Slow sewing and learning to love it

Just as I predicted, it has been a busy week with no time or desire to blog or sew. But today I have the day off and, even better, the coming week I'm free from work also! That means no more excuses to not work on the skirt.

I'm sewing this skirt really one step at a time and I'm beginning to love working that way. Most of the time I'm in a hurry to finish so I can start something new. Now I feel like I'm putting my time and love in this project just to get it as perfect in the end as possible.

Another thing is that I'm thinking more about the process. How to solve problems and how to do things. How I want it to be and what I'd like to change to get there.

And I must say that all your blogs have been the reason why I've started thinking about sewing like this lately. There's so much love for fabric, patterns and the process of sewing out there. It's just such a big, big inspiration. Thanks!

I guess you now want to know where I stand with my skirt, right? Then take a look at this:

(Don't let the machinestitches fool you. I did not take the easy way out. I wouldn't dare!)

I'm at the point where the fun starts: sewing on the embroidery. I had to decide how big I wanted the stitches to be and how far apart from each other.  And think of a way to make sure that all the stitches were of the same length.
And this is the solution:  I used a big stitch on my machine to use as a guideline. I tried out some different lengths and found one I liked. The dark lines are done with a marker. At the top on the right is the version I like best. On the bottom you see the what it's gonna like like afther the white stitches are removed. The length of the white stitches is 4 mm. The grey stitches will have the length of 2 white stitches, then skip one white stitch, and so on. They will be placed as close to the white stitches as possible.

I used the same stitch-length (obviously....duh!) to sew around hems and slits, 2,5 cm from the edge. The 'point' of the stitches sits also 2,5 cm above the top of the slit.  Et voila, my guideline is finished and now I can easily sew the real stitches.

I hemmed the skirt invisible, by hand. I think I've done miles and miles of hemming this way in my life.

This is how I handled the corners at the slits. I'm sure there's a way to do this more couture-like but there will be a lot of coverage from the lining so this will be just fine.
The diagonal and vertical seam is also handsewn but you can't see the stitches.

I have serious doubts about the lining I have bought for this. The fabric of the skirt has quite some stretch and it does really stretch when you put it on. So it's probably better to choose a lining with stretch as well.



So, all in all there's not very much progression, but I should have more time now to work on it. And I will. Step-by-step, with a lot of love..  And after this:  a knit dress! Yummie!!

Have a very nice weekend everyone! It's gonna be genuine fall-weather over here, so time to curl up on the sofa under a warm blanket!

Gr.
Lilian