Saturday, September 3, 2011

My Excellent summer sewing adventure Part 2

Well, the summer got off to an interesting start. We had been looking at areas for our "pre-retirement" home for a while. We knew we wanted to be near water so we could launch our boat fairly quickly, and I knew it couldn't be in Sonoma County as I really like to breathe and the allergens here are more than I can handle. So in a quick fit of insanity, we found a house, packed, downsized by 1/3, and moved. During the process, I wrenched my knee, which turned out to be a pretty major sprain, and we're looking at about 12 weeks for full recovery, about 6 of which I've already completed. We still have way too much stuff crammed into our house, and tubs of fabrics and boxes and boxes of other things remain in the garage. I am periodically trying to find something, and realizing, "it's in a box in the garage." Unfortunately several of my helpers were not terrific about labeling, and just shoved anything that would fit into the same box. It's going to take a while!

Right now, I have sewing things in a couple of rooms and my garage. I don't think I realized how much I had acquired over the last ten years, but it is considerable. If you think about moving your sewing stash, sewing equipment, and all the rest, it can be a little daunting to say the least. At this point, I'm more or less set up and ready to sew. I get to start with the additional jacket alterations today, on a limited basis.

At the June meeting, as Billie Jane looked at my muslin, we knew there were sleeve issues as well as collar issues. The sleeves were split at the elbow because I also needed a bit at the elbow, two slashes made to the sleeve cap so it wouldn't be too much in one area, and additional width was added into both slits from the elbow to the sleeve cap. The collar adjustment was fairly straight forward with just removing some height due to my short neck. She finished those adjustments, stood back, and asked the group if there were any other adjustments needed that they could see. Lo and behold, there were some additional adjustments needed.

For my particular body, I had done a full bust adjustment adding 1/2" length to 1" in width as I'd learned in a class on a totally different subject. For the jacket, I needed a 1:1 ratio. So some length was added from the center front across to the side princess seam in a wedge. Billie Jane also noted that the lapels on the collar were gapping a little at the neckline~ more so on one side than the other due to a slight size difference. She indicated that I could pull it up with a tape along the roll line, or ideally, cut the lapel in a wedge, eliminating a slight amount from the outside edge in to the roll line of the lapel. Voila! The gapping was gone. I'll also need to shorten the sleeves quite a bit once the other alterations are completed. That will be done at home on my own. Due to my height, I have done a lot of shortening over the years!

So today starts the alterations. I'm going to have to be deliberate in doing my alterations as there are separate patterns for fashion fabric, interlining, lining, and interfacings. That's going to be a lot of alterations before I get done. I will have to rest a bit throughout the day as the Physical Therapist indicated that I shouldn't stand for extended periods of time. I'll let you know how it goes!


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