Saturday, May 24, 2008

Off The Wagon

I confess. I have fallen off the 30/30 wagon. Not to make excuses, but I've had a lousy week with no opportunity for any sewing at all and along came a weekend with plenty of free time. I caved.

After missing seven days, I was trying to decide if it would be better to make up the time missed in a sewing marathon, start over or pick up where I left off and just keep going until I had 30 days of actual sewing in. A sewing marathon didn't seem right because it's so much easier to be productive in a large block of time than in short bursts. Starting over felt like failing. Picking up where I left off probably would have been the best option but I just needed to treat myself to something enjoyable so there you have it.

I'm working on my daughter's purse. Believe it or not, I cut 51 pieces including interfacing! 27 of those pieces have now been reduced to 4: the front (with pocket); the back (with pocket); the front lining; and the back lining (with pocket).

I started by assembling the interior pocket and lining pieces. I interfaced the pocket with a lightweight interfacing, then stitched the pocket to the pocket lining, right sides together. I turned the lining to the wrong side, pressed and edgestitched it, then basted it to the lower lining.


With the pocket constructed, I sewed the pocket assembly to the upper lining piece. Then I folded the seam allowanced towards the upper lining and edgestitched it. This completed the back lining. The front lining was easier; no pocket, so all I needed to do was sew the lower lining to the upper lining.

On to the purse front and back. Bunny had clued me in that the brocade has a tendency to shrink when fused to interfacing. Because of that, I decided on a medium stiff, sew-in interfacing for the outside of the bag. For the outside pockets, I used the same lightweight interfacing I used on the inside pocket.

The first step was to line the outside pocket pieces; I sewed the lining pieces to the pocket pieces, right sides together, along the curved edge. Because the brocade will not hold a pressed edge, I understitched the seam allowances. Then I clipped the curves and turned the lining to the wrong side. Again, because the polyester won't hold an edge, I hand basted the edge, then edgestitched.

Each outside pocket is made up of two of two pieces. Since each piece was constructed individually, I hand sewed the edges down after overlapping them. This is the front and back of one of the outside pockets.


This was my stopping point for today. I started to baste a pocket onto one of the body pieces, but the fabric was bunching in front of the presser foot. I'll just hand baste those and keep my fingers crossed when I actually assemble the bag. I looked in my manual, but couldn't find any information on decreasing the presser foot pressure. (If anyone else is using a Baby Lock Ellegante, is there a way to do that???)

***The color is SO off. Once again, the base colors of the fabrics are various shades of a mossy green.

2 comments:

Rhoto said...

"Off the wagon" is quite normal, eh!! There's LIFE in the middle of 30/30. I lasted two days... (Other things got done, though.)
So, ENJOY making your daughter's purse!! 'Looking forward to watching its progress!
Warm greetings,
Rhonda in Montreal

Dawn said...

The purse is looking good. Really, that's a green? It really looks like a sable brown in the photos. The brown looks nice but what I'm imagining as the final version must be very different from your final version.