I wish I had time to post a tutorial for that mask, because I was really happy with how it turned out and how easy it was. Later!
Sloppiest sewing I've done in decades, I think, but it served the purpose. And Mr. P himself remembered at the last minute that we needed to cut off one sequin over the heart. :)
This week has been super stressful and looks to continue. You have no idea how badly I want to graduate!
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Shmoogie howled for Maine Dog the other night, which Daddy quickly retrieved from the darkening living room. Shmoogie thrust the poor stuffed thing right back at him, "No! I can't see him!"
Because he had no eyes, just large holes with stuffing coming out of them.
Two buttons and some thread (and a trip through the washing machine) - everyone's happy again.
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We're having a nice holed-up kind of post-Christmas week. Mr. Pants is loving his bike and his Legos and Shmoogie will hopefully soon be loving her new antibiotics. :) I'm mostly tip-tapping away at the computer on Version 2.0 of Cross It Off! while Mr. Right juggles the kids. Hoping to have that ready before classes start in a few weeks... I'll keep you posted. :)
In the meantime, I'll be posting a few Christmas handmade items for the sake of the record. Hope you enjoy! (There's a fabulous recipe coming down the pike, don't miss that!)
***
There was a bit of a squeaky finish getting Shmoogie's doll ready in time for Christmas, but it did get done. It's a good thing there was a deadline or all the little things that didn't turn out the way I'd hoped would have stalled me out on the whole project.
She was very cute opening the box, saying, "Baby!" and picking her up and giving her a hug...
And then started saying, "Poo poo? Poo poo?" and pulling off all of dolly's clothes.
When she finally got the panties pulled down to her satisfaction, she announced, "Yeah, poo poo."
My big idea with this gift was that Shmoogie loves clothes and I figured she'd love taking them on and off a doll. She definitely got the idea. I think doll got undressed (I believe DiDi was helping with the re-dressing) at least three times on Christmas day.
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This glider is ten years old and has been through four babies (my sister had it first). Until a month ago, it still had the original denim-like cushions, which weren't washable and, as I'm sure you can imagine, had reached an unpleasant state in all that time.
I took the old cushions off, cut foam for a new seat cushion (decided to leave off the back pad), and then sat on the naked ugly foam for a month while I over-thought / avoided the project.
It took a few hours in the end - more than I felt like it should have - but there's finally another splash of cheer in poor Shmoogie's bare little room.
Next stop: curtains!
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I discovered dyed tagua nut buttons at the knitting shop on Friday and I have never loved buttons so completely.
They got me re-inspired to finish Shmoogie's (now belated) birthday coat.
She saw me sewing one of the last hems and said, "What doin', Mommy?" and I told her it was a jacket for her and she said, as is her habit, "What?"
I took it off the machine and showed her. She looked at it with curiosity and reached for the edge of it and said, "Coot?"
"Yes, it's very cute," I told her. "Coot," she said again, and tried it on.
I think she likes it.
***
This is Burda Easy 9780, made up in size 2T. (Can you believe I almost left off the ears because I thought they might be too cutesy?) Outer shell is boiled wool (a felted fine guage knit) purchased in Austria, lining is flanel purchased at Joann Fabrics, and the buttons are dyed tauga nut polished to a satiny softness you just want to sit and rub for hours. These are magic buttons, I'm telling you.
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Did I say jacket? Ahem. I meant apron. (Shown with Mr. Pants's beloved Moomin apron found in Stockholm; I copied it in the owls for Shmoogie, who is about to be old enough for the kitchen.)
Wonder Tape made the bias binding so easy! (Marvelous new notion I learned of from Peter Lapin at Male Pattern Boldness.)
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The sewing "room" is still a shambles.
But Shmoogie's birthday is rapidly approaching and I want to make her something. Plus, I got this pattern months ago in Vienna and it only goes up to size 2T. Time's up!
The fabric is a purple boiled wool, also from Vienna (just ask Mr. Right how much boiled wool I bought in how many colors and how much of it I've used for anything). It's a bit thicker, I think, than the pattern's recommended fabrics, but I'm going to try it. Probably with buttons instead of snaps.
But the lining. What to do about the lining? I dug out four quilting cottons from the sewing shambles and since I'm dithering, I thought we'd try a poll! We've never done a poll before! Fun, right?
Choice number one: pink umbrellas. Sweet, but I don't know if I can get over the fact that the jacket is NOT a rain jacket.
Choice number two: bright yellow owls! I picked this at the fabric store because it was so cute and bright, but now it's feeling a little too bright. Like, she might be mistaken for a clown.
