Now With a Top

With the mockup squared away, my biggest enemy was my propensity for getting distracted. I did give myself a self-imposed deadline for cutting out the bodice, and I went through with it. The back pieces got one layer of linen, but the front got two layers, quilted together for strength and bust support. Then came the moderate depopulation of my pincushion pinning the outer fabric to the lining so I could hem each piece individually.

I did hit a minor setback with cutting out the outer fabric, cutting the bottom bits a little two short. Thankfully, this was nothing that a bit of piecing couldn't fix. It had the added benefit of utilizing scraps that otherwise would have ended up in my "good only for stuffing" bag.

Hemming came much faster than I expected, with the bodice getting done in a day. The back pieces were done in less than a week, stitched as I was commuting. Joining the back bits together was took a day, on the ride to work and back.



I would like to say that I am displeased with the outer fabric. It is not the material's fault, it was advertised horribly. The cloth was allegedly pure wool, but it shows shiny streaks even on a middling section. At the very least, it is wool with a considerable amount of petroleum based fiber mixed in. Sigh. I would have preferred the store be more honest.

I have a time limit for IRCC, and I don't yet have a single piece completed, so naturally I needed to take another detour and use time that could have gone to finishing stuff. I got an itch to do something that would qualify as additional handwork under the rules of the competition, without adding another garment or accessory to my planned list. Trim felt like a good solution, so after rummaging around my mother's old yarn stash, I found some thin yarn that I felt was adequately subtle for my liking, and I made a line of chain crochet long enough to make a double row of trim. Tammy Dupris mentions something similar being done in period, but I have no definite proof of this being done in the time I place I chose for my outfit, so I place it in a grey area of documentability.





What matters is that I have another point of visual interest that didn't take ages to do, and cost me nothing to create.