The Sewing Machine

It's totally not steampunk, and it would take a lot of work to make it not look like a plastic toy, but it's saving me a lot of time. Yes, I bought a sewing machine. It cost me all of $20 and you can see how small it is. It does one thing: lockstitch, forward only. But that's all I need it for.

I also found a pattern for bloomers that I think will work a lot better than the simple patterns I've found for free online. It includes patterns for a chemise and corset too, so I think it's a good investment. I took a picture of it in front of the window so the light would stream in like a halo.

This is the fabric I have bought for my Dragon*Con outfit, although I won't know about the dark brown feather-print fabric and the light brown lace until I get my finished corset and can look at the colors together. But the yellow-and-white cloth is for my bloomers. If you look closely, you can see it has a swirly pattern sort of like white feathers, perfect for an owl-thing costume.

It's been a busy week for me, so I didn't get as much done on the bloomers as I'd like. I've also cut one corner already, on the cuffs. The pattern goes through a complicated method for removing the edging of gathered lace and sewing new gathers into it, and then doing something with eyelets--I read over it and thought, "The hell with this." I had some nice edging that's perfect for threading ribbons through to make gathers once the garment is finished, so I just sewed it on. I seamed it twice, once above the eyelets, once below, to make a sort of casing. My little sewing machine did quite well getting through the heavier edging. I thought it wouldn't at first--the thread kept snapping--but then I realized I hadn't rethreaded the machine properly. I fixed it and it was fine.

I've never made a waistband before, and that's my next step. I almost started tonight, but after reading the directions over several times I still can't figure out what I'm doing. I'll have to read up on waistbands in my sewing books. I gave up for the evening, since it was pouring rain anyway and I wanted to go inside, get into my pajamas, and read. So that's what I'm going to do.