What is it?


The Coloured Pencil Roll from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts made for Jessica who's birthday is just before mine. This project was so much fun to put together (except for some of the quilting where my machine didn't want to co-operate). I spend almost a whole evening last week matching coloured pencils to fabrics from my stash. I made sure there would be a few Jessica would recognize too. I like the contrast between the slightly nubbly wool blend that makes the outside and the pocket and the very smooth colourful quilting cottons that make the rainbow. In order to make sure I kept the fabrics in the right order as I was sewing I took a picture and kept it open on my computer screen as I was working - every time I was unsure about a pair I just glanced at my screen.

Look look! This is my very first ever cotton yarn. There is about a metre more of it on the spindle shaft behind the whorl. This fibre was a birthday present from Erin who advised reading up before trying to actually spin it. It took me while but I finally found some information on spinningcotton with a Navajo spindle and on a style of middle eastern drop spindle (though these instructions were kind of brief). Since the Navajo instruction are more thorough I’ve been mostly working from them and trying to alter them in order to use my drop spindles.

Things I’ve learned so far:
1. Cotton has a very short staple (about one inch or so) so it takes a lot of twist to hold it together.
2. The best way to spin cotton yarn is using the “long draft” technique where you continue to draft a long length of fibre as the twist enters it. Since the twist enters slowly it hold the fibres together just enough to stop the thread from splitting while still letting the fibres more so they draft out evening.
3. This is easier if I stop the spindle between my knees while I draft out.

If you have never felt cotton roving please come by and try it out. The cotton balls you get at the drug store are nothing to this. I have one ounce of the red and another of caramel coloured organic cotton. There is a constant debate in my head as to whether I should keep them for separate projects or ply them together or knit them into the same project (stripes!). The colours are both beautiful by themselves and lovely together. Fortunately I don’t really need to decide until I’m done the singles.

This is the gown (and under-things though you can’t see them) than I made for myself for this year’s tea party. I’ll put up a post for the under-things as soon as I’m finished the embroidery on my stays; right now they look a little too ‘half finished’ to be shownoff.
 
The fabric for my gown was ordered from Moda Fabrics and is a light weight seersucker with thin yarn dyed stripes. The seersucker turned out to be a good choice as it hides a lot of little puckers that showed up while I was sewing. Being so light weight meant that it flowed beautifully when I was outside and was very comfortable to wear.

Since I wanted my gown to fit over Regency under-things (chemise, stays and petticoat) I had to get those finished first and put them all on for each fitting. They are not the most comfortable things to be machine sewing in (especially since I have to crawl under the table to plug in my iron) but the result was a bodice that fitted really well .
 
I wanted something I could do up myself so I modified the pattern to make a cross over bodice front and removed the button overlap in the back. I added the voile ruffle to hide any little bits of my under-things that peeked out beyond my neckline and because I think it looks nice and delicate.
 
I also added small gussets to the underarms for some added comfort and mobility.  They were pretty easy to set in but flat felling the seams was a bit daunting and I’m not sure they are done quite right; there are no raw edges showing on my dress however, except for the inner edge of the skirt placket which is just too skinny to do anything about.

 

My gown closes with two covered buttons and hand sewn button holes in the front.  I have to say I was very pleased with myself for getting the placket in exactly the right place in the front skirt piece and working out the pleats to accommodate the extra fabric I had added in for ‘designer’s comfort’.
 
The picnic was also the debut event for my Mesh Triangle shawl and I think it performed very well.  Katy got some lovely pictures of it catching the wind and the sun really brings out the colours.