hourglass figure to perfection, but it does make use of the lovely colours I so much enjoy, and it is loose enough to allow for plenty of pizza-eating, (of which there was much) in Napoli.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I always thought that having a sewing machine eliminated the need to sew by hand, but in making up this garment from a pattern, I learned how much hand-sewing is necessary in properly making something up. I have a horror of hand-sewing anything, believing my stitches to look like some kind of textile-based Frankenstein mauling, rather than proper handiwork, but in making up this pattern, I was pleasantly surprised. Once again, I have the generosity of people I’ve met through this blog, to thank for the pleasure I eventually got out of slip-stitching the inside seams in my top. I remember Katie<\/a> once saying that the lovely thing about hand-knitting, is that all of the stitches pass through your hands – a thought that improved my general disposition towards hand-sewing – and also, I remembered Kate’s wonderful post a while back about slip-stitching<\/a>. Bearing the words of these two imminent makers in mind, I took my partially finished top down into the sunshine, ordered a bottle of dry white, and calmly got into some relaxed hand-sewing. I was very pleased with the results of my slip-stitching:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The thread I used for the job was bought at a random market on the basis that its wooden spool and vintage label were simply irresistable. I’ve never been brave enough to put something as thick, antique and shiny as this on my machine, but for sewing seams by hand it is incredibly pleasing, having a lovely waxiness about it and lending its special qualities to the procedure.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More of Napoli, Pompeii, Vesuvius and Brandi later in the week. For now, thanks again for all the clothes love and assistance and hallelujah for PhD funding.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always love to come home from a holiday, but one of the things that makes that homecoming extra special is a good bit of post. For instance, a letter from the AHRC saying that yes, I have funding for the remainder of my PhD studies. That’s the very best sort of homecoming to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[637],"tags":[675,3147,673,676,677,668],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-making","tag-ahrc-funding","tag-clothes","tag-hand-sewn","tag-holiday","tag-homemade","tag-napoli"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pmise-3i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}