consequently, Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole

[saffronhare]

I made two of the top ten noobie garbing mistakes last night. There was a lot of cursing last night, and I admit reaching a point where I actively searched for something to shatter or throw out a window. But now, I think I can relate it with some humor. Because Princess Boredom and I have a PLAN. She was asleep by the time I discovered these errors, but she was a trooper when I talked with her about it and proposed some solutions this morning.

Hey! I can highlight text again! Cool.

The splendid brocade I purchased? We're about two yards short. No idea how my math was so very off, but there you go. The first tricky part is that this gorgeous stuff is $20/yard, and I've already used my 40% off coupon. I'm unwilling to go purchase two more yards of it, though the pattern pieces are such that a separate two-yard piece would do the trick (as opposed to needing a continuous four yards). However. However. As I was handling the fabric last night, it struck me how heavy it is, and how it would all be hanging off the bodice of this dress, give or take another couple of yards of it and about four yards of underskirt. That's pretty fecking heavy.

The solution we'll use is to assemble the bodice from this brocade, and purchase some other fabric for the overskirt pieces. Something a bit lighter-weight and less costly per yard. I'm certain I will use this brocade in other ways, perhaps even as gores or slashes in the overskirt if I get kooky with my pattern-doctoring. It's yummy stuff. So we'll be off to the fabric store again this evening. Oh, well, at least it was discovered on Tuesday evening instead of Saturday, right?

Also, I forgot to cut about half of the pieces of the underskirt from the fabric I'd chosen for that. Ugh. This splitting up of the work over several shorter work sessions has been good, but it's thrown off my game in terms of having everything in my brain and on the table at once. Fortunately, I had enough of that fabric and got it all cut out last night. At least I figured it out on Tuesday evening, instead of Saturday.

Finally -- and this isn't so much an error as a frustration -- my bobbin thread is getting all tangled and jammed up again. Gonna pick up a bit of oil and bring home some compressed air to see if I can figure that out. Also, incense. No virgins to spare. Wish me luck, because this suckah would be a bear to sew by hand, let me tell you. Plus, the sewing machine wouldn't get much loft if I threw it out the window, even if it did it shotput-style. :) Say it with me now: at least it happened on Tuesday evening, instead of Saturday.

I've gotta hand it to Princess Boredom here -- she's pretty good at riffling through the remnants and finding colors and patterns that work together well. With any luck, we'll be back on track tonight with fitting the bodice and starting some assembly, particularly if agrnmn will handle most of the Thursday evening rigamarole. ::knock on wood::

The subject line doesn't really have anything to do with anything. It's just a lyric stuck in my head. Can't even remember the tune it went with, but it's been an earworm on and off since high school. Welcome to hump day, y'all.

Comments

Miller, did you do a lot of acid in the sixties?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Sewing, I have no idea about. But obscure musical crap, I'm all over it. The song is Pablo Picasso, the band is either the Burning Sensations (if you heard it in the 80s) or Jonathan Richman (if you heard it in the 70s). I suspect that somewhere, I may have a copy of it, as the Burning Sensations version appeared on the soundtrack to Repo Man, which is an all-time favorite film for no good reason at all.

There, wasn't that a lot of useless information?

Re: Miller, did you do a lot of acid in the sixties?

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's from Repo Man, which I never ever ever got, though I did sit through the whole thing because somebody cute was playing with my hair and it seemed rude to make them stop so I could leave the room.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

You can borrow my sewing machine if need be... if you can keep from giggling as it thumps along. 8-) Drew didn't have a router I could borrow, but do you folks have a ... not sure which tool it would be, I need to cut 1x8s down to 1x7s. A planer? Hrm...

Also, I would need one of those table-mounted belt-sanders... but I do enough sanding now that I can justify one of those more than I can justify a router. I did see a bunch of routers at a pawn shop (one was unused) for $25... hrm...

A tool swap isn't mandatory, but the power steamer was awesome, so now I'm on a kick of borrowing tools that I may only use once a year instead of waiting until 5-6 projects pile up that justify buying the tool. 8-)

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I am not the person to talk with about tools, sorry. Especially power tools. (shrug)

Unless you'd call a sewing machine a power tool. I'll know more about whether my own is working after tonight's experimentation. Thanks!

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

Sewing machines are power fabric joiners... they're just fussier than a saw. 8-) Tippman makes a sewing machine made of cast iron that can sew through 1/2" of leather... THAT is some shizznit. 8-)

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

Ideally a table saw would do the trick for you, my father has one, but I don't know about the accessiblity at the moment.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

Ok, that's right... a table saw does rip cuts, and a miter saw does cross cuts. Thanks! I know a lot of cub scout dads are bound to have those. I have a tabletop coping saw, but it's a Royobi and cuts pretty rough.