Another one bites the dust...

 Sad face.  Very, very sad face.

I have received an email that Textile Fabrics in Nashville, THE ONLY REAL FABRIC STORE within driving distance, will be closing as the owner is retiring.

I don't often get to go, as it is a 2 hour drive, and I don't even think I've made it to their newest location (they've moved twice since I first managed to visit), but just knowing they were there was like a security blanket.  

I probably won't make it up this fall for the clearance sales; it's not like I NEED more fabric anyway,  so I'm just going to have to remember how lovely it was to walk in...smell FABRIC and not cinnamon brooms, and see gorgeous silks and woolens live and in person.

I am grateful for the internet vendors, but even the best of them will sometimes send a 'Hhhhmmmm...' piece of fabric, something that wasn't quite what I pictured from the description.  There's just something so luscious about actually touching that piece of fabric and envisioning what it might be...then putting it on the counter and watching it get unrolled and cut; finding matching thread and buttons right there...

I fear that is a thing of the past.  At least in North Alabama.  There's just nothing around...that I know of, anyway.  Textile Fabrics was the last bastion of fine home sewing.

Now all there is...is JoAnn's World of Polyester and Crafts.

I'm going to be kinda blue about this for a bit.

I should find time to sew something I bought from Textile Fabrics in honor of the dreams I have dreamed there...

...and the klutz is at it again...

 Got a mandoline (the slicer, not the instrument, lol) around Christmas last year; finally pulled it out to slice cucumbers for salad on Tuesday.

It was a fairly large cucumber, and I thought, 'My hand is a good 3" above that blade, I'll whittle it down a bit and then use the guard."

Stupid.  Stupid. Stupid.

I did fine for about the first dozen passes, then something happened...still don't know what....and the cuke twisted and threw my pinkie finger right down on the blade.

Y'all.  I was still on aspirin to avoid clots, post surgery.  That thing bled and bled and bled...we went to urgent care, where I went when I stupidly cut my index finger last year, but when I told them I was on aspirin they said I had to go to the ER.

So off we went...to the pricier (and closer) of the two hospitals.  It wasn't stitchable, so they put a compression bandage on it but it was still bleeding profusely after about a half hour (at this point I'd been squeezing my pinkie for about an hour and a half to two hours; my left hand was cramping) so they put some stuff on it to help the blood coagulate, wrapped it up tightly and told me to leave it for 48 hours. 'If it's still bleeding when you change the bandage, come back.'

It hurts worse than last year's injury.  Probably because my finger was twisting as it hit the blade.  I actually went looking for my post surgery pain meds  middle of the night on Tuesday, it hurt that badly.  But I had stashed them so well (didn't actually take them after surgery; it was never that bad) I couldn't find them.  I took an ice pack back to bed and managed to get back to sleep.

Well, not going into gross detail but the non-stick dressing completely adhered to the booboo so when we tried to take it off on Thursday...it pulled on the injury and it started bleeding again.

So we went back.  Following directions.  Was SO excited to go to the ER in the evening on July 4th, but they were surprisingly not busy, at least while we were there.

A soak in a sterile saline bath and the old dressing came free with minimal bleeding so I got bandaged back up and sent home with instructions to change it after another 48 hours.

Just changed the bandage again and that puppy is still oozing when disturbed. And it still hurts, although not so badly as earlier in the week.

Stupid. Stupid.  Been saying that a lot.

So much for getting back in the sewing room.

Sigh.

I am going to get myself some of those chain-mail gloves, lol.

I lost my blogroll...

 This hurts...

I had a long list of blogs that I followed from back in the day.  Unfortunately, some of them have fallen into ...other hands?...and were now being updated with non-sewing material, to put it mildly.

I repeatedly tried to edit out the blogs that were now talking about stuff other than sewing, or that set off my Unsafe Site alert when clicked, or that were now just filled with crazy asian script, but I could. not. get. Blogger to save updates.  The Save button just would NOT activate.  I tried over and over, over several months.

Then I hit on an idea...what if I just made a new blog list widget, with the bloggers that I could remember who were still publishing?  I could copy and paste from the old list pretty easily.  Then I could delete the old one and hopefully not get those random non- sewing links showing up

It was sad to go through the list and see all the fine folks who were no longer blogging.  And, it's true, some had even reactivated after several years of being dormant...that was exciting to see.  But truth was...any non- active blog seems to be subject to being hijacked and used for other purposes so I took a deep breath and just listed the ones I thought were active, as best I could remember.

It saved it...in the wrong place.  I tried to move it, but no dice, so I did a new one...again...

It saved, I thought, but all I managed to do was get rid of both the old list and the list in the wrong place.  The list in the right place, for whatever reason, didn't save.

So I will likely have to reconstruct it all from scratch again and that will take some time.

Bummer.

I guess this is the kind of thing that happens when I can't actually sew, lol.

I will say I am recovering from the hip surgery slowly.  It's one week out today and I actually managed to lift my foot high enough to get over the edge of the bathtub, so I could take a real shower.  Hooray for small victories...

Oof...a rough weekend in the sewing room....

 Good for humility, I guess.  This shoulda been something I could do in my sleep.

It's Bible costume season again.  This is not for the current church production...I am not really involved in that again, too much travel at the wrong time this year for me to be part of that team.  But I did have a friend who is participating in a walk-through program as John the Beloved and he needed a costume.  He purchased the fabric from JoAnns and Hobby Lobby and brought it to me to sew up.

