As I sat down at the other computer to order a bottle of Lisinopril, I saw a small square of paper with "10" in red marker lying on the floor, and recognized one of the tags used to keep the pieces of Yellow Dozen organized. Where has it been all this time, and how did it end up next to the keyboard stand?
Nearly a month since I've even *thought* about sewing! Well, I've sorted my waiting-room darning a couple of times, and when I took my black knickers off after this morning's ride, I left them in the sewing room intending to work out something better than safety pins. Heaven knows when I'll find the time. Tomorrow and Monday are scheduled.
I held the scrap reserved to make a timer pocket up to the seersucker gown and marked an edge to be the top hem. I will also need to pick out the hems on the neck and the armholes and replace them with bias facings.
I like the gown being worn because it's soft, but it's also delicate. But the holes I put the patch over were three-cornered tears from catching on something, not worn through.
Yesterday or the day before, I made a worn-out pillow case into two sweat rags, one of which won't survive its first trip through a washing machine. This case had been on a pillow carried in the car for years, and faded right through the duck carrying case, then it was cut down to fit a smaller pillow for more years of service, so it was too worn to tear straight and I had to cut it. By good luck, the print is perfectly on grain.
I think that this was a high-quality fabric that I got cheap because it was a co-ordinating print for a fabric that had sold out. The car-carrying years were long before we moved in 2001, so memory of acquisition are a bit dim.
To my surprise, I found three more worn-out cases on the rag shelf -- I'd thought there was only one. These are all anonymous white fabric, but there are three different hems so they aren't from the same batch. I've begun to tear up the one I remembered being in there; it was made by folding a long narrow strip at the bottom, so I think it will make enough to last me until I get an opportunity to wash hot-with-bleach whites, or until I dirty enough underwear to wash the colored sweat rags. At any rate, there are two more.
I tore the selected pillowcase into three sweat rags and a small pile of skillet wipes. Not one of them will last any time, but tomorrow promises to be a passable drying day and our only appointment is with duct cleaners, so I'm finally going to get to wash the hot-with-bleach whites.
Meanwhile, back to trying to clear access to the register in the sewing room.
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patch seersucker sleeveless
daygown
Forgot to strike that off when I did it.
Got both pairs of riding pants out of the sewing room.
A snag tore a slit about half an inch long in the knee of the baggy pants. Upon looking closely while darning, I saw that it is a very interesting fabric: I'd thought it was crepe, but it's more like seersucker. There are tight horizontal threads a couple of centimeters apart, quite prominent when viewed through 4.0 reading glasses, like one-way ripstop. The resulting puckers line up to make vertical ridges that wander about and begin and end like the tracks in old-time seed- corn sacks. I hope I find time to take a close-up and post it somewhere for comments.
I'm always worried that a darn will have tight threads that pucker the fabric or even tear it, so I secure the thread only by beginning and ending with a lot of running stitches that won't be missed if the thread pulls out of them.
So I running-stitched back and forth a couple of time at right angles to the slit (which was torn along the horizontal grain). I moved over a stitchlength to begin each row, so that the pull would be on a stitch, not on a sharp turn.
A third row ended at the slit, which I baseball stitched, then I finished with more stopper stitches like those at the beginning.
For some reason, I make more running stitches at the end, and the final row goes farther from the darn than at the beginning. Makes no sense, but I do it.
On to the knickers with the oddball pockets. I've had photographing those in mind ever since I bought them, but black-on-black needs perfect light, which never co-incides with both having leisure and remembering that I want to do it.
I had the loop of elastic I'm using for a belt slipped over two large brass safety pins stuck into the waistband, but in wear the pins always rotate, no matter how carefully fastened. I had in mind to sew the elastic to itself to make a loop through the belt loop, but hey, why not try it out with pins first? That way if I get it wrong, I can adjust it on the road. So I took a ruler and a white pencil out to the porch and used the same pins to secure the new configuration.
Sewing room is still a mess, but there are two fewer mending jobs in it.
Early in the morning, soon after midnight, sitting up because I'm awake and need to take a pill in forty minutes.
