Dancin' Queen

This was me this weekend, making more of these costumes:

This is a project into which I threw myself willingly. I have the construction experience, having sewn with patterns since I was a little girl (starting with Barbie Doll clothes, from which I learned many lessons due to my mistakes!)

There are fewer and fewer of us as the years go by, sewist who grew up using patterns and understanding garment construction. "Home Economics" is an old-fashioned concept now, but was a crucial part of Junior High when I attended public school. Yet even before that, I had a solid grounding in sewing garments thanks to my mother and the basic mind-set of the 60s: girls learned to sew. Period.

Now, not so much. It is still shocking to me how many of my younger friends can't even hem a pair of shorts or pants. They are as familiar with a sewing machine as with the distributor cap of their car--in short, not at all. Such a loss (on so many levels!)

Anyway, this was my sewing table this weekend:

Heidi and Tim kept me company in the background as I re"watch"ed old seasons of "Project Runway". Being a complete-ist, I'm disappointed that Hulu doesn't have all the seasons (they start at Season 8--Mondo's season) but that hasn't stopped me from rewatching all that I can.

The Shoo-Fly Leader/Ender project was at hand (and under the needle), which was turning out to be a vision saver. The constant glare and shine from the costume fabric is extremely tiring for my eyes, and that strain has exacerbated my blepharitis. (Thank goodness we wear false eyelashes on stage; after decades of this condition, I have very few original-issue lashes left!) The flat matte of the cotton pieces is a nice and welcomed visual break.

Today, after 8 hours of non-stop sewing (except to get up and dance every time the Intuit "All People are Tax People" commercial came on), I found and crossed another line: the Stupid line.

Compare and Contrast:

Finished top on left, in-progress top on right

There are two sleeves on the right-most top. Do they look the same length to you?

Me neither. Here's why:

Back view

I managed to take the back "skirt" portion of the top (not seen in the shot above; at least, not seen where it should be seen), and attach it instead

to one of the sleeves (seam circled).

The patterns were drafted two years ago by a costumer who was rather inconsistent with marking notches on the pattern pieces, so it didn't register as strange that there weren't corresponding landmarks as I was sewing these edges together. It also didn't help that the edge lengths were practically identical.

Chalk one up for tiredness. I'm grateful for two things: this fabric is forgiving (or at least hides many sins), and I never have a perfectly-balanced tension (so stitches are slightly easier to rip out).

Fresh start tomorrow, and by rehearsal time I'll have 4 prototypes to bring in and try on our newest members. The next sewing session will be for "reals"!