A is for Apron. Provence Smock. Prepping apron for bias tape.


Here’s a closeup of the material for one of my aprons.  It’s green seersucker with lemons on it.  So cute!  I’m finding the apron directions hideous, so soon there will be directions illustrated and adapted.  But in the meantime, here I am stay-stitching and trimming.

Colette Patterns’ Laurel. It’s a shirt! With the tiny ruffle variation.

Oh my gosh, do I like these shirts!  I love the color, I love the tiny ruffle variation and I love how quickly they came together.  I hoping that the dresses will come together quickly too, since I spent a lot of time fitting the shirts.
 
I especially love how the back is fitted. It’s not something I feel like I see a lot in shirts.

Are there things I would improve on, given my druthers?  Yep.  The top of the back is a bit too poofy and I probably could have given the bust another half inch or so.  Also, the tiny ruffles like to roll and expose the bias binding, perhaps because I over stay-stitched the neckline, perhaps because it’s just too much bulk.  The sleeves are weirdly puffy and I clearly have a ways to go in the setting-in-sleeves skill.  But overall?  Very happy.

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: Ruffles and necklines. Also, starting the first apron.

These are the millions of threads it’s smart to cut off before attaching the ruffle.  Also, notice the spools of thread on the sewing machine.  I’ve sewn through two spools of thread for the three shirts and I still have two more dresses to go.  Back to the fabric store I went for more thread.
 
A realization I had more than once while working on this project:  It’s time for a new ironing board.  This one tends to randomly collapse.  Plus, I think my loyal readers are a bit tired of looking at the stained floral pattern.
 
But look!  Uniform shirts finished!
 
And we are continuing on to the apron.
 
With my trusty assistant.
 

Prompt Writing

This spring, I took a writing class offered through Write Around Portland.  It was called “Prompt” because each week we would meet and write for a limited amount of time–usually 2-8 minutes–to a number of different prompts.  As the school year grinds to a start and I have less time to write, I will be featuring excerpts from my writing class in lieu of the weekly essay.  Here’s the first one.  The prompt was, “Come on in.”

“Come on in,” my boyfriend called to me from the middle of the river.  He’d gotten himself there by jumping off the bridge above him, the bridge that I sat on the edge of, my legs dangling above the water.  My eyes narrowed.  I knew his offer was a challenge more than an invitation.  He didn’t think I would do it.

Of late, our relationship had changed.  I sensed he was bored with me and I suspected his head had been turned by someone else.  We were clearly headed toward “over” but the asshole hadn’t actually taken time to break up with me.  Instead, he was mostly unavailable.  This river outing was the first I’d seen of him in a week.  When we did get together he found ways to imply I didn’t measure up to whatever I had been before.  It was ridiculous that I didn’t end things myself, but his cowardice just made me more stubborn.  I wasn’t going to break up with him if he wasn’t going to break up with me.

I looked down at the water.  This was a stupid challenge, or not much of a challenge at all.  I was a duck in the water, a seal, a sea otter.  I felt more comfortable in rivers, lakes and pools than I did on land.  And the jump itself wasn’t very high, no higher than the diving board I’d mastered by age twelve.  The water was deep and calm below me.

“It’s no big deal.” he called, goading me on.  He had jumped feet first, flailing a bit on the way down.  I could do better than that.  I stood up and turned, placing my back to him.

“If you aren’t going to jump, you can come in from the bank,” he called to me.

I rolled my eyes and launched myself backward, my feet flipping over my head as I spun in the air.  I brought my body into a perfect line and slid into the water, barely making a ripple.

I could do better than this.

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: Attaching tiny sleeve ruffles and setting up sleeves.

The good thing about making three of the same shirt is that there is time to improve on one’s task at hand.  So it went with attaching tiny ruffles to the sleeves.  I learned that I should trim all the tiny ruffles down a bit before sewing, so the millions of bits of thread don’t have to be removed later. I learned that it’s best to smoosh the ruffles so there is maximum ruffle, because that will still be enough to go around.  I learned that one should attach tiny ruffles to the sleeves and then trim a lot of the bulk from the seam line, which will make it easier to attach the bias tape.
 
Here’s some bias binding happening.  I’m noticing I still haven’t learned the trick for making sure the bias tape endings aren’t raw.  But I learned that trick too.
 
I’ve set in sleeves in my day and I like the process, if not always the result.  I like putting in three rows of gathering thread, which will be exuberantly ripped out once the sleeve is securely in place.  I went with bright orange because I’ve been ripping through the blue thread on this project, but also because contrast is easier to pull out after the fact.  Those are six sleeves, ready to be inserted and three shirts, ready to receive those sleeves.
 

Three sentence movie reviews: The Wolverine

This was much better than the previous Wolverine movie which shall not be referred to ever again.  As with Iron Man 3, the superheros are more interesting when they can’t be quite so super.  The movie was a bit slow in places and I had time to contemplate the fact that really only Hugh Jackman could pull off some of those lines, but overall, a pretty good way to spend a summer afternoon.

Cost:  $5.00 ($5.00 Tuesday special)
Where watched:  Regal Tigard Cinemas, with mom and Matt