Sewing room is still a mess, but the mess is in neat-looking piles that left a clear path to the register when I folded up the ironing board and took my chair to the bedroom. The ironing board is once again cluttered, but something got put away, and I ironed two shirts while it was clear. Also re-pressed the fly on my brown garden pants. It had already been pressed; I could have sewn it shut any time. Why *must* the put fake flies on pull-on pants? It's bad enough that they insist on putting real openings center front.
Got the job done porch sitting while the cleaners were working. Took a while to realize that I could go to the patio and not be right next to the roaring truck.
Then I trimmed and basted the timer pocket for my seersucker daygown, which I wear only after brushing my teeth, but you'd get the wrong impression if I called it an evening gown. By pure luck, I put all the places where stitches must go on black stripes, which pleases me. I'm about halfway through sewing the hem, then it will be ready to sew to the gown.
I got the hot whites washed and on the line before the cleaners arrived. Absent-mindedly put the freshly-washed sheet on the bottom, so I hope that I'll have leisure and a good drying day again soon.
Did a few days ago, and today I ironed my white shirt and flattened the hems of the recently-washed sheet.
When clearing the ironing board, I put the pink linen-cotton back on the closet shelf. I'm not going to make bras any time soon.
In the evening, I basted the pocket to my seersucker gown and sewed down one side and across the bottom. I did such a good job of matching the plaid that it is hard to see what I'm doing.
Spent the morning oiling all the oil holes on the Necchi, except for at least two that just purely don't exist. When I opened the compartment where the drive belt is, there was black sorta-dust everywhere, but the belt is red. Couldn't find the oil hole.
Still won't overcast, so I sat on the porch and finished the underpad by hand, which went pretty fast after I finally figured out how to do it.
Now I've got to make the dirty one washable. Should have done that half first.
pocket seersucker sleeveless
daygown
I've been using the timer pocket in my seersucker gown for some time. I matched the plaid well enough that the pocket isn't much help in not putting the gown on backward, even though the scraps are unfaded.
Learned recently that bleach takes long-set bloodstains out instantly -- in a commercial laundry where the bleach is so strong that they have to use a bleach neutralizer after five or six minutes to keep it from eating the towels.
This goes along with the old-time method of stretching the stained fabric over a bucket, wetting the stain with undiluted bleach, and immediately pouring boiling water through it. The heat makes the bleach release all its power at once, so that it's both activated and neutralized, and the large quantity of water passing through removes it.
I've never had occasion to check whether this works.
10:37 AM 2/9/2024 darn emergency gloves in
Taco
The Tacoma will be sold before it's cold weather again, so I threw the gloves into the glove bag undarned.
Long time no write. Spending three hours in the emergency room the Friday before last getting twelve stitches in a scratch on my calf didn't help.
Hey, that's on topic!
I couldn't quite see how she tied the knots. It involved twirling the forceps around the long end of the suture, then grabbing the short end.
I have forceps! I should take them with me when a needle is likely to be hard to pull out of the fabric.
I've been doing all my hand sewing on the porch of late.
The dirty underpad is done and in the wash, and the Necchi is at Lowery's. I sure hope that the lack of oil didn't do anything permanent; this has been a really good machine for nearly sixty years.
It was sewing fine until the needle fell out. (I should tighten that screw now and again.) Perhaps I should have put it back in instead of throwing it away on suspicion of being bent.
I should use all the excitement next Thursday to find two men and a boy to load the White into the car so I can take it to Lowery's. But first I've got to inspect it myself and write instructions for the repairman.
I can't believe that it's August and I haven't taken any pictures yet. I've created BLOGXXIV so that I can post a picture of the scissors the doctor gave me after removing some, but not all, of my stitches yesterday:
And here's the leg with four basting stitches removed:
I retrieved the Necchi from Lowery's last Friday, but haven't found time to check it out yet -- or even take off the carrying case.
Also got the basting taken out of my leg on Friday:
Photo taken today. I think the brown mark is the glue used on Thursday to make the steri-strips stick. It doesn't rub off with a wet rag, and I don't want to do anything more enthusiastic that close to the wound.
hem white sock
Judging by the brownish-pink stain, it's the sock I had on when I tore my leg. I dropped it into a bucket of cold water before I noticed that a bandaid wasn't going to do the job, and it had a nice long soak while we were in the emergency room.