Choice number three: moody grey owls. I think this print is gorgeous and I think it goes beautifully with the purple wool, but... it just seems a bit sophisticated for my sweet little baby girl? Although, she's got a scowl to compete with any of these...
Choice number four: mushrooms! I love this, but I don't think I have enough of it. I could use it for the cuffs and hood lining and maybe a facing around the center front and bottom hem, piecing it onto some solid color lining yet to be unearthed/purchased, but that sounds like... work. And I probably love the grey owls more.
Whaddaya think???
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Now, should I go dig my way to the sewing table? Or measure out the seam allowances on the pattern? (How can they call something "Easy" if you have to add your own seam allowance? Europeans! Argh!)
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This is it for my royal wedding retrospective, I promise, but I can't pass by the chance to talk about the dress!
It was gorgeous, I thought. A few details I wouldn't have picked for myself, but overall really stunning. Having designed and sewn my wedding dress, I can't help but be a little fascinated. I'll admit I searched for detail photos Saturday morning, with little luck. Oddly enough, though, I did read the lace was constructed by cutting motifs out of a variety of laces and appliqueing them to silk tulle, which is quite similar to how I worked my own dress.
And since I don't have the rights to post royal wedding photos and this blog is all about ME anyway (right?), let's have a look at my dress today, ok?
It was princess-seamed with a full A-line skirt (no train, but my veil dragged the floor a bit, I think). I didn't wear a crinoline to puff the skirt out, but sewed wide horsehair braid (not really horsehair these days, but we still call it that) into the hem to give it body. The dress has three layers, each cut and assembled separately: a silk chiffon overlay, a silk shantung main layer, and a china silk lining. (Seen here on a dress form set very short and sitting on a table while under construction.)
A custom-fit dress in three layers of silk will definitely make you feel like royalty. I was so comfortable in that dress, I wish I could have worn it more than once!
It had 23 self-covered buttons with self-fabric loops up the back (trick of the trade I learned in the process: the buttons and loops are real functioning things, but they close over an invisible zipper, which keeps the closure nice and smooth and secure).
I had a definite vision of how I wanted the detailing, a textured naturalistic floral design that would give the effect of a bodice subtly separate from the skirt, with the lace trailing down in points at each seam and the center front (the longest points at the side seams). It took several tries to get a look I was happy with. At first, I thought I would embroider the whole design myself with silk thread, but I couldn't get an effect that looked at all professional or as dimensional as I wanted. In the end, I bought a quarter yard of silk venetian lace that was very stylized, a bit like this...
...and I cut each of those strands apart very carefully (I checked first, it didn't fray; lace generally doesn't, but you DO check these things when the lace costs what it cost). Then, after completely assembling and finishing the dress (except for hemming), I put it on a dress form and pinned each leaf and stem where I wanted it. The vines didn't lie flat because I was bending them so far from their original curves, but that added to the naturalistic effect I was going for.
I left it pinned up there for a few days to consider, rearranged a few things, then stitched it all down to the chiffon layer only (with much less precision than the royal dress; I think I put two or three stitches in each leaf and probably every 1/4 inch along the stems; not carefully around the edges, either, but just stab stitched straight through the lace; you really couldn't see the stitches and letting the edges of the lace stay slightly free gave a bit more dimension and freedom to the design, I thought). In the process, I added a cluster of three glass beads to the center of each three leaves, which barely show up at all in the photos, but which did add something to the overall impression in person. You can see the lace detail and almost the beads in this picture:
Also, I found this one:
I'm sure Kate was not sewing her veil to her diamond tiara with dental floss an hour before the wedding because she forgot to pack white thread. She must have people who remember to bring the white thread for her. ;)
A few other construction details for those interested:
Thanks for listening! :) Something different tomorrow.
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Until two hours before The Wedding, I didn't even realize it was happening on Friday, that's how clued in to the whole wedding hoopla I was.
But then I opened my browser and the front page of the BBC site was covered in headlines featuring the words "wedding" and "today" and I finally figured out... The royal wedding is today!
So I watched it (the live stream I complained about on Friday got fixed in time, yay! and Shmoogie napped, double yay!). And I loved it.
I know lots of people think it's ridiculous to care, that it's a waste of British tax payer dollars and unseemly in the face of budget cuts hurting people who are already hurting...
But there's something about a wedding, isn't there? I thought the Bishop of London said it perfectly, "In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding."
