Not a ton to talk about this week. Actually I think the thing I have the most to say about is sewing progress! For the first time in a while.
SO. I had gotten that fabric to use as lining for the top and the skirt. I got the skirt pieces cut out – it’s basically a miniskirt – got the “lining” layer sewn to the scuba layer, got everything sewn together, hemmed, ready to go for the fashion fabric layer to be attached…
Only for me to realize that the fashion fabric layer is so thin it’s see-through — the whole reason I needed the lining! – so doing just a mini skirt lining is going to look stupid?? Thankfully I bought enough of the “lining” fabric to re-cut it longer.
(I keep saying “lining” in quotes because it’s a stiff sort of stretch taffeta, not a real lining fabric).
So I got the pieces recut to be about ankle length. Got them sewn together…
Put my fashion fabric layer on top and the that “lining” fabric is just too dang stiff. I was going to try to thin it out so its more like a column and less “a” line, but I decided I just needed to back to the store and find a cotton that would work – that’s what I originally wanted, but Joann didn’t have anything that matched close enough that didn’t have a pattern on it (which would show through).
So I went to Hobby Lobby (ugh) and THEY had an exact match in cotton. Yay!
New lining layer in cotton! Inside is french seamed, hem is finished, its ready to go for the fashion fabric layer.
I had intended to build the neoprene/scuba layer into the back of this (the miniskirt version), since it was intended to be my strength layer so those sides of the skirt would stay up. But I decided to skip it because I was worried it would still show through too much. I thought maybe if I’m careful I can get away with out it.
I moved onto doing the gathers in the fashion fabric layer…
This is just the front gather done and I love it like that!
Side gathers done. I kinda liked it better without, but if I don’t wrangle the gathers they spread out too much.
I then ran into the issue of my gathers coming undone on this fabric – basically my knotted end would pull out and they’d start coming undone. That… doesn’t bode well for the rest of this project, but pretty much everything else will have a solid lining layer it can be tacked to. That was the plan here too, but I couldn’t get them to stay in long enough to make sure all 3 looked right. So I machine sewed over them with a long stitch to keep them in place until I can get the lining attached and start anchoring it to the side seams.
Lining layer and fashion fabric layer basted together. With the front panel just pinned on.
And after trying it on I realized I probably do need to go back and add the scuba layer, because the sides just keep rolling down from the weight of the gathers. Also kinda think I might have too many gathers? I need to put it on and have somebody else look at it on me next to a reference pic.
So that’s where I’m at. Some decent progress. Won’t be working on anything tonight – Walker the puppy is staying over tonight so I’ll be busy puppy sitting 🙂
But plans for the rest of the week are to finish the skirt. Long weekend this week yay! So I’m hoping to get some good progress made because I’m really starting to feel under the gun.
The only other thing of interest I have for this week is…
We went to see laser Taylor Swift at the Pink Palace with Ash and Gabe. It was fun! I think we were the only adults there without kids. All the little kids were dancing and had glow sticks and everybody sang along. Very fun.