January Sewing Challenge + Blue Silk Cotehardie Finished

TADA and stuff.

Hey, look, it's another blue cotehardie. I should start a blog or something.

Closeup of sleeve buttons and buttonholes.  Nom.





Buttons given to me by a friend in trade for some jewelry and jewelry parts.

Photo of the actual fabric texture, a woven stripe with very nearly a seersucker effect, once washed and pressed.


This fabric was a birthday present!  :D

Since I wanted to button the sleeves, I had to convert the top-seam raglan sleeve pattern to a back-seam pattern....I realized after I'd cut the whole thing out.

Nearly thirty years sewing, and I still do stupid crap like that.  I originally made two right sleeves, too, and had to re-do one.
Derp.

So I sewed the top seam closed and cut a line up the center for the new opening.

I intended to make a paper pattern for my raglan-sleeve cotehardie pattern set from this, but there were some minor complications* that led me to skip it, for now.

The sleeve openings and neckline/front opening are faced with a dark blue washed silk bias tape that I cut from a remnant.



(That's Rabi, my sewing helper, or, as a friend of mine calls these things, a "fuzzy pattern weight").









*About that "minor" complication:  while I'm not normally one for New Year's resolutions, I did something crazy this January 1st and joined a gym, and have been going nearly every day since then (go me).  While I've lost a bit of weight already, I realized, while doing the final fitting and alterations on this cotehardie, that I've got muscles in new places, and I'm already taking on a completely different shape:  not just "less of me", but my upper back is widening with muscle development, my ass is higher and hips narrower, and my biceps seem to be reaching for the Hulk Hogan stars.  Gotta watch the upper arm development, yikes.

That's all well and good, but I cut this dress out weeks ago and have been just staring at it since then, until just the other day.  I've changed shape so much since I cut out the pieces that the dress no longer fits - and it's not a matter of letting out or in: there are sections of the dress that just aren't the right shape, as if I'm putting on an outfit tailored to someone else entirely.  Which means, sadly, that I can't wear my Candlemas dress to Candlemas.

I did, however, come up with a solution to at least that problem.  Details tomorrow!

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