June

The emergency dinosaur order went as well as expected. Not a chance in Amazonia that any of those adults actually looked like dinosaurs, but it got done.

Dino hoods for foolish adults

I'm also currently working on a cow. Cotton duck, extra-large shirts, pants, hoods and hand covers. The Woman of Energy wanted me to attach udders, but I very much hope that is not going to happen.

Cow shirt with pockets!

Cow pants with pockets AND a tail!

Cow hoods with pink floppy ears!

And that's about it.

Sickly and Sewing

We hadn't even got over the business of Grandma's funeral before Presbytery came. Presbytery gets to be more fun every year, because after seven years of attending there are more people we know and look forward to seeing again. Except I came down with a weird flu bug before presbytery, and a cold afterwards. I was so disgusted with myself, I was considering flagellation. When we got home Mom said that she and Dad were going to strictly do nothing all next week, and then she promptly came down with the flu. So I guess she really meant it.

Uncle Sam

Over at the costume shop I'm currently working on a three-piece suit in striped sheeting for an Uncle Sam outfit. Personally, I think it looks like a pajama set. It's one of those outfits that the Woman of Energy says "It looks spectacular!" and I'm thinking, whoever wears that is going to look so stupid.

Wedding Dress Cape

The Costume Shop recently purchased a large load of formals and old wedding dresses that are too worn to be resold and too many to be rented, so the Woman of Energy told me to cut some of the skirts down into capes, to be dyed and sold at Renaissance Faires. They were actually turning out pretty well, until the Woman of Energy stormed in today with an emergency order for four adult dinosaurs. I'm not looking forward to that, because there is no way to make a human look decently like a dinosaur!

The Fan Quilt: A baby-sized Wholecloth Quilt

The fan quilt is done, and it's up for sale on Etsy. I don't really expect it to sell, and I would like to keep it, but I had to buy a car, so everything's for sale.

Hand quilting is a labor of love, because no one could really pay enough for all the hours it takes to hand-stitch a blanket together. The more I ask around it seems like whole-cloth quilting in the old style isn't being done much anymore. A lot of the ladies who come into John Adams(code name) do piece quilting or tie quilting, and most fabric stores market blanket fleece and quilting cottons much more than they do apparel fabric; but hand-quilting seems rare. I know it's time consuming, but there's great appeal in the hand-quilted look. The simplicity of wholecloth quilting is just as beautiful to me as a pieced quilt!

Good books about Wholecloth and Whitework Quilting

Quilts of Provence. Gorgeous color photos of original antique quilts and quilted clothing. This book focuses on French wholecloth quilting of the 18th Century, with some patterns shown in the back. I love this book. It's worth buying.

America's Quilts and Coverlets. I picked up an old copy of this book for $1.50 at a book sale, and it's really a neat book! It's older so the photos aren't nearly as good quality as in "Quilts of Provence", but it does cover a wider variety of American quilting and related folk art. Very interesting and pertinent.

Whitework Quilting by Karen McTavish. I don't own this book and the library doesn't have it, but in a world with fifty million books about pieced quilting, this one is about whitework, so it has to be good. You can channel your inner Outlander and use it to make an 18th Century-appropriate covering(The name McTavish made me think of that).


Also check out this list of resources and events at the Nebraska State Quilting Guild website.

Winged Flight at Work

So the other day at Pigtails my boss breezed through the room(she's a Woman of Energy) and said, I want you to make a sugar plum fairy, and six pairs of hooves, and an Elmo head, and Maleficent wings. And I smiled and nodded and thought, Wow, this is what real theater seamstresses do: Impossible things!

But maybe it's just because sometimes I take things too literally. Because when she said "Maleficent's wings" I thought:

BAM. Whhhhaaaaat you want me to make that?

In the reality of my little back room on my oh-so-minimalist salary, enormous feathered wings are not going to happen. The Woman of Energy wanted me to use crocodile-skin plastic vinyl as the wing base. I backed that with brown felt.

I hashed out a shape using the crocodile plastic width and length.

I just sewed right side to right side, leaving the bottom of the center back open, and then I flipped it. I fed wire in around the edges, and started to hand-tack a casing on the other side of the wire. I stuffed some foam in the back area for wearable comfort; the elastic is just sewn into the seam. The crocodile plastic is fairy heavy for something like this, and it keeps rippling and pulling, so I'm hoping once I get the casing done it will be confined enough to keep a good shape. That and the Woman of Energy mentioned something about adding feathers, and if I have to glue fabric feathers all over that thing I'm not going to worry about rippling.

And that's what I accomplished at work this week.

Scraps

People give me random things, since they know I sew. Here I have several old wool/poly sweaters and cardigans from various people:

And here they are again cut into mittens:

 I also worked a bit on my scrap blanket this week.

My scrap bag was getting full, and Grandma had given me an old wool skirt, so I used the skirt and some scraps to add six more rows to my scrap blanket. All it is is four inch strips of fabric sewn together; a few more strips, and I think it will be big enough.

How I Waste my Time

$1 Goodwill find: a lavender silk blouse, supposedly size small(whatever that means) but too big for me in any case.

I don't do big and shapeless very well.

But despite the size I can't pass by a nicely colored, 100% silk blouse that only costs one dollar. Thus, alterations ensue. I cut out the sleeves and side seams, took out at least two inches off each side seam and made the sleeves shorter. I also added a fake back seam, back and front darts.

Silk is finicky. It moves, wiggles, and laughs at you. It stains easily and washes poorly. But, if one can wrestle it into a decent position, silk makes for a really classy look.

Much more fitted, but the buttons on the sleeves need to be moved.
So now you know, this is how I spend the time that I don't have.

Extreme Clothes Makeover

People give you strange things when they know you sew. A large spool of pink thread; a silk nightgown; linen suit coats; bags and bags of poly-cotton sheets. A few weeks ago it was a 1970's girdle, which I tore up to use the hooks and eyes. It had a sort of chain-link boning in it that I'm sure I'll find a use for.

On Sunday it was two ladies' fur coats. I tried to get the boys to model the coats for you all, but they wouldn't stand still long enough. So you'll just have to take my word for it; the coats are big, poufy, and covered in HAIR.They're a little worn in parts and ripped in others, but I'm thinking that these interesting pieces will make nice additions as cuffs and collars to Regency spencers, or warm trim for men's caps.