You might be wondering why my Scrap Sunday posts are really lacking of inspiration lately. Well, I have a confession to make: Somehow my brilliant and very sensible resolution to not only not buy any excess fabric or yarn (only what is needed for a particular project) but also to use up my huge amounts of stash has been replaced. Without my knowledge or agreement I hasten to add. Apparently buying sensibly is so last season. 2015 I am worried that fabric and yarn shops could all shut down over night so I better buy enough for a few very vague projects in mind. I have fully embraced this new resolution – to a point where I am buying a beautiful woolen fabric with embroidery on it, enough to make a dress out of it. Back home I then decide that a coat would look gorgeous.

Have I ever sewn wool? No.

Have I ever made a coat? No.

Does that stop me? No.

So I am going back to the shop the next day to buy what is left on the roll. So, for the slightly disappointed reader, there is at least one thing to look forward to. One day, there will be a post about a beautiful woolen coat. Progress is going well, you can expect pictures no later than May.

Other things to look forward according to the fabrics and yarn creeping you of their dedicated boxes? Light summer jackets for the children (need to work my way around the school uniform, jacket over school cardigan? probably not very realistic), baby blanket for my future niece (or nephew who will just love purple and turquoise), about 375 knitted cardigans, jumpers and tunics for babies (now, that I have plenty of time, I really want to get my shop going) and quite a few bags of all sorts.

But lets go back to the title of this post:

Confessions: done

Bishop: oh yes, lets talk about the Bishop

As you might remember (have read every single post or not?) I am currently back in school. On Tuesdays I am doing a Fashion Course. Yes, you did read Fashion and yes, this is what I am doing secretly on Tuesdays, and no, it does not show in my thoroughly put together wardrobe. I was looking for a one day sewing course but all I could find was this fashion course. It is a lot about designing and pattern cutting so even though it is not quite what I wanted, I still learn a lot of useful things. But I am dreading the final piece. We will have to design, cut the pattern and make a dress for a celebrity (who does obviously not know about her luck) for an occasion that we had to choose from a list of occasions.

As you can imagine, choosing a celebrity was super easy for me. I just went through my collection of celebrity pictures in my celebrity picture albums. There she was Michelle Williams, proud wearer of colourful dresses (rather than black and white which would be veeeery hard for me to even think of).

I will have to make a cocktail dress for her and I am struggling to imagine anything other than a very simple sleeveless A-line dress out of the 60ies. I guess I should incorporate the things that we have learned in class and I also kind of have in mind to add some knitting to it. After all, if any celebrity would ever ask me to make a dress for her it would probably be because I am a famous knitter.

But back to the bishop. In the last lesson, we have been talking about different types of sleeves and our homework was to “interpret”  one of them. And this is where we are back to using up scrap fabric (phew).

I decided to make a bishop sleeve, a sleeve that gets wide at the bottom but is gathered up and hold together somehow, either by just an elastic or a cuff.

So here is the pattern draft. Pattern cutting really is cutting a big shape into small pieces and then sticking them onto a bigger paper. Luckily, I know two experts in cutting and sticking 🙂 …

… then you take this pattern draft and copy it onto a clean piece of paper, add seam allowances, notches, marks, grain line, other clever things….

Insert mental picture here as I am too lazy to get it done for you, sorry but I am up since 5am.

… and then you just sew the sleeve, attached to half a front and half a back, as you obviously have to mount it somewhere…

As it is a model only, it is actually not the right size but 3/4. I have used some left over lining as I wanted to practise working on flimsy material rather than my usual cotton….

… I will have to include some historical fashion detailing for my final garment chosen at a Wedding Dress exhibition and in my case it is for some reason surface decoration. So I decorated my cuff with some lace knitting to see how this would work (see another clever use of scrap yarn here) …

So far, I am not impressed and definitely would not want to wear it (haven’t asked Michelle yet)

Ok, I have chosen a rather thick (compared to the flimsy fabric) cotton yarn for laziness practical reasons but I also think it would not work that well in a better fabric-yarn combination at least not for a cocktail dress. It will definitely be easier, quicker and prettier to just buy some lace and put it there. If lace it the kind of surface decoration I want to use. You see, I really know what I am doing, clearly this is just the right class for me and considering that I am fully committed and doing my homework no later than Monday evening it will be a huge success.

So stay tuned! I guess once I press that “publish” button there is no way out of it anymore , I will have built up too much excitement and too high expectations….. Should I, should I not? I guess I should.