While putting away the clothes I washed yesterday, I happened to remember noticing broken stitches in the hem of one of the socks I'd taken off last night. I had added it to my to-do list after dropping it into the white-sock jar. (I soak my white socks in strong detergent in a mixed-nut jar before putting them into the machine. It's easier to put them into the jar when I take them off than to sort them out later.)
I wanted to use my two-ply cotton thread for the repair (weak thread is often better for mending), but I couldn't remember where I'd put it, so I used thread from a bobbin marked "baste". I won't be needing it as a bobbin now that the thread on the cone is too weak to go through the tension disks. I shouldn't have hung it in the window!
San-serif chevron stitch worked up quickly and inconspicuously. I must make another effort to find a name that people can look up in stitch dictionaries; it's quite a useful stitch.
Looked it up in ROUGH022.TXT and discovered that I later learned that Jaqueline Enthoven calls it "Wave Stitch Filling". And Duck-Ducking that turned up a page that says that Therese de Dillmont mentioned it in her 1886 Encyclopedia of Needlework. My DMC Encyclopedia of Needlework is a later edition of this work, but, alas, has no index. But one of the Web sites mentions that Mary Thomas has it on page 206 of her Dictionary of Embroidry Stitches.
All sources agree that it must be Wave Stitch Filling to distinguish it from the very similar Wave Stitch aka Wave Filling, which isn't a drawn-fabric stitch and has very little thread on the back.
I secured the ends only by running them through the unbroken stitching of the hem.
I think that "sans serif chevron stitch" is a better name when only one row is worked. Or perhaps "zig-zag douible-running stitch".
I found the cone of two-ply thread! It was on the floor near the wall of shelves, where, I presume, it had fallen out of the black bag before I emptied and put it back into service as a grocery bag. (Then DH found it among the grocery bags and took it to hold medical stuff.)
I started picking the neck hem out of the seersucker gown. I think facing it with sheer muslin bias tape will hold it for a few months.
Checked: I do have such tape.
I started to take a stitch in the Sunday socks yesterday. And I almost resumed darning today.
I picked more hem out of the neck of the seersucker gown. Took a timer set for ten minutes out to the porch with the gown and seam ripper. Should have taken the tweezers too.
I'm taking the socks to the hospital, but don't expect to work on them.
Porch-sitting time, with a good light! But not good enough to pick black stitches out of black soft-spun cotton. I didn't like having cuffs in the sleeves of my new slopping-around dress, so today I tried to pick them out. Finally got the sewn-into-the-seam end of the cuff on one sleeve, then tackled the simple job of removing the bar tack. Turned out that the tack had been made by stitching back and forth with a very narrow zig-zag and an extremely-short stitch. Removing it without damage to the fabric is purely impossible. I gave up and hung the dress back in the closet.
I'd like the dress more if it didn't have plastic dots fused to it. I'm also disappointed that it doesn't quite cover my knees. I must admit that the exposed knees are fetching and youthful -- "I'm about to enter first grade" youthful.
Then I sewed a snap on my Sunday shirt. I noticed that it was loose last Sunday, but it doesn't appear to have been added to my to-do list.
shorten new slopping-around pants
I used my free arm the way it's demonstrated in sewing-machine stores today!
A while ago, possibly yesterday, I picked the stitches out of the hems of my new slopping pants, pressed out the creases, and ironed my only white shirt, which I washed a few weeks ago.
Today I folded up the hems the width of an appointment card and stitched them.
This is the first time I've threaded the machine since it was repaired. At 4, the tensions seemed a bit firm to me, but I figured maybe the repairman knew a little something and didn't fiddle, and it worked. I also left the stitch length set at 4, since I might want to take these stitches out.
Tuesday, I found a piece of cord elastic in the washing machine. This morning I found that it came from YD#9-white and put it back. (I was very careful about tightening the knot.)