First is the coat... It's a very pretty piece of upholstery fabric that has a sprayed-on interfacing.  I washed it and it softend up considerably but that backing was icky and it's going to start flaking off before long.  The coat will hang much better once it DOES rub off, I think, but it's going to be messy.  He decided he wanted sleeves, so I planned to make a Bog Coat; however, the fabric was only 54" wide and my friend is a strapping 6'4" fellow and, since the width of the fabric is the finished circumference of the coat, I didn't think that would be roomy enough.  So I altered up my trusty McCall's Bible costume...cutting the front open and the back on the fold and adding slits to the sides.  I had to cut everything on the cross - grain because he really only got enough to make a sleeveless vest. So in my humble opinion, between the bulk of the fabric, the spray on interfacing and the cross-grain cut, it doesn't hang as nicely as I would like.  I did manage to get that tried on him this morning, though, and he is pleased so that's all that matters.  I bought it back home to hem up the sleeves.

I already had the under gown cut out and, once I had the coat sleeves hemmed, proceeded to work on the gown.  Shoulda been a piece of cake.

But the right side and the wrong side are nearly indistinguishable, and that bit me.  I added self-drafted pockets and put the right one on too high, gauging off of the notch that marked the sleeve front instead of the notch that marked the waist line.  I'd already trimmed, turned and pressed the pocket facing before I realized my error.  

Cut it back, unstitched it, patched the hole in the seam allowance, cut a new pocket and tried again.

And noticed when I started to pin up the sideseams that the finished pocket bag was on the OUTSIDE of the robe.

I unpicked it, filled in the hole in the seam allowance and gave up.  He's got one pocket on the left side.

If you click on that to embiggen it you will see my hasty patch jobs.  The edge didn't really waver that much...that's just the unstable fabric showing it's tricks.

The fabric, while it appears to be a woven, behaves like a knit. A very unstable knit.  It wasn't nice to sew as it kept shifting and stretching in odd places.  The neckband (I elected to put a band rather than a facing) twisted oddly on one side.  Didn't want to risk damaging the picky fabric so I left it; I don't think it's going to be terribly noticeable but I'm not happy with it.

The whole thing is VERY heavy; my plastic hanger was threatening to buckle when I took the picture.

I have about 3 more costumes to make in the next couple of weeks...one IS for the Easter mini-production...so that's what my sewing is gong to be for the foreseeable future.

Hopefully the next ones will be more cooperative.  And I won't be stupid.

That was not the plan....

 It has been an ...interesting...couple of weeks in these parts.  I typed up a whole backstory and deleted it; it's tedious, lol.  The upshot is that my hubby went to Indiana to help his mom, came down with covid after he arrived, and I tested positive for it myself after I found out he had it; I was on meds for a sinus infection after a negative covid test earlier.  

So I spent last week at home with the cat.  I didn't really feel bad, and I never developed the bad cough and sore throat that other folks have had, but I had zero stamina.  Just walking up the stairs pooped me out.  I did manage to get some of the Christmas decor up, around working from home, but the sewing stuff I intended to do last week just didn't happen.

But I got the lights swtiched around on the porch rail garland.  That was a PAIN.  Because, stupid me, I made assumptions.... I ASSUMED that the white lights I bought from Hobby Lobby were the equivalent of the colored lights I'd bought from Hobby Lobby and switched out all the purple lights with the white ones, only to find that it didn't work when I plugged them in (why didn't I check after switching one light?  Well...it matched visually; I thought it was the same....bonehead  move...).  So I had to take all the white lights back off and put them back on their original string.  Then I got a couple of the multi-color light strings that had been on the bushes two years ago and pulled red, green and yellow lights off and stuck them in the spots where the purple ones had been on the garland lights.  I even switched out about 1/3 of the blue lights.  Once I verified everything was working (I learn slowly but I do learn), I put the colored lights back on the garland, then I wrapped the white lights around the garland also.

More than one way to skin a cat, right?

The photo still looks a little blue but in real life the white makes it sparkle...I like it, even though it's a cooler white than I have on the bushes.  My thumbnails have pretty much recovered.

We put the tree up before my Sweet Babboo left town, but it took me a while to  get  the needles it shed  vacuumed up so I could put down the tree skirt and the traditional Christmas book selection (a tree's gotta have something under it, lol).  The teardrop lights that failed utterly as outdoor lights last year look really nice on the tree, although I do have some mini incandescents on it too, so I can run the 4 ornament spinners...  It is an artificial tree this year since it went up so early.

We got a new tree-topper this year...I liked it when I got it but when we got it out of the box we found that it is one sided; the back is just lights and wrapped cord, lol.  

Later on I managed to get the rather pitiful throw-back tree up on the porch...

My grandmother had an aluminum tree with a rotating light when I was little enough to believe in magic, lol.  This one came from a hoarder's stash about 10 years ago.  I don't know how long it will hold up but it is fun and nostalgic on the sun porch.  About half the ornaments on it were some that my grandmother bought late in her life. 

I had to move furniture around in the family room to get what we call the 'stocking tree' up.  We used a little tree by the fireplace to put the stockings around before My Sweet Babbo added the mantle; now we can hang the stockings but the tree is a tradition.

