The Sewing Sphere
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Cutting my dress

I spent the morning cutting my dress to wear to my cousin's wedding. The fabric is weird - it's slippery & drapey yet stiff, and it has some mechanical stretch because of the crinkled texture. It's a weave of shiny teal plastic strands with a cross-grain of black threads (probably poly).

It presses okay but isn't necessarily going to stay flat without help. I've decided to flatline it (instead of a drop-in lining) with another layer of itself so I can cross-stitch the seam allowances down to control bulk and keep it from being puffy along the seams.

I traced the stitchlines on the right side of the fabric, added seam allowance, cut out the pieces, and then pinned & hand-basted to the yardage. Then I cut again.

There isn't really a nap but the cross-grain definitely has a different color, so I changed the grainline on the back flounce pieces to keep everything going more or less the same direction down the dress.

Now I can sew it and see if I altered the pattern well enough not to need to recut anything.

#Butterick4731

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Studio video tour!

I spent the day priming things for paint and then I remembered to shoot a quick video. #SewingStudioBuild

00:03:06
Paint!

I started cutting all the edges while Janet was away yesterday morning. When she got back after lunch, she pulled out a roller and started filling in. I'll put a pic below in the comments. #SewingStudioBuild

00:02:15
Time-lapse floor install (part 2)

We broke for lunch and then came back with a portal ac unit plugged in to an extention cord from the house. Can't wait until they finished hooking up all the electrical and we have the mini split cooling the room for us - it was stupid humid today! #SewingStudioBuild

00:03:11
September 13, 2026

YIKESSSSSSSSSSSSSS....... Folkwear Croatian Shirt Faillll...
I thought, "This shirt has no fitting whatsoever. Surely I don't need to muslin this, just use my measurements... " HA.

I'm sending you to the link b/c I think you should know about patternreview.com if you don't. But yikes.
https://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/208009

Oh, I got the fabric from a deadstock place in Singapore (which ickily shipped from China) and I'm 75% pleased with that. The fabric is super comfy and soft, and it showed up quickly... but there were a couple of holes. Bubbo, fwiw.

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The Plan

So this is my plan for all those fabric covered triangles. Make eleventy million little triangles into a million slightly bigger triangles. Then make those into a bunch of hexagons and put them all together into a giant hexagon.

The last photo is my "map" once I've made all the triangles. Colored outlines are just so I can see the hexagons because I'll get better joins at the points if I assemble like this instead of long straight runs of rows of triangles. Plus it will be easier to hold smaller sections as I hand-stitch.

I think I only have about 150 papers left to cover with fabric, but I need to start laying what I have out to see if I need any specific colors (maybe some lighter highlights).

Any guesses what my inspiration is? I'll put the answer/photo in the comments.

#epp

My current pile of triangles

I cut more fabric triangles and am in the process of basting them to the papers. We'll see how many more I need after I baste these. I'm guessing I'll still have about 200 or more papers left.

#epp

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