Dearest Needlework Monday Community!
My week has been FULL of adjustments and transformations... And neuroses and nervousness!!
Plus there have been lots of distractions and over-stimulation via the big wine festival Vinalia, which descends on the old town every year in midsummer... the only time when it's hard to sleep from the partying all around, and the energetics of the medieval quarter are all jazzed up... Plus my photoshoots were sabotaged by photobombing cats!
I found photoshooting a strain this week: one of the best photos that came out was my test one, above!
Comunque; project number one:
A very favourite and essential summer garment, this wee playsuit which I fling on day and night to combat heat and keep my basic modesty in the sweatiness of Agosto in south Italy.
You may not notice from the photo of the whole playsuit, but the pockets side.....
Actually also has a seam down the top-middle, which SHOULD have been constructed originally (not by me! In a factory somewhere!) to go to the back: I only noticed this after wearing it a few times! Ooopah! And I thought immediately to cut the whole thing in half and turn it around properly...
Easier said than done; I already felt that the suit rode up a little at the crotch, and so knew I'd have to add a couple of centimetres, just to make up for the seam allowance, if I cut it and resewed it...
I hunted in many bags of fabrics and old clothing, and decided eventually to add a strip which would be the right tension and weight of fabric, but in a contrasting (hopefully, complimentary) colour.
And came up with this, above: it was quite a pernickity task, but VERY satisfying, because my wee suit became comfortable on a whole other level!
As ever, it was nerve-racking to cut the garment in half! And the resewing was quite tense to do: keeping it parallel was quite difficult; I wasn't certain until the end, of how straight it would sit!
It was hard for me to get the right photos, as most poses didn't show the stripe around the waist, but hey-ho: here it is anyway:
I've also felt awfully self-conscious this week, with so many people in town, and feeling super-sensitive because of some breakdown in communications with my ex, which I sense is because he's finally comprehending that we are not going to get back together - and as such has turned sharply inwards and is passively-aggressively 'ex-communicating' me.
This makes me feel vulnerable to attack, quite frankly: I really feel my vulnerability as a woman alone in a foreign, uber-patriarchal country at times, when particular energies are being projected onto me.
Anyways; project number two:
I found this DIVINE miniskirt in the 50c stall: oh how I ADORE this fabric, and it is in a perfectly thin cotton, though super-short - to the point of indecency, unfortunately!
I couldn't even photograph it on me - apart from like this, looking down:
I had already in my imagination matched it with a miniature, made-to-measure underskirt, which I wanted to create from this dress, found at the same time on the same market stall:
This is it above, before cutting: I had quite a challenge to photograph the white things I was working on this week - my photography being mostly on the automatic setting! - so I turned the colour right down in editing, to help show the details.
It was simple to cut the bodice off it, then I cut it some more, to leave the right length to have a waist elastic put in, and so it would sit nicely under the 'vintage Hawaiian fabric' skirt.
This is my 'non-measuring' - checking for rough shape and size...
This lightest-ever cotton was lovely to work with; though a little slippy, it was forgiving in that its wrinkliness allowed me to make rough 'non-measurments'!
I sewed first a basic seam top to the mini-underskirt... making sure it was the right width to easily carry the elastic I had set aside... and leaving a hole so I could thread the elastic through (above), of course!
I fricking LOVE putting elastic into a nicely-sewn waistband!
The final mini-underskirt looks like this, above: I ADORE IT!
Again, I couldn't get the best snaps: I did try, I promise! But this shows the length of it, above...
And this, above, though a tad dull, is the best colour-correct image I could get, of the beautiful fabric.
Additional projects:
I wanted to update a little on my other underskirts: I made a few this past month or two, and I don't think I really photographed them properly... These are some details to remedy that.
I think that this first one was a long nightie, which I cropped into a skirt, put the right shape of elastic into the waistband of, and then hemmed below with a strip of beautiful hand-needleworked embroidery - the latter which had been laboriously removed from a square cushion, ironed and corrected, then made into a long strip for this edging...
I love this skirt so much! It is a beautiful weight, and I love having the right length of underskirt for all the skirts that I wear - the underskirt gives such and additional dimension to a skirt: more beauty and I love layers, making me feel more protected energetically when I'm out in patriarchy-landia.
This second (or third) underskirt, I repaired from an old underskirt that had rubbish edging on it: it had an old ribbon woven into it, which was all frayed and messy.
And so I ironed and cleaned it up, took out the ribbon completely, and hummed and hawed a bit about what colour to put into it instead - and finally chose a black ribbon.
I also really love weaving a ribbon into some lace detail - especially into a border like this - to create a feature for this extra dimension to wear under a skirt. I love too how local women - mostly elderly women - will comment very positively whenever I go out and about with an underskirt showing: nowadays, most older women, most of which always wear a skirt, wear a shapeless dark neutral-coloured form, and if they wear an underskirt, it is black.
I feel that these kinds of habits creep up on us over the decades in a culture - which will atrophy under male oppression of women: it takes someone adventurous to change the script! Folks love it though, seeing an evidently very interesting and aesthetically pleasing garment in giro in the town...
And finally; project number three - black dress transformation in progress.
This is not my style usually, but I loved the lace quality, and the sleeves - and the neck, but I already had to adapt that to make it work, as it was elasticated before, but all out-of-shape. I also removed an undergarment which was sewn into this dress; kind of boob-tube attached to underskirt, which was also black, and thus which didn't show off the lace at all. I like the idea of wearing it with a short and bikini top in black, and having the white of my skin showing, but covered... Or else I will create a particular white under-garment for it... I will see what comes up this week.
