Day 2

June 18, 2017 SusanLeave a comment

Today was spent celebrating Father’s Day with B and El but I managed to squeeze in 10 minutes of craftiness to knock out the second sleeve of my new smock. So here are my sleeves all pressed and stacked super neatly. I’m not sure which part I’ll start next. I might just swallow the frog, so to speak, and work on the body of the garment.

Father’s Day was awesome. We went to see a movie, ate lunch out and spent the rest of the afternoon in junk food induced comas. (Also did some laundry). Not a half bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Now I’m off to eat a light dinner and practice some dances for next week’s ballroom lesson.

A&S · hand sewing · sewing · Uncategorized

The Hand Sewing Tale

June 17, 2017 SusanLeave a comment

I love hand sewing. I love the connection I feel to past seamstresses when I sit down in a quiet place and work. It’s meditative. Why I don’t do this more often is a mystery. I suppose I was feeling uninspired; using the time old argument of ‘not enough time.’

Then I attended a workshop by The Modern Maker.

I had the distinct pleasure of taking his workshop on the construction of female doublets. Eight hours spent learning hand sewing techniques, garment adjustments and story time from Spanish tailoring books. If you have the good fortune to learn from Matthew, do so. He is an amazing teacher and a wealth of knowledge.

More than the technical skills, I left feeling inspired so I decided to start by sewing a women’s shirt by hand.

I’m hemming all the edges by hand then plan on joining the pieces together with a fagoting stitch.

Today I finished the first sleeve. There’s no logic as to why I started with the sleeve; just seemed the thing to do. I’m using a running stitch to on the little hems.

I’m also tracking the time on the production of the garment. I’m interested to see how long it takes.

The other thing I’ve decided to do is join the 100 days of A&S challenge. Not all of my projects will be historical in nature, but I’m excited to share even the small bits of what I’m working on and having a reason to get back into the habit of writing on a regular basis.

Today is Day One!

eyelets · hand sewing

The Eyelets Have It

April 24, 2015 Susan3 Comments

Boy, do they ever. I sometimes think that eyelets are the very bane of my existence. The odd thing is that I actually like sewing them. I really enjoy all sorts of hand sewing so it really gives me fits that my eyelets are so, well, stinky. Case in point:

These little darlings are roughly the middle 3 eyelets on one side of a kirtle which will require a total of 10 eyelets per side. The top eyelet is like a little egg. The middle eyelet is a bit more round and the final eyelet is a bit like a fat egg. The stitching on the middle eyelet is probably as good as it gets. This kirtle will have a grand total of 40 eyelets in it. I’m betting the 40th eyelet will be perfection.

If I hide, they'll think I'm just another stuffy. — If I hide, they’ll think I’m just another stuffy.

Rather than leave you with an image of bad eyelets and a woman feeling sad about them, I offer up a pic my one of my dogs, Sheldon. Sheldon is cute, loves to snuggle and I bet he sews up a mean eyelet.