By "the show" I mean
the Project Dress, of course. Here are the two sleeves, which I stitched up while traveling.
It's hard to believe that
this and
this, turned into something that looks so beautiful. I need to amend my earlier complaint about bias cut georgette. It definitely is difficult to work with on a sewing machine. BUT for sewing by hand, it was fine. And I'm thrilled with how it looks and how it handled.
That said, it took many hours of stitching away diligently. I spent most of both flights (12 hours or so of actual sewing) plus 2 hours a night, 3-4 nights while I was in London, usually between midnight and 2am when insomnia struck. So, these sleeves represent about 20 hours of sewing.
For sewing on the airplane, I was nervous that even if I had scissors that were TSA approved (ie: less than 4 inches), they might be confiscated anyway. This happened to me flying home from Canada once since I hadn't considered that their standard might be different (in the UK it is 6cm or 2.36 inches). So, I bought this:
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| A yarn cutter pendant |
Inside those notches are razor blades which you can't get out or cut yourself on. I just put it on a chain and into my jewelry bag in my carry on. It worked beautifully.
My other tools were silk thread (LOVE it for hand sewing), John James sharps (the best needles for hand sewing IMHO), and
Thread Heaven.
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| Heaven for your thread |
We have to have a little talk about Thread Heaven. For quite some time, it's been my dirty little sewing secret. You see, I've done
other projects which have required rather extensive hand sewing. And other sewists who have done the same have touted the benefit of using beeswax to coat the thread. This would mean running individual strands through beeswax, then pressing the threads with an iron between paper towels or paper and then getting to the sewing. I think that you'll agree when I say that I'm not the kind of sewista who shies away from labor intensive sewing projects. But pressing beeswax into thread is not something that I
ever forsee myself doing. Honestly, I think it would be just one thing too many - the straw that breaks the camel's back for me. And Thread Heaven does the same job, but I've never heard it mentioned in the sewing blogosphere as a suitable substitute. So, my question is: have you heard of or used Thread Heaven or is it, like I suspect, my dirty little cheat? Will I now be branded a heretic? I hope not, but
c'est la vie!
Fianlly, there was zero direction in the pattern instructions on what kind of stitch to use to attach the strips of bias to the sleeves. I experimented with a few stitches and then settled on the
pickstitch. The decorative side (the picks side) is on the underside, so lost. But because it's a mini backstitch, it's a strong stitch and allowed me to keep the stitching completely invisible. So, I think it was a good call on my part.
Anyway, I'm in full-on crunch mode. Tomorrow I hope to have nothing left to do but hemming. Ladies and gents, cross your fingers and toes for me, please!
