Clothes from Scratch

Once upon a time I used to cook everything from scratch. And from scratch I mean from seed, or egg or goat. We grew all our own veggies, most of our fruit and meat, all our own milk, made cheese, yogurt and canned dozens of jars of jam, apple sauce, salsa, peaches, pears, pickles... I don't do that anymore. Now I make clothing from scratch. Or at least I try to. 

There is something very satisfying about starting out with a couple cones of cotton and ending up with a blouse, or pair of shorts. I find it a challenge though. It's hard to go back to the beginning to learn how to do something well. I want to just sit at my sewing machine and turn out a perfect blouse. I do not want to practice on something simple, I want to make what I really want and I want to do it first!

This is The Valley Blouse, a pattern I found online by Cali-Faye. I love the look of it, so drapey and beautiful! I wove a lovely huck pattern with bamboo and tencel and it was so beautiful!  I spent several nights with this gorgeous fabric laid out on the floor placing the pattern pieces in various ways to minimize waste and simply because I was afraid to cut my handwoven fabric. I painstakingly cut out each piece and immediately took it to the sewing machine and zigzaged the edges.

I started sewing. It was hard! I didn't actually understand the language of the pattern. (It was english, but sewing language is different from weaving english-which I am still only learning.) So I looked at the pictures and tried to fake it. It was pinned and repinned, put on and off my mannequin over and over again. I did at least baste most of my seams first just to make sure I did it right.

In the end the blouse worked out. Well, it looks like a blouse, but it doesn't fit. It fit my mannequin, and she's supposed to be my size.

I'm going to have to practice.