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The other day ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lord_kjar stopped by a second hand store, and while there spotted a good sized sturdy wooden box/chest that he thought looked useful, so it followed him home. Friday evening, before the band came over to practice, he took the wheels from an old piece of office furniture and mounted them on the underside of the box. This morning we added rails to the inside of the box to support a sliding drawer thing and built a drawer with a divider in it that just fits inside the box. (This project was made MUCH easier because this week's other purchases were a drill press and a table saw.)
Then we emptied the old, slightly broken little wooden box in which we have been storing scrap metal and organized it all into the new chest on wheels, which is plenty large enough to take all of that plus the various yoghurt buckets that had been sitting outside of the box to hold yet more small bits of scrap metal. Then we cut down the old box so that it fits on top of the cabinet and sorted the various odd bits of scrap plastic and foam into that. Once that was done and the floor under where the scrap metal box had been was cleaned we could move the older circle saw on a drop down arm (I wonder what the actual name for that tool is?) into the space we just freed up, and the new scrap metal box was wheeled under the workbench. The shop looks much better with all of that stuff cleaned up and out of the way.
After that we made a small frame mock-up for the new tourney chests we want to make, so that we could check and see if they would fit into the trunk of the car. It was good that we did, because it turns out that if we did the chests about half a cm shorter then it would be possible to get them in without lifting out the lid to the trunk. Since we were on a roll we then started cutting the boards for the chests, until we realized that we really needed to make a pushing platform for the new table saw in order to get cuts that are actually perpendicular to the line of pushing. So we did that, then resumed cutting boards for the chest (with much nicer results). Eventually we realized that we should take a break and go do the grocery shopping, but I am really happy with the day's progress.
Thursday's progress was really good too--I managed to cut all 47 pieces of my new silk bliaut (not counting any of the embroidered and tablet woven bits that will be added later). I did the first bit of cutting at the Frostheim craft night. We meet in a school, so there were tables there wide enough to spread out the fabric upon. When I first went to draw the cutting lines on the silk I was, not surprisingly, having issues getting the fabric to hold still and behave.
Then I got hit with some inspiration and tried something I had never done before (nor have I seen or heard of anyone doing it). I wet the fabric down and then spread it out on the table, and it stuck to the table. So once I got it nicely spread out it was easy to draw the chalk lines for cutting. However, the two hours of the social night was only enough time to draw and cut the first 13 pieces, the rest I cut out at home. Luckily, I had started with the largest pieces first, so the remaining bit of fabric was small enough to stick to our kitchen table.
So far I have managed to sew two and a half of the short seams for the sleeve gores. The first one I did in 45 minutes (flat felled seam, so sewing the seam twice in that time), and it was 40 cm long. This means that I am sewing at a rate of ~0.89 cm/min.
I just calculated, and, not counting the (more than 10 meters of) hems, there are 4,092 cm of seams to hold those 47 pieces of fabric together. Assuming the same sewing rate that means the dress can be assembled in 76.7 hours. Plus how ever long it takes to do the hemming, which will involve sewing on some tablet weaving purchased from another shire member to give the hem a bit of weight. It will be interesting to see how this prediction compares with the actual time elapsed for the project. Somehow, I don't think this dress will be done before Norskensfest later this month.
lord_kjar stopped by a second hand store, and while there spotted a good sized sturdy wooden box/chest that he thought looked useful, so it followed him home. Friday evening, before the band came over to practice, he took the wheels from an old piece of office furniture and mounted them on the underside of the box. This morning we added rails to the inside of the box to support a sliding drawer thing and built a drawer with a divider in it that just fits inside the box. (This project was made MUCH easier because this week's other purchases were a drill press and a table saw.)Then we emptied the old, slightly broken little wooden box in which we have been storing scrap metal and organized it all into the new chest on wheels, which is plenty large enough to take all of that plus the various yoghurt buckets that had been sitting outside of the box to hold yet more small bits of scrap metal. Then we cut down the old box so that it fits on top of the cabinet and sorted the various odd bits of scrap plastic and foam into that. Once that was done and the floor under where the scrap metal box had been was cleaned we could move the older circle saw on a drop down arm (I wonder what the actual name for that tool is?) into the space we just freed up, and the new scrap metal box was wheeled under the workbench. The shop looks much better with all of that stuff cleaned up and out of the way.
After that we made a small frame mock-up for the new tourney chests we want to make, so that we could check and see if they would fit into the trunk of the car. It was good that we did, because it turns out that if we did the chests about half a cm shorter then it would be possible to get them in without lifting out the lid to the trunk. Since we were on a roll we then started cutting the boards for the chests, until we realized that we really needed to make a pushing platform for the new table saw in order to get cuts that are actually perpendicular to the line of pushing. So we did that, then resumed cutting boards for the chest (with much nicer results). Eventually we realized that we should take a break and go do the grocery shopping, but I am really happy with the day's progress.
Thursday's progress was really good too--I managed to cut all 47 pieces of my new silk bliaut (not counting any of the embroidered and tablet woven bits that will be added later). I did the first bit of cutting at the Frostheim craft night. We meet in a school, so there were tables there wide enough to spread out the fabric upon. When I first went to draw the cutting lines on the silk I was, not surprisingly, having issues getting the fabric to hold still and behave.
Then I got hit with some inspiration and tried something I had never done before (nor have I seen or heard of anyone doing it). I wet the fabric down and then spread it out on the table, and it stuck to the table. So once I got it nicely spread out it was easy to draw the chalk lines for cutting. However, the two hours of the social night was only enough time to draw and cut the first 13 pieces, the rest I cut out at home. Luckily, I had started with the largest pieces first, so the remaining bit of fabric was small enough to stick to our kitchen table.
So far I have managed to sew two and a half of the short seams for the sleeve gores. The first one I did in 45 minutes (flat felled seam, so sewing the seam twice in that time), and it was 40 cm long. This means that I am sewing at a rate of ~0.89 cm/min.
I just calculated, and, not counting the (more than 10 meters of) hems, there are 4,092 cm of seams to hold those 47 pieces of fabric together. Assuming the same sewing rate that means the dress can be assembled in 76.7 hours. Plus how ever long it takes to do the hemming, which will involve sewing on some tablet weaving purchased from another shire member to give the hem a bit of weight. It will be interesting to see how this prediction compares with the actual time elapsed for the project. Somehow, I don't think this dress will be done before Norskensfest later this month.