Month: October 2018

After yet more crawling around on my poor knees I managed to finish cutting all the main pattern pieces tonight, which means all the masking tape and fabric are finally off the floor. For now. 😂

The final preparation step is to hang all of the pieces for at least 24 hours. This is because they were cut on the bias – that means the fabric (which is already really drapey due to the rayon in it) is very stretchy and can grow on you. So by letting it hang, you’re allowing the pieces to stretch before you start sewing them together.

I was a little worried about how the skirt pieces would come out. It was hard to tell as I was cutting it whether the flower placement would be nicely random. The three pieces across the front are more similar than I’d like, but it’s still offset a bit and the Snook said he didn’t even notice. I’m not sure whether I have a big enough piece left to cut another one, so I think I’m stuck with it regardless.

I reckon I’ll leave these to hang tomorrow while I get onto the next task: cutting out most of the pieces again, this time in the lining fabric. (My back is killing me already…)

My goal was to have the Oolong dress cut out tonight… and I didn’t quite get there. First I had to iron my fabric though. It’s a Hawaiian print that I bought in Honolulu more than 5 years ago, and of course I no longer remembered what the hell it actually was. Between my Internet sleuthing and the Snook’s chemistry knowledge (ie he literally burnt a chunk of it), we’re fairly certain it’s a cotton/rayon blend. It’s very drapey and should work nicely with this pattern.

Now – this dress is cut “on the bias,” which means you have to place the pieces at 45-degrees to the fabric’s grain. This means that I actually needed to square up my fabric. I ended up laying it out on the living room floor, using the wooden floorboards and a load of masking tape to get it stuck down straight. Then I started pinning and cutting.

Ugh. Crawling around on your hands and knees on a wooden floor really sucks. I managed to get about halfway done, so I’ll finish up tomorrow. I’m wrecked.

As you would’ve seen from the photo in the previous post, Frocktober is here again! I am once again taking part, and you can donate towards my efforts here. I have set a stretch goal of $2000 raised for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund this year, but I reckon we can do it!

In addition to wearing a different dress every day, I’m also going to be documenting a couple frocktastic sewing projects throughout the month. I haven’t sewn anything for several months, so it was nice to tidy up the sewing room today and to hit Spotlight for supplies.

My big challenge with sewing (and it’s the same challenge I have with cooking) is that I lack the patience to set up my mise en place properly. Most of the work isn’t the sewing part; it’s in the painstaking preparation: tracing, ironing, and cutting. I need to learn to appreciate this part just as much as I do the actual assembly.

My tasks today were to wash my fabric, trace out my pattern – Colette Oolong – onto some interfacing, and then pin it together into a toile for sizing. I tried it on and the Snook assisted with some adjustments. (We added some width to the underarm pieces, deepened the darts at the upper back, and adjusted the shoulder slope slightly.) Then I had to transfer those adjustments back to my pattern pieces.

That’s all for today! The next step is to iron my fabric and cut out the pieces.