There are a number of breaks in the stitching in addition to the long one the elastic probably escaped through. I dithered between mending by hand and machine until I remembered that the repairman almost certainly put in a universal needle and this is a knit, so I'd have to change the needle in addition to changing the thread. Probably won't find time for porch sitting today, but I might take it to the hospital tomorrow.
I did find time for porch sitting. I sat down, took a needle out of the tin box labeled "wool jersey", in which I'd stashed a spool of yellow cotton and a pair of yellow scissors, put the needle back into the box, and got into the car.
Tin box and briefs are in my go bag, go bag is in the car. Twenty-seven minutes before time to leave.
Did finish the repairs while waiting for the surgery.
For a change, it was the car that I was waiting for. Read a book instead of sewing.
Stopped at Aldi on the way back and bought the last size-medium "fine-spun cotton" dress, which is dirty orange. (Earth tone?) Turned out to be button front and three-quarter sleeves; I'd forgotten that that was an option. The buttons gape, and the neck-hole is bigger than the neck of a T-shirt, so I intend to sew the placket shut.
The skirt is two tiers, and I think as a shirt it will be just the right length without the bottom tier, so I may remove it and make pockets.
⁂
Having worn it without a shirt underneath, I find that I need to put in some dowager-hump darts to keep it from exhibiting my bra.
⁂
I pinned up quite a lot. I think I'll shirr it instead of making darts, and use fine cord elastic even if it's easy to get off without undoing the pin.
⁂
I could put quarter-inch elastic into the existing neck finish. Cord elastic such as I use to hold up my underpants is strong enough, requires a smaller hole, and won't twist in the casing. (Well, I won't *notice* it twisting in the casing.)
But it might be awkward to secure at the ends.
⁂
Insights as I was falling asleep:
First I thought of sewing tabs of twill tape to the ends of the cord to make it easier to anchor them. (Come to think of it, I use the same trick to anchor flat elastic in in seam when making the seam-to-seam pockets in the back of a jersey.)
Then I realized that if the neck works with the excess pinned, the gathering does not have to stretch: it can be twill tape all the way.
And finally, the tape does not have to be free to slide back and forth, so it does not have to be inside a casing. I can just gather the back of the neck, then sew a tape over the gathers to take the strain.
But if I don't want any of this to show on the outside, I'll have to sew the tape on by hand. I'll probably have to hand-sew the gathering threads too, to make even pleats.
Perhaps I finally have use for "stroke your gathers", which I read about decades ago.
I'd better think about something useless when I go back to bed.
I sewed four D rings on a carpet sample so that it could be attached to a footstool with bungee cords. I did a nearly-perfect job of sewing on the fourth ring.
And in the afternoon, I slip-basted the fake button placket on the orange dress. The placket is quite real, but totally not needed and the buttons are hard to impossible to operate. It looks much nicer without the gaps between the buttons. Which isn't to say that it looks nice, but "I am behind it so I don't mind it" and Dave likes orange.
I studied the seam of the bottom tier, and decided that my best plan would be to cut off a strip just wide enough to make pockets, and leave a ruffle at the bottom of the dress. The top tier is just the right length, but would be too short after hemming. And the seam would be a bear to undo.
But shortening it will come *after* gathering the back of the neck.
⁂
I wore it this evening with the back of the neck pinned, and it definitely needs to be shortened if worn as a shirt. It's awkward to get into my pants pockets.
If I had time to sew, I'd want some of this crinkle gauze -- it's more opaque than most fabrics that aren't gauze.
A Web search for "finespun cotton" didn't turn up anything but inept definitions of "ring spun".
I found a Serra home page, but they sell nothing but hundred-dollar shirts that I wouldn't pay ten dollars for.
Preparing to gather the neck of the orange shirt:
From seam to seam, the back of the pinned neck is
7 1/2 inches / 19 centimeters
at the top edge of the facing
9 1/2 inches / 23 centimeters
at the bottom edge of the facing
and the tuck is
1 1/4 / 3 centimeters
which removes 2 1/2 inches / 6 centimeters.
Distance between pin marks is 2 1/2 inches / 6 1/2 centimeters.
I shall draw lines a quarter inch apart across the facing and stab-stitch the gathering threads.
