I've started on a shawl that I'm gonna put beading in! Probably gonna start it over cuz its my first time doing kfb and I think I need practice but it's pretty fun despite the fact that I'm not super great at knitting
Fixed a cloak for a friend today. I made the cloak in the first place on commission, made it wrong because I trusted a free costume pattern on the internet instead of asking someone in my larp or taking a pattern off my own cloak. He got it the first time last August, didn't wear it until winter when he discovered it was a bit too small to really keep him warm, got it back to me to fix in February, and I promised I would have it ready for him the next time we saw each other, thinking I had maybe two months to do it. Then I sat on it and procrastinated. He's coming into town in a couple days, and I finally got the project done this afternoon, nine months later. THOUGH TO BE FAIR, I DIDN'T LIE.
so. i mentioned before that I'm working on a cape. the cape wraps around in the front and fastens in the back. I added a couple inches on to the wrap pieces, knowing that my chest is larger that what the pattern expected. today, in the process of adding my darts. i realized. that i need to add TEN MORE INCHES. TO THE WRAP PIECES. WHOOPS.
I am losing my entire goddamn mind over a project/competition I'm in right now. The competition is to see who can make the best garb for $20 or less. My plan is to make an entire outfit of court garb, including hat. Got done buying fabric today and squeaked in at $19.93, with five yards of structural fabric, two yards of decorative fabric, and one spool of thread to stitch it all together. Then it occurred to me. Tax is 9% here. One of the other groups doing this project has a local tax rate of 10%. Another has a tax of 4%. This is WILDLY UNFAIR! So I start asking about it online, get a couple other people on my side. The person running the competition is in the 10% zone, and she agrees that this is absolute hogwash and decides that only pre-tax costs count! I have another $1.87 to spend! I'm gonna buy another spool of thread! I'm actually going to make good garb instead of whatever I can sling together with bare minimum materials and one month to sew! (BTW every single thing I've bought so far has been at least 50% off, and I have the receipts to prove it.)
So, to continue, another thing (a couple more things) about this competition that's fucking destroying me is that we're invited to estimate down to the penny how much material we used, for things you have to buy in large batches like thread (usually) or stuff like heat n bond or fabric. I'm almost definitely going to use every single scrap of fabric. What I didn't give myself budget for, that I may have a tiny little bit of budget for now, is fuseable interfacing. I'm going to be doing, like, a lot of applique on this piece, at least an entire spool's worth, and for the couple hours I was sitting with 7 cents to spare, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was going to have to do large, intricate designs using nothing to hold it in place but a glue stick and a positive attitude. Now, I'm seriously considering getting the smallest thing of color matched red thread I can buy and calculating to the nearest square inch how much heat n bond I can get away with, with the few cents I have left over.
So. SO. After several emotional journeys, a marathon of sewing, and a little more math with the help of people who are much better at math than me, the project is DONE. but seth, you may say, it's barely six days later. CORRECT. I HAVE BEEN SEWING NONSTOP FOR THE LAST SIX DAYS. CAFFIENE AND TACO BELL SUSTAIN ME. Anyway, I did a little bit of math. Actually a lot of math. I hate math. Anyway, the after tax amount I had to spend was $21.85. My total material costs come out to $21.64. Fabric: 7 yards (5 red, 2 yellow), totaling $18.53 after coupons. Thread: Two spools used, one and a half of one color, half a spool of the other color, totaling 3.06 Heat N Bond: Calculated to the nearest square inch to be worth $0.0024 a square inch. 55 square inches used in the final piece, totaling just under 15 cents. This project took roughly 18 hours. If I were selling the outfit at cost to a fellow amtgarder I would charge $200 for the final product. If I were selling it to anyone in a different larp, it would come out to probably $300, for a custom appliqued tunic and rus pants. I'll have pics for you tomorrow.
Yeah, that's actually a really common response to my sewing pace. A few years ago when I was learning to do this kind of tunic, I was given about 2.5 days to make it, from cutting fabric to wearable tunic. It was a larping event, and I went to the event specifically to learn how to make this style of tunic. Lady Armstrong, the creator of the tunic pattern and instructor of the class, is a little scared either of me or for me, because I got it done at roughly 2 pm the second day, while fighting a cold and doing a slightly more difficult finishing seam than the rest of the class.
Yeah that's.....yeah. Speedy. I'm currently clocking in at about 15 hours of handsewing for my current plushie, which is on the lower end of the scale when it comes to difficulty.
Oh, yeah, if I were hand-sewing any part of this project it would add probably a few dozen hours onto it. It's all large pieces and straight lines by machine, though, so I can tear through it in a few days.
I don't know of any yet, lol. Im not even sure my area has any. I'm near Morgantown WV. My family used to do SCA events in Arizona, i wouldn't mind joining that again as long as the local group is cool.
If you wanted to try Amtgard (the same game I play), it looks like your closest park is Drekkis Myrr in Fairmont. They're a group that started up just this year, and right now it looks like they're doing some online stuff. here's their facebook page
completely forgot to check here for like two months but holy hells, I gotta say that all these prtojects you folks are doing are absolutely astounding
