A Bad Day Sewing is Better than A Good Day at Work?

You've all seen that bumper sticker or t-shirt, "a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work". Well I don't know about that. I like my job, pretty much stress free. However, get me into the sewing room and that's where the frustration begins. Most of it is my own fault. Sometimes you think there is a shortcut only to find out why there should be no short cut. Sometimes I'm the roque sewer, going off on my own. Like the bridal gown. After I made the decision to change the neckline and the back of the gown, I was basically on my own. No directions, no one to lead the way. Just me and it's scary to have me in charge.

It all starts so simple. How hard could it be to make a 12 foot piece of satin lacing for the back of the dress. I chose to cut the strips on the lengthwise length of the grain. I didn't want that puppy to stretch, at all. The problem with this is that the fabric lends itself to fraying. Cutting on the bias would have prevented the unraveling. Anyway, I'm ahead of myself.

I make four 36 inch length strips and stitch those together. I then use the old safety pin technique to turn my strip right side out. After about half way, the safety pin rips from the fabric. Dammit. I mean really, I should have known. I then cut the end off and figured that I would have to hand stitch the end. So once again I start to turn my strip right side out. I'm over 50% of the way. I'm getting excited because the safety pin is still holding. Then out of left field, my seam allowance unravels and the seam is exposed. Dammit.

Now what do I do? I do what any lazy sewer would do. I go to the internet to see if I can buy the *&#%$@& stuff. No dice. So back to the drawing board or to the internet. I decided that maybe I needed to make my strap a hair wider. So instead of a 1/2 inch width, I decide to make the strap 3/4 wide. I then also found this tutorial on turning a strap inside out using not a safety pin but a bobby pin. Oh my gosh, worked like a charm. Thank you Jules from Handmade Things for this great tut.

Other problems this week with rogue sewing. Now came time for the hem and bodice lining. I decide that my priority is to machine stitch the bodice lining to the button loops. I didn't want to hand stitch it in place. I wanted just a little extra strength there. Well, that smart idea didn't work. I needed to turn the dress inside out to stitch the skirt lining to the skirt. Now, I did think about this before I took the dress to the machine. I had it all figured out. It would work. I stitched the lining to the bodice then I went to turn the dress inside out. What the heck. I had a fabric rubics cube puzzle on my hands. There was no way to correct this except for to take out the stitching at the loops. Wouldn't you know I stitched that sucker not once, not twice but three times to make sure those loops stayed in place. Smart me also made the stitch length smaller. As you can imagine, it took a while to rip out. My perfect templated loops are no longer perfect. The picture is dark but you can see some of the stitching lines.

So, it's back to hand stitching the bodice lining in place and cross my fingers that the loops are securely fastened.