Fiber Monday - A nearly finished object and other thoughts

I am so close to being done with the making the actual skirt I have been drafting the pattern for. Here's what I have done. The front:


Notice the fly zipper. I have made so many fly zipper over the past two weeks. I think I all paid off because I'm happy with this one.




The front has pockets with a nice lining. 



This is the back. You can tell where I left off sewing today. I'm finishing the seams where the yoke connects to the panels which is why this hasn't been pressed yet. It will lie flat once I do that. 



The back also has went pockets which I drafted to fit my phone.



Here is the pile of 14 (!) pattern pieces I had to draft in order to make this skirt. I'm not sure I realized how involved my first drafting project actually was. That's probably for the best. 


Tomorrow I'll finish the yoke, see the side seams together, do the waistband, and then hem it. It shouldn't be too hard to finish. I would love to be able to pack it for my trip to Arizona to visit my mom on Wednesday. 

Which brings me to thought number one. Rushing, or feeling as though you need to rush, is just not good for anything. Two weeks ago I rushed through making the muslin. It has all sorts of problems and I didn't enjoy the process. This week J. helped me realize that it didn't actually have to be done by Wednesday. The world wouldn't end if I didn't pack it to take on my trip. So I decided to take my time, be careful about my sewing, and most importantly, to enjoy the process. That's exactly what I did. I took all the time I needed to do things carefully. I really enjoyed the process. I also ended up liking the product as well. I know I did my best. 

Here's the probably not surprising thing. I felt I was sewing much, much slower than when I worked on the muslin, but I've actually made more progress in the same amount of time because I did a lot less ripping out. Hurry for me causes me to feel stress. This happens because my brain interprets hurrying as there being something wrong. I feel the same level of stress in my body whether I'm going to miss an important appointment or if I'm sewing for fun. I'm not sure hurrying has ever really made me more productive regardless of the scenario. It has been really useful to see so clearly how much faster I go when I'm not rushing. 

You'll have noticed that there has not been a lot of weaving going on around here. This brings me to thought number two. When I finished learning doubleweave, I decided I wanted to weave some pillowcases. That sounded good, but I don't think I ever really wanted to weave pillowcases, but felt it would be a good idea to make use of the new skill I learned. There was a feeling that I should make pillowcases. You'll also notice that I have not shown any beginnings of the pillowcase project. I'm reality, I didn't really want to do it so I never started.

At our IKEA trip last week I found a good deal on decent pillowcases whose fabric I liked. I bought them and gave myself permission not to make something I didn't want to make. Now I am free to do what I actually want to do which is to make a mixed warp of some of the lovely yarn that has been given to me and create interesting yardage. It sounds like a lot more fun to play with this.. 



than weave pillowcases. 

Some 'shoulds' we can't get rid of, but I have a feeling there are a lot fewer items in that category than we think. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Making bias tape... otherwise known as the Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway

Image
( Sorry, the contest is now closed .... though you're welcome to leave a comment if you like.) [This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but is here solely to give Blogger a different photo to post in the thumbnail.] It's Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway time again.  I love bias tape.  It is so useful and so easy to use... finishing edges ... finishing seams ...  And while the pre-packaged stuff has it's place and I use it often, I really like to have patterned bias tape as well.  Enter one of my favorite little tools: the bias tape maker.  This one make 3/4 inch bias tape and I will be giving one away at the end of this post.  But first, I thought some of you might like to see what it does if you've never used one before. I don't have a rotary cutter, nice cutting mats, or even a proper cutting table (I cut-out things on my floor), so if I can do this, so can you.  Here is my admittedly quirky method. Step 1:  Lay out the fabric an...
Read more

Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway

Image
Sew, Mama, Sew! is hosting another giveaway day , the day where many bloggers giveaway things they have made or supplies to make things or both.  It is great fun to visit a lot of blogs and try to win cool stuff.  So fun that I thought I would participate this year. I had great hopes of making a set of coordinating mother/daughter aprons.  But reality reared its ugly head and I came to terms with the fact that my time is not limitless.Instead of aprons,  I must continue to spend quality time with yards and yards of red plaid flannel.  What am I making?  Well, as I tell my children, it is the season not to ask questions... I will be able to let you know sometime after the 25th. Instead of making something, I went to my favorite thrift store and found some supplies in the form of sheets and pillowcases (some of my favorite raw material).  I'm giving away three pillowcases and one twin flat sheet. I decided to go with bright, springy colors...
Read more

The mystery of the missing soap

You all know that I am an avid reader of mysteries, but sometimes we have our own real life mysteries here as well. Take the case of the missing soap. One of our bathrooms upstairs is the children's bathrooms, whose sink is lower than other sinks upstairs. Now, since it is the children's bathroom, it is not always pristine and things cannot always be found when they are needed. Are we the only house where things just randomly vanish, never to be seen again? This happens fairly frequently. Often the items are too big to have been taken by Borrowers , but every human in the house disavows any knowledge of the missing item. As far as they are concerned, they never even knew said item existed, so how could they have taken it? Often Mr. Nobody gets the blame and we move one, the item sometimes resurfacing at a later date and sometimes not. Early last week, when the little girls went upstairs to get ready for bed and found an entire bar of soap missing, it was classed as one of ...
Read more