Monday, March 19, 2007

What, a finished project? REALLY??

Yes, I finished something. Not a sewn something, but something nonetheless. I made a big crocheted beret with a knit band out of some black cotton yarn a friend gave me when she was cleaning out her stash. Whenever I need a really quick project fix, so that I can truly feel I've accomplished something, I crochet a hat or scarf.

I've been crocheting longer than I've been knitting or sewing, and I don't need a pattern to make most things I want to make. And since I live in San Francisco there's a need for hats and scarves year-round, so they're things I can actually use. Not like for instance the halter dress I'm almost done with, which is fab and retro and all that but not exactly something I'm going to wear on a weekly basis.

That halter dress by the way was basically all finished till I sewed on the hooks and eyes to fasten the halter on the back of my neck, and realized I sewed them on all wrong. Which would be easy enough to fix but I REALLY sewed them on, really tightly, really securely, so after I spent from midnight to 12:20 Saturday night trying to rip them off while there was nothing on TV but a history channel tie-in to that 300 movie about Thermopylae and I wasn't feeling nearly testosterone-y enough to put up with that, I gave up. I'll do it sometime later this week when there's something decent to watch to distract from my frustration.

Also over the weekend I set the sleeves in my purple tunic and they came out all right. Well enough that I am not embarrassed to wear it, which is really my only criterion for success in sewing at this particular point in my learning process. The picture here is of the neckline when it was still all messed up; I just folded it under another time and fused it in place to fix it, but no pics yet of the finished project. I still have to hem the ends of the sleeves before I can model it.

The best thing though is that I re-did the neckline on the black eyelet, and without the collar it came out fine! Now I'm hanging it up over night to let the bias set, and I'll hem it tomorrow and tack down the facing which is sticking out a bit, and model it soon. If it ever gets warm enough I'll even wear it out somewhere. Joy!

I told myself I wouldn't go to the fabric store again till I finished something but of course I did. I got some black cotton with white line drawings of flowers that I think I'll use for the Burda shirtdress from my previous post, instead of the plain black which I am using for the Butterick 4790 instead. I think that it will be my Easter dress since the other fabric is pink flowers. I also got some stretchy red fabric that I don't know yet what I'll do with, but it was a gorgeous shade and only $1.99 a yard so I had to have some. This was all from Fabrix, natch. The lady at the cutting table asked me, Anything else for you today? And I answered, God, no, I have to get out of here quick before I spend any more money! So I paid my $12, and disappeared into the early afternoon fog.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I will gladly trade you a sewn top for a crochet someting anyday... I stil haven't learned how to do that! LOL. I can't wait to see your finished dress - I love the color!