late night sew-fest

[cormac]

it's 4 AM, and I just finished a St. Louis shirt. It fits perfectly, just barely form-fitting (an encouragement to lose weight). I rule!
Living in the dorms affords me precious little time behind the sewing machine. I only get to sew when I go home to Bakersfield, and am able to pry myself from my other responsibilities and projects in-home and around town. I take pride in the fact that most of the garb I wear I've sewn myself, but this leaves me with little to wear. As one of my goals is to go to Pennsic (http://www.pennsicwar.org) this year, I need to sew garb. Lots of it. Quickly.
In the meantime, Caid's 12th Night is this Saturday. For the newbies in the class, 12th Night is a holiday-ish celebration involving a very long Royal Court, shopping galore and a large feast. The way most Caidans celebrate 12th Night is by making and wearing new, fancy garb. While I don't have elaborate damasks, brocades and silks, I do have fine linen and soft, beautiful wool. So what I sew this week will be worn at 12th Night:

St. Louis shirt (side gores) - undyed linen
Bocksten tunic - forest green wool
Surcoat - cranberry wool
Pants - yeah right. Sweatpants, probably. Or maybe lounge pants. I'm afraid of sewing pants.

So far, all I have is the shirt. I can whip out the surcoat quickly. I'll do that first, in case I don't finish the Bocksten before the 8th. With luck and focus, I can have that done in less than a day, leaving me all week to complete the tunic.
Yes, it's lots of work. Yes, it's tedious, and at times I want to tear all fabric in my general area to its component threads. But it's that point when the garment you've been working on is complete, and you put it on for the first time, and feel yourself transported to the turn of the 14th century...I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

What is a St. Louis shirt? not for baseball fans I take it.

[cormac.livejournal.com]

not quite.
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/cloth/stlouis.html
I tried to do the fore and aft gores, but the directions I was using were very, very stupid, so I put them on the sides. Other than that, this shirt is a Saint Louey.

[lady_songsmith]

Oddly, I find sewing relaxes me. Except when I discover I've just stitched the panels right-side facing wrong-side... *facepalm* Then I throw things. But mostly it's relaxing.

I too fear sewing pants. I've tried it exactly once -- the result involved parading up and down the suite's hallway (sewing machine in the dorm room allowed much more working time) in the un-hemmed, un-waistbanded ridiculously ill-taped too-long result doing an impression of Cletus the Farm Yokel for my suitemates that had them crying with laughter. So I don't do that anymore....

[cormac.livejournal.com]

sewing is supposed to relax me, but when the directions say, essentially, to insert a gore into a place where a seam doesn't exist, and you're not used to doing gores in the first place, things tend to get thrown

[lady_songsmith]

Ah. Looking at the pattern, it would seem the gores are meant to be inserted on an artificial seam running up to, on a rough estimate, the bottom of the breastbone. At a guess, I would say this is a measure to take into account the bias of the cloth, and affects the way the garment will hang. However, as it will be worn under at least one layer if not two, I don't see that fudging the gores would be a problem.

[lady_songsmith]

I've just realized that there's a typo in that pants-rant that changes the whole meaning of the adjective... It should be "tapered" not "taped"