Sewing: red fleece

Hmmm... what's this?

Has she lost her mind? Piles of red fleece and orange thread?? By the way, did you know that fleece sheds like crazy? Yes, I should have guessed that my fleece jacket, which shed like crazy for a while would not shed as much as actually cutting pieces of fleece. Well, more incentive to vacuum later.

It's not for me. Okay, it's sorta for me, in that I think I will get a kick out of the results. I know this goes against the advice from the Selfish Seamstress, but I'm still a novice in both the sewing and selfish sewing.

Gardening: The artificially-enhanced growing muscle

After last year's bounty, I must admit that my expectations for this year were pretty low (it's so much easier to exceed low expectations).

However, something unexpected occurred: the advent of a solarium / greenhouse. What's the difference between a solarium and a greenhouse? According to dictionary.com, a greenhouse is therapeutic for plants, and a solarium is therapeutic for people. So when I sit out there with my tomato plants and read a book, I guess it's a greenium or a solariouse. Take your pick.

Wait. Was that "tomato plants"?

Yes, yes, there are

Two of the five plants are only six feet tall. "Only" because I had to chop off the tops because they were pressed against the ceiling and/or they were collapsing under their own weight. They are all staked, but the stakes' 4.5 feet aren't providing a lot of support for the tops of the plants. You know, the tops, where a lot of the tomatoes grow:

This particular string of cherry tomatoes has 23 budding fruits, which will make a lovely orange salad for me later (unless I eat them one by one as they ripen, which is a distinct possibility). Still working out how to determine when the green zebra tomates are ripe... hmm...

Sewing: B&W&P dress inching along

It's so nice to come home from a long day at work, followed by the gym and tasty dinner, and totally crash for the evening. Which is why I've only done a little more on the dress:

Hey, check that out... forgot the purple sash. Go, me.

Obviously, I haven't shortened the hem of the lining yet. I figured it'd be easier to do once the outer skirt was done. It also looks a little shorter on the sides than the front. I think this is just a picture-image problem rather than a real-life problem. I think.

I ended up using that hem tape stuff after all. If you look reeeeeally closely, you can still see the dark/light layers through the seam, the hem tape, and the folded over (i.e. backside of the!) fabric. Doubling over the tape makes for a pretty hefty seam, but also gives the skirt some body and not-as-clingy look. We'll see if it stays that way once the lining's shortened.

New problem: If you know me, you know that I have very pasty-pale skin; the pictures make me look like I have a decent tan. I just realized that I already know that I look pretty bad in off-white. Huh. Why the heck did I choose a color that looks terrible on me?

Well, one more (major) seam to go...

Sewing: More Progress on B&W&P Dress

My goal was to sew a dress before summer finished. If I hadn't sewn the zipper in backwards last night, I'd have had something to show yesterday.

B&W&P Dress, mostly finished!

All of the internal seams are bound (yay me!)

Seams so neat!

The hem isn't done, and won't be done before summer's over, since my summer finishes, uh, yesterday. And I need a hook-and-eye thingy. Maybe I'll actually finish it next week. Next week-ish. -Ish. Here's my questions:

1. I think it's a bit long (or I'm a bit short... yeah, probably more likely), and I intend on shortening the hem (or growing me, yeah right) a little. How much should I take it up? AND...
2. I have seam tape for the inside, which will hopefully be inconspicuous. OR I could bind the bottom of the dress with purple satin, like the straps and belt. Which will look better?

Sewing: Progress B&W&P dress

A large part of why this blog is called "Jerryrigging" is that I often just figure out ways of making things work the way I want them to. My grandfather said that jigsaw puzzles are pretty easy if using a hammer. My ways might be the "proper" ways of doing things, or I've found a cool way of doing things and am pretty proud of myself until I discover that I've inadvertently re-invented some really old technique.

For example, when I was little, I got a bag of super swirly, shiny marbles, with a shooter and everything. I pulled out maroon craft felt and, with looping stitches, crafted my own drawstring bag. Then, in order to protect my marbles from my brother's (obviously inferior) marbles, I took some more grey drawstring-string and sewed it onto the bag... my name in cursive! My mom was pretty impressed. To me it just made sense: after all, I wanted my name on the bag, and printing wouldn't work because it would be too many little pieces of string. Then Mom told me that couching was pretty advanced, so I should show it to my needlepoint-master grandma.

Now, take this dress I'm currently working on (hereon dubbed the Black and White and Purple Dress, because I'm feeling uncreative, and it's sorta like the punchline to a bad 3rd grade joke). It's the first time I've worked with slippery fabric of any kind, fairly translucent fabric, and slightly stretchy fabric. And I don't like the ribbon straps that they suggest, so I'm using strips of satin. And the translucent fabric means the whole thing has to be lined as well as the seams bound so that they don't show through. AND I wanted the fabric pattern to go against the grain because I like it more vertical-ish than horizontal-ish. So. What kinds of precautions have I taken? Basically none. Probably a dumb thing (or several dumb things) to do, but it'll be a learning experience. And learning experiences are always good, right?

The one smart thing I did do was ask a coworker how to manage the seams so that they wouldn't show through the fabric and lining. I have packages and packages of twill tape that have (so far!) worked wonders on the arm hole seams. This middle bodice seam, however, is a little trying:

Oooh, that's fairly unattractive!

In the center there, where the two sides overlap, there's six to ten layers of fabric at a time, mostly because of the satin ribbon bits. However, it is holding, and is certainly better than trying to merely zigzag that mess!

The parts I'm currently more proud of include the straps. The pattern (New Look #6557, view A) requests lengths of ribbon for the halter top ties. I'm not much of a ribbon girl, so I just cut lengths of purple satin and sewed them up. Not the most even of stitching jobs, but I think it's within my tolerance levels (ask me again later, and it might be the bane of my existence). Anyway, here's the front of the bodice, basically done:

Strings without strings!

So now it's on to the back pieces, then the skirt. I'm not the fastest sewer in the world (and it's mostly as a treat for cleaning part of the house), so this may take a little while. Unless I procrastinate from cleaning the house...