Indeed, our wedding was nothing like the royal wedding... and yet exactly like the royal wedding. Our friends sang Sicut Cervus every bit as beautifully (even more beautifully, in my memory) as the Chapel Royal Choir sang Ubi Caritas. I know the bride's bouquet smelled like heaven, because mine had lily of the valley, too (which was, in February, a less virtuous choice on my part). The love and happiness our friends and family beamed toward us felt like the adoring cheers of besotted billions. And the trumpet fanfares in my heart could have filled any cathedral.
I love going to weddings; each one reminds me of ours and the joy and solemnity of life-long commitment. Which is why I think the interest in this wedding was not entirely about it being royal (how anachronistic! how unseemly!), and a lot about it being a wedding. We the Public hardly ever get the chance to collectively watch any wedding, much less one of such grandeur.
On top of that, who can help feeling moved any time great masses of global humanity are united in emotion over anything? For the most part, I think, that's a wonderful thing. The hope when the Wall came down, the excitement over the dawning of this new millennium, the joy that finally came for the people in Tahrir Square, the sense of triumph over a blighted history that came with the election of Barack Obama, even the grief shared around the world on September 11th or after tsunamis and earthquakes.
What's frightening is how easy it is to feel the same heart-swelling collective emotionalism when the root is something more sinister. Anger, say, or empathy-squashing triumphalism.
I think it's wrong to cheer for death, no matter how awful the person that's died. And yet, when I read about the jubilant crowds in front of the White House last night, cheering the news that Bin Laden had been killed, my head thought, That is wrong; wrong and dangerous, but I can't pretend my emotional system wasn't already pumping whatever it pumps to make my eyes prick and my chest burst with sympathetic feeling.
Our natural instincts are both wonderful and awful. At least on Friday, those instincts were channeled towards celebrating love and hope for the future. (Though I grieve that the news from Syria keeps being buried, I'm not sure that's entirely the wedding's fault.)
***
Let's end with music, shall we? We don't have a recording of our wedding service, but this is the same song our friends sang for us (we had sung it in college choir together). The text is from a psalm and says roughly As the deer longs for flowing water, so does my soul long for you, God.
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Obviously, the basic folding pattern for a box-pleated ruffle is not too complicated. But... then there are the details. I have a few tips for the basic process and then what I figured out for how to deal with the end of the ruffle in three different situations (all seen on the 'Paris' apron).
Create and Attach the Basic Ruffle
First, you need to cut strips of fabric that will make the ruffle. How wide they should be depends on how deep you want the finished ruffle to be and what seam allowance you intend to use when attaching the ruffle. Add those two numbers together, then multiply the total by 2. That's how wide your strips should be. I cut mine 2.25" wide.
The total length of your strips needs to add up to a bit more than three times the length of the edge you will be applying your ruffle to.
Sew all the fabric strips together end-to-end, making sure to keep the seams all on the same side. Fold your new super-long strip over lengthwise and iron in a crease all the way down.
The material I used was 100% cotton, but from a business shirt that probably had a no-iron finish on it, which meant it was hard to iron a crease into it. Because of that and because I'm hoping this will keep the pleats nice and crisp for a while, I ironed some fusible hem tape (left over from IKEA curtains) inside the fold. If you want to use fusible tape, test first on a scrap of your fabric to make sure it won't show through. Also, iron the crease down the long center of your strip once before trying to put in the fusible. The crease will be a simple guide for you to lay the fusible neatly lined up.
1. Using some kind of guide to keep your pleats evenly sized (I counted pinstripes; slightly crazy-making), start to pleat your ruffle. Leave a bit of a tail at the end to make things easier. You won't need to iron every pleat at this stage if you've used fusible tape, just crimp with your fingers and put in a pin.
2. Stitch a line along the whole raw edge of the pleats to hold everything in place. Make sure your stitching line is inside of your final planned seam allowance so that it won't show later (e.g., if you've planned a 1/4" seam allowance, stitch less than 1/4" from the raw edge). Take your time with the machine because there's a lot of layers of fabric here. You might even want to use the handwheel instead of the foot pedal for some or all of this part (especially if a baby is sleeping in the next room). It's best to remove the pin from each pleat just before you sew over it, after it goes under the presser foot, so that it does its job keeping the pleat in place, but doesn't end up distorting the fabric permanently.
3. Now pin your ruffle to the edge of your fabric, matching up the raw edges and putting right sides together (your ruffle probably doesn't have a right side, but you know what I mean). Pin in the ditch of your pleats so you only have a few layers to go through. On top of the ruffle, pin a strip of single-fold bias tape, making sure the crease in the bias tape matches up with where you plan to put your final stitch line.
