Monday 19 June 2017

Progress, of sorts

I'm pleased to be able to report sort of progress on several fronts.

Firstly, I no longer heave at the thought of drinking goats milk kefir.   I am still struggling with the taste when I'm actually drinking it.  I'm confident that this will get better as the days go by.

Secondly, I finally opened, washed, hen carefully folded and labelled  all the piles of fabric bought when I had a moment of weakness and procrastination.

And thirdly, I cleared enough space so I could cut out the front of a new blouse pattern I'd started working on some time ago (before my sewjo went on holiday).  I even tried to think about pattern placement, as the fabric has bands of colour.

It's a bit of a shame that I realised part way through cutting out, that I'd only actually adapted the neckline and shoulders.  I hadn't got round to adapting the side or the length.   It was remarkably good fortune that I realised this when I was half way through cuttind the side.    I made an emergency adaptation (which, on reflection, may tutn our to be a bit of a mistake), and carried on with the cutting.

I then realised that I hadn't done a matching back pattern,  so I worked that out the adaptations required to my Blueprint so that it matched the new front,  drafted it and... remembered to think about pattern placement. It's not exactly pattern matching, but I do need to try and get it right. ish.

This morning, I sewed carefully stay stitched the armholes and neckline (not that long ago, I'd never heard of stay stitching), as the fabric is going to be a bit of a sod to sew.    I then did my gathering stitches, marvelling that  that bit of the process is almost becoming second nature to me now.   I sewed the sholders together,  and then I needed the sleevies.

I hadn't forgotten the sleeves. I just wanted to try something a bit more flouncy than previously.  This was going to require more pattern adaptations, and I needed a fresh head to do it well. 

And progress there too. Well, possibly.  I'm going to celebrate now, even though I haven't actually cut them out yet.   If it doesn't work, well,  I won't feel like celebrating later.  And if it does, I can celebrate again.

I thought about what I might need to do to achieve this, and traced off a copy of my standard sleeve.     The cap bit has to stay the same (to fit into the armhole of the top), it's the rest of the sleevie that needs flouncing.  I could see I needed to slash and spread the pattern.  I could even see how much.     In the end, I search the SFDLearningCenter to find what I needed, and the index told me which book and what page. 

I followed the instructions, even adapting them to get the size I wanted.  I ended up with a sleeve that looks like it might work.     I just need to get round to cutting out in fabric now.


 I'm going to wait for a bit though.  Just in case it's not right.  I'm going to enjoy the "I did it!" moment for just a little bit longer, first.


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