Stitching a lapped, piped seam
I’m teetering in that awful mid-project spot, peeps. I’ve hit a few snags—pattern match? Fail! Where’d all that ease come from?—it’s hard to imagine it being awesome when it’s done. The promise of the pattern illustration has faded, and the reality isn’t winning me over yet.
Yeah, that pattern. That promise.
Usually, I rely on momentum to get me through this phase (and really, while not all projects have it, it’s pretty common). But I’ve been sewing at the pace of a snail lately, what with constantly running into “I could sew but I need THAT”, with THAT being everything from piping (no, Tanit, one package is never enough) to lining to that pattern piece I had last week, dammit.
And with the whining out of the way—fitting photos! Because that makes everything better!?!
(Click image to view larger)
So, re fit—the left-hand side under the arm is the opening and I did a piss-poor job of pinning it shut, so focus on the right for the fit. Aside from the complete pattern-match fail at back and the fact that it’s way more high-cut than the picture seems to suggest (and no, I did not do any preemptive petiting here), what do we see?. The biggest thing that’s annoying me is that blousing in the back. I don’t get along well with blousing. I can certainly take it in, either at the CB seam or the sides. The waist seems a bit long at the sides, not so much at the CF. Maybe shorten all around the waist except at the CF? The hip yoke seems really short, too. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to re-cut the skirt pieces as I think I cut them WAY short (since I was expecting the yoke to come down to, oh around my hip crease….) That might be a good thing, though, as I can try again with the plaid-matching. There’s lots of material left, fortunately.
I was planning to not pipe the waist seam (I prefer not to emphasize my waist) but to pipe the bottom of the yoke.
The fact that Osiris got Skyrim for Christmas might just have a little bit to do with my slow going.* I’m a sucker for an open-world Fantasy RPG, even if it does have a few too many load screens… and while the thrill of discovering even more mysterious zombie-filled ruins may not outweigh the thrill of a new dress, when it’s accompanied by hunny-cuddles and laziness, well, I’m distractable, especially when the dress is being problematic.
Bodice, flat.
That being said, I’m cautiously pleased with how the piped yoke went together with the lapped seam—I suck at lapped seams bigtime, but they are infinitely easier with piping and lots and lots of pins. Oh, and a stitch-in-the-ditch foot/attachment, courtesy of my Pfaff 360′s attachment kit (which you can kinda see in the very top photo). I generally pin as little as possible, but I don’t trust myself to keep a lapped seam together without it. There was too much length in the bust panels along the bottom seam, so I wound up gathering them a bit at the lower-centre corner. I could’ve skipped it and just trimmed off the excess length from the side, but I kinda like the gathering. I don’t remember any extra length from my muslin (which I graded differently, /headdesk) so I’m not sure if the problem is the pattern or me…
What do you do during that mid-project slump? I’m fighting the urge to start something else tooth and nail, because I loathe UFOs…
*Seriously, I am the Ultimate Gamer Girlfriend(TM). Not only do I like the videogames… I like watching him play them! Yeah, I know, embarrassing.
PS I feel like this was the whiniest of whiny posts ever, and I’ve gone over it fifteen times and I can’t seem to de-moan it any further, so bear with me, k? Or better yet, share your latest whine in the comments. 😉
Tanit-Isis Sews 