HMS Pinafore

Butterick 5509 is a bit of an undertaking. Although, despite that, I'd be quite tempted to make one for myself... if it came in my size. It is listed as "all sizes in one envelope", but that is for certain values of "all". It'd just about handle my hip measurement, given the nature of the design, but it goes up only as far as a 102 cm bust. Come on, Butterick. Some of us have curves!

Of course, I'm not making it for me, but for our Alice, who's around 20% smaller than I am widthways and also significantly shorter. This being Alice, it's view D, because you need the square neckline... and I'm fairly sure it's not view D which got this pattern its "Average" difficulty label. I say it's an undertaking, but that's just in terms of the time involved. It is nothing a confident beginner couldn't tackle.

The one thing you do have to watch is that the bodice is self-lined, so instead of cutting one front piece on the fold and two back pieces, you double that up; I caught that one (it wouldn't have been terrible if I hadn't, because I allowed a generous amount of fabric because I also have to get the petticoat out of it, so an uneconomical layout wouldn't have messed things up), but I might easily not have done. It is, in fact, one of those potential mistakes that beginners don't tend to make but more confident sewists do, because beginners double-check everything.

I'm using a very nice fine white cotton lawn. Poly-cotton would have been cheaper, but given that there's going to be a lot of natural daylight and some of the audience will be quite close to the actors, I was anxious to avoid any hint of a synthetic sheen. And I have to say that this is a lot better to sew with than poly-cotton. It finger-presses so well it's almost like folding paper; I do have a mini iron for sewing, but it is awkward in the chair, and if I can get away without using it I'm happy. It is a little bit see-through, but for a pinafore that really doesn't matter. It also, as you'd expect, gathers beautifully.

The back of the bodice is quite interesting; if you'd asked me to guess, I'd have said there might be a button at or near the top, but there isn't. Instead there's an extra pair of ties, fastening mid-back. It certainly works, but I'm not mad about turning rouleaux; fortunately the lawn makes that job about as easy as it could reasonably be. If I were making one for myself, I'd be sorely tempted to substitute 2.5 cm cotton tape, thus saving a deal of time and hassle.

Oh, yes, and they tell you to understitch it. I looked at it, and I thought about it, and what I thought was "you know, on a very light fabric like this, I may as well topstitch instead; it won't be any more effort and it'll give me an even crisper edge". So that was what I did. And it took most of Wednesday.

Then there was the other set of ties; you cut four ties and two... I was going to call them waistbands, but it's an empire waist so it's high. Anyway, it's a band that connects the skirt to the bodice, and the ties are sewn to the ends of that. Do the same thing with the other set of ties and their band, and you have a facing. Tack one of these to the lower edge of the bodice, then turn under the part of the lower seam allowance on the facing that's going to go inside the bodice (you'll eventually slip-stitch that over the seam that joins the band to the skirt), and then... sew the facing to the ties and the lower edge of the bodice. That is a very long seam. We're probably talking at least four metres. And then you've got to do the whole rouleau thing again, twice. As I say, not difficult, as such... just a massive faff.

Needless to say, I am still making earrings, but I'm down to two pairs a day at the moment; it's not as if the "thank you for your purchase" cards are going to get here till at least Monday, after all. (On which note, I think I may have to charge a little more on Etsy than I originally envisaged, as there is now a fee for collecting parcels, plus tracking is extra. Postage costs really are a bit of a nightmare.) So there are these:

And these:

And then let's not forget these. I had some MiniDuos in a colour called "Magic Violet Green"; it's pretty, but I won't buy that colour again, because it's a bit of a nightmare to match it. This pair exactly used all the Magic Violet Green beads I had left (given the fact that there was one dud I had to throw out), and I was pleased with the result... but I'm still not getting any more!

I realy wanted to make some more of the hexagons, but in order to do that I really needed more of the Lipsi beads, and my order of those took rather a long time to arrive. I had to chase it up on Wednesday. So, early on Thursday morning, I was still low on Lipsis, which meant, obviously, I had to make another pair of the flapper specials.

I do, in fact, have haematite-styled 15/0 seed beads, which I could have used. (I have haematite-styled almost everything. It's a really useful colour and finish to have.) But I looked at these little beads, and I thought, h'mm... you're pretending to be black, aren't you? But actually you're not quite sure if you're dark green, blue, or violet, and you're going to look good here, so in you go. It's just that touch more subtle.

And then, about mid-morning yesterday, the Lipsis finally showed up; and three of the colours looked so good together that there was no argument.

Oddly enough, you've now seen my entire range of earwires other than the antique bronze (which I don't use often, but with the right colours it looks highly effective); I've also just acquired some clip fittings. These are strictly for custom jobs, and there's a choice of gold or silver. So you don't have to have pierced ears to wear my creations... however, I've checked the clips and some of them are a bit fierce, so unless you have a much higher pain threshold than I do, you might want to wait till I've had a chat with the supplier about what could be done about that.

And now... two more pairs today and then I'm back into stitching up ties. The petticoat is going to be such a breeze by comparison!