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projects log
Mar. 13th, 2014 04:27 pmBack in October a colleague asked me if I would be willing to make a pair of Viking trousers as a gift for her brother, and said she would pay me for my time. Therefore it was necessary to actually keep track of how much time I spent on the project, so I set up a spreadsheet to track it. Since I had gone to the effort of setting up the spreadsheet I have taken to tracking all of my sewing projects I have done since then. Having finished one of them this week, it amuses me to type up the summary here:
Completed projects:
#1 the Viking trousers I was hired to make took 4.7 hours of my time (using an electric sewing machine) over the course of 14 days.
#2 a fur muff for me using the sleeves from the old coat I had used last winter to make a fur lined hood took 11.4 hours of my time (sewing by hand) over the course of three days.
#3 a flannel pillowcase for my new body pillow took 1.1 hours (using the treadle sewing machine) of my time on a single afternoon.
#4 finished up a UFO--did the sewing to re-assemble an old t-shirt of David's that I had cut down years ago intending to make a more tunic like t-shirt for me, but had put the project aside after cutting and before sewing. The sewing took 3.4 hours (using an electric sewing machine) of a single afternoon, and then two weeks later I decided I wasn't happy with the rolled hem of the neck, so I spent another 45 minutes taking out those stitches and re-doing it by hand sewing a scrap of the fabric over the neckline to finish it instead.
#5 a Viking blue/grey wool twill tunic for me, with (purchased) tablet woven trim and embroidery over the seams took me 36 hours over the course of 37 days to hand-sew.
#6 three-stranded ribbon of silk for braiding into hair took 1.4 hours of a single afternoon to hem shut.
#7 a cloth laundry bag took 33 minutes to machine sew one afternoon
#8 took the scrap cut off of the selvage of some wool fabric, folded it in half and machine sewed it shut with a zig zag stitch to make replacement cords for a cheap conference bag since the original cord was fraying badly. Took 22 minutes of an afternoon.
#9 tested a variety of techniques to see which one would work for turning some plastic reflective yarn into snowflakes to decorate my winter coat and make it safer to walk outside along the side of a road at night. Took 2.7 hours of one evening to find something I actually liked, since the thread isn't exactly pleasant textured to work with (but it is bright if you shine a light at it).
#10 took in a second-hand lightweight black cotton shirt to make it more comfortable and flattering. Took 4.1 hours of my time (using an electric sewing machine) over two days.
In progress:
#11 Wool lining to replace the synthetic lining of the leather mittens I purchased last winter. Have put in 4.4 hours of cutting and sewing over the course of two days. Need to return to this one at some point, but with spring in the air it doesn't feel terribly urgent.
#12 Reflective snowflakes added to my winter coat. So far there are two (one on each sleeve) that have taken 6.2 hours of my time over 13 days to first crochet the reflective thread into a single cord and then sew that down in a snowflake pattern. The plan is to do lots more of them over the skirt of the coat as well as the sleeves, but since we are losing darkness fast it doesn't feel very urgent.
#13 A beard for me (since I plan to participate in a LARP this summer playing a Viking man (need more places to wear that tunic in #5), I need a beard. Therefore I spent about an hour last night to cut and sew some scrap silk to make a chin covering and another for the mustache and dyed the white silk to something more flesh-tone using some black tea. Next I will sew hair to that fabric till it is covered and then line it with more silk to make the beard. In theory. Wish me luck.
#14 re-doing the seams of some silk pajama-like trousers a friend bought in China for him. They had originally had a surged seam, but the fabric was giving out along the straight seam and he was afraid to wear them for fear that it would just rip. He gave them to us right before we moved so that we could fix them, but they have sat on the shelf forgotten, till last night, when I looked at the UFO pile to see if there was anything I could bring with me to hand-sew in class that didn't need any pre-class effort to get ready to sew it. This was the only candidate, so I spent just over an hour today re-doing the seam on the first leg by hand with a nice, felled seam that should prevent the same sort of damage to the fabric, since the stress is now distributed over two lines of stitching instead of just one. And it will be much more comfortable for him to wear, too. I know that many of my friends like their surgers, but I can't stand the way a surged seam feels, and have a strong preference for felled seams--I am convinced that the improvement in comfort is a couple of orders of magnitude better, for only a bit more sewing time.
Total tracked hours (both completed and in progress): 78 hours of sewing over the course of 135 days, so I am averaging a bit more than half an hour a day, though that actually varies from no sewing at all to many hours in a single day.
This breaks down to:
2.4 hours of fabric cutting
12.3 hours of electric machine sewing
21.9 hours of embroidery
40.4 hours of hand sewing
1.1 hours of treadle machine sewing
There are a few more old UFOs on the shelf, but since they were started before it occurred to me to track my time they don't count for the purposes of this list until and unless I pick them up again and keep track of how much time it takes to finish them...
