Thursday, February 22, 2018

January & February sewing continued

Hi there!

Well, it's been a month since I posted, so figured I'd do a catch up post once again. I got the teal denim pants completed, but my "slight boot cut," of 3/4" on the inseam and the side seams added up to bell bottoms that could have rivaled those of the 60's and 70"s!  I also needed to drop the back crotch seam about a 1/2" due to gravity and age! LOL Because I got buttonholed by a friend, those sat for a couple of weeks needing the alterations!

A good friend asked me to make some box cushion covers for her. Ordinarily, that would be a flat no from me, but she's had a really hard month to put it mildly.

She has dogs, and like many of us, has baby gates to keep them out of where they're not supposed to be. She was stepping over one of the baby gates, caught her foot, and tripped and fell hard on her hip, which fractured. She was healing, and getting better and just started walking without the cane, when the second shoe fell. Her husband, who has rapidly increasing dementia, got pneumonia, and when she was getting him to the hospital, she hurt her hip worse and went from a cane to crutches. While he was in the hospital the dementia went full blown and he doesn't even remember how to bathe himself or brush his teeth, etc.

So what is a friend to do? When she asked me how much I'd charge to do the covers, I said nothing. But was mad at myself because I hate this kind of sewing and it puts me into the sewing doldrums.  Long story, but I did them and they're gone now so I can get back to my personal sewing.

First thing was to remake the swimsuit cover up that was my first project of the year. Plus size ladies do not need to wear horizontal stripes over their bodies. I hated the way I looked in that and wasn't wearing it when the light bulb went off. I could make it an "empire" style and take the skirt part and make the stripes run vertically. Done, and it's being worn now and getting compliments. Whew!

Then the pants. First thing was to remove the 3/4" I added at each leg at the hem, back up to the knee. They are still a bit wide legged for my taste, but that works. The next pair will definitely be narrower though. I KNOW to measure the hem width on pants I like and use that, so I don't know why I didn't do that first. And I dropped the back crotch, which, due to the added room, somehow increased the waist by about an inch and a half that had to be removed.

Then I moved on to my second tee for the teal grouping. I love this and it went quickly. I used my standard TNT Pamela's Perfect Tee pattern, the January 2014 version, but again, due to gravity, I've been noticing some more shoulder movement, so I wound up taking 1/4" off the inside of the shoulder, tapering to zero at the outside. It picked up the neckline just enough so I no longer have a little extra. Whew!

Without further ado, here are the first three pieces in my teal grouping:



I've started the next piece, which is a dark teal tee, and will have a matching cardingan so that will give me 5 interconnecting pieces so far. I'm quite pleased with the prints and the solids in the grouping and think they'll get a lot of wear! 

More later!