Do I have cotton heavy-duty thread?
⁂
Button and Carpet is a bit *too* heavy duty. I settled on yellow "Dual Duty" because the color isn't black, and because I realized that the threads don't have to hold after the tape is sewn on.
Indeed, I think I will secure the end by wrapping them around pins, and pull them out after the tape is sewn.
⁂
I found a ruler with easy-to-see quarter-inch marks -- the only one in half a dozen or more, but in fairness to the rulers, not all of them measure inches.
Out to the porch to put dots along the edge of the neck with a brand-new marker. Comes with a warning that marks left in too long will become permanent.
⁂
After my nap, I like to never found my seam gauge, which has a slot in it suitable for marking lines a narrow distance from an edge. Marked on both sides of the facing, but I'm better off eyeballing it than using *those* lines. I think that the fabric wriggled around while I was marking. The surprisingly-sharp curves didn't help.
⁂
I went to the synthetic drawer for strong thread and grabbed Dual Duty because of the color. While stitching the gathering line, I realized that I should have taken the upholstery thread -- I'm going to have to pull very hard to draw up these gathers.
The facing is so thick that to stab-stitch upward, I have to poke the needle in from the marked side and mark the spot with my thumbnail or fingernail. Which seems random; I must watch myself with that in mind when making the second row of stitching.
I started the day with a little sewing: I decided (falsely; I'm going out to pick up pills and buy an avocado when the wash is done) that this was a good day to wear my old yellow panties and speed up the day when I can discard them. When I put them on, I discovered that the knot in the elastic had come untied.
I learned that when re-inserting elastic, one should select a hole that's next to a long stretch of no holes. When the knot passes under a hole, it snags on it and has to be tucked in again.
sew shut button placket on new orange
shirt
Went to add a chore to my to-do list and found one that had already been done.
Time to split January-June from July-December. Plenty of disk space, but the file is a chore to validate.
The sweat pants I recently got out of the back of the closet have an interesting feature: like many sweat pants, the drawstring comes out through two buttonholes in the casing, but the end from the left comes out through the right buttonhole and the end from the right comes out through the left buttonhole, so that each hand can grab the nearest end and pull in the natural direction to tighten the string.
I must photograph the strange pockets on the knickers in the laundry basket before I put them away for the winter. I wonder whether I'd get clearer pictures if I shot them before washing the sunscreen off the black pants? But none of it is on the pockets.
bar tack on cell-phone pocket of house
pants
Don't know when I did it, but I've been wearing them for some time. I made the opening to the left pocket smaller so that my cell phone wouldn't fall out. (I've decided to wear the cell phone around the house to be sure I have it when I dash out to dump garbage or harvest an onion.)
Did a little un-sewing this morning. I considered wearing my polywool pants, discovered that I'd basted the right opening when I was fatter, picked the stitches out (I'd had the forethought to make this easy) to make it possible fasten them tighdt enough to stay up, and decided that my house pants would do fine.
These pants will do for parties, once I've turned the hems up an inch, so I intend to start wearing my black bull denims for appointments and shopping. I *hate* the "pajama pants" I've been wearing.
A determined search for last winter's house pants has left my to-do hook much neater.
They turned up in the closet, where they belonged and where I'd looked a dozen times.
I wore my trapezoid skirt yesterday, and learned that I need to make the pocket slits much longer, or ease the skirt onto the band so that it doesn't overlap as much. I was getting into my pockets -- even the skirt pockets -- by hiking the skirt up.
I'm pretty sure I was fatter when I made it.
Also learned that you can't hike up a circle skirt when riding a bike; I had to tuck a bit of the hem into my waistbands.
Also learned that broadfall pockets secured only at the top flop around most annoyingly. At least they do when you disarrange them by hopping on and off of a pedestrian accelerator.
I should try a bar tack in the lower corner.
Just remembered that I didn't make them an extension of the back because they aren't shaped like a circle skirt. A buttonholed bar should do the trick.
I think I'd prefer to baseball-stitch the bar. I think that's called a "woven bar".