Putting up the tree only takes about 45 minutes...and most of that is fussing with the multi function lights. But moving the furniture about did me in.

Each one of those tasks took a separate day.  So, while I did putter around in the sewing room a couple of times, I don't really have much to show for it yet.  

But at least the house is mostly festive; I have a few household decorations that I opted to forgo this year.

I totally missed the church Christmas production this year.  I wasn't able to be in it or really do much,  due to the craziness of the fall, (koff two weddings and three out of town trips koff) but I did intend to hang out in the dressing room with safety pins and such if anyone needed costume help.  But, nope, couldn't make it work.  It has felt WEIRD, let me tell you....

But the retest was negative Sunday evening so I have been back at work this week.  It was nice to hear an actual human voice, lol.

Now I just need to finish getting the Christmas Epistles out and sew up the stockings that are hanging over my head yet...I have two weeks...

(Postscript:  My dear MIL had apparently already had this particular variant or was protected by her booster or both as she did not contract it whilst My Sweet Babboo was holed up in the bedroom.  He did wear a mask when he came out, but they did eat together, so I can't help but think she was exposed.  So glad she is still healthy)

And...we're going down to the wire (as per usual)

 I had enough hours in at work this pay period that I could actually stay home today and sew.

And, boy howdy, it's a good thing I did.

The dress shell and lining are done to the facings.  

I was pretty pleased with the dress so far.  It fit well, felt good, and draped very nicely.  Sandwashed silk over bemberg lining is VERY nice, y'all.

All I needed to do was put together the lace overlay and then tack it down to the zipper opening and back vent, then put on the facings.

It sounds so simple... 'put together the lace overlay'.

I started to do the center back seam, then realized it would be a WHOLE lot better to do the long side seams first, while everything was flat.

Ya'll, it took about two hours for each of the side seams.  

First, line up the traced seam allowances.  Then baste along the scroll lines.  Then zigzag on top of the basting.  Then trim away the excess on both sides.  

Only it's black thread on black lace and I couldn't see diddly squat.  On the first one I actually got turned around and started sticthing back the way I came.  On the second seam I marked the directions with pins after I basted.

It doesn't look too bad...

I did the back kinda the same way, only just between the bottom of the zipper and the top of the vent.  I didn't trim anything because I wanted to see how it lined up with the  dress back first.

Then it was time for the shoulders...and disaster struck

Somehow I got whopperjawed.  After I basted, zigzagged, and trimmed the first side, I realized I'd sewn the left back shoulder to the right front shoulder.

So now it's 12:40 AM.  The bobble was unpicked, compared to the pattern, overlayed correctly, basted again, zigzagged and trimmed again.

I put the overlay on top of the dress shell and it looks nice but... I think I'm going to unpick the back seam and do a conventional seam  It's going to be too hard to transition from the folded-under-stitched-to-the zipper bit to the trimmed lapped seam to the back vent.  The seam allowance isn't too noticeable with the matte black silk behind it.  I'd post a picture but my phone battery died just as I was lining things up.

And...tomorrow is pretty much a non-sewing day, although I might get the back zigzag stitching removed and the motifs trimmed from the back seam allowance.

I think I'm going to do a short work day on Thursday so I can finish...I hope.

The Wedding is Saturday...Deep Breaths...

Deja vu....

 Welp, I did it again.

This time it was a rotary cutter.

I don't even know how it happened; somehow, whilst cutting the very tight inner curve on the front facing, I caught the far side of my left pinky and cut right through the fingernail.  Then my fingernail wrapped up in the blade and tore loose from the nail bed...I think.  I have a nick on my actual finger, a horizontal cut into the fingernail that suddenly goes up at an angle and then turns again parallel to the first one.  I don't know how much of my finger underneath is cut...or if it just ripped up the nail.  I wasn't going fast with the cutter, but it was a brand new blade, 'cause I was cutting silk...

It's going to take that puppy a minute to grow out.  Gonna be a nice look for the wedding next weekend. :rolleyes:

So I didn't finish cutting the silk shell out until tonight.

But.. I have the lining put together, and I got the darts in the front and the back seam ready for the zipper. before I decided it was time to quit before I messed something up.

The next two days are pretty full; I'm going to try and get the zipper in after I get home tomorrow, then I can put the front and the back together on Thursday...and maybe get it hemmed. Then Friday morning I can baste the lining in...and start the process of cutting and piecing the lace.

I'm gonna be hand sewing all weekend.  And maybe Monday and Tuesday evenings.

At least the bummed up pinky shouldn't interfere with that too much.

So Much for Productivity...

Pulled out the veggies to start prepping dinner tonight and realized the knife that I'd thought I'd cleaned last night still had some dried bits of shallot stuck to it.  Those were stubborn little boogers; I started scrubbing at them with the nylon scrubber and...suddenly my hand slipped off. The momentum of the movement didn't stop, however, and the result was that I slammed my index finger right into the cutting edge of the knife.

About an hour later we were headed home from urgent care and  I had four stitches.  We were literally in and out in about 20 minutes.  THAT is miraculous right there, lol.  I was able to make an appointment and fill out...well, have My Sweet Babboo fill out...the registration paperwork online before we left.  When we put in the reason for the visit...'Cut finger...kitchen accident" we got a pop up message that this could be a life-threatening situation and I should consider going to the ER. 

