Good morning, and welcome to Day One of the Ethereal Seamstress competition. I slept late, so I’m already a bit behind. I have a headache, my sciatica pain is still making me yell, and I hate cutting out patterns. Also, I woke up and it was snowing.
All that being said, I’m going to eat my breakfast, drink some caffeine, find my project bags so I can put things away neatly after I cut them, and kick all the ass available to kick. And as is my (occasional) method, I’m going to live-blog the effort today, and I’ll mirror this post over on my website.
breakfast break
Okay, I ate a thing. I replenished my beverage. I cleaned off my sewing table and dusted it and even brought in a new trash can. (Hey, I promised thrilling action. Never let it be said that I don’t deliver on my promises.)
Welp, got my first screw-up and I’ve only cut like three pieces (I pulled thread on one; that took a minute). Somehow, the first panel I cut out of the linen ended up like three inches short, and it’s meant to be the front and back body panels. I have no idea how that happened. It must have slipped when I marked the spot to start pulling the thread.
Luckily, I had enough left to cut more body panels, and I’ll just use the shorter one for sleeves and gores. There ought to be enough, and if not, piecing is period. I will cry, but I will piece.
(I won’t cry.)
(I will swear.)
I’m going to order lunch. I do not have the wherewithal to do more than that. Also, I need to go grocery shopping.
Okay, I ate like an hour ago and I have the body and gores cut out for my serk, Last thing is the sleeves and the gussets. Best get to it.
I had a rush of brains to the head while I was arranging the wool to cut the body panels on my smokkr.
I don’t have to cut the body panels on my smokkr. I can just pleat the front, cut off the bits in the back that are excess, and insert the gores into the fabric. Easy peasy. And for my first sewing projects, I can hem the top edge (the fragment from Grave ACQ was hemmed before pleating) and join the split gores. That should keep me busy for a bit.
Off to turn the edge!
Oh my god, y’all! This edge turned out so pretty. Look!
inside of the hem 
outside of the hem — you can barely see the stitches 
the yarn i used to stitch the hem — near perfect color match
I sewed it with 18/2 EPiC yarn from Timeless Textiles in color 205, Teak. It matches perfectly, and me without a swatch card. I ordered it on a whim, because I like the color, same reason I bought the fabric, and I couldn’t be happier with it.
I used a double strand of Burmilana wool/acrylic thread as an edge guard. It’s color #3855 (they don’t name their colors). It won’t show, but I thought it looked pretty. I just overcasted the edge and caught the gold yarn under the stitches.
My normal method of making the stitches perpendicular to the fabric edge has a tendency to make the edge spiral. One thing I learned today, and I’m surprised that I didn’t think of this, is that if I make both sides slanted, the edge lays flat. Even tension, who knew. And because this is a twill, I tried to make the thread showing on the right side lay along the twill line and it virtually disappears into the fabric. I’m really happy with it.
Next up, trimming off the fringes on the selvedges of the one split gore that needs to be joined and joining it. I have a couple of ideas about that.
So I trashed my brilliant ideas as taking too much time. Instead, I’m overlapping the two pieces of the split gore and sewing them together with more of the EPiC yarn, using the same yarn for a guard on the outside, and just overcasting on the inside. I’m done with the outside and halfway done with the inside, and I have hit the wall. It’s time for bed.
Night, y’all.