On Monday I basted the seam in my Aldi "finespun" dress that I unpicked in a vain effort to undo the cuffs, then overcast the raw edges, and washed the dress. I'll probably leave the basting in indefinitely.
Today I put on my too-long polywool pants, folded up the legs, checked in a mirror, and marked with a safety pin. Then I picked the hems out. I'm definitely going to use a longer stitch to put them back in.
By then the home helper was here, so I also finished darning the slit in yellow bra #1 brown square.
I see that "darn writing mitts" is on my to-do list. ("darn bra" wasn't). I found them after a long time of mislaid, under or behind something that I don't move very often if I recall correctly, and now I can't remember where I put them.
Fortunately, nearly everything on the ironing board is on the leg board, so It shouldn't take terribly long to finish shortening my dress-up pants. Then I can dare to shorten my better black jeans, confident that no emergency will force me to wear the pajama jeans.
The home helper was here precisely during nap time, so I'm very stupid tonight.
The book I'm reviewing has to go back to the library tomorrow. (Actually, it has to go back the Saturday before last, but I went to the emergency room instead.)
No time to sew yesterday, but I got a box of magazines out of the parlor.
They aren't up in the attic yet. I never think of it when the car is out of the garage.
Got some sewing done yesterday when DH complained of being stuck by a pin trying to get a magnet off the fridge. So I took the pin out and sewed the bag the magnet was in closed. Discovered that the closing plate of the Necchi, which I'd thought was aluminum all these years, is steel. Actually, I hadn't thought about it at all; it's aluminum colored, or maybe zinc. I had to look the name up in the instruction book -- it's the plate around the needle plate.
The cream-painted parts of the machine are also steel, but very weakly magnetic.
Then I sewed shut the other bag, and made a bag for the naked magnet. I used ridiculous seam allowances to make handles to pick it up by. Tore a strip off a sweat rag that didn't make it through the wash, so it may not hold up.
Some day I may pink squares or circles of good fabric and hand-sew bags with handles all around.
Got the knitting books off the coffee table and back on the bookshelf -- almost. I need a shelf an inch longer.
Hand sewing is a good way to keep out of the way while the house is being cleaned, but I was only two-thirds of the way through baseball stitching the frayed collar band of my flannel nightshirt when the lack of a nap became overwhelming. This is a job that can be left partly done.
One hour to go and we are running out of chores.
I pressed the old crease out of the pants that I'm shortening, and neatened the ironing board considerably. There were a lot of threads frayed out of the crease, presumably because it was dragging.
Also found the padding out of a couple of bras and the box that one of them came in, and put it and the corresponding bras into a bag to take to Mary Ann's Place. I have hopes of riding my bike there next Wednesday.
shorten polywool pants
card case for dress pocket
I meant to use polyster thread to sew the hem, but black cotton was already on the machine. Also I think that the poly thread is a tad less black than the polywool.
I found a scrap of black cotton . . . in the process I found a square of Christmas print
That black thread is getting a workout. I used it for the card case, and now I'm using it for the Toys-for-Tots coin purse.
I tore a strip off the black cotton rectangle to make it the correct width, then hemmed both ends and folded it in half with the hems offset to make it easier to open. At this point I realized that the fuzzy ends of the upper hem would be exposed, so I folded them under, and stitched along the crease when I sewed the second stitching of the french seam. This made the end of the seam curve out a bit, which should reduce stress on the corners when the case is pulled open. The french seams are formed on the outside of the case, which makes it look very wide. I tried my deck of cards in it, then wondered where I could put it that I'd find it when I want to put my deck into a dress pocket. Realized that I could put it into a pocket of the dress that I hang my Sunday purse with. That might even be the next dress without passport pockets that I wear. (All winter I wear a black-print broadfall skirt with a matching jacket.) (I wore that outfit to the emergency room the Sunday before last, which felt rather peculiar. Better than showing up there in
&#
For raw content see: http://wlweather.net/Pcw/2023SEW1.HTM sewing diary http://wlweather.net/Pcw/2023SEW2.HTM sewing diary http://wlweather.net/Pcw/WEBLOG2.HTM list of changes to site For *really* raw content see: http://wlweather.net/Pcw/blogsew.txt
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