My Intentions For This Blog

This blog is intended as not only a sewing and crafting diary, but as an inspirations and aspirations diary as well. I plan on doing posts both about what I myself have made in addition to dreaming and planning about what I want to make in the future.

I have 2 different 'series' ideas for sewing projects so far: an 'underwear through the ages' series and a John William Waterhouse paintings-as-inspiration series. I also really like the idea of 'history-bounding' as recently named by Morgan Donner on instagram.

I have a bit of sewing under my belt, and I would say that I am somewhere between beginner and intermediate at this point in time.  Thus far in my sewing journey I've made a polar fleece poncho, 2 modern-pattern corsets (in a class), a shift (late 18th/early 19th century), and a bag. I will probably do quick posts about these, just to have the information all in one place.

Who knows how long I'll keep posting, but this should be fun while it lasts!

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A Large Color-Blocked Bag

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I've had this gorgeous, friend-dyed fabric for several years. It had always been sort of ear-marked for this  bag pattern. I finally got around to actually sewing this bag but used the pattern as a guide rather than following it super faithfully. As I didn't really want to cut this fabric into pieces and I also wanted a rather large drawstring bag. Which I achieved! It sits about 15" high and about 17" or so across one side panel. I had four pieces of around 19"x19" fabric - purple, green, blue/green, and blue/purple. I decided I wanted the two darker ones as the 'outside' and the two lighter ones as the 'inside' of the bag. I cut the 3" corner square in the two 'outside' fabrics, per the pattern, then seamed up the area again per the pattern and continued seaming up the sides. Then I repeated this for the 'inner' fabrics. Next I turned the 'inner' fabric pouch inside out, put the 'outside' po...
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A Late 18th to Early 19th Century Shift

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I based this shift off of Bernadette Banner's example .  I decided to go with an off-white ecru/beige muslin fabric, rather than a linen, as she had made hers with. For my drawstring, I made a 5-strand braid out of a cotton twine that we had already. The Shift: Here is the schematic that Bernadette Banner provides in her video (linked above), I took a screenshot so that I could refer back to it more easily.  After washing my fabric and cutting all the pieces out, I followed Bernadette's measurements for the neck hole, 5.5" for each shoulder with the rest for the neck hole. The front has a depth of 4.5" while the back is 2 1/4" in depth. I rounded the corners of the neck hole. In the future, I think I'll make the neck hole a bit smaller as the shift slides off my shoulders if the drawstring is not tied. I split the gores into triangles then stitched the straight edges of the triangles together with a backstitch. Then I felled the seams. N...
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