Yep, I had a baby. I also had a thoroughly horrible pregnancy, so not much at all happened on the sewing front over the past year. I do have a couple of things to show you when I get time - which may not be for a while, babies are super time consuming. But the point is, this dead blog is going to be resurrected in the near future.
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This has been a long time coming but was finally triggered by the awful nightdress in the previous post- all the fitting problems were in the back and seeing what's going on with your own back is tricky enough, actually pinning in alterations is impossible. So, in order to fix it i needed a dress form that at looks like me. I padded mine out years ago but my shape has changed dramatically since then, so it was time to do it again. I followed instructions from various blogs so I'm not gonna do a full tutorial, just a quick description and my favourite tips. Step 1 Make up a simple princess seam dress pattern in non stretch scrap fabric. Add a zip at centre back. Step 2 Put the dress on and fit the heck out of it. Seriously, we're aiming for skin tight here, and if it's too tight to move that's fine. It's worth trying to get your seams straight too, as you may want to use them to line up future projects. Step 3 make up your super fitted version in sturdy (upholstery weight) 100% cotton fabric Step 4 place the cover on the form. Start padding the form in layer, working on the bottom by flipping the cover and the top by opening the zip. In most cases you'll want to start with the dummy smaller than your measurements, as this gives you the chance to adjust vertically, and to add any lumps and bumps. Use pins to attatch the padding but make sure they're not gonna get you later. Top tip: after adding a layer of padding, try wrapping in cling film. This squashes everything down and gives a lovely firm base for the next layer. Top tip: use a well fitting bra or purchased bra cups to help get the right shape for your boobs Top tip: when your all done, spray lightly with water till damp not dripping. The heavy cotton will shrink slightly and give you a lovely snug fitting cover. What not to do: as you may have noticed, I forgot to take into account how much length would be taken up by the width, and ended up with a cover that's a little too short. An interesting thing to note is that my dummy has lost almost all its neck - I've always found the distance from shoulder to bust to be much too short, so I'm actually pretty happy about this. I do need to figure out how to finish the raw bit around the neck though. Long time no post! (I'll tell you a little about why in my next post) Anyway, this is my update on what I did over the easter weekend - all written at the time but I had one picture I needed to take and just didn't have the motivation until now! First and most significant, I finished my quilt! Phew! After breezing through the assembly of the patchwork, it all slowed down to a crawl when it came to quilting the layers together. My attempt at machine quilting was a disaster, there was just too much fabric to get it under the arm of the machine and still be able to control. Rather than mess up something that was turning out rather gorgeous, I decided to hand quilt it :) many hours in front of the TV later, here it is! I'm super pleased with it :) there's a couple of creases in the backing, but no one's going to see that but me :) next time, I'll be taping the backing flat to the table or floor before putting the wadding and top on - didn't know that trick for this one and getting all 3 flat and lined up was a nightmare! Project number 2 was a remake of the red wool lekala dress :) the original accidently went in the machine at the wrong temperature, and shrank too much for me to wear it :( it will be going to the charity shop for the benefit of someone slimer who wears their skirts shorter! The new version is the same fabric, but prewashed on 40 so its much thicker and slightly felted. It's lost the slinkiness, which I'm two ways about- the fineness was beautiful, but it did mean that it clung to bits of me that I don't think are beautiful (tummy!) Overall I'm glad I did it as I've ended up with a more wearable, washable dress! Project 3 was a super quick and easy slip - thin black satin sewn into a tube with an elastic waist band. Hopefully this will prevent some of the static cling I've had going on with a couple of my dresses :) My first bit of christmas sewing :) I wanted to do one of theses last year but couldn't justify the spending at the time, so I bought the kit in july while it was cheap and just finished sewing it up. I enjoyed quilting this way more than I expected - both the walking foot and the free motion foot worked like a dream, I guess the problems I had before were due to choosing a king size quilt for my first attempt! That king size quilt is still a work in progress by the way - I decided to hand quilt and will occassionally do a square or two in front of the tv, long way to go yet though! I made this cushion for my sister-in-laws birthday earlier this month - it came as a kit, and this kind on cream-on-cream embroidery is called candlewicking. I did most of this on the way too and from Canada - an 8 hour flight with no movies gives you lots of sewing time! And these little guys I made for my nephews first birthday, using a truly awesome pattern I bought from etsy seller patternplay. Such a well made pattern, they came out exactly like the picture! I bought a couple other patterns at the same time, can't wait to try them!
