Wedding Costumes, Part 2

Okay, so in our last segment I just needed to serge the Şalvar pieces and put them together. The serging was pretty straightforward. No curves, no odd angles, just straight edges to sew. Excellent!

For those that have never seen, much less used a serger machine before, immediately to the right of the presser foot is a very sharp cutting blade that trims off excess fabric and/or threads from the garment pieces to give them a finished edge. Garment pieces can also be sewn together on the serger. Look at the seams of any garment you've bought from the store. Knit garments especially. All the stitching you see on the seam edges is done with an Overlock machine that is known commonly to home sewers as a Serger. These machines have been a Godsend to the home sewer. (I hate that specific Heteronym!) They allow the home sewer to make a garment that looks just as professionally made as anything produce at a fashion couture house. Though you have to be a bit careful when sewing with a serger if you've never done so before. I suggest practicing using some scrap fabric to get the hang of the machine before serging your actual garment pieces. I think one of  the reasons the machine is called a Serger is because it can Surge ahead of you if you aren't paying attention. But I digress.

So then I sewed the Şalvar together. First had to make sure I got the cut edges in the correct order. I separated the pieces and then opened them up. I had cut the pieces on the fold so I now had 2 big garment pieces cut straight along the bottom and top edges, and cut at an odd angle along both sides. If you look back down to Wedding Costumes, Part 1, you'll see what I mean. Putting the Right sides of the fabric together, I stitched both the pieces together along the upper angle cut.

 Then it was time to stitch the legs together. Because of the of angle of the edges, stitching the legs together required a stop in the middle where the crotch came together. I stitched all the way to the middle of the crotch seam, back-stitched a few stitches, made sure the needle was down in the middle of the seam, lifted the presser foot and turned the fabric to the new angle. When I started stitching again I made a few stitches, back-stitched back to the crotch seam, and then continued going forward along the seam to the end. Pretty straightforward, to those of us who sew on a regular basis. Though some are probably asking, "Why the extra backstitching?" Well, crotch seams are notorious for ripping out, especially in those garments not made very well. (I hesitate to use the word Cheap, but inexpensive clothes are made cheaply.) I just don't want DF's backside to come out at the wedding.

So next I stitched up the hem of the pants. All I did was a simple 1/2 inch hem. Because of the angle of the leg seam, I needed to let out the seam a little bit. Because there is a wide enough opening to accommodate DF's foot, I don't need to worry to much about seam coming apart. Also I did some additional back-stitching to insure the seam wouldn't seperate. I then just topstitched the hem in place.

I'm just glad I'm not making this costume for a historical reenactment because I would probably be laughed off the premises.   Historical reenactors are sticklers for accuracy.

The next-to-the-last thing to do on the Şalvar is the waistband. When I was looking at pictures of actual garments of the time period online I noticed that the waistband was just some other bit of fabric added to the top. It didn't have to match the garment fabric. Cool! While I like the fabric I chose, it would been too bulky for a waistband with a drawstring. So I chose a piece of scrap fabric I had that was the right length to fit the waist of the Şalvar. I cut it to a width of 4 inches to allow for seam allowances, serged the edges, and stitched it in place along one side after making sure to fold over the ends 1/2 inch. I did not stitch down the ends which I realize, in hindsight, would have made for a neater edge. But I can always do that by hand.

So with the waistband partially sewed on, time to finish it. Press the waistband so that the seam allowance is up on the waistband. Then fold the waistband down to cover the seam allowance and making sure the waistband edge is at least 1/4 inch past the seam allowance. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when I sew, so I decided to stitch-in-the-ditch, sewing from the right side very closely along the seam line. It's hard to do well and even the most experienced sewer will mess up once in a while.  Good thing this waistband will be under the rest of DF's costume so it doesn't have to be 100% perfect. Thank goodness!

The last thing I need to do is get them on DF again so I can mark the placement of the buttons and loops at the ankles. I'll be making matching buttons and stitching a line of thin elastic loops at the hem of the Şalvar to peg them. It was the fashion of the time, though probably not with elastic button loops.

