Adventures in Crafting and Post-Covid Long Covid

 So…along with the inevitable recovery from the second bout of Covid (it’s horrendous. I thought it was bad before I had had covid again and now I’m back to three hours of unconsciousness if I decide to shower. Joy. Send an email or read a document? Ditto). Today, I’m feeling knocked out because I decided to stitch up the playsuit from the vintage pattern and… I might have forgotten to check my new measurements (though I recently checked them and they were as they usually are). It DOES fit, only the pockets (macgyvered from another pattern) are pulling and muggins here decided to completely finish the seams BEFORE checking the fit (as I could, reasonably, have reduced the side seam allowance to maybe 3/8 without affecting the overall fit). I can get them on. I can sit down without the seams straining. I do need to work on this pattern again, especially if I want to sew it up in anything more robust for winter and, in all honesty, it might work really well in a substantially thick knit without much stretch (not that I know how to sew knits. I am scared of them and I don’t have a properly serviced and working serger). It was a worthwhile experiment, but I’m going to tinker with the pattern again - which is Simplicity S9792 vintage from Jiffy range. The pockets came from a tunic/dress McCalls pattern as it didn’t have internal pockets with the pattern. I just have to find buttons, sew on suitable sized snaps (which I don’t have) or skirt closures (which I like and do have) but safety pins will do for now and if it comes to it, I’ll just sew buttons right through all the layers of fabric. My zip installation….worked. It’s been a while since I put one in and it kind of shows a bit. I am pretty sure I was using the zipper foot - again, I should have checked. I also need to hem the legs and work on the back legs pattern a bit.

I do like this pattern, not least because the zip fastening makes it really easy to get into, which is importantly if you’re disabled. The shoulder design is also useful if you’re expecting to have to spend time on IV/post surgery and with chronic conditions, opting to buy patterns which are easily adjustable to these considerations is important. Same with being a wheelchair user. I’ve found the Cashmerette advice in the book Adjusting the Curve to be really helpful with this. Increasing the seat (aka over the backside and up to the waist) is really important (I was already doing this with my sway back, but now I need to increase that more), but I’m also now having to adjust for the overhang at the front (something I think was MAJORLY affecting the playsuit at around the hips), adding leg length to account for sitting in a wheelchair and so on.

In other news, my experimental Knickerbockers worked really well and I’m very pleased with them! I’m toying with the idea of not bothering with the whole closure on the leg thing, though it did work, and just using elastic and coming up with some kind of fake button tab thing. Though it does work and looks cool! 

Anyway, I’m off back to check the fit of this thing as I wait for a drain engineer to come out on an emergency and hem the legs. Later! 

Life on Hold. Again. And Again. And Again.

 I think the absolute worst thing about living with Long Covid is the fact that it is so unpredictable and that you cannot catch a break; I distrust the days where I feel I have energy. This is because even if I pace myself well, chances are I am cruising for a crash. I don’t know why. I probably should have put off an impromptu visit yesterday, given I had a LOOOONG set of MRI scans on Monday, but hey ho, it is what it is.

This means progress on that short cloak and re-patterning the regency short stays (even fan-lacing the new ones) has halted, as has the rejig of the petticoat, as well as the ongoing plan for a new regency dress (that’s more 1790s-1805 in design. Sort of). 

I have done a LOT of knitting though. I’ve finished two cardigans for cousins’s babies (cursing the fact there’s now ANOTHER one in the same family line. Not really, but I feel I must knit), knitted up a sweater which, despite my following instructions, does NOT look like it will fit a 9 y.o. - which led to the rushed buying of some expensive wool (in the sale!) to knit up a pair of FANTASTIC fox socks, complete with ears and bad embroidery for said 9 y.o. This meant that I could finally get on and knit myself a pair of winter thick socks ahead of the impending sad event that is the disposal of my entire sock wardrobe due to the sodding fungal nail infection that took hold following Covid. Oh yes. Everything’s gotta go and I get to disinfect my shoes every time as well. New slippers, everything. I also completed a pair of leggings for myself, forgetting my rule of using a smaller set of needles to handle my crap tension, so I may undo the top and reknit several rows with a) double rib and b) needles at least two sizes smaller. They’re being held up with two garters made of very cheap elastic and it’s now a long term plan to design my own pair and I have IDEAS. 