Um, I think it's gonna be ok....

Fortunately it hit the side of the knuckle first, which probably is the only thing that kept me from severing things like nerves and tendons.  I don't know that it cut to the bone but I can't imagine that it didn't.  It was a very sharp knife, I hit it hard and there isn't much meat there to begin with.  And it bled like nobody's business.  But, since the cut is at the knuckle, I have to wear the splint at least until the stitches are removed next week. Bending it could pop the stitches.

So.  Looks like I'm going to be reading and catching up on streaming programs for the next couple of weeks.

I had gotten the jacket muslin put together but it was too slim through the torso.  Altered up the pattern...good ol pivot and slide...and was ready to give it another go.  But that's gotta wait now.

And you wouldn't believe how many typing errors I had to go back and correct...some SEVERAL times.  Gonna be a fun couple of weeks at work...

Pocket Equality for Women!!!

 Checking my hubby's  jeans pockets; I have to reach in past my wrist:

Checking my jeans pockets; not even to my knuckles:

Granted, those are the worst of the lot for teeny pockets, but none of my jeans are much better. Crazy.

Blew that one...

Welp, I found myself with more skirts to sew after our last-few-folks fitting on Saturday, so last night I was pushing hard to finish the skirt I already had started.  

I had zig-zagged dental floss to the top for gathering, and even gathered a fair amount up.  So I took a deep breath and forged ahead, pushing five yards of rather wiry fabric into gathers around the 45" waistband.  Took my time sewing it and decided it looked good enough, so I cut off the long tails of dental floss that were hanging about.

Then I found that I had put the opening in the waistband, through which the final touch of the drawstring will go, on the center back seam instead of at the front of the center panel.  Too bad, so sad, not redoing it.

Then I set about threading the elastic through it.  And discovered that I should have given myself a wee bit of wiggle room; I had cut the waistband exactly 2x elastic + seam allowances.  With the really bulky gathers, I lost some space and the channel in the waistband was a little too skinny in places.

Minor problems; I forged on.

And found that the doggone elastic would rather fold in half than deal with a too-skinny casing.

I wrestled with it, trying to get it to lay somewhat flat, and even started topstitching the drawstring channel, brute forcing it to stitch close to the seamline.

Then I realized that the elastic had dodged the stitching and instead of being caught and sewn flat, was folded in half. Again.

At that point I realized it just was NOT going to work, so I removed the waistband altogether, wrestled the elastic out and sliced a very slim bit off at the join, pulled out what was left of the gathering dental floss at that point, cut another waistband a half inch wider and went to bed.

Went to work today, and DS the Elder (AKA the Artist) came by after work to help put Christmas lights on the porch eaves, since My Sweet Babboo is still in shoulder-surgery-recovery mode.  And he also brought us our Christmas present...some wifi speakers so we can listen to the same music throughout the first floor of the house at Christmas, which he also set up for us ("I love doing stuff like this" he commented as he opened up the boxes).  It sounds fantastic when we have stuff streaming through it; I just have to load Spotify on one of my old phones or tablets, create some playlists and we will be set.

Then I heated up the rest of the Thanksgiving leftovers...that I haven't already put in the freezer...and we polished them off.  So I am actually going to have to cook something tomorrow, lol.

I should have headed upstairs and faced the mess again but...Cyber Monday... I had to go hunting for  a couple of things.  DS the Younger (AKA The Actor) did some streaming so I watched him as I perused the electronic aisles, and I decided to tackle a project that has been waiting for nearly a year.  

I got a cotton sweater on sale from Lands' End last year... a subtle Christmas sweater.  It was tan with knitted in evergreen trees...nearly missed getting a pic before it sold out but this is it...

It was backorded when I  submitted my order in late October of last year, supposed to be delivered in early December if I remember right. Delivery kept getting pushed back...I think I got in in February of this year.   It fit well, it was super comfy (like all the Drifter sweaters) and I loved the barest hint of 'Christmas Sweater' in the knitted-in tree shapes BUT the color is a lot more ...yellow/beigey... in person and it looked ghastly on me.  What to do, what to do...

Rit dye to the rescue.

So, as kind of a palate cleanse after the disaster yesterday...I am dyeing the sweater tonight. It's been through the dye bath and is now in the post-dye wash cycle; I was shooting for a deep blue-green color and I *think* that's what I have.  Won't know for sure until it's dry, but it will be a much better color for me than the beigey-tan it was to start with.

I have to work 4 hours tomorrow and take My Sweet Babboo to therapy, but I think I'll be ready to face that waistband...

I'll post a pic of the sweater after it's dry.

In which she encounters problems

 

...and no, it's not just the fact that the kitty wants to sit on exactly the thing I'm working on...

This is the pattern I started with for the cloak for our time-traveling Scrooge character.  I intended to just use one shoulder cape, but otherwise I wanted the same.  I made one years ago when we were doing the Gospel According to Scrooge.  I never saw it after that production.  Dunno  what happened to it...

Anyway, I had something close to 6 yards of brown poly moleskin...it's a heavy, drapey, sueded fabric with a satiny back.  It was quite popular, you know, fifteen or so years ago.  Can't find it anywhere now.

