Pages

Tuesday, February 14

Procrastination - Renfrew

I remember my first visit to Tanit-Isis and reading:
Sewing is what I do when I'm cheating on all my other hobbies...
She's got a good point.  I do like a few other crafts although I'd say sewing is a primary love and the rest fill needs.  I will make stationary as needed so I've got stamps and blank note cards and paper.  I wanted to paint the bathroom window with stained glass paints so I learned to do that.

But right now, I'm sewing to avoid doing other things.
  • Work that didn't get finished yesterday
  • Standings for the side pool I run for my bowling league
  • House cleaning
  • Garbage night
  • Laundry (okay, I did do one load so I'd have panties for today, but I should have done more household laundry too)
It is amazing how motivated you can be when you should be doing something else.

Sunday night I felt like sewing but I was tired.  Too tired to trust myself to put channeling into my half finished bra.  I usually do it wrong the first time when I'm awake, I don't have enough seam allowance to screw it up multiple times while tired.  I bought Renfrew and Pendrell from Sewaholic with the free shipping deal she was offering.  I thought maybe I could trace off Renfrew to sew another day.  It's sewing, but not requiring any particular focus as I wasn't going to make alterations for the first try.

Then I went through my box of knits.  Remember the brown/blue/white/black dress I was making?  And struggling with?  I have yet to return to that but I still have 2m of that fabric.  It's probably stretchier than what a "stable knit" implies but I figured in a hopefully wearable muslin, a little extra stretch isn't a bad thing. 
Well, next thing I know, I was cutting View C (cowl with 3/4 sleeves) out.  You know, putting it aside for when I was alert enough to sew.  Good thing too.  I forgot to cut the sleeve cuffs and I only cut one of the cowl pieces, not two. 

Last night, I should have done any of those bullet points above.  I probably could have worked on my bra.  But I was a bit tired, Tasia's instructions seemed more straightforward than trimming seam allowance type sewing and the cut pieces were just sitting there.  So far so good.  Until I hit the typo.  I could not make the cowl make sense to me, why would you sew wrong sides together?  I got frustrated and thought, so many bloggers have done this and tested it, someone would have explained this in a way that made sense and found there is errata for this step.  What did we do before the internet?  The pictures are right, but the text says wrong sides when it should say right sides.  Just as we were heading to bed I sewed up the side seams, so no pictures yet.  I still have the cuffs to do for the sleeves and bottom, but it was enough to see how it fit.  I think I'm going to like this as a top when it's done. 

And a Happy Valentine's Day for anyone celebrating today!

4 comments:

  1. Sewing has definitely edged out other hobbies for primacy in terms of time commitment since I started blogging. I actually hope that will change a bit once I am capable of life-balancing again---I miss dancing terribly, and I need to start committing time to real writing, not just blog writing. Someday, after the thesis...

    I also use sewing as a procrastination tool, but I've been having the brain-fatigue issue a lot lately. Hence how many of my projects over the last few months have been knit tops. Speaking of... can't wait to see your Renfrew :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The thing I like about sewing is that I will always need more. I don't know what you do with the 29th rug hooked pillow/rug or needlepoint picture. Thesis is a time drain, completely understand that.

      I get the feeling you'll be seing a lot of Renfrew on my blog. It really could fill out my wardrobe gaps, the cowl is pretty awesome.

      Delete
  2. I'm tempted by the Renfrew, but I already have several perfect knit top patterns and don't really need another one. Curious to see your version with the cowl!

    I'm having sewing fatigue lately, as several of my projects have not gone well and I'm unsure if I should be doing some quick and easy TNTs or continue banging away at more challenging things. I'm inclined to give up more and more these days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pictures of my Renfrew are up now.

      Is it maybe that you're getting more perfectionist about some of the challenging projects? A little time in the magic closet isn't a bad thing and we all need a little positive reinforcement of something easy now and again. TNT's exist for a reason, may as well use them.

      Delete

Thanks for your comments, I love to have a two way conversation. I seem to be getting a lot of spam from anonymous users and am turning off the ability to comment that way. I really would like to hear from you so if you do want to add your two cents without an OpenId, email me at seraphinalina at gmail dot com.