So this morning I won’t be doing my singing thing, as that leaves me tired and I also need to do SOMETHING with our Change petition, which is a campaign for key workers who caught covid, developing Long Covid (as a result of their jobs) get compensation. The recent news release of the IIAC makes it really hard for people to actually get Industrial Injury Benefit, unfortunately, plus a lot of us are getting turned down for pensions too. 

I am trying not to despair. I’m looking at the towel I want to get finished that’s been sat on a needle for two years. I’m planning to do the 13 row pattern repeat, one block a day. If I’m lucky, this means it will be finished next week. 

So, couple of phone calls to make, explaining I can’t accommodate either the costs or impact of travel and can we please do either video or more local appointments, pretty please, with cherries on top. 

Sigh. 

Peace, out.

PS I cannot add photos, due to there not being enough disk space. Sorry and I’ll try and post the, on the blog later on. 

Stays, Completed!

 I’m going to admit here that there were not a lot of pictures taken, as I got distracted while finishing up my stays. I also learned two things when they were done: 1) Lacing on your own with Long Covid is exhausting and 2) I probably should have made them a little shorter. Still, that’s for next time, when I make some overall changes and create a new pattern. I’m very glad I made the changes I did and as you can see in the photos, they worked REALLY well.

I have not been particularly well over the last couple of weeks, as a cold completely floored me and I also have a gammy toe. This is being seen to by professionals later this week. I’ve also got a few appointments, a podcast recording and so on. 

Anyway… As predicted, I had measured too long on the stays, which is OK as I plan to use these on the next variant. I also found and ordered a narrower custom busk, which HAS added to the cost. I am still dithering over ordering the Red Threaded regency stays pattern and also self patterning up a more transitional set. I finally downloaded the Black Snail spencer pattern and am eyeing up my navy cotton sateen dodgy pillowcases as potential fabric stash. What? You make do with what you’ve got. I was planning on sending the whole king size duvet set, plus four pillowcases and the flat sheet to the charity shop anyway, so I might as well use it for costuming and wardrobe projects instead. With all the seam unpicking finally done, I will also be able to get on with my new dress project, which I think will take a bit of pattern adjustment and mock-up for the front at least. Plus I really have to deal with my shoulder issues. They’re NARROW. I also took some measurements over my regency stays and, as I couldn’t resist prancing around in it, my Regency P&P Lizzy Dress (coveted since 1995). I have even had both petticoats on to decide where to fix them up. 

I did put too many eyelets in I think, but on the plus side I suspect this means I might be able to do a variety of lacing styles, including spiral. The current plan is to cut long lengths of twill tape and convert it to fan lacing, to make it super easy to get in and out of. As a result, I re-laced the stays, using about half the eyelets and it’s now much easier to do myself, giving the same support. The Gravity Devices work very well, so I’m going to continue to use my original plan and secure them in place with at least one safety pin, as they could possibly fall out without something to hold them in place during activity. I learned THAT from the loss of both my Georgian/regency garters at the Fringe a few years ago. 

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the photo collection (which will be added to the usual gallery over on Pages). Enjoy, while I remind myself to take all my meds, supplements and neck another cup of coffee! The first pic is me properly dressed in all four layers - that petticoat really makes a difference when it comes to the bodice.

The Trouble with Gussets

 Show me a historical costumer who likes doing gussets and I’ll outright accuse them of lying: I woke this morning, with sense of purpose in relation to the stays. After a sustaining breakfast of porridge (what, I’m Scottish?), I set to purpose with my nemeses. 

The first thing I did was ensure that my two layers were firmly basted to each other - around the top edges, the mid seam and also either in the middle of the gussets or around 5/8 to 1 inch from the fabric edges. Then I set to sandwiching the actual gussets between the layers. Trust me when I say this is NO FUN. 

Side note: with this pattern I have a curving seam horizontally across the pattern. It does help it fit nicely and comes from the Daffodowndilly pattern, on which these are mostly based. If you use this kind of pattern or have a horizontal mid seam, for the love of chocolate, please make sure you trim down the seam allowance pointing up towards the gussets openings. If you don’t, you risk playing about with scissors trying to trim said seam allowance as it pokes up between the gussets. Another suggestion is to tack the triangle bit of the gusset seam to the upturned and pressed horizontal seam to each other (before basting each side of the stays together), so that when you start sandwiching in gussets, everything stays flat. Obviously, this occurred because my gusset slits have to be cut as low as they are, otherwise it wouldn’t have been an issue.

