Thursday, March 29, 2012

Beginning

I have been reading a lot online about hand sewing, and doing a bit of it myself on my garb, but I decided to invest a bit in some reference materials and tools.

I bought three pamphlets from Wm. Booth, Draper, The Lady's Guide to Plain Sewing (Book I & II), and The Workman's Guide to Tailoring Stitches and Techniques. I have yet to really delve into them, but I am hopeful.
The little bone implement you see on top of my new pamphlets is a stiletto. It's not a weapon, or a heel type, but a little pointy thing one sticks between threads of a fabric to spread them open for lacing holes. Often people use awls or some such for this enterprise, but since it was so cheap and nice looking, I decided to go for the real thing.


First Contemporary Project
I've decided to start off easy and have my first project be a pair of pajama bottoms. The construction should be fairly simple, and if the results aren't quite to my liking, hardly anyone sees me in my pajamas, anyways.
Also, this printed cotton flannel should be fairly forgiving if my stitches become clumsy. I have already cut the pieces up and started stitching the front and back together, and I am finding that I am very anal retentive about matching up the pattern insomuch as they at least align. I basically measured the widest part of my hips and added a couple inches, thinking I'd just cut two large rectangles that would be come the legs and join at the top for the hips with a gusset in the seat, but now that I have tried it one once, I think I underestimated how much ease I'd like in my thighs. I have a solution in mind for this which is fairly straightforward, and fortunately (as I remarked above) hardly anyone sees me in my pajamas, so some creative solutions are hardly the end of the world at this point.