HOWEVER...today...I pulled out the pattern and, instead of having 3 actual shoulder capes, it has ONE..the other two faux capes are flounces sewn directly to the main cloak.  So I couldn't just use the longer one, as I'd planned.  I couldn't remember what I did with the first one (it was 2005 when I made it...) but I figured I probably just added onto the actual top layer; it was the only one of the short cape pieces that was cut out. Simple enough to do. 

So I pulled out the brown fabric that had been in storage at church since 2005.  We'd made some short ladies' capes from it, but there was a goodly bit left.  Just rough measuring it before I brought it home, I thought it was close to 6 yards.  Turns out it was 5 3/8...and it was a scant 45" wide.  Oof.  I couldn't put the main cloak pieces on a folded piece of fabric; I was going to have to cut them one at a time.  And the cloak pieces by themselves required 54" of  length. So, not including the top cape, the collar or the collar stand, I needed 6 full yards.  Shortening the cloak really wasn't an option...remember, our Scrooge actor is 6'4".  I didn't want the cloak to hit his knees.

What to do, what to do.... I abandoned the sewing room for a time, doing a frantic internet search for ANY black or brown fabric that had a nice drape and found absolutely nothing.    My go-to fabricdotcom has been assimilated into the Amazon abyss, and somebody needs to tell the folks at Amazon how to make filters so you can actually find something.  Fashonfabrics club was also a fail.  I didn't want wool fabric..1) $$$ and 2) moths... and there was just nothing in a drapey poly or poly rayon blend to be had.  So I had to make do.

Well, I *could* fit the pieces all on the fabric if I ignored the fact that there is a nappy, sueded surface and just count on the lighting to hid the difference in the shading.  We had to have SOMETHING.  So, I figured I'd go ahead and make up what I have, and keep an eye open for some wider fabric to make a last minute switch if possible.

Then, when I was laying the pattern out, I noticed that one selvedge of the fabric looked odd.  Backed away from it and...it looks like water had soaked all up on only one side, leaving a wavy border that extended as much as 7" in from the edge the entire length of my fabric and was devoid of the nappy surface.  It's the weirdest thing.  I can't imagine what could have done that.   But I had already looked for replacement fabric so...I decided to just keep going, and then run the thing through the laundry. Mayhap if it's just that it got wet and soaked and dried flattened, a trip through the washer and dryer would revive it.  

Maybe.

So I got about halfway through it before I ran out of bobbin thread on the sewing machine and decided to call it a night.  If I can get it finished in time, I'll run it up to the rehearsal tomorrow afternoon and see how it looks in movement.  It may not matter if the nap isn't quite right.

Maybe.

Finished but no photos

 I finally finished the pink shirt last weekend but I don't have photos yet because...somehow it got a teeny smudge on one of the sleeves while in process.  It looks like ink or, you know, a greasy sewing machine lint spot...but the machines are brand spanking new so there hasn't been time for them to accumulate greasy lint yet, and I'm not aware of any ink pens anywhere around, so I've no idea what it is. The shirt has been through the laundry twice this week, hanging to dry in between so as not to set the spot, while I work on it.  It's very, very faint now and I don't know if I'm going to give it another go or not.  We'll see.

Anyway, once I decide it is indeed the last attempt to erase a tiny blip and iron it, I will take picutres.

Meantime, I will show you this bit:

Those are amputated cuffs, y'all. Once I got the first set of buttonholes on I realized that the cuffs were going to be uncomfortably snug.  I did a little research and found that somehow I had mistraced the pattern and they were about 1/2" too narrow.  Oy.  

Well, I had fortunately (as it turned out) completely forgotten to topstitch the cuffs (and the collar band as well), and I had a fair amount of leftover fabric so...I bit the bullet and cut new cuffs.  Took the old ones off and rearranged the pleating (I thought the excess sleeve width was because I had done a different placket finish) and then put the new ones on.  No mean trick because I did trim the seams out.  But once the new cuffs were on it was a MUCH better fit.

Then I put a bazillion buttonholes in it.  No kidding, I'm pretty sure I averaged doing each one of them  at LEAST twice.  It had been a while since I've made buttonholes and there were some finer points of it that got by me.  One or two were crooked.  The neckband one had lumpy seam allowances to negotiate (I think I did that one 4 times).  Once I lifted the presser foot...forgetting that that resets the template.  Oops.  Another time I mistook a piece of lint for the mark and put the buttonhole in 1" too low.  

Lots of frustration, lol.  But all character developing, right?  I know enough that a year from now I won't remember the frustration, I'll just be happy with my pink shirt.

It did feel like it took a long time...and it kinda did...but I had diapers to make (and they had issues as well, due to fabric quality...or rather, the lack thereof).  So all in all I have had a rather tiresome time in the sewing room and things have not progressed as well as I would have liked.

And I'm going to have shoulder surgery in a little over a week, so I don't know how long I'll be out of the sewing room due to that.  Hopefully all that has to be done is removing a smallish bone spur;  if we've caught it early enough I shouldn't have much muscle/ tendon damage that needs repairing.  Won't know for sure until the doc gets in and sees in real life what is there.

So, I may end up skipping some wardrobe additions for the scarf plan this year...  we'll just have to see...

Didn't plan on making a bunch of trips to Florida or losing the use of my dominant arm for a bit.  And I may need to use my one-week of sewing time left to make some button up shirts...

Got Caught...

