Late Night Sewing

Taking an afternoon nap often leads to me not being tired when bedtime rolls around. It's after midnight and I'm still awake, but I do plan to go to bed soon. After all, I'm supposed to be getting up to exercise early in the morning.

Dan was at a friend's house watching a world cup game, so I spent my evening sewing, and I finally tackled a project that's been on my list for a long time: a bow tie for Dan.

If we're friends on facebook, you may have seen some pictures of him wearing bow ties. He's one of a bunch of coworkers who wear them on a pretty regular basis, and it only makes sense that I should learn how to make them. For the longest time I thought I needed to be able to make them adjustable like the ones he's purchased. But today I realized that the point of custom clothing and accessories is that they are custom: they're made to fit the wearer! Sometimes the most obvious ideas escape me. So no more shirking for me - time to sew a bow tie.

I cut a pattern from one of Dan's other bow ties and also used it to determine the correct length. You can kind of tell in the picture, but my pattern is not quite symmetrical.

I used an old silk neck tie that I bought him at a thrift store years ago. Overall I'm pleased with how it turned out. And aside from sewing with slippery silk (not fun), it was quick and easy.

I also did some sewing for myself. I've been on a dress-sewing kick this past year, and it just keeps on going. I haven't blogged about most of them, because that requires me to take pictures of the dresses, and I just don't have a good camera for doing that on my own. It feels silly to put on a dress just to have someone take a picture so I can blog about it - feels like too much extra time to do that when I'd rather just begin a new project.  I guess I just need to have Dan snap a picture when I'm wearing the dresses.

Sewing has been fulfilling my need for a creative outlet this past year. And it feels good to make something useful and wearable and to know that some one didn't slave away over it in a dilapidated factory around the world.

My current project is Lisette Simplicity 1878. It's going to be more of a tunic because of the length since I'm going with View C, although mine isn't as short as the pattern jacket shows.

Using this fabric:

Here's what I have so far. 

Sleeves, zipper, sewing up the side seams and 

hemming are the only things remaining. 

We'll see if I ever get around to taking a picture of it after I'm finished!