I’ve been making sure I spend at least 20 minutes a day sewing–harder than you’d think, as Gabriel is only happy on the sewing room floor for about 10 minutes at a time. I’m starting to think it might be easier when I have to give up that room for him and sew downstairs. At least he likes the living room floor!
Anyway, this is what I have to show for my time:
It certainly isn’t perfect. I’m not happy with the zig zag on the neckline, the underbust pleats (I think gathers would be more flattering) or the alternative sleeve finish I attempted (a contrast rolled edge finish, which didn’t roll, so I had to turn into a lettuce leaf edge instead). But the fit isn’t too bad and at least I now know the tweaks I’ll need to make before cutting into the polka dot fabric.
To finish this off so it’s at least wearable around the house, I’m going to add a contrast band at the bottom with the same lettuce leaf edge as the sleeves.
Apologies for my feet. Have to download some photo editing software!
So, after making sure I set aside at least 20 minutes a day to do some sewing, I’ve finally made decent headway on my bra project, and have something that looks like a bra. Actually, it looks even more like a bra than in the picture, as I’ve now attached the bottom band elastic and the top elastic on one side. And that’s why I’ve now stalled. After the nightmare of sewing the centre front seam on the powernet I thought it would now be plain sailing, but I managed to totally bollox up the side elastic. Admittedly, having all those layers of the double nursing cups wasn’t helping. And then I had a moment of madness and trimmed the excess wire casing so it was out of the way. But I trimmed too much, so now it doesn’t reach the top on that side. Gah!
This isn’t really too much of a problem as this bra won’t have underwires, so the casing is there more to neaten things up than serve a structural function, but still, I was discouraged by having done something so reckless and decided to put the project aside for a little while so I can come back to it with a fresh, positive mindset. Continue reading “Friday update: Bra-making shenanigans”
I’m starting off a series of (hopefully) regular weekly posts featuring news about what I’ve been up to with a particular slant on the sewing (more general updates will be over on my writer blog, should you wish to follow those). This would normally be on a Friday, but hey, I accidentally deleted half the post I wrote yesterday, and so here it is today with slightly different (improved?) wording 🙂
This week I’ve been making use of my Any.Do “to do list” app and scheduling myself 20 mins sewing time each day. It seems to be making a real difference. Instead of crossing off all the dull stuff first, I find myself racing to the sewing room to get going every morning. And yes, it’s a task down when I’ve finished! I think it’s important to make that time for my own interests, which can easily be sidelined in all the hustle and bustle of running the house and caring for a baby (along with a nine-year-old and a grown man). I’ve also been making use of tiny chunks of time to get sewing projects prepped, so that when I get my 20 minutes I’m sewing the whole time rather than getting things together. It’s made a real difference to my productivity.
Despite this I haven’t finished anything for myself, but I did get a cushion made for my mum’s birthday (now almost a month late, but who’s counting?!). It features an old embroidery she started when I was little, and that I finished off for her. I’ll do a full post on it sometime soon, but for now a sumptuous piccy:
So, I was planning for my first proper post here to feature some glamorous outfit for me, or a cute one for Gabriel or Daisy, but instead it’s a rather twee peg apron. Do I care? Of course not, because I now own the best peg apron in the land 🙂
I also intended to take photos with our glorious new garden as a backdrop, using Andy’s DSLR (and in the spirit of our new co-habitation, I’m now considering it my DSLR), but neither of us know where the tripod or remote control for it are. Best guess: buried deep in the garage. So instead you get some decidedly shonky pics taken using the self-timer on my phone. Ah well. That’s real life in all its unvarnished glory for you.
Anyway, on with the sewing talk. You’ll see why I needed a new peg storage system when you look at the next picture:
Yep, that’s the old peg bag on the left. It was one of my first sewing projects when I took up in earnest about eight years ago, and I made it up as I was going along, using an old pair of jeans, a wire coat hanger and a short length of pre-made bias tape. It served its purpose, but the bias binding was pretty bloody awful. I don’t think they had handy YouTube tutorials for stuff like that back then. Or if they did, I didn’t know how to search for it.
This time around I decided an apron would be more functional, especially when dangling a baby off my hip. I found a free pattern and tutorial on Craftsy, and used up some printed fabric from my stash. It’s a linen curtain that I found in a charity shop years ago and always loved but never found a use for. It’s too stiff for clothing and possibly a little purple to go anywhere inside the home (lots of earth tones), but I still adore it. I teamed it up with some offcuts of a purple linen/cotton fabric I made a pair of self-drafted trousers from a few years back (and purged in my recent KonMarie decluttering binge because I never liked them on me). As luck would have it, it went PERFECTLY with the print.
The tutorial was easy to follow and would be suitable for a beginner. I did find one small error (On page 4 of pattern it says “Match the tie, wrong sides together” – that should be “right sides together”!). Other than that, the project blurb promised a hanging loop, but this wasn’t included in the tutorial and I didn’t realise this until the end, by which point it was too late to add it without having to unpick topstitching. Not a problem, though, as I don’t have any hooks to hang it from anyway.
The changes I made were to swap the ric-rac for home-made bias binding on the pocket edges. I’ve never been a fan of ric-rac and I thought this would give a more durable finish. I also sewed a small reinforcing triangle where the pocket top meets the side seam.
I did wonder if the waistband should be interfaced in the middle where the apron joins, but I’m glad I didn’t as it’s wonderfully comfortable without. The band is the perfect length and width to go round my body twice and still tie in a generous bow (as you can see in the dodgy, over-exposed picture below)
The only change I might still make is to sew another line of topstitching along where the apron joins the waistband, and perhaps either some bar tacks or a more decorative hand-embroidered stitch to reinforce at each end of the join. These places take a lot of strain as I have a huge amount of pegs to deal with all the nappies I’m washing these days. Oh, the life of a mother is so glamorous!
So, all in all I’m really happy with the peg apron and am contemplating making one for my mum too. And then I just need to think of a use for the rest of the patterned linen. Maybe an ironing board cover? Or a sewing machine cover?
Anyone else own a peg apron? And do you find it worth foregoing the glamour of a dressmaking project in favour of something functional you’ll end up using on a (pretty much) daily basis? This has got me pondering knitting my own dishcloths again…
