well, that wasn't a good idea
Since I am still a good 15 or more hours out from finishing my bliaut (81 hours of sewing time so far), but I was feeling restless and not wanting to focus on stitching yesterday, we decided to turn on a film to keep me distracted whilst stitching. I know that this works for many people, but it turns out that for me this isn't a good idea if the goal is to actually make progress on the stitching.
On Friday I sat down and stitched for 10 to 40 minutes at a time, many times over the course of the day, during which I only stitched. 1 hour and 46 minutes of that time was needed to do one of the seams of a long skirt gore and finish it (flat-felled seams). On Saturday I stitched in only two sessions, each just under an hour and a half, and in that combined not-quite three hours I managed *one* seam of a long skirt gore. In other words, it takes nearly twice as long to do a seam if I am also watching a film.
Part of the problem must be my need for subtitles to tell what is going on--all too often the actors mumble or the volume isn't quite loud enough, but with the subtitles I normally catch everything and don't have to ask "what did he say" every couple of minutes. However, at the time it didn't feel like the watching was interfering with the sewing progress, it was only later comparing the numbers that it really stood out.
Part of me would like to not try to have this dress done before heading to Australia--I don't care to work on projects to a deadline--the feeling of "must" work on it doesn't make it more fun, and, in fact, makes it less fun. But it is summer in Australia, and the lightweight summer costumes I have left are all old and worn out and I don't really want to wear them to an event, unless it were to work in the kitchen or play in the mud or something like that. So I keep stitching, and not knowing if it will be possible to finish it.
So far I have the sleeves completely done and attached to the body, and one set of side gores is done and attached to the body. The second set of side gores is part way through attaching the third, of seven, triangles to one another. I know from the above that I can do one of those seams in 1.75 hours, if I am focusing on it, which means that in around ten more hours I will have that set of side gores attached to the dress and can, finally, do the fitting of the waist, hem the side openings, and attach the laces. Then I need to finish the last of the smaller inset skirt gores (I think there is about 1.5 seams left of those, and I would guess they are enough shorter than the side gores that 1.5 hours a seam will do it), and then inset all four of them into the body panels of the dress, which will probably take another 12 hours. Then I can finally start attaching the trim to the ~10 meters of hem.
I am confidant that if I manage to do all of the rest of the sewing before the flight that the 20 hour trip to Australia should see the hem done, and I can wear the dress at the event (which is the first Saturday I am there, and I land on a Friday). Some time could be saved if I didn't try to inset all (or any?) of the gores before the event. Since I haven't cut the slits for them yet it would work to just have the side gores. However, the skirt wouldn't be nearly as full and as wonderful, and it would mean cutting the trim on the bottom when I finally added the skirt gores later, and putting new chunks of trim over the hem of the gores, which would translate to at least nine lumpy seams in the trim of the hem, instead of the two I think I can get away with now (since no one piece of the trim is long enough to do the full hem at one go), which isn't a terribly attractive consequence of rushing the project in that manner (or I could take off the trim from the hem and re-do it after the gores are inset, but given how this fabric loves to fray, that isn't appealing, either).
In other news, yesterday's morning dance exchange was much fun. I got some good ideas from how she did the intro to polska (which is not to be confused with polka, which is a different dance) that I will be able to use when I do the session on Swedish Folk dance for folk dance group in Hobart, and everyone seemed to enjoy the Renaissance dance session lord_kjar and I did. However, he wasn't feeling very well--woke up with a cough and kind of achy, so we went home at noon, rather than staying for lunch and dancing in the afternoon session. We took a nap, which helped some, but by the time evening rolled around neither of us felt up to heading back out for the evening folk dance session, which was a shame to miss, since they don't happen all that often, but neither of us have time to actually be sick, and dancing when one's body is first fighting off the early attempts of virus invasion is a good way to let the virus get enough of a grip to cause some serious discomfort, while taking it easy at that stage is a good way to vanquish the invaders and resume normal life quickly. I feel much better this morning, so perhaps it worked. We will see how energy levels are doing when it comes time for our normal Sunday evening folk dance session.
