a good use for a UFO

[kareina]

Many years ago, well before I was offered my Laurel, I purchased some beige linen from a store in Oregon, and then returned to Alaska and started making an underdress from it. This was my first attempt at using expensive fabric. It was my first attempt at using period construction (rectangles and triangles). I had no idea how to set gores into a slit. I had had problems hemming neck slits--going around the point at the bottom of the slit. Therefore I chose (mistake #1) to slit the front of the dress completely, so that the triangle center front gore could go between the two panels, and the neckline could get hemmed as part of sewing the dress (since I'd opted to do the sort of finishing wherein you stitch the two pieces of fabric together, and then turn each raw edge away from the seam and stitch it down, and then cover the lot with embroidery). After getting it part way together, I decided that the skirts weren't going to be full enough, and I needed a gore in center back too, but the remaining piece of fabric was huge. So, rather than cut the core from part of the fabric, I chose to cut a large triangle whcih goes from the neck to the hem (mistake #2). I wound up cutting the sleeves too short (mistake #3), and the dress itself was shorter than I wanted it (mistake #4). The embroidery I chose to do was based upon a seam finishing from the book _The Hogom Find and Other Migration Period Textiles_, whcih involved first sewing the fabric together and then sewing down the loose edges with two rows of tailor's stitch, and two rows of blanket stitch. The original seam was on a wool garment, and though I don't recall if the book specified if the stitching/seam finishing was worked on the inside or the outside of the garment, I decided that if I was going to go to that much effort, I wanted it to be a decorative embroidery stitch on the outside of the linen dress, and chose a contrasting colour blue/grey cotton embroidery floss (despite not really caring for the colour, nor the colour of the beige fabric, come to think of it--mistake #5). I also made the body rectangles a bit too narrow, and didn't understand about square under arm gores, so added in some weird shaped gores in the armpit (mistake #6). Despite these problems, I persevered for a reasonably long time, assembling the long seams and covering them with embroidery floss. Eventually, all the pieces were together, and all that remained to do was cutting the hem (whcih was an uneven ragged mess, and, as I've mentioned, slightly too short) and finishing the sleeve seems and fixing the fact that they were too short. But, by that time, I'd come to understand that all of the above mentioned mistakes were mistakes, and I set the project aside, intending to fix it later. I had learned from each mistake, and didn't repeat them on other projects, and my sewing skills improved immensely. Years later I received a Laurel for hand-sewing and embroidery, but the UFO (un-finished-object) languished in my fabric stash, and I never made time to fix it.

Earlier this week, my erstwhile apprentice called me to see if he could get some help--he has a new girlfriend who is new to the SCA, and he wants to make her a dress to wear to the upcoming Baronial Investiture event. I explained about how I really need to focus all of my time on my thesis, and we talked more about how he really wants to do this for her, and could I please help him cut a dress out, he'd do all the sewing (and, having made his own costumes,with only my assistance in the cutting out phase, I know that he will be fine with the sewing). Eventually, he talked me into meeting them at Uni today to help with measuring her for a dress (neither of them drives, so they couldn't come out here without help). Then he talked about how he wanted to use good fabric, but the local store doesn't have any, and could he please, please, please buy something from my stash? While it is possible to order on-line, time is of the essence--he's got lots and lots of metal work that must be finished before Investiture, and making a dress will also take time--ordering fabric would probably mean not being able to finish the dress on time. I told him I'd look to see what I've got, and when I looked, I discovered the UFO.