 

We'd managed to avoid it all this time, but apparently mild covid is running rampant in our part of the country and...it caught us.

I honestly think it tagged onto the back end of my annual sinus infection, although I suppose it's possible it was masquerading as the sinus infection all along.  The antibiotic seemed to help for a few days, and then suddenly I had chest congestion and the test I took just to humor the doctor came up positive.

So, My Sweet Babboo, who also tested positive, and I are doing the remote thing.  He was actually supposed to return to his office for the first time since March of 2020 this week...but, nope, he got another week of doing rocket science from home.

According to the CDC guidelines, we should be good to venture back out into the world on Thursday, but I think I'm going to hang out around the house until the chest congestion clears up.  I have a subconscious urge to beat on my chest to knock the junk loose, lol, which I'm sure will look...inappropriate...in public.

But, that's ok.  I can do data base janitorial stuff from home as easily as I can do it in my office.  And it is easier to drink tea by the gallon at home.  Hashtag keep those fluids going...

Surely this will clear out before long.

And I pulled the picture from an archive and just realized...wow, that's from before the remodel project in 2015, lol.  That door is gone now...

Now...what do I do with The Wonky Dress?

 

Well...here's ONE picture from the wedding...at this point, I'm starting to think that's all I'll have.  You can kinda see the 'Aunt Lena Farm Wife Frock' fit to the upper chest in this picture, but the thing that I want to call out is the little flower on my left shoulder.  I didn't think about the fragility of the fabric when the corsage was pinned on...but when I pulled the dress out of the laundry and saw all the picks and fuzzies I realized, oh, that was not a good thing.

Here's a close-up; if you click to enlarge you can see the damage done by just the abrasion from the leaf on the corsage.  Now, granted it's not so obvious ...you gotta be looking at the right spot to see it...but it is a sad mess.

And this was not cheap fabric...$15/ yard plus shipping made it about $75 in fabric alone.  I have to keep reminding myself that trying to purchase a rayon crepe ready-to-wear dress in the right colors would have been an even bigger frustration...

I am thinking about cutting it off just above the waist and making a skirt out of the bottom bit.  I still love the colors in it...and I would kinda like to remake the pattern in fabric cut on the correct grain, just to tweak it to fit...to prove I can, but also to have a nice dress to wear, lol.

Like I have nothing else to do.

I have a couple of items in the 'almost finished' queue; I'll have new sewing to talk about soon!

Wearing the Wonky Dress

 Or, How She Put a Brave Face On and Wore the Dress that Would have Auffed Her from Any Sewing Reality Show.

Unfortunately, I basically have no pictures.  I didn't carry my phone with me...we were, after all, paying a photographer to take GOOD pictures...but none of the pics snapped by friends and family really showed the dress.  The professional shots will be available in something like a month, lol.  All I have at the moment is this (snort) not so flattering shot, but it does prove I wore it...

 

First, the fabric...I probably should have ditched the project when I realized that I was going to have to cut it cross grain due to the direction of the print.  But I was foolishly brave...or bravely foolish...and thought by extra careful one-layer cutting I could Make It Work.  Ha ha and ha.  I am pretty sure it slid off grain as I was extra carefully moving it around...but even the center front, which was the first piece I cut on a fold that had been meticulously measured to be even, hung skewed.  The whole freaking dress twisted substantially...I kinda think it may not have been a square weave to begin with.  I mean, rayon crepe is notoriously unstable in all its ways anyway, but the consistency of the twist has me thinking that at least some of it was in the weave...because all the pieces had to be cut going the same direction (again, due to the directional print).  The bottom of the zipper...which was entirely superfluous, I could pull the dress over my head without touching it...was a good 3" to the right of my spine.   And...while the colors in the print were dead perfect for the day, they were also very superficial. The least little abrasion resulted in white pull lines  I used some brand-spanking-new tailor's chalk to try to mark the hem after My Sweet Babboo had pin-marked the level, and just marking along the wrong side with the chalk caused pulls in the fabric.  Whoa.  I ended up using an ink pen...I was cutting the line off anyway...but sheesh!

Fortunately it is a very busy print, with white twiggy things all over it anyway.

Then...the fit... I did do a muslin, but just from the waist up. And, being a bouncy cotton, it didn't reflect the drag that would happen with the full weight of the rayon pulling down.  I should have done a petite adjustment in the armsceye and upper chest.  The upper bit was just simply too big.  I looked in the mirror and was immediately reminded of the farm-wife dresses that my great-great-aunt Lena wore when I was a preschooler.  Not exactly the vintage-y look I was going for.

So, between the twisty skewed fabric and the oversized upper chest, I kinda looked like a cross between Aunt Lena and Quasimodo.  Again, not the look I was going for.

A bit before the rehearsal on the day before, the Flute Player wanted to make a quick run to the mall to seek out a dress for the rehearsal/ going away outfit, so with about 45 minutes to shop, we headed out.  I just wanted to see if I could find SOMETHING that would work better than the Wonky Dress.  We had time to hit exactly one department store and I wandered through the offerings in Better Dresses with increasing dismay.  It was a SEA OF POLYESTER.  Scuba knits, even (so the scuba dress in the finals of The Great British Sewing Bee wasn't as much of a ...stretch...for formal wear as I thought).    I found exactly TWO dresses in my size that were not polyester...a seersucker gingham and a rayon/linen sheath dress with ruffles going over the shoulders.  The seersucker had, as it turned out, oddly puffed sleeves that looked ridiculous once I put it on...nope.  The sheath dress didn't fit too badly, but the neckline plunged WAY farther than I was comfortable with.  I did have a scarf at home that I thought I could possibly use to fill in the gap, though, and since I was out of time I bought that dress...just in case I decided I just couldn't brave the Wonky Dress. If I did wear the Wonky Dress...I could return it.

