OW OW OW OW OW!!!!!

OK, first, sleeves are evil. Evil evil sleeves. The first one took about 3 hours. The second one only took 1 since I screwed up everything the first time. But hey, they're on now.



Then I had to cut up the rest of the transfers.



So, yeah. That's been a process. It's...not a disaster? But 'it's going well' feels like it would be an overstatement. It's...tricky. Some of the time it transfers cleanly. Others don't want to transfer. And for the ones that aren't quite stuck on, sometimes putting the iron back over them sticks them down and sometimes it melts it off. And since sometimes it melts it off, I have to be really careful about touching the iron to other, already placed sentences.

And in the process of trying to avoid accidentally melting words, I instead burned the crap out of the top of my thumb. Because I'm just that talented. So I'm taking a break in order to ice it. But this is what it looks like so far.





I don't know. I don't think I'm going to have it done by Tuesday afterall. It was looking really promising, and then the zipper and sleeves set me way back. My original plan was to have the entire dress made yesterday and to spend the whole day today ironing. Instead I didn't start transferring until nearly 6. It's taken me three hours just to get part of the bodice done.

I think I might be only doing the center panels on the front and the back, though. Just from what I've done so far, I don't think I'm going to be able to maneuver the fabric to get clean transfers on the sides, particularly the sleeves and shoulders. Obviously if that looks horrible I figure something out...but for now that's what I'm going for. I just don't think I'm going to get there.

Oi, I'm going to go sulk over my burn for a little while. Then I guess I'll get back to it.

Starting to get there

Oh goodness, what did I get myself into? It's actually turning out pretty good, but my oh my is it like pulling teeth to get there.

OK, first off, I'm working at home all weekend, which required me actually cleaning off my table. Vala thought this was for her benefit apparently.



Also the ironing board.



So I had the main structure of the dress done already, and I had done the fitting, and I had gone back in and made the alterations and finish stitched all my previous basting. So then I had to work on the lining for the collar.

Attaching the interfacing, with the help of my furry assistant.


After I've sewn it on and pressed it the right way.


This has everything put together except the sleeves and it's not hemmed yet.


Close up of the bodice (you can see the stitching that attached the neck lining)


Vala also wanted to help put in the zipper.


Which, by the way, was a total nightmare. It took me 4 tries to get it pinned right, using 4 different instructions. The ones that came with the pattern were useless, the ones that came with the zipper weren't enough. I finally had to resort to youtube.


In the end I don't think it turned out too horribly. Could be better, of course, but for a first time it's certainly not terrible. It works, that's the important thing


And it fits! OK, maybe it could fit better, but again, first time making cloths here. The fact that it actually looks recognizably like an article of clothing would be a win in my eyes. Close to proper fit is a freaking miracle.

So tomorrow I just have to hem it, figure out how to sew sleeves, sew the sleeves, finish cutting out all the iron on transfers, iron on all the transfers, and sew the eye hook at the top of the zipper. Possibly not in that order.

Blah

Quick entry (that I nearly forgot to do) because I do not have enough hours in my day.

This weekend was primarily about painting because I have a crit this week.  I don't have any pictures though, because it's currently not in a really photographable state.  Yes, I just made that word up, sue me.  Let's just say there's lots of stitching of lots of words.  And my fingers hurt.  And I'm still nowhere near done, and I don't think I'm going to be done in time, and I'm stressing out majorly.  If I hear one more person tell me being an art major must be so much fun, I might just punch them in the face. 

So what am I doing for sculpture?  Well, I decided to make a dress.  A dress covered in truths and lies.  I guess I want to highlight the transient nature of identity and the written word.  You can read my previous post to catch up on the thought process in detail.  In addition to that, as I've been working, it's also made me think of more modern communication like twitter and facebook and how we reveal ourselves in little soundbites (well, 'sound'bites, but you know what I mean).

What I've accomplished so far:

I bought a pattern.



The long sleeved version

I went back and forth on what kind of dress to make. On the one hand, I've only ever helped make clothes before, and that was awhile ago, and they were really simple.  On the other, I didn't really want to make a sack dress either. This was a compromise of sorts. It's complicated enough to challenge me, but not so ornate and over the top that I stand no chance of completing it. I'm confident in my ability to make the dress.  Fitting it to me?  That could be trickier.

I bought fabric.



I had no preconceptions about color going into the store. No idea what I wanted. The pattern tells you what fabrics work for the cut of the dress, so that's where I started. And of course I wanted something that wouldn't cost $20 a yard. I had a hard time because everything seemed to have a really obvious pattern, which doesn't work for what I want. And then I found a linen blend (one of the suggested fabrics) in pink, on clearance, and that worked for me.  I like the pink.  One of the reasons I'm getting into using textiles and fibers is because of the feminist reclamation (just got several books out of the library on the subject, so excited to read them but I have no idea when I'll have the time!), and I think pink fits into that in a way.  Nothing wrong with being traditionally feminine and 'girly'.

I printed words.



I'm still cutting them up. I forgot to flip the first one I printed, so I used that as a test. It transfers cleanly (iron on) but it's shiny, so I have to cut it as close to the words as I can to minimize random blocks of shininess. So what I was hoping would be really quick is taking forever. This one sheet took me over an hour. And I still have 6 to go.  But I very seriously doubt I'm going to be ready to iron them on until at least next week, so I keep telling myself not to panic and don't kill myself trying to get everything done all at once.

I honestly don't know how long this is going to take me. I'm also concerned that I'm going to start thinking of it more as 'fashion' than 'art', and I'm trying to keep my crazy random thoughts reined in. I already had one project change on me in the middle of making it, and that's why I'm so behind now in painting.

So, tomorrow, I finally get to open that pattern up and start cutting! I would have started that this weekend, but my cat would have taken one look at the tissue paper and decided that it was play time, and then I'd be out a pattern and really annoyed, and that just wouldn't help productivity.