Normally I'd have a picture of the finished garment, but I'm going to wait till I have everything done and DF gets to model. Hope you don't mind the wait.

My sewing room disappeared!

Sometime late last fall we were informed that D's 1st hubby and daughter were going to need a place to live because they were being evicted from their apartment. D & the ex-hubby moved into this apartment 17 years ago and has been the only home their daughter has ever known. Why were they being evicted??  The usual; non-payment or late-payment of rent.

To be fair, this was not entirely ex-hubby's fault.  A year ago, the local cable/internet company he worked for was sold and the new company decided to do away with the local call/help center and either move the employees to their other call centers in North Dakota or Georgia. All the employees were given the option of moving or being let go.  Ex-hubby decided he didn't want to uproot their daughter just as she was entering high school so he was let go. So he was released from work in May of 2011. But this is a College Town and August is the busiest month for landlords and utility providers. In fact almost every lease or rental agreement in town goes from Aug 1st to Jul 31st. So the company did ask him back for the summer to help facilitate the orders for the July move-out and the August move-in! But unfortunately in June he was not employed and didn't have his unemployment fully set-up yet so he got a little behind on his rent. Funny thing, when one gets behind on paying the rent it's very hard to catch-up.  He did start getting unemployment regularly, but it was too little too late. By then the wheels for their eviction were already in motion. The end result was that my sewing room became his bedroom, and my sewing room ended up being one corner of the front room. (In our house the living room is called the front room because we call the family room in the addition the living room.)

NOTE: Our house is a ranch style (very popular here in Kansas) that originally had the usual living room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a bath. Then sometime after it was built a family room, laundry room and a 4th bedroom were added. One of the 3 original bedrooms was my sewing room and the additional 4th was a catchall room. 

So, I lost my sewing room and I have to say that I'm not very pleased. But what am I going to do?  We can't just throw the ex-hubby and daughter out just so I can have my sewing room back. D would have my head on a pike if I so much as thought about kicking them out. So I'll have to live with the situation and make adjustments.

The biggest adjustment I'm having to make is going from a nice 12'x12' room with a closet to hang clothing projects and a door I can close to keep out the 3 cats who would insist on using my worktable as a bed (or worse, having our one UN-neutered male come in and spray). I could just leave a project on my table, close the door, and walk away.

Now I have a 6'x6' space (and that's just a guess on size) in an open room with no closet (except for the front hall closet) and no door to close off said cats. This means I've had to invest in some plastic totes to put the fabric when I'm not working on something. I still need to get smaller bins (with lids.. maybe) to put projects in progress. And I also need shelving to put the bins on, something the cats won't climb up on (yeah, good luck with that). I'm also trying to keep my area organized so I can find things. It doesn't help that in the last 3 months since ex-hubby and daughter moved in the whole house has become even more disorganized than before and my little area has become the favorite dumping ground for a whole bunch of stuff - some mine, some other people's.

I wonder if Shoji screens would work to close off my area a little bit.... don't know if the cats would try to climb them, but it would be worth a try. What's the worst that could happen?? They climb the screen and cause it to fall??? Maybe... But with any luck that would scared them enough that they wouldn't want to do it again. Worth a shot. Maybe if I can find something like this so it could be a multi-tasker. Nah!! It's just take up too much room, and I have so little to spare. I mentioned the screens to D and she thought that because the cover was fabric that the cats would claw their way through, but I don't know. Maybe......... Maybe not... But it's something to look into.

Our local Hobby Lobby store has plain screens with artificial rice paper coverings so they feel more sturdy than if they were made with real rice paper. And they stand directly on the floor - no legs - so it should (notice I said "should?") keep the cats from crawling underneath the bottom.

Oh well, I'll come up with something. In the meantime I'll have to bear with the hassle of not having my sewing room. If we owned this house and had enough money to built something, I'd put up a shed in the back yard and make it into my sewing room.  Now that would be cool!! Something to keep in mind for when we move back to Upstate NY!!