abendgules (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
abendgules) wrote2013-07-15 03:17 pm
abendgules) wrote2013-07-15 03:17 pm
Proper summer weather
This weekend featured weather that felt like summer, to me. 30 deg C and sunny.
With a weekend to myself, I spent it making the living space in the house hotter still, sewing and pressing to make some tops based on a freebie pattern called Sorbetto.
Shortly after it was published, someone drafted a sleeve pattern to accompany it, and it was sleeved tops I was working on, though one ended up sleeveless because of a cutting error.
Result: one sleeved top, no front pleat; one sleeved top with pleat (though sleeves are tight, pattern needs work); one sleeveless top.
They ended up quite serviceable, and I'm minded to make more.
My medieval sewing has strongly influenced my modern sewing. I now find it hard to take a modern cutting layout at face value; they focus on getting straight of grain correct, without piecing, when all I can see is the swathes of fabric you could save if you squeezed this piece out of these two bits. Don't have enough width? who cares? you've loads of length you can fit together...
As a result, I spend an inordinate amount of time laying out fabric and considering cutting options, when I should Just Do It. It's printed cotton for pete's sake, not handreeled silk; there's more where it came from. But my frugal-fabric-user fights back. So even a simple three-piece pattern takes awhile.
OTOH, this insistence on piecing fits well with the make-your-own-bias-tape part of the project. I finally got to use my bias-tape widget in anger, making several metres for the three tops.
I bought it a few weeks ago and, hopping up and down to use it, tried to follow continuous loop bias tape instructions, which sounded terribly clever. A couple of seams, and you'd be able to cut a single strip of tape as long as you like!
But: by hurrying along and joining the wrong sides of the two triangles, I succeeded in creating a lovely piece of on-grain tape: almost exactly the opposite of what I intended.
Sigh. I used it anyway.
So to date I've stuck to the piecing method of assembling bias tape.
I also mended one me-made top which was fraying (silk noile needs seam finishing, every time), and modifying side seams for a shirt I bought last week: great patterned fabric, gapes terribly in front, barely fits around hips. I'm trying side slits (ripping the side seams quite a ways up) in the hopes of allowing more ease, and added extra hidden snaps for the gap-osis.
With a weekend to myself, I spent it making the living space in the house hotter still, sewing and pressing to make some tops based on a freebie pattern called Sorbetto.
Shortly after it was published, someone drafted a sleeve pattern to accompany it, and it was sleeved tops I was working on, though one ended up sleeveless because of a cutting error.
Result: one sleeved top, no front pleat; one sleeved top with pleat (though sleeves are tight, pattern needs work); one sleeveless top.
They ended up quite serviceable, and I'm minded to make more.
My medieval sewing has strongly influenced my modern sewing. I now find it hard to take a modern cutting layout at face value; they focus on getting straight of grain correct, without piecing, when all I can see is the swathes of fabric you could save if you squeezed this piece out of these two bits. Don't have enough width? who cares? you've loads of length you can fit together...
As a result, I spend an inordinate amount of time laying out fabric and considering cutting options, when I should Just Do It. It's printed cotton for pete's sake, not handreeled silk; there's more where it came from. But my frugal-fabric-user fights back. So even a simple three-piece pattern takes awhile.
OTOH, this insistence on piecing fits well with the make-your-own-bias-tape part of the project. I finally got to use my bias-tape widget in anger, making several metres for the three tops.
I bought it a few weeks ago and, hopping up and down to use it, tried to follow continuous loop bias tape instructions, which sounded terribly clever. A couple of seams, and you'd be able to cut a single strip of tape as long as you like!
But: by hurrying along and joining the wrong sides of the two triangles, I succeeded in creating a lovely piece of on-grain tape: almost exactly the opposite of what I intended.
Sigh. I used it anyway.
So to date I've stuck to the piecing method of assembling bias tape.
I also mended one me-made top which was fraying (silk noile needs seam finishing, every time), and modifying side seams for a shirt I bought last week: great patterned fabric, gapes terribly in front, barely fits around hips. I'm trying side slits (ripping the side seams quite a ways up) in the hopes of allowing more ease, and added extra hidden snaps for the gap-osis.
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