Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Sew What?!

Sew What?! was originally what I wanted to name this blog, but the name was already taken on Blogspot.  Harrumph.

Shortly after I so thoroughly broke myself, I had a weekend alone so I wanted to see how well I could sew.  My left wrist is the broken one, and I'm right-handed, so I thought I could probably do most things.  But my right ankle, the one that operates the machine, is the one that is injured.  Still, I wanted to try.

I picked a simple pattern, one I've done multiple times before: McCall's 6071.  It showed up as View B in the Haunted mansion dress and View B/C in the pie dress.  This is a shortened version of B.  Yeah, there is already a shorter version (A), but that was too short for me.  I wanted a long dress here (I was wearing the air cast on my ankle at the time, and long dresses were preferable to cover that up; sleeveless dresses were absolutely necessary because I couldn't get anything with sleeves over the fiberglass cast on my arm), but I had less fabric than I thought I did.  This ended up being just past my knees.

The fabric here is called Purrfect Notions Pin Cushion by RJR Fabrics.  The little tea cups have kitties on them.  I'm sure no one is surprised that I would have fabric with sewing items and cats on it.  I really am turning into a crazy cat lady.

Although I was able to cut pretty well with my functional hand, using fabric weights in place of the nonfunctional hand, pinning was hard.  I managed to pin and sew the seams of the skirt, and hem it, but I couldn't get much of the bodice done.  The turning of the straps and gathering on the front was just too much for my broken self.

So with the dress half-done, I abandoned it until last Saturday morning.  Another weekend to myself, and I decided it was time to start cracking.  I need to start working on my dirndl, but I didn't want to leave this sitting until that was completed.  My arm is in a brace and my ankle is still swollen, but I managed to finish, though it took longer than it should have.  The gathering was still really hard.

 In other news, as I said, my left arm is in a brace right now.  I'm going through physical therapy, but it's pretty stiff.  I finally got back to running last week after a two month hiatus.  I can't tell you how much I missed it.  I can tell you, but I won't, about how much weight I've gained from two months of not running.