Sleeves. Why Did it Have to be...Sleeves?
(You may have to be above a certain age to get that joke....)
Spent Sunday down at Kate's, working on our Super Secret Historical Masquerade Entry. This involved a carioca shirt and the ruffling thereof, so by the end of the day, I was pretty much sick of sleeves. (And ruffles. And satin. But I digress.) Anyway, the shirt was well on it's way by the time I left, so I'm confident that Kate was able to finish it and the pants pretty easily. (Right? Right, Kate? You were able to finish, weren't you? *crickets chirruping in the distance*....)
The bad news is that I came home to yet MORE Sleeves From Hell(tm). Much as I love "The Incredibles", right now I want nothing more than to take the animators out and SHOOT them! What possessed them to give Edna those sleeves?!?!?!? Are they insane? Don't they know that some of us will be compelled to try to render in 3-D what can, really, only exist in 2-D? And that we would drive ourselves insane in the process? Not to mention not getting any packing, cleaning, or knitting (not necessarily in that order) done in the meantime.
O.K., I admit that it is partly my fault. First, for telling my daughter, "Sure, honey, I'll make you an Edna costume." I mean, I had planned to make one for myself, after all; I could just use hers as a prototype. Secondly, when it became clear that the pointed strips I had cut would not work with the originally-intended amount of overlap, I did make the decision to cut more strips, instead of cutting all new, wider strips. But that is no excuse for the freakin' thing to go all feral on me! It was clear from the images that the points in one row lined up with the dips in the previous row; thus, when I realized that I had to add rows, and added them in the middle (had to be done that way, because of the shape of a sleeve, to make the lengths work), the fact that I added an odd number of rows meant that the points on all the subsequent rows had to be moved. And then, somehow, I miscounted (don't ask me; triple-redundancy failed me) and had to add yet another row, in the middle, then re-adjust all the rows above, because by now the ones below had all been sewn down. (And after finding out it was a stretchy fabric the hard way--when my strips all grew loooooonger during the working and the pressing--and thus having to ease them back to the right size, requiring another pass through the sewing machine for each of 16 freakin' rows PER SLEEVE, I wasn't ABOUT to rip them out again.) So, we're talking about 32 point strips, each of which had to make 4 passes each through various sewing machines, and it's no wonder I'm out for blood at this point.
However, there is good news: the sleeves. are. done. There, I said it. They're done, they're ready to be put into the tunic (which, oddly enough, went together much more easily than I had anticipated.....what is it planning?.....). I was working on the tunic this morning, and it, too is now ready for the sleeves, plus a final fitting and a little handwork. My promise to my daughter will be fulfilled, and even if it kills me, I can die happy, with the knowledge that I am a Good Mom. Whew!
Spent Sunday down at Kate's, working on our Super Secret Historical Masquerade Entry. This involved a carioca shirt and the ruffling thereof, so by the end of the day, I was pretty much sick of sleeves. (And ruffles. And satin. But I digress.) Anyway, the shirt was well on it's way by the time I left, so I'm confident that Kate was able to finish it and the pants pretty easily. (Right? Right, Kate? You were able to finish, weren't you? *crickets chirruping in the distance*....)
The bad news is that I came home to yet MORE Sleeves From Hell(tm). Much as I love "The Incredibles", right now I want nothing more than to take the animators out and SHOOT them! What possessed them to give Edna those sleeves?!?!?!? Are they insane? Don't they know that some of us will be compelled to try to render in 3-D what can, really, only exist in 2-D? And that we would drive ourselves insane in the process? Not to mention not getting any packing, cleaning, or knitting (not necessarily in that order) done in the meantime.
O.K., I admit that it is partly my fault. First, for telling my daughter, "Sure, honey, I'll make you an Edna costume." I mean, I had planned to make one for myself, after all; I could just use hers as a prototype. Secondly, when it became clear that the pointed strips I had cut would not work with the originally-intended amount of overlap, I did make the decision to cut more strips, instead of cutting all new, wider strips. But that is no excuse for the freakin' thing to go all feral on me! It was clear from the images that the points in one row lined up with the dips in the previous row; thus, when I realized that I had to add rows, and added them in the middle (had to be done that way, because of the shape of a sleeve, to make the lengths work), the fact that I added an odd number of rows meant that the points on all the subsequent rows had to be moved. And then, somehow, I miscounted (don't ask me; triple-redundancy failed me) and had to add yet another row, in the middle, then re-adjust all the rows above, because by now the ones below had all been sewn down. (And after finding out it was a stretchy fabric the hard way--when my strips all grew loooooonger during the working and the pressing--and thus having to ease them back to the right size, requiring another pass through the sewing machine for each of 16 freakin' rows PER SLEEVE, I wasn't ABOUT to rip them out again.) So, we're talking about 32 point strips, each of which had to make 4 passes each through various sewing machines, and it's no wonder I'm out for blood at this point.
However, there is good news: the sleeves. are. done. There, I said it. They're done, they're ready to be put into the tunic (which, oddly enough, went together much more easily than I had anticipated.....what is it planning?.....). I was working on the tunic this morning, and it, too is now ready for the sleeves, plus a final fitting and a little handwork. My promise to my daughter will be fulfilled, and even if it kills me, I can die happy, with the knowledge that I am a Good Mom. Whew!
Labels: sewing
posted by Bridget @ 2:07 PM
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