You have to make sure that the seam allowance (1/4 in) is the same on each of the main body edges AND the gussets. Too much and the gussets will be too small (and look wonky). With the fabric edges of the main body, get them wrong and you could end up not securing all layers with stitching. This will result in lots of tears, swearing and redoing. While pinning all this together, you have to go slowly, using lots of pins and essentially do this 3D if you’ve got curved edges to your gussets, to make sure that sandwich hem is approx 1/4 in all the way round. Thankfully, I left just enough space with the basting to be able to check this fairly well. But you have to both pin and think in 3D terms, which is quite difficult, while ensuring the seams are mostly the same, so it won’t wonk up when sewing. You also need to make sure all the edges are properly folded in, so you can’t see any raw edges. 

Now an experienced sewer would tell you to do something entirely sensible at this point, which would be to take a different colour of basting thread, carefully baste all these layers together and then remove most, if not all, of your original SEAM basting (note: not the gussets piece basting, unless it’s hidden by the overlapping edges of the main body piece. I am not that sewer and I tend to get impatient. This is even knowing that by not doing that, I risk (and succeeded with) leaving little bits of visible tacking when I then go to remove the basting. I would also encourage everyone to please tack down the bottom triangle bit of the gussets with thread the same colour as your fabric, so that if you struggle to get it out later, it’s not really going to show. 

Another side note: Sandwiching in the gussets invariably will not go well, resulting in lots of repeated pinning until the gussets are all in sort of the right place, matching at each side, if that makes any sense. If you don’t finagle them properly, you risk the cups being different sizes, hence the attention to detail required when matching all the seams. Also, if you cut your gussets correctly, you will have a bit of surplus fabric extending over the top of the main body part. This it totally fine and you can trim it down afterwards - just make sure that the excess matches on each side of the stays. 

Anyway, at this point I decided I was absolutely not going to stress myself out hand-sewing the gussets in place, as originally planned, mainly because it would lead to even more swearing, tears, blood everywhere and so on (any hand sewing on a project and there’s a lot of spitting - as the enzyme in your spit breaks down blood, reducing permanent staining. Top tip). So, off to the sewing machine I went. 

For the most part, this has gone fairly well, with most of the seams being pretty good. I had to rip out the start of one, when the underside layer decided to wrinkle up and also discovered the same once I was done (but I hand-sewed the correction to that, with blood, swearing and tears). I then overcast the bottoms of the gussets (poorly) and set to pulling out the basting stitches. It’s at this point I have regrets over the colour of the basting thread, but I reassure myself that nobody is going to see them unless I want them to and it will all probably come out with time or a magnifying glass, patience and a set of tweezers. Another tip of mine here is to consider sewing each side of each gusset from top to bottom, rather than trying to constantly turn the fabric. This saves time, promotes accuracy and then you probably should do a few rows of reinforcing stitching across the bottom of each gusset. 

Note: I was correct in that I still absolutely hate hand sewing through multiple layers of fabric, trying to keep seams together.

So - thoughts: Would it have been simpler to stitch in single gusset layers to each side then sandwich together with the boning channels and at the sides of the gussets? Probably, but doing it in one halved the time I spent and I managed to do OK, with minimal correcting. I would definitely say that it is easier to treat each fabric layer individually, but my previous experience has resulted in a degree of wonkiness when then matching up the gussets and stitching those layers together. That said, that stitching is only ever two layers of fabric.

Award to my sewing machine for taking 6 layers of some random drill fabric and stitching it all together. 

I have now pinned the side backs to one layer of the thing and while I am tempted to keep on at this today, I also know that I shouldn’t do these kinds of tasks for more than a couple of hours at a time. Plus, I need to eat my lunch, which I forgot as long Covid left me without appetite stimulus. 

I am still stuck on what to do about the straps, but I think I have the idea of how to do it in my head and in regards to attaching them and the twill. 

The next part of this will be stitching on each side back and then marking (and sewing) all the boning channels. I checked the back seam ones and realised that the ones I bought are a tiny bit too long, so I’ve just bought four, slightly smaller ones and am now waiting for them. Unfortunately, the seller is on annual leave this week so I won’t have them sent out till next Friday, but as I still need to do quite a bit of work on the rest, I’m not overly concerned about this, as I’ve lots more I can work on. The bones are also not wasted: I’m sure I can use them for another project (I might even be able to use them on this one, but that depends on overall comfort and placing). 

Have a great week, everyone. Here are some photos, posted, by chance of the internet gods, in no particular order. I tried, honest.