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Crafty Thread - what are you working on at the moment?

i want someone to give me proper sewing elssons so i can make some of this sort of stuff. anyone want to swap sewintg lessons for some spinning lessons or handspun yarns at some point when i've written my dissertation?

i did make another crochet blanket though, cause I decided that i wanted my handspun stash to fit into one box, so loads had to be used up or go. So I've got 4 crochet blankets and bf's mother thinks the sun shines out of my bum, cause i gave her a big bag of yarn.

I've also started spinning some hand dyed silk. it will be plyed with some grey stuff and probably become a tie on shawl.
 
I was having a look at vintage patterns on ebay after the above and have just won this to make myself an interview suit with (it's one of those Vogue reprints that is now out of print again).

V2885.jpg


I'm going to have to get cracking with all this sewing...
 
I've currently gone back to the "Sense & Sensibility" Swing Dress which I started ages ago and ran into a problem with.

I've just asked for help on their forum and been roundly told that I have to introduce myself first on the "introduce yourself" thread.

Fighting an awful temptation to
  1. Tell them to fuck off (swearing is not allowed, it's that sort of forum, and lots of "modest dressers")
  2. Introduce myself as "I am a person. I live in the world. I sew."
  3. Make up an elaborate and slightly implausible fantasy persona.
 
Well I think the pattern is wrong.

I'm doing a muslin of the bodice. You put a dart in the back neckline and then attach the back neck facing, but that's now too big by the exact width of the dart. Which makes me think you should dart the facing too but it doesn't tell you to do that.
 
okay, if you have a darted neckline and an equivalent facing you should definitely dart the facing too. are there any sizes that don't require darts? cos i'd be surprised tbh and in that case the facing should be cut to the "finished" size i.e. all darts allowed for. cos i'm not aware of any significant allowances for necklines with grading up sizes, yunno?
 
This swing dress pattern is a total bastard. I am not making anything else by this deranged woman. Thankfully someone has written a step by step tutorial, with photos, ignoring most of the original instructions.

God bless sewing pattern review.
 
This pattern is challenging my already burnt out brain. I'm also concerned that I've made it out of light cotton instead of crepe or something drapey so all the darts and gathers are just going to make me look even bigger :facepalm: Not looking for any advice - just moaning :D
 
madzone said:
This pattern is challenging my already burnt out brain. I'm also concerned that I've made it out of light cotton instead of crepe or something drapey so all the darts and gathers are just going to make me look even bigger :facepalm: Not looking for any advice - just moaning :D
Click to expand...
Just press them well - give a little spray and a press to the bits where the gathers originate to help them settle.
 
RubyToogood said:
Just press them well - give a little spray and a press to the bits where the gathers originate to help them settle.
Click to expand...
It's really gathery, tucky though. I'm giving it till lunchtime and then if it's no good I'll have to hope there's something suitable in a bloody shop :facepalm: My own fault for leaving everything till the last minute.

One of the problems is the tucks are diagonal so they're off the grain and stick out a bit.
 
It's fucked. There's something seriously wrong with the front of it. The skirt was 4 inches wider than the bodice and it's just all bunched up at the front and hangs wrongly on the hem. I've read and re-read the pattern but there's no clues there as to what's gone so wrong. I could pick it apart and try to see what the problem is but the zip is in now and it'd gone 1pm and I have fuck all to wear tomorrow. Guess I'd better hit the few pathetic shops we have and see if I can get anything that'll actually fucking fit me. Very cross and unhappy of W Cornwall.
 
i've finally ( :facepalm: ) got round to ordering the bits for kid1's charm bracelet. fingers crossed it gets here before her birthday :oops:

i got blue chain, alice in wonderland and matrioshka charms, a little locket and a rubber ducky with a bell in it :D (while i was there i got us all flashing led lightbulb necklaces cos they look ace :cool:)
 
madzone said:
It's fucked. There's something seriously wrong with the front of it. The skirt was 4 inches wider than the bodice and it's just all bunched up at the front and hangs wrongly on the hem. I've read and re-read the pattern but there's no clues there as to what's gone so wrong. I could pick it apart and try to see what the problem is but the zip is in now and it'd gone 1pm and I have fuck all to wear tomorrow. Guess I'd better hit the few pathetic shops we have and see if I can get anything that'll actually fucking fit me. Very cross and unhappy of W Cornwall.
Click to expand...
I honestly don't think it matters what you come in as long as it doesn't have paint all over it and it's not a clown costume or something. Jeans and a dark top would be fine, frinstance, I'm sure.
 
