snail-like progress, but progress

[dragonlady7]

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I managed to spend like. twenty minutes sewing yesterday, and I closed up the side seams on the muslin I’d hand-set the sleeves into earlier in the week, but the thing I did that was actually exciting was that on Monday I’d hand-sewn a pair of loose gathering stitches across the top of the skirt of the maroon linen dress, and then had pinned it to the bodice once the width was all gathered down and properly distributed, and so last night in my precious twenty minutes of usefulness (I had an hour but I spent 45 minutes of it on the exercise bike because otherwise my hips were going to turn to glass, and then I had to come back after making dinner to squeak in my last five minutes of work to finish this job) I did actually sew the skirt onto the bodice.

So now the maroon linen dress is assembled, and just needs the neckline finished and all of the hemming done.

[image description: me standing in a messy basement in an elbow-length-sleeve loose linen dress with my hand in one of the deep pockets, and my other hand holding my phone in front of my face to take a mirror selfie lol]

That dress is drafted to fit tighter and have a back zipper but my shitty shoulders absolutely won’t let me zip myself into a back-zip dress, so I’m absolutely never going to sew one.

… it’s just struck me that i could do a version of this that has front lacing. Like, I’d make it mostly as-drafted, but I’d close up the back seam, and then take the front, add in just enough ease to make a mock placket, then put in a line each side of eyelets. That would be a really striking bit of ornamentation and would take for fucking ever but it would be fun. It wouldn’t be period in the slightest and I wouldn’t try to make it look like it was, it’d be decorative. Idk if this is the pattern I should do that with or not, but it’s something to ponder anyway. (Yes i’d have to reinforce the lacing edge with cording or a zip tie or something, but no it wouldn’t have to take any strain this isn’t like the supportive kirtles I made for the SCA stuff. medieval tailoring doesn’t do darts like this at all. would i look like i was cosplaying. …. probably. hmm. but like. it’d be fun! well, i’ll put it on the list, far down.)

The only other thing I’ve done is that I decided instead of machine-topstitching the maroon wool dress, I’d topstitch it by hand decoratively. This is the stitch I should have used for the hemming, and which I will use to repair it if the dumb overcast stitch I used doesn’t hold.

[image description: a bad out of focus picture of some maroon silk handsewing thread in a herringbone stitch along the edge of a maroon wool jersey garment, showing the linen jersey interior lining where only occasional tiny bits of maroon silk thread are showing on the reverse side of the stitching.]

No, that’s not a notably regular job of stitching, and I should be doing it better, but like, I can’t help being like I am. Yes, it takes my rather polished-looking dress and makes it obviously homemade, but I wasn’t paying attention for the first half of the neckline and now I’m fond of it. (Your picture was not posted)