Prelude of a Hatty Colette Year
Hello again,
It is a new year & has been way too long since my last post. My reasons for making it 2 months were the holidays and creating a game plan for my future projects. Both of which went quite well, & even though I know that it is a bit late, I hope that the holidays were the same for everyone else.
In reflecting on my 2015 projects to figure out the direction of my 2016 projects, 2015 focused on heavily detailed deadline based projects. In spite of what I miraculously completed, I felt that my sewing skill set could use some improvement. Building up basics. Then again my "formal" sewing background includes 1 year of 4H back in the 4th grade, JoAnn's Printed Cut-&-Sew Vests (it was the 90's), & 1 semester of Costume Construction. With no major events AKA deadline projects slated for this year, my guiding 2016 projects will be based on building up my skill sets. This will be accomplished by working through the book that began my obsession with Colette Patterns, The Colette Sewing Handbook.
Several years ago, I was in my I'm thirsting for sewing knowledge phase that often brought me to the book section of JoAnn's. If I could find informative books on how to deal with customizing dress maker dummies (Dolly was naturally built differently from me & I needed to know how to change that) that was even better. So during 1 of these trips the cover of the only Colette Sewing Handbook caught my eye & leaped into my hands. The author had the same mindset as mine of sewing being a learning experience with the focus of the book to build up/ refresh skill sets 1 lesson at a time with a project at the end of each chapter to test out the lesson learned. One of the lessons actually focuses on the Dress Makers Dummy & out of all the books that I had purchased during that phase & since, it has the best information in this area. I have been meaning to properly tackle this book for a couple of years now, however, between my previous bad sewing habits & deadline projects I never got to the 1st one with the inspiration being 1 of my hats. Now that my Aqua Mist Maid Marion Cloak officially complete, yay!!! It is time to work my way through the book.
Something that I learned about myself from 2015 is that I do best with project completion when I have a deadline, so despite the fact that I don't have any major event that requires one, I'll be putting a deadline on all my projects. Overall my goal will be 1 ensemble per month. This may seem like a bit too much, but with the exception of the Truffle Dress, I do not foresee any of the planned projects being as detailed oriented as last year. So for now I think that it is doable. I'll adjust things when needed. I just ask that you bear with me as I get my footings with the time table.
Until next week, I will leave you with the grande finale of the Aqua Mist Maid Marion Cloak, aka the Kitty Play Tent. I re-ran the gathering stitch trick from the Colette Sewing Handbook, then attached the body & the hood to the inner collar. The idea I had of using a large zippered bag to keep the fabric neat while sewing helped out a lot. I did not have the flub up that I initially had when attaching the body to the rest of the cloak, where the fabric was stitched in 2 separate areas. I then removed the fastener in order to attach the outer collar to the inner collar, followed by reattaching the fastener with gems. I finished off by attaching the outer collar to the rest of the cloak mostly by machine until I lost patience & hand-stitched the rest. Between the thickness due to the many layers & the bead work done, I should have simply hand stitched the outer collar to the rest of the cloak to begin with.
In reflecting on my 2015 projects to figure out the direction of my 2016 projects, 2015 focused on heavily detailed deadline based projects. In spite of what I miraculously completed, I felt that my sewing skill set could use some improvement. Building up basics. Then again my "formal" sewing background includes 1 year of 4H back in the 4th grade, JoAnn's Printed Cut-&-Sew Vests (it was the 90's), & 1 semester of Costume Construction. With no major events AKA deadline projects slated for this year, my guiding 2016 projects will be based on building up my skill sets. This will be accomplished by working through the book that began my obsession with Colette Patterns, The Colette Sewing Handbook.
Several years ago, I was in my I'm thirsting for sewing knowledge phase that often brought me to the book section of JoAnn's. If I could find informative books on how to deal with customizing dress maker dummies (Dolly was naturally built differently from me & I needed to know how to change that) that was even better. So during 1 of these trips the cover of the only Colette Sewing Handbook caught my eye & leaped into my hands. The author had the same mindset as mine of sewing being a learning experience with the focus of the book to build up/ refresh skill sets 1 lesson at a time with a project at the end of each chapter to test out the lesson learned. One of the lessons actually focuses on the Dress Makers Dummy & out of all the books that I had purchased during that phase & since, it has the best information in this area. I have been meaning to properly tackle this book for a couple of years now, however, between my previous bad sewing habits & deadline projects I never got to the 1st one with the inspiration being 1 of my hats. Now that my Aqua Mist Maid Marion Cloak officially complete, yay!!! It is time to work my way through the book.
Something that I learned about myself from 2015 is that I do best with project completion when I have a deadline, so despite the fact that I don't have any major event that requires one, I'll be putting a deadline on all my projects. Overall my goal will be 1 ensemble per month. This may seem like a bit too much, but with the exception of the Truffle Dress, I do not foresee any of the planned projects being as detailed oriented as last year. So for now I think that it is doable. I'll adjust things when needed. I just ask that you bear with me as I get my footings with the time table.
Until next week, I will leave you with the grande finale of the Aqua Mist Maid Marion Cloak, aka the Kitty Play Tent. I re-ran the gathering stitch trick from the Colette Sewing Handbook, then attached the body & the hood to the inner collar. The idea I had of using a large zippered bag to keep the fabric neat while sewing helped out a lot. I did not have the flub up that I initially had when attaching the body to the rest of the cloak, where the fabric was stitched in 2 separate areas. I then removed the fastener in order to attach the outer collar to the inner collar, followed by reattaching the fastener with gems. I finished off by attaching the outer collar to the rest of the cloak mostly by machine until I lost patience & hand-stitched the rest. Between the thickness due to the many layers & the bead work done, I should have simply hand stitched the outer collar to the rest of the cloak to begin with.
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