Prosaic but necessary

Nothing flashy the last two days, just a lot of foundation work.  I sewed up the muslin for the second pattern, and think it will work wonderfully!  And it’s a very simple pattern, easy to sew, which will make it easier for magazine readers (assuming it ever gets published – big “if” there!).  But…just in case, I plan to sew up muslins for a few other patterns that I’ve ordered.  That increases the chances that at least one of the patterns will work.

I’ve also rinsed out the warp (which came out beautifully!) and dried it in the oven.  I disentangled the different bouts from each other yesterday and chained them up individually, then put in lease sticks and suspended them behind the heddles.  It’s now ready for threading, which I will commence tonight.  I may have to put off the actual weaving for another few days, though, both to allow the weft (which I also dyed yesterday) to dry and to allow my hip to heal.  I injured it a few weeks ago, and thought it was all better, but the intensive weaving I did last week apparently aggravated it again, so I am hoping it heals up with a few days’ rest.  Otherwise I will go see a doctor about it early next week.

And…I have started my pattern drafting work.  Sharon suggested that I start out with a standard fitting pattern and alter that, until she has time to draft a custom sloper for me.  It won’t fit perfectly (in fact it may fit very IMperfectly!), but since the idea is just to see if a design idea works, it doesn’t need to fit perfectly.  So I made a few changes to the Butterick sloper this morning, made a master pattern on oaktag from it, and will start working on the first exercises in Pattern Drafting for Fashion Design tonight.  The first step in a long (and hopefully exciting!) journey!