Sewing is Art

Come to my sewing workshop on Wednesday, September 12th! It's at the library! You could totally pay your fees or look through archive copies of our local crappy paper! ;-)



I hosted a few sewing workshops in Port Townsend. I only got attendance when I charged money for it. However I'm willing to try *again*, this time with an "aggressive leaflet campaign".

Labels: SNF

I am taking time off of my corset until my 201 is out of the shop - no earlier than this Friday, if I'm lucky. I will also be ordering my dye for my lace.

Today's entry is about hand-basting.

To recap, the finished corset is two pieces composed of five panels each. The pieces will be laced together (in the back) and fastened in the front with a busk. Once you have done two fittings and are happy with the fit you sew the panels together and clip seams (which I did in my last entry). On each corset piece you then sew the lining together (with the same alterations), turn right-side out, and hand-baste the lining to the shell at the seams. After you do this you will be stitching boning channels.

Below is my hand-basting, with boning channels marked in 1/4" tape (not the greatest method, I'm discovering. Not sure what I'll do differently next time though).


This was the first time I'd ever used a thimble. The thimble is put on a finger of the sewing hand to help drive the needle through the thick outer layer of the shell. Also, this is one case where hand-basting is needed. You can't skip it, nor can you take a shortcut and do it by machine.

In other news:


My brother had these vintage crochet hooks in his possession. He didn't know where he got them or why he had them - or even what they were. I don't crochet but I do find crochet hooks handy. Perhaps someday I will see something worth learning how to crochet. For now, I have these hooks to pick up dropped stitches in my knitting.


From left: hoodie for Sophie, hoodie for Nels, ao dai for myself. Whee! All cotton, of course. Purchased from Denver Fabrics.

Labels: corsetry