day seventy-three: mistakes have been made
I bought this beautiful yellow wool from Burnley and Trowbridge to use for my tunic. I did not buy enough. They don’t have more on their website.
This is awkward. Now I need to look in my stash and see what I have that will work. Bugger.
At least this disaster is making me clean up my sewing room. I finally took the big caddies containing leatherworking hardware out of the room. I have my liquids stored in a couple of Billy bookcases in the living room; I might get another one for my caddies.
I’ve pulled out all the bins with wool, and found a few possibilities.
i have an apron dress made out of this red wool, and i love it, but this wool is thick — thiccc — and rather warm. i need to decide if this will be for indoor or outdoor wear.
my wool coat is made out of this, and again, i love this fabric, but i didn’t want to go quite so dark. if i had the time to weave some brightly colored trim, i might go with this, but i really don’t.
this is the color combination i like best, and the hand of this fabric is the one i like least. it’s a worsted, and extremely drapy, more appropriate for a modern women’s suit than a Viking man’s tunic.
That’s about it for any real contenders from my stash. Everything else is either not a color I want to use (a brown that’s just too close to the color of the pants), or there isn’t enough (several 2-yard pieces), or herringbone, and I just can’t bring myself to wear two herringbone weaves together… and I like clashing colors in my garb. I guess even I have limits.
I think that typing this out has made up my mind for me — I think I’m going to use the first one. As thick as it is, it’s really rather lightweight, and apparently I bought a lot of it. So now I get to put away the two unsuccessful candidates, and relish the fact that I have two beautiful lengths of white wool in my stash and I can make at least a couple more wool undergowns to go with my apron dresses. Maybe some day I’ll have events to go to where I can wear them. (I’m grumpy tonight.)
On to putting things away. I’ve made quite a mess.
Note to self: make sure you’ve found a home for all of the stuff you don’t want to use before you put the bins away.
I started drawing my cutting layout a few minutes ago. I don't usually do a layout without a shoulder seam, as a full-length gown means a really long piece. This time, I "ran the numbers” both ways, and I was highly amused by what I came up with.
The top diagram is with one long body panel, while the bottom one is with a front and back. They take exactly the same amount of fabric. It's so funny. Actually, the top one may actually be more efficient, so that's what I'm going to go with.
As a side note, I'm completely loving the ability to make my diagrams on my iPad -- erasing is much easier and I don't really need a ruler. And since I don't need scale drawings, I can draw in GoodNotes or Procreate and save the image so I can share it.
So that's the current plan. I'm going to cut the full length, and then cut off the pieces I need. I wonder if I can get madder in a timely manner? The Manx thread won't show much, but the white BFL sure will. Maybe I'll call the yarn shop near my mom tomorrow; they carry a limited amount of dyestuff.
Oh, this is cool. I have so much of this red fabric that I could make a whole new apron dress as well as this tunic if I wanted.
The body panel is cut. That's all I'm going to do tonight; I want to double-check my measurements before I cut sleeves and gores. I should go thru my scrap bin and see what I have to bind the neckline… but not now. Now it is time for sleeps. Night, y'all.