We were nearly  half an hour late to the rehearsal...because, well, we had to stop by the newlywed's apartment to try and find a foundation garment for the bride amongst the stuff that had already been moved...that turned out to still be at the house.

After the dinner, we sat up visiting with the kids who were in town for the wedding and I hemmed the Wonky Dress.  Put it on one last time before I went to bed to see if it was still Wonky...it was...and then laid in bed trying to figure out what to do.  The scarf was a near dead-match for the sheath dress...

Pros of the sheath dress:  it was the right blue, it matched the scarf, it was a much slimmer silhouette.

Pros of the Wonky Dress:  it was still a light, floaty rayon fabric that would be about the coolest thing I could wear.  It had pockets.  It matched the accessories I planned.

Cons of the Wonky Dress:  Aunt Lena-Quasimodo

Cons of the sheath dress:   It really wasn't very dressy; I would have to fiddle with the silk scarf to get it to look right and that silk scarf, wrapped around my neck, would be HOT.  And...NO POCKETS.

Ultimately, comfort won out.  I wanted pockets for my lip gloss and a couple of tissues, just in case.  Maybe no one would notice the wonkiness if I just kept moving.

Y'all, I got compliments on that Wonky Dress.  I laughed every time someone commented on it looking nice; I couldn't help myself.  I knew that dress was A. Hot. Mess.  Of course, I didn't point out the issues, and I thanked the very nice people for complimenting the dress, but I still laughed.  I guess I moved enough.

Who knows what it will look like when we get the Official Wedding Pictures...but I was about as cool and comfy as I could've been.  

And the Flute Player was so gorgeous that I had to keep reminding myself it really was my jeans-and-tshirt-and-pigtails wearing youngest offspring...

Photo creds to my BIL David...

 

 

 

 

It all went well; the Wonky Dress didn't hurt a thing.  The sheath dress will be going back to the department store on Friday.

In which she may actually have bitten off more than she can chew in the time allotted...

FINALLY...something in the 'Done' column.  This is the LONGEST I have gone without sewing a garment in years and years and years, I do believe, but it's done.  This is a replacement for a gray cardigan that I think I left hanging in the closet of the bed and breakfast where we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary last August.  I didn't realize it really and truly was missing for about a month;  I just assumed it was in the laundry or something but...nope.  Its funny; the sleeves feel looser and longer than I remember them being on the top that went missing, and it's definitely a wee bit lighter in color (I had a scrap to compare it to).  But I really, really missed having that gray top layer in the wardrobe, so I actually bumped it up in priority above stuff that actually was probably more pressing.  But, then, I didn't realize I was going to have to hand baste all the hems down to keep them from shifting under my no-pressure-adjustment-available presser foot.  So, yeah, it took a minute or two longer than I had anticipated.

The next most urgent item is this dress:

 It is a bridesmaids' dress from Brides R Us  (did I mention that the wedding is three weeks from today?).  I am not sure what happened and honestly, at this point it doesn't matter.  The dress the maid was to have ordered somehow didn't get ordered and then was unavailable.  Some shuffling of dresses occurred and now she has a dress but as the pinned -in red ribbon attests, this one doesn't zip.  I thought of doing a corset back, but as the neckline is high the lacing would end up diamond shaped, which I didn't think would look good.  Next thought was side panels, but with the dress lined and all fabric cheap poly knit, I wasn't sure I could do it.  Then I thought about detaching the shoulder straps, shortening the back to the bottom-of-the-armsceye level and using some of the 3" of fabric I have to take from the hem to make longer straps.  But even that wouldn't get the corset back to not be slightly wider below the top and I don't think a diamond shaped corset will look at all good.  So now we are back to side panels.

I bought some light blue satin (to use matte side out) from JA's today (oh, how I wish we had a legit fabric shop in town) that looks aqua next to the dress but it won't show much on the sides and I will take excess hem to make the drapey side panels to cover some so, we make do, right?  I took it upstairs to put with the laundry to give it a wash to get the wrinkles out of it and laid it down on my light blue satin pillowcase, purchased because satin pillowcases are supposed to be good for curly hair.  I looked at the colors and ran back downstairs with  the pillow and...the pillowcase is almost a dead on match.  

So I will be sacrificing one of my pillowcases for the cause.

But first I've got to hem it.  That gives me a little more time to puzzle over the addition to make sure I have a good plan.

Because I still want to make my dress in the three weeks left...

Comment testing/ trouble shooting

This is weird, and I'm not doing it just to get some comments....I am having problems replying to comments on my blogs.  For some reason, when I read ANY blog post on either of my blogs, while in Firefox,  I have the 'sign in' button on the upper right...but if I click it, I go straight to the page listing all my blog posts, which shows me obviously signed in.  If I'm in Chrome, the public pages clearly show me signed in, so this is a firefox issue somehow not recognizing me.