Its been ages since I made a quilt - I made a few years ago, useing a hand piecing technique with paper templates inside each block. I enjoyed doing it this way, but it took about a year to finish one. Machine patchwork is a whole new world - 2.5 weeks to get to this point and I'm pretty excited about the result! I've not really taken any progress photos, because there are excellent photos on the instructions I used, HERE And yes, I even used the exact same fabrics. This wasn';t just lack of imagination, honest - this quilt has the specific purpose of being a hot weather alternative to a duvet for my hubby and I, so I searched high and low for a colour and pattrn combination which was not too feminine but which I loved. Once he'd approved it, I wasn't gonna change a thing! Next steps are a little unclear right now - I'm so in love with the patchwork top, I don't want to take any risks with the next steps, but I don't really know enough about quilting to make the right choices! The first problem is with the backing fabric. I bought some navy blue sheeting at fabric land which I thought would be perfect, but the dye runs like crazy - and I really mean that! First wash, it dyed the dark red T-towel I left in the washer purple. Second wash, I put in a snippet of the cream, and it ended blue (thats it on the left). Last night, I soaked it for about 3 hours in a bucket of cold water with half a bottle of white vinegar and half a packet of salt. The test wash after this resulted in a formrely cream snippet which was, if anything, even bluer than the one on the left. Conclusion: don't buy dark colored sheeting from fabricland if you want to be able to wash it! This piece is now Toile fabric! So, I need to find some new backing fabric. I also need wadding - we want something as light and cool as possible - John is in favour of just two layers of fabric, but I think I want something in between! Any suggestion? The question I have is whether I should pre wash the top, before I quilt. I used a jellyroll, so prewashing the fabric wasn't really an option, but I guess at this stage I could chuck it in the machine? I think I have a lot of googling and forum posts to do! I haven't posted in way too long - but for happy reasons :) Hubby and I went to visit the in-laws in Vancouver, Canada for two weeks, and with a week of getting ready to go, two weeks there and week to recover there's not much to report. Luckily, while I was there I was able to visit the most AMAZING fabric shop, DressSew - if you google you'll find other blogger talking about it and some pictures of the inside. I got lots (I think about 160) of cover buttons, for maybe a sixth of the price they usually cost. I also picked out a few choice fabrics which I'd live to show you! The most expensive was Guipere lace for $40 a meter (above), which I'm going to use for the bodice and sleeves on a sample wedding dress.
