Eureka

Well, you'd think that as much time as I spent thinking about how I was going to put together Scott's doublet (Simplicity 5574) before I actually started cutting, that I would have figured everything out. But nnooooooooooo. Some things don't occur to me until I'm in the middle of the process. In fact, they only occur because I'm in the process. Like the "lamp unto my feet", the next step is illumined as I come to it.

I've been wrestling with that weird curvature in the center front since I picked up the pattern. It creates a "paunch" in front, which I assume allows room for the man's belly, except it's in the wrong place for my man's belly. I finally let the side seams out at the waistline where he needed a little more room and decided to live with the rest. After all, he will probably only wear this once a year. I'm grateful he's wearing it at all; he only agreed to as an act of love towards me! What a great guy.

Yesterday I stopped working just short of attaching the peplum to the body. If I hadn't stopped there, this morning's brainstorm would have been too late. In fact, if I hadn't accidentally attached the front pieces wrong side to right side (I was on the phone at the time!), which set me behind a good half hour, I would have gone too far. So everything really does happen for a reason... (Incidentally, I solved the problem by moving the button loops and front extension to the wrong side, making it the new "right side". The basting was a lot easier to pick out than the seams. So glad I skipped the fancy stuff and stuck to fabric with indistinguishable sides!)

So this morning I thought, why not just pull in the center front? I had considered redrawing the front before, but I just don't have the experience to "see" how it needed to look. This morning in a flash, we put the doublet on, pinned and marked the front where we want it to close. I'll take the marked garment to sewing class today and confer with Tina (my instructor) before I go cutting-happy. But I think it will work.

Cranberry Cottage Basket Liner Patterns

Although I've never been much of a basket person, my friend Marne turned me on to Longaberger for organizing my sewing room. The hanging baskets fit the whimsical style of my room and keep clutter off my cutting table, but none of the liners coordinate with my lime green color scheme. So I was very excited to come across this source for liner patterns in the May 2005 Sew News magazine:

Cranberry Cottage Basket Liner Patterns

I've just ordered liners for the 3 baskets I own and will let you know how they work out!

Magic

Today I put together a few purple sashes for the children's church Easter program. Diane, the head seamstress, has a neat little trick where you leave an opening in the center of the sash for turning, which is invisible after you turn and press, so there is no need to stitch it closed. Also, you only have to turn half the tube at a time, which makes it go quick. It's nice that they only give each volunteer a few at a time, too! When I did these (in silver lame) for their Christmas program (Polar Express), Mary told me that she likes to pray over the children as she sews. I like the idea of blessings being sewn into the seam, like special magic being woven right into the fabric. So I pray, and when I run out of words I sing a couple of the songs the kids often do, like "All Things Are Possible". It also keeps me in a good mood; there's just no room for getting annoyed at little glitches when I'm singing praises and thinking good thoughts for the kids.