She is shorter than I am (solves mistake #4, and provides enough fabric to add cuffs to the sleeves, so also solves mistake #3). Putting the dress on her we saw that if we took the top half of the huge gore up the back, and drew the edges together the dress suddenly fits her in a flattering manner--and, since those seams are already embroidered, he wondered about simply putting in lacing to bring those edged together--this would mean that no mater what fluctuations to her size, it will always fit (solves mistake #2). As it turns out mistake #1 actually came out looking pretty good the way I stitched it--no need to solve this one, and, her colouring being somewhat different from mine, the beige looks good on her (solves mistake #5). So I sold him the fabric at cost, and gave him the UFO. Now all he needs to do is cut the hem (whcih I marked for him), hem it, use the scraps to finish the sleeves, and do some embroidery on the sleeve seams. This is all easily doable by his deadline, and it cost him less than if he'd have talked me out of that nice linen twill I want to make an under dress out of.

That meeting took less than an hour of my time today. The morning was spent doing uni work at home, then I went in, did more uni work, then crushed some rocks for fun and profit, then met with them and accomplished the above, then crushed more rocks for fun and profit (I've now finished crushing 1/3 each of the 21 samples for zircon separation.) Next week I start crushing the other 1/3 each of those samples for chemical analysis. Then I did more uni work, came home, when for a walk, took a bit of a break to read e-mail,and returned to uni work. Got interrupted later in the evening to talk with two different friends on line who needed someone to talk to, then did my yoga (and some meditation too--I've started doing a small bit of that after yoga each day, and returned to doing yet more uni work. I've now finished all of the re-calculations necessary from deleting those files, and have changed the figures for about half of them to match the new totals. Tomorrow I need to finish the rest of those and move on to the next step. But, it is now very, very late, so I think I'm off to bed.

Comments

[northawke.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you mean that the front seam was an accuracy mistake, or just a pain... but a friend here found an item that *may* have had a front seam with the front gore - http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/cloth/ronberg.html for some more information. I thought I'd share. :)

[kareina.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a pain to do, I think that the reason I think of it as a mistake now, is how easy it is to do in-set gores, now that I know how. But, actually, even all those years ago, I did a pretty job on that seam, and won't be embarrassed to see her wearing the dress when he's finished it. And, come to think of it, I had seen this drawing before, so, perhaps, I did it on purpose. Who knows--that was a long, long time ago...

[janabard.livejournal.com]

Yay for usefulness of UnFinished Projects!

The dress I stepped up as Bard of Cynagua in had multiple sins, covered over by the tunic I threw over it... I put "angel sleeves" onto a puff-sleeved, drop-waist, pleated, cheap cotton/poly, post-50's nightmare of a dress I'd worn for Easter years before, added lacing holes down the back, then I took the lace off the hem and spent hours in lavish embroidery. It passed muster enough with the other layers that nobody took me aside, but it was HOT and UNCOMFORTABLE, and I could never wear it alone! Years later I realized that I was never going to fix it, and donated it to the Ducal Prize Garage Sale. Next event, I saw a pirate chick ROCKING that dress. The drop-waist fit her perfectly, it went very well with her bodice and underskirt, and she had Shiny Happy Garb Face!

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Yay! The joys of 1000 years of history--sometimes what is *wrong* for one period is very adaptable for another...

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You're a good Laurel, K!

[dream-wind.livejournal.com]

All my UFOs are polypop and therefore only fit for dustrags. I'm glad you were able to use yours - especially with Shiny embroidery.

Crushing rocks for fun and profit sounds like more fun than updating reporting documentation.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

my oldest UFO was started in 1989--11 yards of a glorious navy blue silk that I was going to make a bileaut out of. Having seen only Norris at that point, and the word "pleated" was used in the costume book, I took the full width of the fabric, twice, sewed it into a huge rectangle, and pleated the shoulders in to my shoulder width--giving a nice, full skirt, if a bit odd, as it is all straight--no gores at all. Then I cut the sleeves on angle, getting wider from the armpit dropping down to a point around the ankles, and was in the process of trying to pleat the sleeves into tight biceps when it got set aside to do something else. Then I saw an article debunking Noris as a source, and the project has languished. I've been meaning to take it apart and do a bileaut with the fabric--it is much too pretty not to use. But, not till the thesis is done.