It's a weekend and I'm back on my sewing nonsense.
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P.S. It's shockingly still available:
At long last I have finished this skirt. The hem is bound in mesh, and hand-hemmed. The waistband is also bound, but stitched in the ditch - I was not confident my hand stitches would hold there, but I got a good thread match, so I'm happy enough.
And that's just me faffing with the finishes. The skirt itself is just downright wonderful
It has pockets! Good, deep, pockets!When the weather improves I'll take some photos wearing it. The way the pattern drapes is difficult to explain.
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At long last I have finished this skirt. The hem is bound in mesh, and hand-hemmed. The waistband is also bound, but stitched in the ditch - I was not confident my hand stitches would hold there, but I got a good thread match, so I'm happy enough.
And that's just me faffing with the finishes. The skirt itself is just downright wonderful
It has pockets! Good, deep, pockets!When the weather improves I'll take some photos wearing it. The way the pattern drapes is difficult to explain.
And so I've started to make slow progress on my overcomplicated approach to Callahan pants. I have been debating for the last three weeks what to do about the pintucks.
My fabric has subtle pink and white lengthwise stripe every 2mm. Despite my absolute best effort I didn't cut them precisely on grain, so the bottom pintuck marking is about 1 cm off grain from the top pintuck marking.
It was driving me insane. What do? Follow the pattern marking, or follow the stripe?
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And so I've started to make slow progress on my overcomplicated approach to Callahan pants. I have been debating for the last three weeks what to do about the pintucks.
My fabric has subtle pink and white lengthwise stripe every 2mm. Despite my absolute best effort I didn't cut them precisely on grain, so the bottom pintuck marking is about 1 cm off grain from the top pintuck marking.
It was driving me insane. What do? Follow the pattern marking, or follow the stripe?
If I were to follow the pattern marking, I'd be crossing several stripes at an angle on the way down. From experience, this creates a bit of a weird moire effect.
Following the stripe on the other hand could result with the faux crease looking weirdly off altogether.
At the end of the day I decided to follow the stripe - one centimetre over the whole length of the leg is probably not big a deal when it comes to the faux crease, but I figured crossing stripes would drive me nuts.
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If I were to follow the pattern marking, I'd be crossing several stripes at an angle on the way down. From experience, this creates a bit of a weird moire effect.
Following the stripe on the other hand could result with the faux crease looking weirdly off altogether.
At the end of the day I decided to follow the stripe - one centimetre over the whole length of the leg is probably not big a deal when it comes to the faux crease, but I figured crossing stripes would drive me nuts.
So far I'm glad I did! I did the front legs, and it looks great! Himself looked at the pintuck and went "did you, like, starch these?" which is precisely the effect we're going with here
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So far I'm glad I did! I did the front legs, and it looks great! Himself looked at the pintuck and went "did you, like, starch these?" which is precisely the effect we're going with here
@jjcelery oooh excellent!
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@jjcelery oooh excellent!
@artcollisions thank you! I'm dreading them a little less now
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@artcollisions thank you! I'm dreading them a little less now
@jjcelery Excellent! I need to throw all my caution to the wind and just get sewing. It's about to be a desperate situation as it's just gotten hot and I have no real wearable shorts.
And btw, thanks so much for sharing your fears! It helps so much to hear other people talking about sewing process.
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@jjcelery Excellent! I need to throw all my caution to the wind and just get sewing. It's about to be a desperate situation as it's just gotten hot and I have no real wearable shorts.
And btw, thanks so much for sharing your fears! It helps so much to hear other people talking about sewing process.
@artcollisions I have shorts on my list too, but it's still cold here... so still on winter / transitional wardrobe and trying to get that done before it's too late
I personally love reading about other people's process, especially the difficulties, and I was lamenting few years back there aren't "more people like that".
Then I realised, wait, I'm people like that
I don't love documenting the process, but I like going back over it later, so I decided I just needed to suck it up
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@artcollisions I have shorts on my list too, but it's still cold here... so still on winter / transitional wardrobe and trying to get that done before it's too late
I personally love reading about other people's process, especially the difficulties, and I was lamenting few years back there aren't "more people like that".
Then I realised, wait, I'm people like that
I don't love documenting the process, but I like going back over it later, so I decided I just needed to suck it up
@jjcelery Does it also help to get out there so you can look at it and go, oh yeah, now that I see those words in front of, that's ridiculous.
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@jjcelery Does it also help to get out there so you can look at it and go, oh yeah, now that I see those words in front of, that's ridiculous.
@artcollisions haha yes! I often use my husband as a sounding board when I get trapped in a decision paralysis, and sure enough, sometimes just hearing myself is enough to get unstuck
But even then, I like to share it, part as an ego correction, part to help others
sewing and overthinking seems to go hand in hand! -
@artcollisions haha yes! I often use my husband as a sounding board when I get trapped in a decision paralysis, and sure enough, sometimes just hearing myself is enough to get unstuck
But even then, I like to share it, part as an ego correction, part to help others
sewing and overthinking seems to go hand in hand!@jjcelery I learn by hearing myself talk, so it's very helpful for me to just talk *at* someone sometimes.
