Trying to Eradicate the UFOs

As in Un-Finished Objects, so not so much BAM! ZAP! POW! as uuugh I can’t find half the pattern pieces/remember what I was doing.

I decided since it’s ramping up to summer I’d better finish the Bootleg Bottega Veneta dress.  Last time I worked on it I got as far as 90% of the lining (and then I ran out of white thread and never remembered to get more) and had just cut out the shell of the bodice.  This round, I finished the bodice structure and the front panel of the skirt, but unfortunately two of my pattern pieces have gone walkabout and I can’t find them.  I could always re-draft them.   I should.  But here I am on the computer procrastinating.  Hell, finishing this dress is technically procrastinating too, but seeing I’m on antibiotics at the moment for an infection, I figure it’s a good idea to spend a day in and not wear myself out by either a) practicing the crap out of my recital rep, b) cycling all over the city on my wretchedly heavy bike, c) working, or d) gardening.  It was not a fun infection and I’d like it banished properly and for good.

Mind you, my sewing machine and the silk are still having hissies at each other.  It’s the best I can do to minimise the puckering, using every bloody trick in the book (small sharp new needle, small stitch length, carefully calibrated tension, slowly-wound bobbin, basting like crazy, holding the fabric taut, pressing every which-way afterwards… you name it, I’m doing it).  It’s not as bad as it could be.  It’s just not as nice as it could be either.

Sunlight makes photography difficult.

I know, what am I complaining about?  But it’s SLIGHTLY PUCKERY!!!

However,I’ll soldier on, because I want it done.  I want more room in my stash and a bit of recent machine-wrangling behind me so I can progress with confidence onto my next project: the urgently-needed Bombshells dresses.  I’ve finally decided on a design, and now I just need fabric and my housemate so I can measure her.  Sadly, I appear to have lost the design picture.  WILL IT NEVER END???

Bonus picture of Rupert with his evil eyes sitting on a bin.  Just because.

 

Fancy Pants (but a dress. So, not pants really)

Flutey friend’s 1920s dress is pretty much done, bar some hemming.  That’ll happen tonight, depending on what offerings are on the telly.  Hooray!  It’s ended up very late ’20s, almost early ’30s-y, with that big drapey bias-cut back.  But I know what you’re all after, so here are some pictures.  None on Flutey-friend yet.  That’ll happen when we’re in the same state again.

Helping

There’s my sister’s cat Rupert helping with the patterning. It was nice being at my parents’ place because of the amount of floorspace for laying out fabric (as opposed to the square metre of dingy carpet at my place), but the orange horror was always keen to inspect proceedings, and the other horror – Dudley the doddery old cavalier king charles spaniel – dribbled on a corner of the silk before I realised he was standing there, wagging his tail and looking pathetic at me.  Lucky it was just a corner.

Behold!

This is the magnificence of which I speak.  The teal-green silk, with Dudley-slobbered corner removed.  It’s slightly bluer in real life, I think the orangey wood floor makes it look a bit on the green side in this photo.

Patterning.

In fact, it’s almost an exact match colour-wise for the jade hippo thing that was one of my makeshift fabric weights.  The others include two small decorative plates, two mini foreign language dictionaries (French and German), a candle and a padlock.  Now look away and see how many you remember.  You will be tested.

Bonus picture of Ruppie overseeing the process from his throne, which is broken, so he’s the only one who gets to sit on it.  He’s a smug little bastard.

And now what you’ve all been waiting for.  The (almost) finished product:

 

Front and back views respectively. 

And with the sash.  Look!  Fringey goodness!

I love fringing as a finishing method.  Beats hand-rolling hems, and there have been more than enough of those here already.  The front of the bodice and skirt are both fully lined because the silk was a little… flimsy.  Makes for excellent drape on the bias though.  Pretty simple to put together as well really.  Let’s hear it for the ’20s!  Not a dart in sight!  And pretty reasonable too.  3.5m of silk, and that includes lining (I lined it in self-fabric because it’d be less conspicuous that way), and that’s for a tall person, and with extra fullness in the back of the skirt than I’d planned for too.  Basically all it was was a plain, straight-cut bodice front, same for the back with some cowl-neck slashing, then a straight skirt front with a semi-circle set in the back.  HOORAY.