RubyToogood said:
I honestly don't think it matters what you come in as long as it doesn't have paint all over it and it's not a clown costume or something. Jeans and a dark top would be fine, frinstance, I'm sure.
Click to expand...
I genuinely don't own a single suitable thing for a funeral. I've managed to find some fucking hideous black tunic from New Look but I haven't got anything to wear with it. I really don't want to be in boots and leggings on the hottest day of the year :(


Fucking sewing patters :mad:
 
charms came :) but i'm wondering if all of them is a bit much :hmm: i don't want it to be impossibly clunky... (and obvs i want to leave space for her to add more, although i'm gonna get claps for all of them so she'll be able to swap in/out whenever :))

7029191929_9bd150ec03.jpg
 
(?)

I've started weaving... No, really. And it actually feels relaxing, and fun. I use a super simple frame that I've built myself out of scrap planks and nails, and I weave simple picture tapestries on it- variations on textures and colour, nothing fancy... Not very advanced or 'impressive'. But I like it. It works for me. :)

All my life I've always struggled with trying to focus like the educators tell you to: In a linear, disciplined way. I can't do it- my mind flutters in and out and round and about and I drop in and out of focus- It's actually painful trying to focus on something for too long, because my head then hurts so much it feels like hell...(Rudely being told that "I didn't have ADHD because I was a girl" by successive uninterested school nurses probably didn't help- but anyway I've always tried to out-run it by simply switching back and forth between subjects and tasks and conversations and duties, running away from the problem by getting caught up in a massive, ever-speeding wave of frantic, unfocused activity that sort of organically unfolded itself until I came crashing down and then it all started over again... No rest, just trying to keep afloat, whatever.)*

But now...[Not only, but importantly-] through crafting, working with my hands, making things- a sort of newfound focus have begun to appear. Being right here and now in the moment, everything else around me disappears and I can breathe... It's wonderful. I didn't know it existed. I don't know why I sneered at craft class in school. (And believe me, if anyone had told me back then that I someday would be doing girly stuff, making things with yarn, I'd probably laughed in their face... Well, that goes to show that life is a continuous process of change, and you never really know who you are beyond the moment, things can happen tomorrow and you'd be a different person then, nothing is frozen in a frame)
 
I am feeling really bogged down with this swing dress pattern. I keep thinking about it, and measuring bits of it, and then not doing anything.

I made a mockup of the bodice, which I had to do to make sense of it before I could work out what size to make. It seems to be coming up really small, so that it looks like not only will I have to make two sizes up from my normal size*, but I'll still have to enlarge the skirt and possibly the waist yoke and sleeves, and it's not a very straightforward pattern because of all the yokey bits. I've put on a bit of weight over the winter, but not that much.

It's very tempting to just chuck it in and make another of the slightly 50s style shirt dresses, like the cartoon monster one I did last year, with the pattern I've already altered and which fits me like a dream. Except that the fabric I've got is pretty 30s.

*ETA: actually three sizes bigger now I think of it as US sizes are about one size up.
 
I am a genius.

Rather than sweating blood over that blasted swing dress pattern I am just redrafting my tried and tested shirt dress pattern to give it a more 30s style (getting rid of the underarm dart and making it into tucks coming from the shoulder instead, and making the sleeves puffy at the top). I looked at loads of 30s and 40s patterns, and those were the two single most defining things - drapey front bodice and puffed sleeve head.
 
I'm going to give that bastardy one another try in a different fabric and see if I can work out what went wrong first time. Then when I've worked it out I'll unpick the first one.

I concur with you, Ruby, you are a genius :cool:
 
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