During this time I have also, finally, finished an old UFO nålbindning project, but since I started it years ago it was mostly untracked and I have made no attempt to keep track of the hours working on that. Perhaps I will for the next one of those I start...
Completed projects:
#1 the Viking trousers I was hired to make took 4.7 hours of my time (using an electric sewing machine) over the course of 14 days.
#2 a fur muff for me using the sleeves from the old coat I had used last winter to make a fur lined hood took 11.4 hours of my time (sewing by hand) over the course of three days.
#3 a flannel pillowcase for my new body pillow took 1.1 hours (using the treadle sewing machine) of my time on a single afternoon.
#4 finished up a UFO--did the sewing to re-assemble an old t-shirt of David's that I had cut down years ago intending to make a more tunic like t-shirt for me, but had put the project aside after cutting and before sewing. The sewing took 3.4 hours (using an electric sewing machine) of a single afternoon, and then two weeks later I decided I wasn't happy with the rolled hem of the neck, so I spent another 45 minutes taking out those stitches and re-doing it by hand sewing a scrap of the fabric over the neckline to finish it instead.
#5 a Viking blue/grey wool twill tunic for me, with (purchased) tablet woven trim and embroidery over the seams took me 36 hours over the course of 37 days to hand-sew.
#6 three-stranded ribbon of silk for braiding into hair took 1.4 hours of a single afternoon to hem shut.
#7 a cloth laundry bag took 33 minutes to machine sew one afternoon
#8 took the scrap cut off of the selvage of some wool fabric, folded it in half and machine sewed it shut with a zig zag stitch to make replacement cords for a cheap conference bag since the original cord was fraying badly. Took 22 minutes of an afternoon.
#9 tested a variety of techniques to see which one would work for turning some plastic reflective yarn into snowflakes to decorate my winter coat and make it safer to walk outside along the side of a road at night. Took 2.7 hours of one evening to find something I actually liked, since the thread isn't exactly pleasant textured to work with (but it is bright if you shine a light at it).
#10 took in a second-hand lightweight black cotton shirt to make it more comfortable and flattering. Took 4.1 hours of my time (using an electric sewing machine) over two days.
In progress:
#11 Wool lining to replace the synthetic lining of the leather mittens I purchased last winter. Have put in 4.4 hours of cutting and sewing over the course of two days. Need to return to this one at some point, but with spring in the air it doesn't feel terribly urgent.
#12 Reflective snowflakes added to my winter coat. So far there are two (one on each sleeve) that have taken 6.2 hours of my time over 13 days to first crochet the reflective thread into a single cord and then sew that down in a snowflake pattern. The plan is to do lots more of them over the skirt of the coat as well as the sleeves, but since we are losing darkness fast it doesn't feel very urgent.
#13 A beard for me (since I plan to participate in a LARP this summer playing a Viking man (need more places to wear that tunic in #5), I need a beard. Therefore I spent about an hour last night to cut and sew some scrap silk to make a chin covering and another for the mustache and dyed the white silk to something more flesh-tone using some black tea. Next I will sew hair to that fabric till it is covered and then line it with more silk to make the beard. In theory. Wish me luck.
#14 re-doing the seams of some silk pajama-like trousers a friend bought in China for him. They had originally had a surged seam, but the fabric was giving out along the straight seam and he was afraid to wear them for fear that it would just rip. He gave them to us right before we moved so that we could fix them, but they have sat on the shelf forgotten, till last night, when I looked at the UFO pile to see if there was anything I could bring with me to hand-sew in class that didn't need any pre-class effort to get ready to sew it. This was the only candidate, so I spent just over an hour today re-doing the seam on the first leg by hand with a nice, felled seam that should prevent the same sort of damage to the fabric, since the stress is now distributed over two lines of stitching instead of just one. And it will be much more comfortable for him to wear, too. I know that many of my friends like their surgers, but I can't stand the way a surged seam feels, and have a strong preference for felled seams--I am convinced that the improvement in comfort is a couple of orders of magnitude better, for only a bit more sewing time.
Total tracked hours (both completed and in progress): 78 hours of sewing over the course of 135 days, so I am averaging a bit more than half an hour a day, though that actually varies from no sewing at all to many hours in a single day.
This breaks down to:
2.4 hours of fabric cutting
12.3 hours of electric machine sewing
21.9 hours of embroidery
40.4 hours of hand sewing
1.1 hours of treadle machine sewing
There are a few more old UFOs on the shelf, but since they were started before it occurred to me to track my time they don't count for the purposes of this list until and unless I pick them up again and keep track of how much time it takes to finish them...
During this time I have also, finally, finished an old UFO nålbindning project, but since I started it years ago it was mostly untracked and I have made no attempt to keep track of the hours working on that. Perhaps I will for the next one of those I start...