I wanted to share with you something I did a couple of weeks ago - I organised our ward Relief Society Birthday party. For anyone who doesn't know, Relief Society is the womens organisation of teh Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (also know as the mormons). Its aim is to support and trengthen the women in the church, while giving them opportunities to support and help others. The organisation was established in the 1840s and is one of the biggest and oldest womens organisations in the world. I prepared a presentation on the lives of some of the early members, and also talked about how Victorian women dressed (I'm afraid I did that bit off the top of my head so I can't share it here). The things I found out about these women and their lives completely amazed me, so I wanted to share them with you too. I've written them in the first person, and where ever possible I've used thier own words. Thank you to Jess, Emma and Ana for being my models and reading these pieces on the night! Emma Smith (1842-1844)
Thursday, on March 17, 1842, twenty women assembled on the upper floor of a building, often called “the red brick store,” where Joseph Smith had an office and a business to support his family. They met under the direction of Joseph Smith and two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elders John Taylor and Willard Richards Rather than pattern a Latter-day Saint women’s organization after the women’s societies that were prevalent and popular at that time, the Prophet Joseph Smith organized them in a divinely inspired and authorized manner. Emma Smith became the first president of the Relief Society when it was organized in Nauvoo, Illinois, on March 17, 1842. Under her leadership the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo raised funds for the Nauvoo Temple, sewed clothes for the temple workmen, nursed the sick, cared for the poor, and gave relief where it was needed. During the early years of the Church, Emma suffered many trials and persecutions with the Saints. A revelation given to Emma in 1830 through the Prophet Joseph Smith gave her instructions and promised great blessings, even “a crown of righteousness” (D&C 25:15), if she obeyed the commandments. She was married to Joseph Smith, and they had eleven children, including adopted twins. Emma was a great woman, and we’ve heard a lot about her in other lessons. Today, we want to focus on some of the other sisters in the church in the nineteenth century, and on what their lives were like. I’m going to talk about the clothes they wore, Jane is going to talk a little about every day life and my three models are each going to share a bit about the life of a particular sister. 1861-1863 (Blue-grey dress, chemise, bloomers, shoes, socks, corset, crinoline, petticoat, bonnet) My name is Lucy Meserve Smith. You probably haven’t heard of me – I was never relief society president or anything like that, but for the next 20 years there was no relief society president. I’m here to represent the sisters who lived in those in between years. The last meeting held in Nauvoo by the Society was on 16 March 1844. I don’t think anyone realised how long it would be till the relief society would next be organised. Joseph and Hyrum were shot at Carthage, Illinois, on 27 June, 1844. After this, we knew that sooner or later the mobs would come, and everyones efforts were put toward finishing the building of the Nauvoo Temple before the exodus west. We moved down to Winter Quarters in1846 when my babe was two weeks old. There we lived in a cloth tent until December, then we moved into a log cabin, ten feet square with sod roof, chimney and only the soft ground for a floor and poor worn cattle beef and corn cracked on a hand mill, for our food. Here I got scurvy, not having any vegetables to eat. I got so low I had to wean my baby and he had to be fed on that coarse cracked corn bread when he was only five months old. We had no milk for a while till we could send to the herd and then he did very well till I got better. My husband took me in his arms and held me till my bed was made nearly every day for nine weeks. I could not move an inch. Then on the 9th of February I was 30 years old. I had nothing to eat but a little corn meal gruel. I told the folks I would remember my birthday dinner when I was 30 years old. My dear baby used to cry till It seemed as tho I would jump off my bed when it came night. I would get so nervous, but I could not even speak to him. I was so helpless I could not move myself in bed or speak out loud. . . . When I got better I had not a morsel in the house I could eat, as my mouth was so sore. I could not eat corn bread and I have cried hours for a morsel to put in my mouth. Then my companion would take a plate and go around among the neighbors and find some one cooking maybe a calf's pluck. He would beg a bit to keep me from starving. I would taste it and then I would say oh do feed my baby. My appetite would leave me when I would think of my dear child. My stomach was hardening from the want of food. The next July my darling boy took sick and on the 22nd, the same day that his father and Orson Pratt came into the valley of the great Salt lake my only child died. I felt so overcome in my feelings. I was afraid I would loose my mind, as I had not fully recovered