A FRUSTRATING DAY OF LEARNING

I crawled out of bed this morning at 5 to get my body ready to walk but Mother Nature had a better idea for me. She had a lovely downpour going on. No thunder and lightening but enough water coming from above to restock the Florida Everglades. Needless to say we stayed in our nice dry homes and contemplated the next walk on our schedule. I thought I would get out later in the day but got busy and the day was over before I realized it. 

I spent the day sewing, reading a couture book on how to sew certain parts and wishing I knew more about the fine art of couture sewing. If so I would have been done with the whole garment by now. Or at least the basting part. In stead all I completed today was to get the darts in the back of the dress completed. That may not seem such a big deal but to accomplish that I had to first read how to do it.

For starters I had to cut the dart opening out of the pattern leaving a wedge then mark it with tailors chalk which promptly brushed off as I moved the fabric around. So I re read how to do it.

Next I fit the pattern back on the fabric and thread traced the dart opening. That means to stitch, with long stitches, on the line around the opening of the dart...Finally accomplished that feat on one half of the fabric piece.

Now I have to fold the dart and pin it first then baste it with another thread and then press it then machine sew it...Feat accomplished...

After getting all 4 darts sewn I needed to take out the basting thread and the stitch trace thread..but in the process of machine sewing I stitched over parts of both threads so it took for ever to get the temporary threads out...but feat accomplished and now after one day of sewing I have one piece with 4 darts sewn perfectly and one piece with the thread tracing done waiting to be finished.

I still have two sleeves with 5 darts each and the front with a total of 8 darts. That is 18 more darts. The only good thing is I now know how and most of the darts that  are left are short which makes them easier. Only 4 long ones like I did today. 

I have the option of putting the darts on the outside or the inside as is usual so I think I will put them on the outside. It makes a nice fashion statement. 

Good thing Christmas is a month away.