Scrap Sunday: A bit of a happy (almost) end

Still working on the skirt, what an endless story! But – and you might not believe it after my many complaints – but this week I had an actually rather positive experience, or lets call it surprise, with my skirt.

As you might remember, one of the problems of this skirt is that the godets are not actually long enoughΒ  (in my opinion), so I really did not want to take away too much at the hem. The plan was to neaten the edge with the overlocker and then just do one turn of not even a cm and stitch it. I was also considering to put a small blue ribbon along that hem but I would definitely try that first on a sample, just to see if it will go around the corners between main fabric and the much thinner godets.

Anyway, I decided to use white thread for the overlocker to make sure that there is no darker colour showing on the back of the godets and after what felt like two hours of thread changing, I just quickly neatened that edge in what felt 2 seconds. And it actually looked rather lovely, just the nice contrast I had planned to add with a thin ribbon. That was really a very positive surprise, I did not expect it to look like that … that seems to happen on a regular basis to me, I do not seem to be very good in visualising things, do I πŸ™‚

I was wondering if I should do it again in blue as this was the contrast colour I had been after initially but after consulting my taste expert in the sewing club, I had to agree with her that the thin thread would probably not be strong enough to get me the desired effect. I would have to try it out, meaning another thread change just for a little sample (and then maybe another one back to white).Β  So I decided to stick with white.Β  I just wanted to emphasize it a little bit more. So I tried to just overlock over the same seam and to zig zag over the overlocked seam. I tried that on a sample obviously, not on the skirt don’t worry.

That looked both rather horrible so I decided to do another seam with a smaller stitch length and cutting off the old one (even if that meant I will be loosing 7mm of the lovely godet fabric.) That looks really great, except for about 5 cm at the back where the seam almost falls apart as one of the threads had jumped out of its little hooks that creates the tension.

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So I will have to fix this first before I can wear it, and I simply didn’t have enough time yesterday to finish it as we held the annual ginger bread baking event, where a bunch of children will eagerly roll and cut out dough for about 15 minutes before then equally eagerly leave little dough crumbs in the whole house (a little bit like a posh version of Hansel and Gretel really) while the mulled wine drinking mums have to finish the actual baking. And just between us, they are getting lazy (compared to the previous years), at some point I had to actually tell them to go back to work!!! They were just chatting, completely ignoring the huge ball of gingerbread dough in the middle of the table!!! I told them nicely to please continue as otherwise they would have to take the dough home to finish it there as I would not be prepared to keep it! (That threat worked a treat, 10 min later, everything was done πŸ™‚ )

The house is fairly clean again and I just love the smell of gingerbread, still hanging in the corners (probably a few missed crumbs thanks to my hoovering style will extend this lovely post baking phase).

Today, the advent excitement continues as we will be going to the theatre to see Room On The Broom, I will be back to crafting on Monday, I still want to make the knitted Christmas trees.

What about your weekend? Are you busy with crafting? Or preparing for Christmas? Or avoiding Christmassy stuff? In any case, I hope you are having a lovely one.

 

 

Scrap Sunday: To be continued… still

As I was still busy with the yoga bags this week, I have only been working on my scrap skirt in the Sewing Club on Friday and a little bit afterwards at home. So far, not so good.

I have to say, it seems to be turning out a little bit different from what I would have wanted. The godets might be too small. And too short. Especially as I haven’t even done the hem yet.

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I think I pictured something more A-liny in total but with the godets showing a bit. And I should have done 6 panels instead of 8. I planned 8 as initially I wanted the corduroy lines in the bias, so they meet at the seam and do a bit of a zig zag. But I did not have quite enough fabric to do that and it is such a fine corduroy that it would not have shown anyway. So I cut it straight. And now that central seam looks a bit silly.

Would have been good to make a calico version of this new design. Never mind. I am sure it will not look too bad, just not as I wanted. And I have definitely learned something.

On a brighter note: Don’t forget the yoga bag give away. If you don’t do yoga, don’t worry. The bag doesn’t know that. Just use it as a knitting bag πŸ™‚

Oh and I have also finished the second bag for the introductory offer on etsy. And I have made a few other ones which are already listed in the shop.

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Scrap Sunday: Which one is which?

This week I can not actually show a finished project, I will need more time but here is at least a picture to show you how well I am using up scraps πŸ™‚

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As you can see, it is not quite enough at the pointy end but I will manage.

As you might remember (or not), I have dedicated my Friday sewing class/club to Scrap Sunday (in order to actually be able to post on Sunday) but as almost everybody else is making a skirt I also wanted to make one. So I am using a fabric that I bought about a year ago in my typical fabric shopping manner:

I go to the shops to buy fabric for a certain purpose (in that case something for my children) and then suddenly something completely different catches my eye. In that case a beautiful burgundy corduroy. So I thought a meter might not be enough (for a possible short dress), 1.50 might be better. Just to be safe. And as it is so beautiful, I then bought 2m as you never know.

So, since a year I have almost a meter of scrap waiting for another purpose. (Is 1 meter x 1.40 really scrap?) – time for a skirt.

And as in my Tuesday fashion course we have been talking about godets (extra piece of fabric, to add volume), I thought some kind of cute patterned fabric might just give a simple corduroy skirt this extra kick. And for that purpose, unfortunately a tiny fat quarter bought on my trip to Oxford a couple of weeks ago seemed the perfect match. I think it is a bit too precious to be used for such a purpose. So, I was really thrifty when it came to cutting. And I even consider to keep this tiny piece here but I can not yet imagine it could be used πŸ™‚

IMG_2691(I used the inch side of my cutting board to make it look more dramatic)

Because of my still secret big project, I will really have to keep the skirt project out of my week and will only work on it on the Fridays, so we will see how long it will take me, but just to give you an idea, this is how I want it to look, well, 8 of these panels.

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