I'm back

Hopefully for a good long haul this time.
I have lots of things to tell the world about but in the meantime a little haiku for you all......

The days pass slowly

Then rush by, too fast to see

Why no posts lately

Stanley Cup Final - the aftermath

I'm sorry to say that this is not going to be a sewing related post. Frankly there hasn't been enough sewing done in this house to warrant one. :-( There will be one soon though, I promise.

In the meantime I wanted to take a quiet minute or two and write a bit about a rather bizarre local event that some of you might have heard about in the news. They're calling it Riot 2011 or The Stanley Cup Riot or the Vancouver Riot.

It was a travesty, it was sad and awful and is in no way something that Vancouver or BC is proud of. For those who don't know the story the Vancouver Canucks made it to the final round of the Stanley Cup. They fought hard and took it to 7 games. That final game was played in Vancouver. We lost. And then some people got really stupid. There were fires and looting and people got hurt. Lots more people got scared.
The only good thing to say about the riot is that no one died.

We as BCers are ashamed at how a small group of people acted. We just ask that people remember that it was only a small group and that it in no way represents the rest of us.

There are some good things that happened during and after the event and I would like to focus on that.
There were people who stood up for what was right and there were more people that stood up for them.
A lot of people came out into Vancouver where some of the worst damage and looting happened and helped clean it up yesterday.
After 2 police vehicles were burned Wednesday night another police car was found today covered in notes of gratitude and well wishes for the Vancouver police. It is a beautiful sight.
Some people have realized that what they did  Wednesday night was wrong and have come forward and turned themselves in. I applaud them for doing the right thing. I know that admitting you're wrong is never easy. Wednesday night they were people to be ashamed of, today I can feel a small piece of pride in what they did today.

This is not an event to be celebrated but perhaps, if we learned from it, we can celebrate that.

Ta! 

PS  To all those people who posted about their "accomplishments" during the looting or posed after being caught on camera being stupid....do the rest of the world a favour and don't procreate..Please!!!

It's Polyester Pants time!

Yep, you read that right folks.
My next project (delaying my actual sewing for me! Which I will write about later) is a pair of 1970's polyester pants. Miss C is doing a project for school and needs a costume for it so .... here we go.

I'm going to be using a vintage pattern from a Golden Hands books, specifically this one. The pattern for the pants on the cover is included in the book.

I have a small collection of these 1970's Golden Hands books. They're kind of fun and luckily they all seem to have their sewing patterns still in them. Each issue had a free sewing pattern stapled to the middle of the book.

The pants are actually rather cool because they don't have a zipper front but instead one that buttons up, kind of like sailors pants. I don't remember having a pair of these but then I think I lived in jeans pretty much through the 70's. LOL

Here's another interesting feature of the pattern;

This is the whole pattern piece for the pant back. Not very long huh?

That's because part way down it says "Cut on this line and insert 18.5 inches".
I found that really interesting. I'm not sure if this was just to save paper or maybe to make the magazine less bulky...? No matter the reason it's neat. Naturally I didn't cut it there but rather traced the pattern to the size I needed and added the 18.5 inches while I was tracing.

So hopefully today I'll get everything cut out and the markings placed. Then it will be easy to get some little bits of sewing done during the week.
I find if I have everything cut out I can fit in 15 or 20 minutes of sewing during the week, but if I have to cut stuff out I stall until the weekend. Weird huh?
Well, off to continue working.

Ta!

It's now complete

We had a lovely weekend here and since sunny weekends seem to equal me wanting to sew I managed to turn a remnant into an apron for Miss S's costume so maybe people will stop telling her she's very "fancy".
shrug I know, I don't understand how a fairly plain dress with about $2 worth of trim can be fancy...but there you have it.

So this is (hopefully) the final costume for Miss S.
It dang well better be the final costume....the play is in 2 days!

Here's a quick snapshot of the gusset I did for the dancing.