But, I cannot comment on any posts...or reply to any comments...if I am reading in Firefox.  The comment widget doesn't recognize that I am signed in and it doesn't give me an option to sign in.  I don't know how many times I have entered my reply,  telling it to comment as my Google account, and clicked 'publish', seen the 'publishing' message and then...nothing. The comment is simply gone.

If I shut everything down and open it up in Chrome, it works fine.

I can even comment on other blogger blogs while reading in Firefox, as me, no problem. Other blog's comment widgets know who I am. It's just my own that are giving me this problem.

So here's my question:  can ANYONE comment here if you are using firefox?  And if you can't, can you bop over to Chrome and let me know?

I dunno if I can get anywhere with tech support, but if I can do as much problem-isolating as possible, maybe we can find a simple solution.

OR...has anyone else encountered this issue?  What did you do about it?

Thanks for any help!

ETA two weeks later:  Well, something updated somewhere and now Firefox recognizes me.  So all is well again.

Bummer, man

Ok, blogger has changed the way they display the comments on the moderation/ manage screens, and I didn't realize it.  I have gotten a boatload of chinese-looking-character spam comments this evening, and whilst deleting those I also deleted all the comments going back to June of last year.

Because I didn't realize they were all showing on the same page now.

So if I deleted your comment, I'm sorry...really, really sorry, because it's not like I get a boatload of comments. 

I am taking myself off to bed before I whack up something else...lol...

I Miss Hancock's...

Once upon a time, it was possible to run out to the local fabric store and grab notions if you needed them. There used to be a lot.  Depending on your locale;  Cloth World and So-fro Fabrics were two chains from my youth but there were a number of indy fabric stores.  But, even if a fabric store wasn't close by, most department stores had a fabric and notions department; some even as late as the mid 1980's.

Alas, it is no more so.

I needed buttons for the green cardigan.  The only fabric shop in town is Jo-Ann's, which is on the other side of town. But, I had a couple of errands to run so I decided to hop on the parkway to the interstate to the exit that would take me to the last standing retail space for serious home sewing enthusiasts.

I walked past the fleece and the craft supplies to the back rack of the store before I found what I was looking for.

Y'all, it's a fabric store.  I expected one full aisle's worth of space dedicated to buttons.

You know, La Petite, JHB, La Mode, in a decent range of sizes and colors.

It was one short aisle, and 2/3 of it was dedicated to large quantity containers of crafting buttons.

What do people do with crafting buttons anyway?

There was not a single card of 1/2 inch green buttons.  Not one.  There was one w/ 9/16" buttons, but they were dark forest green, not the olive-y green I needed.

I ended up with two 6- button cards of 7/16" metal gold buttons at $5/card.  They were La Mode buttons; at least I knew they were real garment buttons.  It was the best I could do.

On the way home, I swung by Hobby Lobby since I had to go to another store in that shopping center.  I didn't have high hopes for quality buttons there, but there was a package of various-sized green buttons w/ sparkle in them from Sewology.  I counted at least 7 of the small, half-inch-looking ones.  It was two bucks, but the packaging did not say how many buttons of what size were in the package.  They will likely be what I use on the sparkly cardigan and I'll save the metal buttons for something with a little more backbone.

But as I drove home I wondered what was going to happen with the future.  Fabric is pretty easy to buy online...but buttons are hard.  The sites that offer buttons (at least the ones I've found) are not easy to navigate...I would like to be able to type in '1/2" green buttons' and see a selection of...1/2" green buttons.  (Just for grins, repeat my little experiment and type  '12 mm green buttons' in the search bar on the JoAnn's website).


Etsy and Ebay are possibilities, I suppose.

Do we need to start buying up thrift store clothing and salvaging the buttons for a stash? LOL.

I'm not looking...

Lol, it's March 1, so I'm sure the March wardrobe options are listed over on the Vivienne Files.

But I'm not done with February yet.  It is, after all, a short month.

I got my dress done to the hem after church on Wednesday...which meant I could finally try it on.

The petite adjustment to the armsceye and uppper chest/back made a huge difference.  That area looks much tidier now.

And the sleeves are fine under the January cardigan.

I didn't trim the facing/neckline seam enough before understitching and it wants to roll out.  Remove understitching, slash some more, and re-stitch.

The big problem is the pockets.  They are too low to be used comfortably, and they flop around enough that they don't want to lie nice and flat, with  a less than attractive look.  I just put them at the same level as the patch pockets, thinking that would work and it didn't.  I tried on the first dress again and realized that the patch pockets, while visually nice, are a little low, too.  But the dart ends right at the top of where I put the pockets, so raising the pockets would mean the dart would end in the pocket opening and I don't think that would work.  So this dress really is not a candidate for on-seam pockets.  Unless I actually put the pocket in the dart. 

So I am in the process of performing a rather tedious double pocket-ectomy.  Once they are removed it will be a simple thing to close the seam back up and hopefully nothing has been stretched overly much and all will be well.

Then I just need a hem on the bottom.

So I'm not letting myself go look at the March wardrobe pics until I have my dress done.

I have officially given up...for at least the time being...on new shoes.  I can't tell you how many pairs I ordered and returned (2 boxes are in the car now to get dropped off).  Either too little or too big.  Nothing just right.

Anyway, I should have pics of the finished dress tomorrow.