Sempstress

Crazy things resembling Honest Work(tm) have put me a million years behind on posting stuff from the last week. I don’t know about anyone else, but stress makes me totally ADD, and I decided that what I really need is a project to take my mind off work, websites, and that other project. I had an idea while making little chemises and corset mockups for Tyler and Piggy that it would be really adorable to do them up as the young Elizabeth I and Mary Tudor. So, I went digging through my fabric bins…. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, you want to know if dye is going to bleed (or shift) in the wash. This is particularly good to know if you don’t plan to prewash your fabric. What? Missa, you blasphemous cheat!  I know, we always want to prewash the bejizzies out of everything, but there are times when you don’t want to, either because you know it shouldn’t bleed but it’s red and you’re using it for bias on a white blouse or because you’re making something that you don’t want any possibility of pre-shrink stretch-out in (like a corset) or whatever, and you just want to know if it’s safe. Here’s a quick test. Read the rest of this entry »

Reverse applique of flowers on a vine, done in leather.

Reverse applique is the process of sewing two layers of material together with the stitches forming some sort of design, then cutting away the positive areas of the top piece of the material. This creates a nice, strong design. Reverse applique using leather is seen in at least one surviving suit of men’s clothes from 1615-20 (Arnold, Patterns of Fashion, pgs 30, 90-2). Read the rest of this entry »