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And so I've started to make slow progress on my overcomplicated approach to Callahan pants. I have been debating for the last three weeks what to do about the pintucks.
My fabric has subtle pink and white lengthwise stripe every 2mm. Despite my absolute best effort I didn't cut them precisely on grain, so the bottom pintuck marking is about 1 cm off grain from the top pintuck marking.
It was driving me insane. What do? Follow the pattern marking, or follow the stripe?
@jjcelery We can see the stripe. We can't see the pattern.
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@jjcelery We can see the stripe. We can't see the pattern.
@markdennehy well sure, but the pattern markings are there to ensure that the faux crease goes down in a straight line.
Now it won't do that precisely - it's gonna be about a centimetre off. But I'm hoping I can get away with it
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@jjcelery I learn by hearing myself talk, so it's very helpful for me to just talk *at* someone sometimes.
@artcollisions I have an actual rubber duck for this purpose
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@artcollisions I have an actual rubber duck for this purpose
@jjcelery Ooooh, I should make a critter to talk to!
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So far I'm glad I did! I did the front legs, and it looks great! Himself looked at the pintuck and went "did you, like, starch these?" which is precisely the effect we're going with here
I have now done all four pintucks and guess what. They are all consistently 1cm off grain.
I really was super careful cutting and measured the distance from the grainline on the pattern to the selvedge, so now I'm wondering whether it was me that was wrong, or whether my selvedges were wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I bought cheap fabric that was imperceptibly skewed.
Next time I'm doing stripes I'm gonna use the stripes themselves as grainline guide rather than the selvedge
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I have now done all four pintucks and guess what. They are all consistently 1cm off grain.
I really was super careful cutting and measured the distance from the grainline on the pattern to the selvedge, so now I'm wondering whether it was me that was wrong, or whether my selvedges were wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I bought cheap fabric that was imperceptibly skewed.
Next time I'm doing stripes I'm gonna use the stripes themselves as grainline guide rather than the selvedge
You may have thought that I'd be off my sewing nonsense, because the long weekend is over, but I have bad news. I took the rest of the week off and I'm still at it. But I'm also trying to rest up so it's a little slower.
The Callahan pant pattern has eight darts. And this fabric just didn't want to be marked. I used tailor chalk, pastel, frixon pens. Poof! It just disappears.
But worse, because I'm interlining the pants, I had to do darts on the lining too. Sixteen! Sixteen darts!
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You may have thought that I'd be off my sewing nonsense, because the long weekend is over, but I have bad news. I took the rest of the week off and I'm still at it. But I'm also trying to rest up so it's a little slower.
The Callahan pant pattern has eight darts. And this fabric just didn't want to be marked. I used tailor chalk, pastel, frixon pens. Poof! It just disappears.
But worse, because I'm interlining the pants, I had to do darts on the lining too. Sixteen! Sixteen darts!
They took absolutely fucking forever. I'd say I'd be happy not to see another dart for a while, but my next project has darts too, so no such luck.
Next are pockets and front fly.
I read the front fly instructions like seven times and I think they're just fucking stupid. I don't know why they're making this so complicated. I'm gonna use my favourite zip fly method instead, working from the wrong side, and just add an extra step to make sure the zip ends up 3/8'' from the center front.
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They took absolutely fucking forever. I'd say I'd be happy not to see another dart for a while, but my next project has darts too, so no such luck.
Next are pockets and front fly.
I read the front fly instructions like seven times and I think they're just fucking stupid. I don't know why they're making this so complicated. I'm gonna use my favourite zip fly method instead, working from the wrong side, and just add an extra step to make sure the zip ends up 3/8'' from the center front.
Welp, that's a bit of a lie. Next is front interlining, which I must put in before I tackle the zipper.
Normal lining sorta "floats" inside of a garment, but with interlining it's meant to be treated just like the main fabric, so it's joined to it at all seams. In order for the fabric to "behave" nicely, I need to baste the main fabric and the interlining together.
By hand.
I'll baste the fronts, and that will be last thing I'll do today. Back pieces I'll do after pockets.
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I have now done all four pintucks and guess what. They are all consistently 1cm off grain.
I really was super careful cutting and measured the distance from the grainline on the pattern to the selvedge, so now I'm wondering whether it was me that was wrong, or whether my selvedges were wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I bought cheap fabric that was imperceptibly skewed.
Next time I'm doing stripes I'm gonna use the stripes themselves as grainline guide rather than the selvedge
@jjcelery I learned that the hard way too last week
or worse, I assumed the top and bottom edge had been cut cleanly, but they hadn't, so all my on-grain pieces ended up 2–5° off grain until I realised and cut the rest by the stripes
