Monday, January 31, 2011

Tutorials Worth Noting: ikat Bag on Smoooooth Waistbands

Everything I know about waistbands, I have learned from Ottobre Design Magazine.  For myself, I have made a variety of waistbands.  For my girls, only elastic waistbands that are sewn-through in one way or another.  This is a tutorial from ikat Bag--a blog by a wonderfully creative mother--that shows how to make smooth elastic waistbands, which are really the more stylish kind these days!  Also, my Doodle (5yo daughter) is long-waisted. Instead of elastic taking up some of the rise of the pants, it will be better to add some length with the elastic encased in a separate waistband!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

A NEW Blog--for Sewing!

So here I am, starting a new blog. I have three others, one of which is for family (published rarely, unfortunately), one, my Booknotes blog, for the rare book review/research idea, and the one that started it all, Words, Words, which was to be a blog of ideas about academia and Catholicism, and evolved into a blog of problems before I retired it, which in this case means I just stopped writing and made the content private so I wouldn't have to think about it any more. It may come back, who knows? This blog is for the activity I am enjoying most right now--sewing!

I have been machine sewing for about 5 years now, though I would make some costumes for my son by hand before that. I have been sewing more seriously for the past 2 years, since I discovered Ottobre Design magazine, and even more seriously for the past year and a half, when my mom gave me an Elna sewing machine as a quasi-graduation present. Since I am a reluctant academic at present, I have started thinking of myself as "Sewing PhD"--hence the blog. My academic dilemma, which will not enter into this blog, is that I have a degree in English because I am passionate about literature, specifically Victorian poetry, but I have a dissertation that qualifies me for British Modernist fiction and have been groomed to teach freshman composition (my best job prospect), which is a lot of work that I don't really enjoy. So whenever I get a chance, I sew!

Right now, I'm grading papers, so I'll sign off, but I hope to be back soon with pictures of my most recent project.