In Sewing News Today...

Mending

I was able to finish off another mending project as my own mending sits in an out of control pile.

This mending project was a priority project for the parish priest, a beautiful handmade silk vestment that his mother had made. No pressure.

The parish priest did not request this as a priority project. Instead, he encouraged me to take the time I need to finish this, the priority was self-inflicted.

I've had this for far too long as I struggled to figure out how to proceed with this repair. Like the other one it was fraying at the shoulder. Let's just say that there were a few sleepless nights as I played out repair scenarios in my head.

Before I could repair the vestment I had to remove a hand pleated collar. As I did this, I was in awe with the amount of work that went into the hand stitching and basting that I was removing. There was an incredible amount of sadness as I did this, as I realized the amount of work and love that went into the pleating. How difficult it must have been to do this by hand.

I had to figure out how to repair the fray and remodel the vestment without the pleated collar, a facing of course. But I didn't have fabric to match the beautiful silk.

I opted for an interfaced blanket binding that I then cut into a smaller width. The raw edge was stitched to the re-shaped neckline. The binding was wide enough that I was able to fold it over to hide the inside neck curve.

I then hand-stitched the binding to the vestment using invisible thread. If I had ivory silk thread I would have preferred that but I think the invisible thread works well. It is all pressed and ready to deliver and then I will be looking forward to a good night sleep tonight.  

In other sewing news...

I've started the pants. Yes, that is not muslin. I am really bad for not making muslins. What can I say, I'm not perfect, I'm flawed. Who wants to be perfect anyway?  

But I've put a lot of thought in to my body quirks and cut these out with my fingers crossed.

Well, there is no looking back now.

Happy Sewing!