Category: To Occupy my Time

Stay stiching the neckline, joining the shoulders

Now that all that basting is done (three movies worth, geez-almighty) I can move on to the next step: stay stitching the neckline. we do  this to ensure it doesn’t stretch out with repeated wear.  I’m in.

Here, I have traced my sewing line in disappearing marker so I know where to sew.
 

I’m choosing the organza strips and I get to not only pin, but also to baste the organza.  That Gertie lady is crazy for basting.
 
The finished stay stitched neckline.  You can’t really see it, but it’s done.  And I got to sew together the shoulders!  Very exciting.
 

Dead Relative’s Tour 2013

Yes, it’s that time again:  time to put flowers on the graves of the dead relatives.  You can come along too.

In Rose City Cemetery I snapped a picture of this gravestone because someone I know has this same last name.  And Joshnston-with-a-“t” is much less common than Johnson.
 

I strode far away from the family grave to see who this large stone belonged too. From the space left on the stone, it looks like Rudolf was expecting company who never arrived.  Gravestones like this leave me a little sad.
 
I love headstones with photos.
 
A little something for the fans of the Waldorf method.  Plus, look at that great detail on the top!
 
(Argh. Didn’t rotate this one)
I was intrigued because it had fresh flowers, so someone is still coming around.  But it’s in a section of 1930s era deaths and has no headstone.  There’s a story here.
 
Basil and Basiliki are bedecked for another year.
 
The tools of the trade.  Also, this is the first year we haven’t gone in the Jeep Cherokee because my aunt has a new car.  It’s a silver car.  I can’t remember which kind.
 
That is so meta.
 
This hedge was gorgeous in color and undulated marvelously.
I wish I’d taken a bit more time to properly capture it.
 
Much speculation ensued about the family relationship here.
 
I love this epithet.  You go, Tyyne, with your double “y” in your name and all.
 
Working on Grandma and Grampa’s grave (with the new car in the background)

This year we learned that the cemetery is not providing the green vases to stick in the ground.  I flagged down a maintenance worker to ask him for one and got an earful about how the cemetery is now cheap and doesn’t want to give them out anymore because it just causes more work to pick them all up.  Then he gave me one on the down-low.  Thanks guy, you are awesome.  We will bring our own next year.

Sometimes, you just need a good grilled cheese.


All week long I’ve been craving grilled cheese.  Thanks to my sourdough starter, I keep myself in homemade whole-wheat sourdough bread, which is good for many things, but not the grilled cheese I was thinking of.  So I made a some perfect sandwich bread, bought some delicious ham, sliced up some Tillamook medium cheddar and made a pot of tomato soup to boot.

It really hit the spot.

Laurie Notaro

Kelly and I wandered down to Powell’s for our third Laurie Notaro reading.  She was funny as ever, in her hilariously charming over-sharing way. If you are looking for a bit of a pick-me-up any of her books of essays will do.

ps.  The gallery installation behind her was incredible.  A whole heap of author portraits done by two artists. I especially loved the style of Allison Bruns (the top one pictured here).  She was great at capturing expression.

More pictures of the exhibit.
http://powells.tumblr.com/post/51569909347/travelingbookgirl-powells-city-of-books

Drafting new facings, cutting and basting

Here was the original plan for the facings, but I’ve got to make new ones due to arm area expansion.
 
It was easy enough though.
 
It’s important to star one’s cutting layout.
 
Bodice stuff that needed to be cut on the fold. 
 
Prepping my cutting area.
 
Have you seen the movie Unzipped, about Isaac Mizrahi’s fall 1994 collection?  It’s a great documentary.  And one thing I learned is that all the women making the fashion wear black all the time.  So I’m wearing all black in homage. Also because it’s rather cold today.
 
I really despise cutting out.  It might be better if I didn’t have to crawl all over the floor all the time.
 
After cutting out the underlining, I was to put out the main fabric…
 
…and lay my underlining pieces on top.
 
Then Gertie told me to carefully baste around each piece and then finish cutting out.  I suspect this is one of those things Gertie does because she likes to be careful.  I’m doing it, but it’s taking forever.
 
But look how pretty it looks when it’s done.
 
However, I needed to watch a movie to keep me occupied.  And when that movie was over, I was nowhere near done. Grrr.

Today I spent five hours working on this and I’m still not done with this week’s items.  

Final muslin fitting, prepping material

Muslin #2.  I can see that lengthening the front now has me in trouble with the back. The side seams are even.  I sense a muslin #3 in the future.
 
The back is now a little bit better.
 
The front is reaching my waist.  And notice how taking all that fabric out at the armpit level helped tremendously.
 
But I’ve still got a shoulder thing going on.  I solved this by having Matt cut back until there was a bigger opening.
 
Why is this picture upside down?  There is now more room in the shoulder area.
 
Here is the pattern for #1 topped with the pattern for muslin #2 in front,  with the changes outlined for #3 in green.  I’ve known it since I tried on Sara’s strapless formal dress in tenth grade, but man, do I have shoulders.
 
Muslin #3.  I feel like I could pull in the shoulders a bit, and the waist, but I don’t really know what I’m doing here, so I think I will leave it.
 
The back looks good.
 
Sentinel is a good helper.
 
Now to press all the underlining material.  This dress does not skimp on material.
 

Tracing pattern pieces

I’m feeling confused about how to make the changes from the muslin to the pattern, so I’ll distract myself with tracing all the pattern pieces.
 
Here’s the official pattern piece.
 
I devised a check system to ensure that I got all the pieces I needed.  I have to be wary of project pitfalls and one of them is not having everything I need.  If I miss a piece and have to backtrack to this stage, there’s a good chance I won’t finish the project.
 
The file cabinet holds what I need.  Here is a skirt piece and a pocket.
 
I only use the finest tools.  A true statement in the case of the rulers, which have been invaulable.  A false statement with the pattern weights which are just whatever object I can find to serve as “heavy.”