My assistant...

Was cutting out some fleece for a short cloak I am making as a Yule gift for a friend, and figured I'd catch a few pics of my almost 3 year old assistant.....she' s a little better at making it take longer than she is at making the project go faster lol

lol she kept insisting on trying to attack the scissors as I was cutting the fleece.

She even decided to crawl around under it at one point...lol

Well, gotta start somewhere....

Ok, after seeing quite a few others I know have blogs to show off and gab about their latest projects, I figured I'd start one of my own. Beats having to weed through my occasional rants in my other blog doesn't it? lol

Well, here's a bit of a back story...

I love going to renaissance faires, and have been attending them for about 8 years (as of this post lol). Like quite a few people, I always bought my garb. I always told people "I can't sew to save my life". I would plan my annual tax return into whole new outfits...bodice, skirt(s), chemise, etc. Well about 2 1/2 years ago I was unemployed, and fell into a bit of a garb bind. I had been wearing a pair of bloomers I had gotten, as a decorative part of an outfit, with every outfit in lieu of having to wear nylons. Needless to say, the bloomers fell apart. With just over two weeks til the next faire, and no money or time to order a new pair, I was stuck. Well I thought to myself "hmm, I have quite a bit of free time right now, maybe if I go a bit slow and take my time....it can't hurt to try...". So I picked up a few yards of cotton, a couple of packages of elastic, sat down with a pair of scrub pants, traced the outline, and went from there. Once I had the pieces cut out I sat down with my bf's mom's sewing machine and went to work. I can't remember now how long it took, but in almost no time I had made my first pair of bloomers! They came out pretty well for my first try. From there I went on to try making a basic chemise using written instructions I had found online. Again...Success (although I did learn the hard way to be careful when aiming for "poofy").

Since then I have not only bought myself my own sewing machine (Singer Prelude, $75 @ Target), but I have gone on to make more bloomers, my own kerchief skirts, a couple of men's shirts (that was an interesting undertaking :P lol), a few more chemises, pants, and as of this year I have started making my own floor length 8-gore skirts. Most things don't generally take me that long, maybe a day or two.

So far most of what I have made is pretty straightforward, cut pieces a certain way and sew them together, very easy, very basic. I had one chemise that I messed up and cut the sleeve pieces a bit too short, so I basically made it a short-sleeve, problem fixed easily. I did create one chemise from a design I had run through my head. I may give it it's own post, even though I did so already in my other blog...

To this day I have yet to use any type of pattern for anything I have made. The closest thing to a pattern I use for anything, is the clear vinyl cutout I made of the outline for the bloomer pieces. I still refuse to make my own corsets and bodices, I'll still happily pay someone else to make those lol.

Well, I think that's the story....and a bit of a tangent as well lol. Happy reading!