from my sickness the previous winter" During the 1850s, while church members tried to gain a foothold in the Utah desert, church meetings were held irregularly. However, several wards in Utah had temporary Relief Society organizations. Among their purposes was the feeding and clothing of Native Americans. Though these women were poor themselves, they felt the need of Native Americans exceeded their own. At the October 1856 general conference, President Brigham Young announced that handcart pioneers were stranded hundreds of miles away. He declared: “Your faith, religion, and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the celestial kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains, and attend strictly to those things which we call temporal, or temporal duties, otherwise your faith will be in vain.” Women “stripped off their petticoats, stockings, and every thing they could spare, right there in the Tabernacle, and piled [them] into the wagons to send to the Saints in the mountains.” We continued to gather bedding and clothing for Saints who would arrive with only a few belongings in small handcarts. Sister Smith wrote: “We did all we could, with the aid of the good brethren and sisters, to comfort the needy as they came in with handcarts late in the fall. … As our society was short of funds then, we could not do much, but the four bishops could hardly carry the bedding and other clothing we got together the first time we met. We did not cease our exertions [un]til all were made comfortable.” Sister Smith said that when the handcart companies arrived, a building in the town was “loaded with provisions for them.” She continued: “I never took more satisfaction and, I might say, pleasure in any labor I ever performed in my life, such a unanimity of feeling prevailed. I only had to go into a store and make my wants known; if it was cloth, it was measured off without charge. [We] wallowed through the snow until our clothes were wet a foot high to get things together.” 1870-1871 (Yellow stripe, oval crinoline and petti, straw hat) Eliza R Snow (1868-1887) My name is Eliza R. Snow. When Joseph established the first relief society back in Nauvoo, Emma asked me to be the secretary. This was a responsibility I took seriously, and carried relief societies Book of Records with me all the way to the Salt Lake Valley. I expect you know that I loved to write, and the hymn book you use every Sunday has ten of the hymns i wrote in it. In 1866 President Brigham Young called me to help bishops organize a Relief Society (and later a Primary and an organization for young women) in every ward and branch of the Church. By 1888 the Relief Society had more than 22,000 members in 400 wards and branches. Meetings were held semi-monthly. One meeting per month was devoted to sewing and caring for the needs of the poor, and at the other meeting, members received instructions and encouragement from the discussion of elevating and educational themes and bore testimonies. "What is the object of the Female Relief Society? I would reply—to do good—to bring into requisition every capacity we possess for doing good, not only in relieving the poor but in saving souls. United effort will accomplish incalculably more than can be accomplished by the most effective individual energies" President Young placed great emphasis on what the women of the church could achieve. During one conference in 1873 he said “We have sisters here who, if they had the privilege of studying they would make as good mathematicians as any man. We believe that women are useful not only to sweep houses, wash dishes and raise babies, but that they should study law . . . or physic . . .The time has come for women to come forth as doctors in these valleys of the mountains.” This was a hard thing to ask of the sisters – in order to study, they left their families and travelled across the country to attend medical school. Some sisters even took young babies with them. The work they did is essential, saving the lives of many sisters and children, and some of the brethren to. “Are there here, now, any sisters who have ambition enough, and who realize the necessity of it, for Zion’s sake, to take up this study? There are some who are naturally inclined to be nurses; and such ones would do well to study Medicine. … If they cannot meet their own expenses, we have means of doing so.” The number of sisters trained as doctors, and the number that they trained as midwifes and nurses when they returned was so great that we were able to open the deseret hospital in 1882, “where the sick of the Lord’s people could be attended and have the benefit of the ordinances of the Church [priesthood blessings] as well as skilful treatment.” The hospital continued for a little more than a decade until its operating costs exceeded the donations given and other facilities became available. “We like to be appreciated but if we do not get all the appreciation which we think is our due, what matters? We know the Lord has laid high responsibilities upon us, and there is not a wish or desire that the Lord has implanted in our hearts in righteousness but will be realized, and the greatest good we can do to ourselves and each other is to refine and cultivate ourselves in everything that is good and ennobling to qualify us for those responsibilities.” 