4. Stitch through all layers, right along the edge-crease of the bias tape. This is actually going to be easier than stitching across the pleats in the first step was, even though there are more layers of fabric, because the pleats are already secure and you can take your pins out before they go under the presser foot.
5. Iron the seam out flat so the ruffle comes off the edge of the fabric and the bias tape folds back over the raw edges. Pin the bias tape in place and stitch the edge of the bias tape to the main fabric.
Detail One: When the ruffle ends at a hemmed edge
Attach your ruffle to the proper edge, making sure to leave some extra ruffle past the edge of the fabric you're stitching to.
Use your seam ripper to free up the last pleat, both from itself and from the fabric, and make a small rolled hem (fold over about 1/8", twice) and stitch that in place. Realize that you will need this finished edge of the ruffle to line up with the final finished edge of the fabric, not the raw edge you see right now.
If you are finishing the perpendicular raw edge of the fabric with single-fold bias tape, leave about a half-inch of bias tape hanging off the edge. Stitch the bias tape onto the fabric. Your stitching line should end at the point that the fabric seam allowance meets the finished ruffle edge. Take a few backwards stitches to secure everything at that point.
Iron the bias tape back over the raw edges, tucking the tail of the bias tape back underneath the rest of the bias, so it's sandwiched inside. Stitch down.
Detail Two: When the ruffle is set into a square neckline
Align your ruffle so that the pleats appear evenly centered on the final opening (turns out, I had a little trouble with that, but that's ok). When pinning your bias tape in place, cut a piece of bias tape long enough to go around the whole neckline and start pinning by matching the center of the bias tape to the center of the ruffled edge. Don't pin the tails of the bias tape to the rest of the neckline yet. Stitch all three layers together along the ruffled edge, starting from before the cut opening (the seam allowance amount before) and ending the same amount past the other end. Backstitch at both ends for security.
(click on this image to see it larger)
Now, what we need to do is make the bias tape turn a corner that won't cause a pucker, while also enclosing the raw edges of the ruffle and the neck opening.
1. Clip into the corner of the cut opening (to the end of the stitching line you just made when you attached the ruffle).
2. Holding the neckline right side up in front of you, flip the ruffle up into place.
3. Tuck the bias tape and end of the ruffle behind the raw edge of the neck opening.
4. Fold the whole side of the garment over onto the neckline, which will expose the seam you will be sewing. The ruffle probably has extra seam allowance, so don't try to match up the raw edges of the neckline and the end of the ruffle, just make sure they are parallel.
5. Holding things in place and flipping the whole sandwich over, fold the bias tape down, away from the neckline at a 90-degree angle from the edge which has the ruffle already attached. Then, fold the bias tape back up, so that it will now be lying in place along the raw edge of the side of the neckline. But, leave a little pleat in the bias tape when you make this last fold up. This little pleat is what will allow your finished neckline to lie flat, without puckers at the corners. (I cheated one side and did the other just right, I'll show the comparison at the end.)
6. Put in a pin to hold it all together. If you put the pin in aligned with the seam you'll be stitching (instead of perpendicular, like I did), you'll be able to try folding the bias tape back into final position to check that you've left enough of a little pleat in the corner. (The photo in step 9 shows the effect of a little too small of a pleat. Oops.)
7. The view from the other side. Note that the garment is still folded to allow the seam allowance of the neckline to line up with the ruffle's raw end. Keep it that way while you sew.
8. Stitch the bias tape to this half of the neckline, starting a little ahead of the ruffle's attachment stitch line and backstitching up to meet it exactly in a corner. The tail of the ruffle will be caught between the bias tape and the garment fabric.
Do all the above on the other side.
9. Fold the bias tape back into place and iron it down. Trim off the excess tails of the ruffle and stitch the bias tape down, which will neatly cover all raw edges.
Hopefully, both your corners turned out nicely. :)
Detail Three: When the ruffle is at the top of a patch pocket
This one is pretty simple! Attach the ruffle to the top of the pocket the same way as ever, making sure to leave a good tail of extra ruffle hanging off at each end. Iron all the edges of the pocket under, including the edges of the ruffle (you may need to use the seam ripper to free the last pleat so you'll be able to fold the edge under). Stitch the pocket to the garment on the machine, leaving the ruffle free. I found it easiest to attach the edges of the ruffle by hand. Fold them under twice and stitch to the garment fabric, leaving the front layer of the pleats free.
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