Sewing
Karaoke Friday! WEE FUN! The girls all went to a bar up in Forest Lawn, Blue, cat_cetera, Althea, Laura, Blue, and Shinji met with Tatynia and her husband and had a fun filled night of singing. I even got over my issues and sang a few as well.
Weekend long stitch and bitches are always interesting with the House. This weekend we had less family then usual, but it was understandable. Althea was babysitting on Saturday and Snowed in Sunday (WUSS), Blue came over on Saturday and spent Sunday with Althea (presumably) and Francis was out skiing, where she tried to impale herself on a ski pole! Poor thing. That left cat_cetera to spend the weekend sewing. This is her reminder #1 to post her progress!
I managed to get some sleeves cut for my black and red Holbein dress made out of linen. I really wish I had ordered wool and not linen, but if this one works as well as I think its going to, the next dress with this pattern will be wool... or I will give up this pattern for a while and work on some square necked puff ones in wool. I learned all about cutting and sewing on the bias... pain in the hiney! And such a waste of fabric... But maybe this time I wont pop seams at the elbows in the dress, I just need that little bit of give in those sleeves. I am worried the dress might be cut too low along the neck line. I will have to see with the skirt and sleeves on but cat_cetera gave me a great idea for fixing it if they are, back the black banding trim along the top and raise it up higher then the dress actualluy goes to increase the height. Hopefully I don't have to experiment with that though. Unlike the first incarnation of the Holbein dress, I lined the sleeves in this one (all the lining is black on this dress, I am not so bright for doing it this way as the black linen is going to bleed on my white chemises.... C'est La Vie). Since they are lined in black, I just extended the lining all the way down to include the guards. I sewed a strip down on the guards to finish the seam and have hemmed the "cuff" on the red outer layer. Now I need to try and make 2 outer sleeves fit on 2 inner sleeves both cut on the bias.... it sounds easier then it is. I am also thinking I am going to use some left over black wool on my guards rather then just leaving them the linen lining.
I also found I rather like handsewing.... Colour my crazy! I ended up having to hand sew the long seam on the sleeves to ease the seam together, because for some odd reason only one of the sleeves sides were the same length, the other 3 (one outer and both linings) were different sizes. Screwy since they were from the same pattern piece (in fact they were all cut out from each other) and done at the same time. So I did a ton of handsewing, found it goes slower then a machine, but it is smoother then a machine on the linen, especially on the bias where things get pulled funny. I came to realize handsewing isn't something to fear, but to enjoy! Thats dangerous.
We ended each night with some Rock Band! cat_cetera was enjoying the drums (quite a surprise!) and so it was easy to convince her to reward ourselves after long days of sewing!
Weekend long stitch and bitches are always interesting with the House. This weekend we had less family then usual, but it was understandable. Althea was babysitting on Saturday and Snowed in Sunday (WUSS), Blue came over on Saturday and spent Sunday with Althea (presumably) and Francis was out skiing, where she tried to impale herself on a ski pole! Poor thing. That left cat_cetera to spend the weekend sewing. This is her reminder #1 to post her progress!
I managed to get some sleeves cut for my black and red Holbein dress made out of linen. I really wish I had ordered wool and not linen, but if this one works as well as I think its going to, the next dress with this pattern will be wool... or I will give up this pattern for a while and work on some square necked puff ones in wool. I learned all about cutting and sewing on the bias... pain in the hiney! And such a waste of fabric... But maybe this time I wont pop seams at the elbows in the dress, I just need that little bit of give in those sleeves. I am worried the dress might be cut too low along the neck line. I will have to see with the skirt and sleeves on but cat_cetera gave me a great idea for fixing it if they are, back the black banding trim along the top and raise it up higher then the dress actualluy goes to increase the height. Hopefully I don't have to experiment with that though. Unlike the first incarnation of the Holbein dress, I lined the sleeves in this one (all the lining is black on this dress, I am not so bright for doing it this way as the black linen is going to bleed on my white chemises.... C'est La Vie). Since they are lined in black, I just extended the lining all the way down to include the guards. I sewed a strip down on the guards to finish the seam and have hemmed the "cuff" on the red outer layer. Now I need to try and make 2 outer sleeves fit on 2 inner sleeves both cut on the bias.... it sounds easier then it is. I am also thinking I am going to use some left over black wool on my guards rather then just leaving them the linen lining.
I also found I rather like handsewing.... Colour my crazy! I ended up having to hand sew the long seam on the sleeves to ease the seam together, because for some odd reason only one of the sleeves sides were the same length, the other 3 (one outer and both linings) were different sizes. Screwy since they were from the same pattern piece (in fact they were all cut out from each other) and done at the same time. So I did a ton of handsewing, found it goes slower then a machine, but it is smoother then a machine on the linen, especially on the bias where things get pulled funny. I came to realize handsewing isn't something to fear, but to enjoy! Thats dangerous.
We ended each night with some Rock Band! cat_cetera was enjoying the drums (quite a surprise!) and so it was easy to convince her to reward ourselves after long days of sewing!