Day Three

Day three was not very impressive. I knew I had to do SOMEthing so I did start transferring marks. What a fun chore (read that in monotone). There are entirely too many darts for this pattern so my thinking it would be a breeze considering each dress has only ten pieces (that's including the lining but not the belt) has changed. Once it's marked and the darts are sewn, it'll be a breeze. Not that darts are hard, mind you, just time consuming.

Got to take the pattern off and then put it back on one piece at a time. Yes, I know there are other ways to do this but this is the way I do it and if it takes more time, it yields consistently good results which is why I do it this way. So there. Notice the chunk out of the side of the pattern. I swear they make tissue paper thinner than they used to.

Sometimes I use a pencil but since this isn't going to be washed and a pencil didn't really work, thread it is!

That's white thread I used, by the way. The red just kind of soaked in.

And that's all she wrote. I didn't even get Laura's dress completely marked. Today should be better.

Dresses for Joanna's Wedding, Day 2

Time to get busy making dresses for Joanna and Lincoln's wedding. It is October 10th which means I've basically got five weeks to make three bridesmaid dresses and Joanna's dress. Not impossible by any means but no time to dilly dally, either. This is what day two looked like in part:

Lots of red. And have to have something going on the laptop. 80's pop on Pandora for yesterday. Interestingly, lots of Billy Idol kept playing so we had White Wedding and Dancing with Myself which were both appropriate I thought.

Laura's had to be lengthened and Amena's shortened. Actually, I had to take a quarter inch from Laura's above the waist and add two inches below. I had to take half an inch from Amena's above the waist and one inch below.

Just FYI, day one included altering the pattern for Laura's dress. Day two included altering the pattern for Amena's dress as well as cutting out both minus the black belt.

The Dress (I hope I haven't overused this for a title)

Working on the loops here. I needed a foundation for the buttonhole stitch I planned to use and I needed it all to be well anchored. What I did was take a double strand of a mediumish crochet thread and worked my way from left to right, taking two stitches every inch. That worked pretty well.

Then I worked right to left doing a buttonhole stitch along the entire length--it was something like twenty-one inches from top to bottom. I finally figured out how to make it look really good on the last six inches. :) Of the second side.

One side done, one side pinned so I know where to make the anchoring stitches.

Working on the hem here. Many times around, it was. Once to pin, once to baste, once to cut, once to sew the hem lace, once to actually sew the hem. And that is not counting the time or two or three with the iron.

All finished! Aren't they loverly? I wish I'd have gotten some up close of the back and the lace at the bottom of the bodice but once I see all the pictures taken, perhaps I'll find something. All-in-all, I am quite pleased with the end result.

This is mostly hand and skirt but you can see some of the lace at the bottom of the bodice. It is lovely lace--I really like it. Laura really wanted it up above the seam; I think I'd rather have covered it. Still, it's all good.

The back. I just absolutely love this. Honestly I could not keep my eyes off this girl.

And this picture I just love. These two are great! I think I'll keep both of them.

Daughters of the Moon Sisters of the Sun:

Young Women & Mentors on the Transition to Womanhood

by K. Wind Hughes & Linda Wolf

What an interesting book. What diverse backgrounds these girls came from. It almost makes my life look like a walk through the park. Almost.

There was a time when I wished more than anything that I’d been born Native American. I remember the secretary of the school coming in to each classroom at the beginning of each year asking if anyone was part and I so wanted to raise my hand. Now, I do not remember if anyone ever did. Then, when I was about 10, my maternal grandfather learned that his mother was actually part Indian. She said eventually that it was Cherokee (which is what everyone says). The reason she put forth as to why she wouldn’t admit to that or the fact that she had any Native American blood because she and her family lived up and down the California coast from San Francisco to around Arcata (my grandfather attended something like 17 schools before graduating from high school) and part of this time was spent amongst the Hupa Indians who, according to her, might have become hateful if they’d known she was Cherokee. Whether or not it was actually Cherokee blood running in her veins, we do not know, but her father looked as if he might have been (although it was supposed to be his wife who was). Whatever blood it was, it would have originated in the eastern part of the US sometime in the mid-1800’s. I was happy just knowing that one sixty-fourth of me might be Native American. It didn’t change anything about me, but it made me feel good.

Now, having lived for a few years in New Mexico in close proximity with some Navajos, I am glad that I am who I am because I now understand that we all have our own trials, our own strengths, our own weaknesses. We are each an individual and this is a good thing.

