On to other things...

(No, this isn't a farewell post. I hate it when people do that.)

My son is feeling much better. He ate some toast, and is playing his GameCube. So far, so good.

Here is the "other things" part of this post:

I have been working on drafting a new pattern for a new set of sleeves for my noble garb. The good thing about sticking with a general color palette for my garb, is that I can mix and match various parts with other gowns. My goal is to have three sets of matching sleeves and foreparts, so that any one gown will have three variations. If I stick with my plan to make at least one more gown, I can get six variations. I have enough fabric for two gowns, although one fabric is more experimental, and may not be used at all.

But back to the sleeves...

Even as I am writing this, I thought of another variation that would be pretty...

The pattern that I am drafting now is similar to something that I saw a few months ago, when I was researching idly, looking at what women were wearing at faire, on cast and as playtrons. It showed a sleeve that was made of individual pieces, formed to look like they were spiraling up the arm. The site had a pattern that you could buy in order to make them, but since I have my Margo patterns, and I know for a fact that the sleeves are the correct length and fullness that suit me, I decided to draft my own. It may fail, but as an educational exercise, it is very useful.

So, Thursday night, I got out my patterns and drafting materials, and set to work. I traced the original pattern (actually, I traced the tracing I had made of the pattern in my size way back when I was working on my red gown). I took my salem rule, and drew the first diagonal. I drew the diagonals three inches apart from each other.. This was larger than what the photo I had seen appeared to be. I think that one used one inch strips, and since I am not THAT into masochism, mine are larger.

There are three pattern pieces to the sleeve. I started with the center panel. After the diagonals were drawn, I took more tracing paper, and started tracing out the individual pieces that will make up the sleeve, adding the seam allowances where necessary. The center panel had nine pieces. It took a couple of hours to do this, because I got interrupted a couple of times.

Last night, I tackled the side-front panel. I traced it, and now that I think about it, I realize that I probably made a mistake! Yikes! I should have overlapped the seam allowances on the sides where the panels meet, but I didn't. Considering that I spent a couple of hours last night drawing the diagonals, and tracing out the individual pieces, I am a little perturbed. But, the whole point of this is that it is experimental. I neglected the cardinal rule of carpenters and seamstresses: measure twice, cut once. At least no fabric was harmed due to this mistake. Urg.

Okay, it's time to go fix that mistake, and get the other panel drawn. I want to get started on a mock-up this weekend, because I need these sleeves done sooner rather than later. With the amount of embellishment I want to add, these are going to take hours to complete (I will have a rough estimate later, once the first of the diagonal pieces is finished).

In addition, I want to finish the trim on my "old" gown, so that it can finally be finished (I wore it without most of the trim I wanted, as there simply was not enough time to finish trimming the bodice before the faire started).

Why do I need these so quickly? March. Fund-raisers. Um, telethons to be exact. More info later on that, once it is confirmed. Should be pretty interesting. :)

Okay, back to work!