1887-1889 (Red and black dress, built in bustle, red and black hat) My name is Zina D H Young, and after serving on the Relief Society Presidency with Eliza I was called as Relief Society President when she passed away in 1888. I played the cello, was a trained midwife and delivered hundreds of babies. I also worked to pass this knowledge on to other sisters. One of the hardest things President young asked me to do was to serve as the President of the Deseret Silk Association. Me and the other sisters raised colonies of silk worms, feeding them on mulberry leaves. I hate silk worms. They actually give me nightmares, and they’re big – they grow to be 3” long! We spent over 20 years raising silk worms and harvesting the silk – we never made a lot of money out of this, but we did have beautiful silk fabrics to make dresses from! In February 1870 the territorial government of Utah had granted women the right to vote in government elections. At that time, the territory of Wyoming was the only other place in the United States where women were given this right. Unfortunatly, the national government rescinded this privilege as part of the punishment for Latter-day Saints living the law of plural marriage. But Latter-day Saint women remained vocal and articulate about their rights. Many sisters actively sought women’s suffrage, or the right to vote. Their increasing ability to speak articulately was a blessing when they needed to represent themselves as strong, dignified, and ennobled women. Through their efforts, they regained the right to vote when Utah was granted statehood in the United States of America. They also gained the respect of other women’s movements in the United States and around the world. “I rejoice in putting my testimony before the daughters of Zion, that their faith may be strengthened, and that the good work may roll on. Seek for a testimony, as you would, my dear sisters, for a diamond concealed. If someone told you by digging long enough in a certain spot you would find a diamond of unmeasured wealth, do you think you would begrudge time or strength, or means spent to obtain that treasure? … If you will dig in the depths of your own hearts you will find, with the aid of the Spirit of the Lord, the pearl of great price, the testimony of the truth of this work.” I decided to make my newest nephew some dungarees for Christmas. The pattern I used was Kwik Sew 3145. I've made this pattern before and absolutely love it (and got really good reviews from the mother concerned). Its time consuming with all the top stitching but not particularly difficult. The red accent colour was inspired by the really cute buttos I found in my local shop - I'm not sure if you can see in the picture but one is a tiny train and one a tiny truck. The embroidery is the first 'real' embroidery I've done on my machine, by which I mean it involves more than one colour, and I actually made something with it! I love the design, and the words 'I think I can' are just perfect for a one year old with all the things he'll be learning! So here's a few projects without a lot to say about them, but they're all things I'm proud of so I wanted to share anyway!
Picture 1 is the embroidery I've done for what will eventually be a babies pinafore dress. I started this as a way to explore the things my new machine can do and will probably be coming back to at random intervals. Picture 2 is the garter I made for my sisters wedding. This was an experiemnt to see how shirring elastic worked on my machine, and the fabric has been in my stash for years - it was the trim on a pillowcase which was so old the main fabric was disintegrating. Picture 3 is a pair of handbags I made for my two sisters-in-law for christmas, using this free download pattern http://www.made-by-rae.com/2009/02/free-buttercup-bag-sewing-pattern/. This is a great pattern, easy to assemble and the result looks really proffessional. And it nly needs a fat quarter for the outside and another for the lining. Picture 4 is the waitscoat I made for my hubby for christmas, using a gorgeous embroidered silk. I used simplicity 2895 again. I love dressing up! At the start of December we went to Rochester for the Christmas festival. And here's what we wore! This was the first time I got to wear my 'Katy Brown' dress, and I loved it (and was pretty relieved to find it still fit). John is wearing the frock coat and waistcoat I made for him last time, and the frock coat I made this year. And here's a picture with a couple of random people we passed on the street and ran after to ask for a picture. Why these people? Because John really wants an American Civil War confederate officers uniform, and this guy is wearing one! Apparently he belongs to a motorcycle gang who drive round dressed like this - how cool is that! As usual, I'm saying 'next time we go we'll make it to the ball - the post wedding finances wouldn't stretch to tickets and hotel this year, but I'm hoping next yer will be the one! |
AuthorMy crazy costuming, sewing and maybe other stuff too blog! Hopefully others can learn from my mistakes and I can learn from your comments :) Hey you! ;)According to the stats people are actually visiting this site - I'd love to know who you are so please leave comments!
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