Sewing Fear

I wish I wasn't feeling about twelve kinds of stoopid right now. I wish I were a brave and fearless seamstress. Alas, I'm not.

Thank God for the endless source of sewing knowledge that is my Mom. I just avoided a horrible mistake by second guessing myself and calling her up and begging for correct answers.

This is where I was an hour ago in the process:


Not very damned far, I admit. I'm trying to double check everything and it's slowing me up terribly. I now have everything cut out and will begin pinning and sewing. Endora the dress dummy will finally be used as her maker originally intended. I'm going to pin and check the fit before sewing.

I seriously need some "sewing for dummies" lessons, or I at least need to sew more often to get my confidence up. It scares the wits out of me.


With knitting or crochet, if you screw up, you rip and begin again. No harm done, just wasting lots of time, and I'm okay with that. If you screw up in sewing clothing (especially the cutting part) you might as well dump everything in the trash. There's not much room for fudging and no room really for going back. In my past experiences anyway. Now when I've quilted or made bags, yes, I could go back and fudge the heck out of it and make it work. But in sewing clothes, if you want the garment to fit, no fudging.

What is it about this whole sewing thing that makes a college grad gibber in fear?

Sewing!

Once again I have wrecked my dining room/office/craft room. This time, with sewing crap. I have yet to have more than two days of this room being clean. There's always some project scattered everywhere and then the kids come barreling through leaving destruction (toys/shoes/socks/etc) in their wake. Never a dull moment around here, or a clean one for that matter.

I'm performing in a show in two weeks time and it's a medley of different era songs. We're responsible for getting our own costumes. I've got a poodle skirt lined up for one, and I'm making a cute little A-line dress for the sixties one. I'm totally getting some go-go boots too, I've always wanted a pair of those. My mom should be shot for getting rid of hers. I mean, come on now, didn't she think her daughter would want those? :) I don't have a clue what to do for clothing from the 1700s (Les Miserables). Any ideas?

This is what I'm putting together for the 60s costume:

(the one with the flowers)

The dress will be black, but the flowers will be done in the fabrics in the photo.
I'm hoping that this will all work out. A fabulous seamstress, I am not. My mom? yes. Me? Not so much.

Meanwhile, I've wrecked the room again. Everything is spread out all over the place. Fabric, ironing board, flowers, toys, basically everywhere.

Does anybody even use a formal dining room nowadays? We might use this room once a year for dining. Mostly it's my office/crafting area and I swear that this one little room is used more than 90% of the rest of our house. We might as well live in a two room hut. Cause, where Mommy is, that's where two boys, two cats and three dogs all want to be at the same time.

A sleeve

The Sleeve, it groweth:


The long suffering arm model is The Eldest. How scary is it that a sleeve meant for me fits on an 8 year old that's eating us out of house and home (weighs 75lbs) and already comes up to my chin in height? I'm 5'6, about average, so not way tall, but still. Children are not supposed to grow that fast. Are they?

Dino knitting photograpy

To amuse the Youngest, we had a dinosaur photoshoot today to showcase the owls progress.

But I seem to have cut one of them's head off: (I think I was channeling my Mother-In-Law, she cuts everybodys heads off in pics.)
But at least you can see the waist decreases and increases at the back of the sweater fairly well. I like this method of inc/dec at the back. Lately, everything that I've made has had the shaping at the sides. This method gives my tummy a little more room. It's not the size it once was, bless it's heart, but maybe a little weight watchers will help. To the left, under the headless dino is the first sleeve.

I've been working very slowly with this sweater. Last week was packed with school conferences with teachers (one good - The Eldest, one not as good - The Youngest - but what else is new?), there was a basketball award ceremony to attend, boy scouts meeting, a rehearsal for upcoming musical at church and children's consignment sales to both shop, sell and work at, not to mention cooking dinner occasionally and watching my house go to pot in general. So if you were wondering where I disappeared to, there ya go. A bit busy.

Hopefully, and I'm saying this with fingers crossed, this week will be a tiny bit less busy.