Behold the ravages of steam!

Well I have a woodstove. And I use an iron kettle to keep moisture in the air. My kettle was empty on thursday, and I tried to fill it up. I have never sustained a worse burn. It must have been very HOT because when I put water in it, it just steamed my hand. And to make matters worse, I had nowhere to put the kettle down, just a plastic wash basin.

I couldn't sleep all night on account of the pain. Now I have 'Quasimodo' hands...


But I am very fortunate. My husband is taking very good care of me. He's waiting on me hand and foot.

It will be a little while before I sew anything. I am trying to make a birthday dress for my daughter Valentine. And until that is done, I won't be making my Secretary001, and when I do, I'll probably be making the third muslin, because I like it most.

Hopefully the last muslin for Secretary001

Here are some pictures of the fourth muslin. I like the shoulders on this muslin but I prefer the fit of the lower portion on the third muslin. I'll just combine the two. I do find that the shirring on this muslin started too low on the side seam, so it's getting moved up and spread out more.

Finally I can make it up for real!

The Third Muslin for Secretary001

Here is the third muslin. This time I am trying to address the problem of the shoulder. I have lowered the armhole again because I don't want the shoulder overhang to be pulled down tightly.


You can see this has helped a little, but I'm still not getting the desired effect. My next muslin will be to increase the shoulder pad setting. That's a lot of muslins....

Shrinky Inky's Fine Adventures Giveaway

Shrinky Inky's Fine Adventures is having a contest. Check it out - http://inkyknits.blogspot.com/ Get romantic!

Secretary001, the second muslin...

So for the second muslin, I had to select 1 waist dart and then pivot the waist dart into the side dart to get the appropriate amount of shirring. Unfortunately, the improved fit caused the shoulder of the blouse to be pulled down.


So now that the fit and shirring has been figured out it's time to work on that shoulder line. I'll keep the fit the same, maybe play with ease a bit, and drop the armhole. It's time for a third muslin....

A blouse named 'Secretary001'

Here is my next project, or the inspiration for my next project. I'm no expert on the matter but this reminds me of a 40's pencil pushing office blouse, which is why I named it Secretary001.

It looks to me like all the control has been shifted into side darts which were then gathered into the side seams. The sleeve looks like a very short kimono or dolman. Anyways, I got to work on the PatternMaster and this is my first muslin.

I'm not happy because I look like a bag lady!

So I learned that when zero waist darts are selected, the slack is not picked up anywhere else - not in the side seam and not in other darts. I'll have to manually shift all the control into the side dart. And that will be my second muslin....

The finished skirt!

Finally, here is a picture of my finished skirt. I got all dressed up, dolled up, and this is the only picture we took before the batteries died! Oh well, at least it's a good one.