I used to keep everyone’s measurements in a little notebook, where I would also sketch patterns, cutting diagrams, etc. These days, though, I keep everyone’s measurements in a spreadsheet. It makes the math much easier, and means I don’t have to go flipping back through the notebook to see if I have them already. Plus I can see how much Shoshanna has grown!
Until tonight, though, I was still doing my cutting layouts by hand in a notebook or on a scrap of paper. This meant that they were easily lost, and never even remotely to scale. And then tonight it occurred to me… why not create a table in my spreadsheet with square cells and as many columns as my fabric is wide? At first I was intending to superimpose semi-transparent objects on top of this table, but then I realized that I could just mess with the background color of the cells… one color for each piece that I need to cut.
Yeah, it’s in now way medieval. But it sure works!
The punchline is, I’m not even going to use this layout for the underdress I’m cutting out and assembling tomorrow while I watch the inauguration. I have a couple of decent-sized linen “scraps” that are probably big enough for both sleeves and the gussets, or maybe even for the gores, of this garment. So I pressed them plus another 3 yards (way more than I need) off of the 9 yards I had in the space bag of linen & cotton and that will be more than enough for the underdress. (Have I mentioned here that my entire fabric yardage stash fits in two extra-large space bags? I’m either doing something very right or very wrong… but we won’t talk about the couple of tubs of smaller scraps that I have.)
So tomorrow I will cut and do the machine-assembly on this underdress, and then the recipient will try it on later in the week so that I can do the hand-finishing and then make the overdress that goes with it. And she shall look faboo in her 13th century finery! I will take pictures as I go, just for fun.
No Comments Yet