About sewing
Mar. 23rd, 2019 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_schaeferI sew. Sometimes I sew a lot; sometimes I avoid the sewing room for months, because I'm having trouble with my back or my hip or my hands, or just because I don't feel like sewing right then. I mostly have my own projects, but I have a track record of agreeing to do stuff for other people as well because I like them (the people) and because they're interesting (the projects). I get into trouble when I do this, because the people generally say something like, Take your time, when what I should ask them to say is, I need this by next month.
I work best on a deadline. Not an extreme deadline; if it's not reasonable to get the thing done in the time allowed, I will usually be smart enough to say no. A reasonable deadline keeps me moving fast enough to get the thing done, whatever the thing is. Sewing, taxes, data processing, housework: whatever the category, if it has a reasonable deadline, I'm there. If it can be done any time, but that time is not specific, I may believe I'm going to do it, but I am not. I am not going to get that thing done if there's no urgency to it.
My list of projects of shame is way longer than I care to go over. There are a few that I will never do; the most overdue one, I eventually told the person I was going to do it for that it wasn't going to happen. That one, I really regret. It was going to be a trade for an awesome piece of jewelry, and I had already done the hard work of making the pattern. Cutting out the muslin (that's the sample garment, for you non-sewers out there) screwed up my back for a non-trivial time. I couldn't face doing it again for the real garment. It's too bad; it was an interesting garment that the owner had about worn out and wanted copied. Because of the peculiar structure of the garment, it had to be cut in one great big single bias layer, which meant that I had to lay it out on the floor and crawl all over it carefully.
But all of this is irrelevant to what I've just done now, which is a project relining a leather jacket that I took on for a close friend a few years ago. It wasn't a rush; she had another, similar jacket to wear in the meantime, and I had to nerve myself up to work on leather, which is not the easiest thing to sew. Last fall, I finally decided that it was the next thing in line. I acquired the lining fabric, a sturdy polyester satin in my friend's favorite color, teal. The lining fabric I was originally going to use was some silk in my stash that turned out to be too thin for lining leather. It would have worked for linen or wool, but leather requires a pretty robust lining fabric. I got the ribbing for the cuffs and waistband. I agonized about how to deal with the collar: replace the tattered leather with similar leather, or cover it with fabric? Sourcing leather for the collar was kind of a pain, but I found a place I could check south of Seattle when the time came.
I laid out all the materials on the guest bed, along with two issues of Threads magazine with good articles on relining jackets and my notebook from the outerwear construction class. I was ready to get to work, except for the collar decision.
Then my friend got sick. Really sick. Catastrophically sick. Even if I reline the jacket, I thought, she may never get to wear it. She may not want to wear it. This jacket reline is the least of her worries. It can't fix anything, and it's useless for me to do it.
So I ripped the jacket apart. Off came the worn-out cuffs, the well-worn waistband. Out with the tattered lining and pocketing. I took pictures as I deconstructed, ironed the old parts, laid the old parts down carefully on pattern paper, made new patterns from the old lining, checked the new patterns against the old lining, got some leather needles, and began to sew.
Parts of the project I have enjoyed sewing: two new interior pockets to replace the one original interior pocket, more elegant pockets than were there originally. The collar, which I ended up making from a beautiful silk brocade, black with gold dragonflies. The patch over the hole in the sleeve, made from a piece of the beat-up collar. Thinking that my friend would like my work. Figuring out how to work with leather.
Parts I didn't enjoy: figuring out how to work with leather. Coming up with ways to coax the feed dogs to pull the jacket through the sewing machine. Discovering that super glue is an inappropriate glue for leather and in fact can dissolve it on contact, requiring a larger patch for that hole in the sleeve. Knowing that doing this project would not solve anything, could not buy time and health for my friend.
It's done and delivered to my friend, who likes it and napped under it yesterday evening. At the moment, the weather here is balmy, too warm for this jacket, but by the next time she goes out, it should be cooler.
It's not a useful thing to have done, but it was a thing I could do.
I work best on a deadline. Not an extreme deadline; if it's not reasonable to get the thing done in the time allowed, I will usually be smart enough to say no. A reasonable deadline keeps me moving fast enough to get the thing done, whatever the thing is. Sewing, taxes, data processing, housework: whatever the category, if it has a reasonable deadline, I'm there. If it can be done any time, but that time is not specific, I may believe I'm going to do it, but I am not. I am not going to get that thing done if there's no urgency to it.
My list of projects of shame is way longer than I care to go over. There are a few that I will never do; the most overdue one, I eventually told the person I was going to do it for that it wasn't going to happen. That one, I really regret. It was going to be a trade for an awesome piece of jewelry, and I had already done the hard work of making the pattern. Cutting out the muslin (that's the sample garment, for you non-sewers out there) screwed up my back for a non-trivial time. I couldn't face doing it again for the real garment. It's too bad; it was an interesting garment that the owner had about worn out and wanted copied. Because of the peculiar structure of the garment, it had to be cut in one great big single bias layer, which meant that I had to lay it out on the floor and crawl all over it carefully.
But all of this is irrelevant to what I've just done now, which is a project relining a leather jacket that I took on for a close friend a few years ago. It wasn't a rush; she had another, similar jacket to wear in the meantime, and I had to nerve myself up to work on leather, which is not the easiest thing to sew. Last fall, I finally decided that it was the next thing in line. I acquired the lining fabric, a sturdy polyester satin in my friend's favorite color, teal. The lining fabric I was originally going to use was some silk in my stash that turned out to be too thin for lining leather. It would have worked for linen or wool, but leather requires a pretty robust lining fabric. I got the ribbing for the cuffs and waistband. I agonized about how to deal with the collar: replace the tattered leather with similar leather, or cover it with fabric? Sourcing leather for the collar was kind of a pain, but I found a place I could check south of Seattle when the time came.
I laid out all the materials on the guest bed, along with two issues of Threads magazine with good articles on relining jackets and my notebook from the outerwear construction class. I was ready to get to work, except for the collar decision.
Then my friend got sick. Really sick. Catastrophically sick. Even if I reline the jacket, I thought, she may never get to wear it. She may not want to wear it. This jacket reline is the least of her worries. It can't fix anything, and it's useless for me to do it.
So I ripped the jacket apart. Off came the worn-out cuffs, the well-worn waistband. Out with the tattered lining and pocketing. I took pictures as I deconstructed, ironed the old parts, laid the old parts down carefully on pattern paper, made new patterns from the old lining, checked the new patterns against the old lining, got some leather needles, and began to sew.
Parts of the project I have enjoyed sewing: two new interior pockets to replace the one original interior pocket, more elegant pockets than were there originally. The collar, which I ended up making from a beautiful silk brocade, black with gold dragonflies. The patch over the hole in the sleeve, made from a piece of the beat-up collar. Thinking that my friend would like my work. Figuring out how to work with leather.
Parts I didn't enjoy: figuring out how to work with leather. Coming up with ways to coax the feed dogs to pull the jacket through the sewing machine. Discovering that super glue is an inappropriate glue for leather and in fact can dissolve it on contact, requiring a larger patch for that hole in the sleeve. Knowing that doing this project would not solve anything, could not buy time and health for my friend.
It's done and delivered to my friend, who likes it and napped under it yesterday evening. At the moment, the weather here is balmy, too warm for this jacket, but by the next time she goes out, it should be cooler.
It's not a useful thing to have done, but it was a thing I could do.