I’m actually having a difficult time writing about this book because there are so many ways to respond to it. I think that an overall theme is that girls need to know that they are loved and cared for and respected and that they matter, not that they are just objects sometimes to be looked at, admired for our apparent beauty, used, or abused.

One of the experiences from New Mexico that really sticks in my mind is when a Navajo friend and I happened to be driving by a laundromat. A Navajo woman was lugging a basket or two of laundry out to the car and her man was sitting in the car taking a nap. My friend joked that Native women are tough—they can do anything. While I would agree, I would add that all women are tough and can do anything if they just set their minds to it. Being tough and doing everything takes its toll on us—those Navajo women are tough and they can do anything. The trouble is that many of them, especially those forced to do everything because they are with a man who will do nothing, look old far before their time. Some women who were my age looked twice as old and I find that incredibly sad. They not only had to do everything, they were often beaten for doing it simply because their men had nothing to do but drink and abuse their women. That is no way to live for the women or the men or the children who grow up with nothing but this example and thus perpetuate the cycle. In fairness, there were many Navajo men who were wonderful husbands and fathers as well (and their wives didn’t look twice as old as they were).

I really like how Tasha Flournoy (page 151) began her section: “I don’t see myself as black or African American. I see myself as a human being.” My oldest daughter is half Mexican and her children are half Korean. One of my favorite cousins is half black. In my mind, diversity is beautiful. If we were all the same, it would be a very dull world. However, we need to sometimes overlook some of our differences and focus on what we have in common.

Ultimately, while I do not agree with all the views expressed in this book, I do appreciate the honesty with which each of the contributors responded. Growing up seems to be fraught with difficulties and challenges no matter who or where or when we are. An open and honest communication would perhaps make a difference in the lives of some and if it made the difference in enough lives, then perhaps we would finally begin to see a difference globally. 

Halted, Phew!

A pile of white.

We have to eat, too, so I made bread in the middle of everything. Here it is just formed into balls and ready to rise.

The white thread covers the seam allowances I cut off the day before and there are a few black threads that were the basting.

Skirt pinned to the bodice.

I almost forgot to finish the sleeve seams. They look a lot better like this than they did before.

A look through the sleeve.

Looks kind of lifeless here, I think.

A meeting of the seams. Too bad this will be covered with lace when it's all done.

And the bread all done. I was going to give you a screen shot from what I was watching while sewing but didn't get it saved. Too bad, I think it was good. It almost had to be since it was from The Fellowship of the Rings. The only problem is that today I don't have a good reason to have The Two Towers playing.

More Sewing

Mounds of satin. It's never-ending. 

This is what I was watching for the first two and a half hours. I really like the imagery here with the tail of the dragon moving through the gold: the usurper king and the displaced king come to reclaim his own. In the movies, this was a huge turning point for Thorin.

Almost out of thread. One of these days, I'm going to actually have to buy more. Not this day, though, I've got a few partially used spools of white thread.

This seemed to be never-ending--cutting the seam allowances of the skirt.

I like this shot, too. Awesome movie(s) in spite of the many, sometimes drastic, changes from the book.

Round and round we go.

It is hard to behold the perfectness of the joining of the sleeve to the bodice here but after many, many attempts, it was finally achieved.

Ending of one day; beginning of the next. Kind of hoping I don't make it through another Hobbit movie--oh, wait, there isn't another one to go through--plus the complete soundtrack of Les Mes again.

A Day of Cutting (even though it looks like pinning)

The first piece pinned on. There aren't any pictures of the fun I had making patterns for the gussets or changing the top of the skirt pattern pieces. Or changing the bottom of the skirts pattern pieces. I can assure you it was fun.

The last three pieces pinned on the first piece of fabric. I think I mentioned in January what fun Laura had finding fabric. She bought what she could and was able to order the rest. From this piece, I was able to cut all the bodice pieces and all but three pieces of the skirt. She ended up with about eight yards left over and she already has plans for them which I think is pretty cool.  

This is what I was 'watching' while I was pinning and cutting. I listened to the soundtrack for Les Miserables while making and changing and cutting out pattern pieces. I tried listening to music from Middle Earth while cutting but it just didn't cut it, so I started 'watching' instead. It worked out well. 

When I was all done, I noticed these icky spots. They look like someone was eating chips and go all the way through. I ended up cutting a new piece because I didn't want to deal with spots. Yuck!

It's easier to see the gusset pieces on the organza. 

And that is that. I didn't take any pictures of sewing, either. Maybe today. Maybe not. It's been an interesting journey so far.