On Friday I sat down and stitched for 10 to 40 minutes at a time, many times over the course of the day, during which I only stitched. 1 hour and 46 minutes of that time was needed to do one of the seams of a long skirt gore and finish it (flat-felled seams). On Saturday I stitched in only two sessions, each just under an hour and a half, and in that combined not-quite three hours I managed *one* seam of a long skirt gore. In other words, it takes nearly twice as long to do a seam if I am also watching a film.
Part of the problem must be my need for subtitles to tell what is going on--all too often the actors mumble or the volume isn't quite loud enough, but with the subtitles I normally catch everything and don't have to ask "what did he say" every couple of minutes. However, at the time it didn't feel like the watching was interfering with the sewing progress, it was only later comparing the numbers that it really stood out.
Part of me would like to not try to have this dress done before heading to Australia--I don't care to work on projects to a deadline--the feeling of "must" work on it doesn't make it more fun, and, in fact, makes it less fun. But it is summer in Australia, and the lightweight summer costumes I have left are all old and worn out and I don't really want to wear them to an event, unless it were to work in the kitchen or play in the mud or something like that. So I keep stitching, and not knowing if it will be possible to finish it.
So far I have the sleeves completely done and attached to the body, and one set of side gores is done and attached to the body. The second set of side gores is part way through attaching the third, of seven, triangles to one another. I know from the above that I can do one of those seams in 1.75 hours, if I am focusing on it, which means that in around ten more hours I will have that set of side gores attached to the dress and can, finally, do the fitting of the waist, hem the side openings, and attach the laces. Then I need to finish the last of the smaller inset skirt gores (I think there is about 1.5 seams left of those, and I would guess they are enough shorter than the side gores that 1.5 hours a seam will do it), and then inset all four of them into the body panels of the dress, which will probably take another 12 hours. Then I can finally start attaching the trim to the ~10 meters of hem.
I am confidant that if I manage to do all of the rest of the sewing before the flight that the 20 hour trip to Australia should see the hem done, and I can wear the dress at the event (which is the first Saturday I am there, and I land on a Friday). Some time could be saved if I didn't try to inset all (or any?) of the gores before the event. Since I haven't cut the slits for them yet it would work to just have the side gores. However, the skirt wouldn't be nearly as full and as wonderful, and it would mean cutting the trim on the bottom when I finally added the skirt gores later, and putting new chunks of trim over the hem of the gores, which would translate to at least nine lumpy seams in the trim of the hem, instead of the two I think I can get away with now (since no one piece of the trim is long enough to do the full hem at one go), which isn't a terribly attractive consequence of rushing the project in that manner (or I could take off the trim from the hem and re-do it after the gores are inset, but given how this fabric loves to fray, that isn't appealing, either).
In other news, yesterday's morning dance exchange was much fun. I got some good ideas from how she did the intro to polska (which is not to be confused with polka, which is a different dance) that I will be able to use when I do the session on Swedish Folk dance for folk dance group in Hobart, and everyone seemed to enjoy the Renaissance dance session lord_kjar and I did. However, he wasn't feeling very well--woke up with a cough and kind of achy, so we went home at noon, rather than staying for lunch and dancing in the afternoon session. We took a nap, which helped some, but by the time evening rolled around neither of us felt up to heading back out for the evening folk dance session, which was a shame to miss, since they don't happen all that often, but neither of us have time to actually be sick, and dancing when one's body is first fighting off the early attempts of virus invasion is a good way to let the virus get enough of a grip to cause some serious discomfort, while taking it easy at that stage is a good way to vanquish the invaders and resume normal life quickly. I feel much better this morning, so perhaps it worked. We will see how energy levels are doing when it comes time for our normal Sunday evening folk dance session.