Basically I opened up the arm hole seam up until ...the notches probably? Then I had Miss S put the dress on and raise her arms. I measured the gap that opened and made sure it was going to be enough and not put any strain on the arm hole. From there I just made this football shaped thing (cut on the bias for maximum stretch) that was the length of the portion of the seam I let out by the width of the gap created.
Pin, sew and done! FYI I sewed the gusset in by hand as I felt I'd have more control. I was right. If I was to do this again I would sew one side of the gusset down and then sew the sleeve in going across the gusset rather than the armhole. But of course I was doing this after so....hand sewing was easier.

Ta!

It's done

No pictures of todays work as it's a dull rainy day here today but I'm happy to announce.....it's done!
The gussets are in and they worked out well; the Villager can stretch for her dance. I'm very happy with it and hopefully the teacher will be too.
Here's a bonus pic of the Villager dancing.....

Villager Costume progress

So today sees the villager costume virtually complete!
In fact it would be complete if it wasn't for the fact that said villager is dancing during the play and apparently needs to raise her arms above her head.
So today I've been researching gussets. I've done gussets before in T-tunics so I'm starting from scratch (thank goodness). As of right now I'm tending towards the thought of a football shaped gusset rather than a square; just seems easier. I've taken the seam apart and asked Miss S to raise her arm and a 1 1/2" gusset is looking like what I'll need.
For now it's time to let the brain work on it while I do something else like watch Amazing Race. Yes, my Sunday night guilty pleasure.
Here's a picture of all the trim done though I think it makes a real difference. Enjoy!

Saturday Progress

Wow! It's been just over a day since I posted on the dress and I can't believe how much I've gotten done.
I'm not a fast sewer so this has been a real journey for me. I think the difference here is that I've made this dress before which isn't something I do very often. It has really helped.

So, what have I gotten done?
Yesterday the main parts of the body got sewn together and then I took the back and inserted the zipper. I figured it would be easier to do that while the back wasn't attached to the rest of the dress - less material to cart around. After pinning I decided to pick stitch the zipper in. Call me a perfectionist but the thought of having an obvious zipper in a "medieval" dress just irked me. I knew though that I don't have time to do lacing so....a fairly innocuous zipper seemed the solution. Plus I like hand sewing.
The sleeves got their cuffs on and then I hand stitched the ribbon on while they were still flat. To me it seemed only logical and easier to do that before the sleeve seam went in. The ribbon looks really nice and stitching on the flat allows the ends to be hidden in the seam.

Today;
Today I started with sewing the back to the front and doing the first official dress try on. It looks pretty good but it did need to be let out a bit. I was actually expecting that so it didn't bother me since I'd already planned it out in my head.
The reason I was expecting it is that the first dress was made out of a knit that we found on the clearance rack so it's fit was a bit looser and more forgiving. It was so forgiving that the first dress actually has no zipper at all!
I got that done and approved by Miss S and then moved on to the sleeves. The sleeves and facing are all attached now but I need to play with the sleeves a bit. They're a very close fit and hence don't have a lot of reach to them. When you're dancing you need 'reach' so I'm going to add an underarm gusset in a bit. My brain is currently thinking on that.
While my brain simmers I got the facing sewed on and pressed and understitched and pressed again. I don't know that I've ever understitched before but I have to say I will certainly do it again! It made the facing look so nice.

Right now it's time to walk the dog again and then I'll work on hand sewing the ribbon around the neck line. I want to do that before I tack the facing down so the facing can hide all the stitches. We have a bunch of movies for the long weekend that I borrowed from the library plus HP and the Deathly Hollows Part 1 that I bought so I'll have lots to pick from when I do the handsewing.
That's it for today although I'll try and add a picture later today too.

Ta!

Presenting .....one picture!

If I was really going to give in to my perfectionism I'd be worried about the bodice wrinkles but frankly I haven't got the time. Probably a good thing, don't you think? lol