Sewing Updates

I am awaiting boning tips which should come in tomorrow. I should have ordered them ages ago, but stupid me as usual kept forgetting.

This was my last to-do list for the wedding dress:
To Do Before Saturday:
-- iron fabric
-- trace out pattern on silk
-- trace out pattern on cotton
-- finish seam allowances
-- cut out silk
-- cut out cotton
-- flat line cotton to silk
-- grade seam allowance
-- zigzag finish seam allowance
-- flat fell lining together
-- put in boning casing
-- put in boning
-- fully finish the halter straps
-- deal with tulle
-- zipper??

It is now at:

-- iron fabric
-- trace out pattern on silk
-- trace out pattern on cotton
-- finish seam allowances
-- cut out silk
-- cut out cotton
-- flat line cotton to silk
-- grade seam allowance
-- zigzag finish seam allowance
-- flat fell lining together
-- put in boning casing
-- deal with tulle
-- iron outer fabric
-- fully finish the halter straps
-- figure out hem circumference of outer fabric
-- pin pleating attempts
-- cut out pieces for outer fabric
-- zigzag cut edges of outer fabric
-- french seam along panels and gores
-- cut and tip bones
-- put in boning
-- edge neckline with fashion fabric
-- pin pleating along hipline
-- pin pleating along neckline
-- confirm that the measurements work
-- stitch pleating in place
-- set zipper
-- attach hook and eyes
-- figure out hem length on Fluffy
-- hem lining
-- hem outer fabric with horsehair braid

Most of what remains is hand work. I can hem the lining with the machine, but everything else is handwork. Which, I rather like. Honestly, I've been enjoying my work on Fluffy's dress, as it's a puzzle to figure out, and it feels much like my work with Y, in terms of "not my project so it's kinda interesting". Also the amount of handwork is much higher than I usually allow myself for my own projects.

Speaking of my own projects, I meant to do a fair amount of work on the bridesmaid dress today, as I couldn't move forward on the wedding dress without bone tips. What did I accomplish? Ironing the silk habotai, washing and drying by way of the iron my lining fabric, and unpicking the curtain hems someone had hilariously terribly sewn into said lining fabric. Oh, and a quick burn test of the lining fabric. It appears to be mostly cotton, with perhaps a little poly added. Something WAS bubbling, but it nearly burned cleanly away. What I still have to do on that:

-- double check pattern
-- trace pattern onto silk
-- trace pattern onto cotton
-- add seam allowance
-- cut out silk
-- cut out cotton
-- hem cotton
-- flat line cotton and silk
-- trim seam allowances down evenly
-- zigzag edge seam allowances
-- sew darts
-- sew seams
-- finish neckline
-- finish armscye
-- install zipper
-- figure out pattern for bolero and ruffles
-- iron silk chiffon
-- trace bolero and ruffles onto silk
-- add seam allowance
-- cut out silk
-- zigzag edge
-- attach ruffles
-- attach bolero
-- make big flower for shoulder closure

I'm just not enthused about making this stupid bridesmaid dress. I'm just not particularly enthused about anything involving this wedding. We have the bachelorette party this weekend, and then only a week and a half away is the wedding itself. I'd much rather be sewing the wedding gown that I'm getting paid for, than the bridesmaid gown for a wedding that continually demands monetary support from me.

Wedding Dress Update

I am finding it difficult to keep pushing through working with the silk habotai for the lining. It shifts and wiggles under my ruler and so I can only draw lines 1-2" long at a time. I traced out and added seam allowance for the stability layer (cotton) in 15 mins flat. I've been working on the silk for a few days.

It wearies me. I have 3 more pieces to retrace (because chalk fades while working) and add seam allowance to before I cut it out. Once I have the two layers flat-lined, the silk should behave. But I have to get it there. AND be careful while flatlining to not have the silk shift its grain.

To Do Before Saturday:
-- iron fabric
-- trace out pattern on silk
-- trace out pattern on cotton
-- finish seam allowances
-- cut out silk
-- cut out cotton
-- flat line cotton to silk
-- grade seam allowance
-- zigzag finish seam allowance
-- flat fell lining together
-- put in boning casing
-- put in boning
-- fully finish the halter straps
-- deal with tulle
-- zipper??

Luckily, I had a piece of periwinkle blue cotton THE PERFECT SIZE to use as the stability layer. Seriously, I have had magical luck with fabric lengths. I also had given my client the perfect number for the lining fabric. And this is "fits perfectly without magic tricks to eke out more space". It's a stress-free "fits perfectly".

New Clarinet!

So my friend was getting rid of his clarinet. I said "sure, I'd love to have it -- maybe a student would need it". Well, maybe with a little fixing up it could be better than my normal clarinet! It's a wooden Bb Evette & Schaeffer, made in France by Buffet-Crampon. It's a little hard to read the serial number chart, but this instrument was made either in the mid-50s or mid-60s.

It's a little gunky and sticky now, but hopefully my repair guy will get it working as right as rain. I'd also like to get another case for it, as it's in a double case and I don't need that.

I also will need my repair guy to tell me how much it's worth so I can add it to my instrument insurance! I think I'll need to up my policy if I add this new clarinet and the 12-bass accordion I recently purchased.

Also, my friend gave me his stereo speakers. :) I'm very excited, for all that I won't use them in this apartment.

(Haha, after handling the clarinet, my hands smell like old-instrument.)

Nostalgia

There's that thing about teenage summers, I don't know what it is but they are golden in the remembering, like most things, but there's something particular about those summers so that I keep trying to work on stories about it and them and very specific locations that I was only in for a moment compared to all the other places in life. I haven't been back in about ten years, and since then I've spent a lot of time (for whatever reason) picturing and thinking and writing about silly things like the walk to the beach where we stay.

I disagree with this writer wholeheartedly. Teenage summers? 50% of them I was working. The other ones? Not. memorable. at. all. Except, actually, I do recall this: being really upset and surprised that I was BORED THE ENTIRE TIME. I remember feeling like "what the heck? Summers used to be the best! Why is this so shitty?"

I think if you want cozy nostalgia, head back to elementary school. When everything that you learn makes the world a more interesting place. Where the cruelties of children are solvable by hitting them on the sly. And they hit you back and you both get time out. When I think of some of the worst times in my life, they were pretty much all teenage years. Not that my 20s haven't had their shitty times. But gimme the single digit years. Before I wanted to grow up and move out, which is what I spent ages 10-19 doing. Hoping that every tomorrow was better than today. And not changing anything, so the tomorrow turned out just the same.

I don't miss my teen years. I am happy to have them behind me.