TFW you load a new¹ silk thread on the machine and really hope that a) it will work with the machine b) you have enough to finish the dress, since it was bought online.
(the one in the picture is a 50 m spool, but I also have another.)
¹ I've used it before for the garibaldi blouse, but that one was completely sewn by hand. I've used silk thread in the machine before, but it was another brand
Piecepack and postcard boxes
Posted on November 4, 2023
Thanks to All Saints’ Day, I’ve just had a 5 days weekend. One of those days I woke up and decided I absolutely needed a cartonnage box for the cardboard and linocut piecepack I’ve been working on for quite some time.
I started drawing a plan with measures before breakfast, then decided to change some important details, restarted from scratch, did a quick dig through the bookbinding materials and settled on 2 mm cardboard for the structure, black fabric-like paper for the outside and a scrap of paper with a manuscript print for the inside.
Then we had the only day with no rain among the five, so some time was spent doing things outside, but on the next day I quickly finished two boxes, at two different heights.
The weather situation also meant that while I managed to take passable pictures of the first stages of the box making in natural light, the last few stages required some creative artificial lightning, even if it wasn’t that late in the evening. I need to build1 myself a light box.
And then decided that since they are C6 sized, they also work well for postcards or for other A6 pieces of paper, so I will probably need to make another one when the piecepack set will be finally finished.
The original plan was to use a linocut of the piecepack suites as the front cover; I don’t currently have one ready, but will make it while printing the rest of the piecepack set. One day :D
One of the boxes was temporarily used for the plastic piecepack I got with the book, and that one works well, but since it’s a set with standard suites I think I will want to make another box, using some of the paper with fleur-de-lis that I saw in the stash.
I’ve also started to write detailed instructions: I will publish them as soon as they are ready, and then either update this post, or they will be mentioned in an additional post if I will have already made more boxes in the meanwhile.
- you don’t really expect me to buy one, right? :D↩︎
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/11/04-piecepack_and_postcard_boxes/index.html
The Infinite Board Game by W. Eric Martin | Open Library
The Infinite Board Game by W. Eric Martin, Nov 03, 2015, Workman Publishing Company edition, paperbackOpen Library
Forgotten Yeast Bread or Pan Sbagliato
Posted on October 29, 2023
I’ve made it again. And again. And a few more times, and now it has an official household name, “Pan Sbagliato”, or “Wrong Bread”.
And this is the procedure I’ve mostly settled on; starting on the day before (here called Saturday) and baking it so that it’s ready for lunch time (on what here is called Sunday).
Saturday: around 13:00
In a bowl, mix together and work well:
- 250 g water;
- 400 g flour;
- 8 g salt;
cover to rise.
Saturday: around 18:00
In a small bowl, mix together:
- 2-3 g yeast;
- 10 g water;
- 10 g flour.
Saturday: around 21:00
In the bowl with the original dough, add the contents of the small bowl plus:
- 100 g flour;
- 100 g water;
and work well; cover to rise overnight.
Sunday: around 8:00
Pour the dough on a lined oven tray, leave in the cold oven to rise.
Sunday: around 11:00
Remove the tray from the oven, preheat the oven to 240°C, bake for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 160°C and bake for 20 more minutes.Waiting until it has cooled down a bit will make it easier to cut, but is not strictly necessary.
I’ve had up to a couple of hours variations in the times listed, with no ill effects.
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/10/29-forgotten_yeast_bread_or_pan_sbagliato/index.html
Forse qualcuno si ricorda che l'anno scorso ho #cucito a mano una camicia di lana rossa, ma ora che l'ho quasi¹ finita era già troppo caldo per andarci in giro.
Finalmente è arrivata la Stagione Per Bene, e posso metterla!
Ci sarà un post sul blog. Prima o poi.
¹ voglio aggiungere ancora qualche variante di colletti e polsini separati, per variare lo stile, ma la loro assenza non mi impedisce di indossare la camicia così com'è.
Some of you may remember that last year I have been #handsewing a shirt in red wool, but by the time I've mostly¹ finished it it was already too warm to be able to wear it significantly.
At least, the Sensible Season seems to have started, and I can wear it!
There will be a blog post. At some unknown time in the future.
¹ it does need a few detachable collar and cuffs variants, to style it a bit differently, but those don't prevent me from wearing the shirt as is.
@Kenobit @Nelson @Nicola Bernardi @RetroBigini
sigh, tra pioggia e buio e il case incastrato non è stato facile :(
il case e gli hard disk mi servono. dell'alimentatore si può parlare (se non è rotto posso riusarlo, ma ne ho anche altri). tutto il resto è a disposizione.
Se ho ben capito c'è una possibilità di consegna zona Varese, che sarebbe perfetta?
(e OMG, mi ero dimenticata di quella ventola sopra al dissipatore della CPU a forma di RAZZOMISSILE)
(e con “dimenticata” si intende “avevo rimosso” :D )
@Rapita dagli alieni e grazie alla spinta del voler dimostrare di avere *tecnicamente* ragione¹:
Font sans serif di default di Inkscape (mi è venuto in mente dopo che poteva essere rilevante, non ho ancora fatto colazione), in nero, generatore di Lorem ipsum di inkscape senza aver fatto niente di particolare. Stampante laser casalinga Samsung CLP-415.
È carta che mi aspetto di vedere usata da chi fa fotocopie? lol, no :D Non ha neanche apprezzato molto il passaggio nella stampante, onestamente.
¹ technically correct is the best kind of…
Chickpea Crackers
Posted on September 20, 2023
And another half-written article I had in my repo. (Am I doing #FallFinishAlong with blog articles instead of / in addition to craft projects? it feels so).
I was in need of snacks. I wanted something bready, but with a bit less carbs and more proteins. I had a bag of chickpea flour.
Ingredients were:
- 100 g wheat flour
- 100 g chickpea flour
- 100 g water
- 3 g salt
- 1 g dry yeast
Mix everything as usual for bread, leave to rise for 4-6 hours.
Divide in 4 parts, roll them out to a thickness of about 1 – 2 mm, prick them with a fork (or the fancy cracker pricking tool that you don’t really need but I may have bought).
Optionally spray with a bit of water and sprinkle with salt (coarse or flake is best).
Preheat the oven to 240°C and cook for 5 minutes, or preheat the oven to 210°C and cook for 10 minutes for a dryer version.
I’ve tried both cooking temperatures: the 210°C had the big advantage of being the same as the common bread I was already making, so no additional oven time was required (it was summer. this was a consideration.), but I’m not sure which version I like best, so I think in winter I will alternate between the two.
Put it in a cotton (linen?) bag and keep it in a dry place, where it will keep for weeks (assuming you’ve made a bigger batch :D ).
This is now part of my staples.
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/09/20-chickpea_crackers/index.html
Nello spirito di #FallFinishAlong, 3 giorni fa (3 giorni???) ho postato una partita vinta a #YarnChicken a metà dello scialle che sto lavorando ai ferri.
Di cui posto una foto adesso, perché son lenta a trasferire le foto dalla macchina fotografica al pc. :D
Comunque, lo scialle è lavorato con quattro gomitoli di lana, ho iniziato a metà giugno, finito di lavorare il secondo gomitolo 3 mesi più tardi. E adesso ho quasi finito il terzo, e credo oggi di iniziare il quarto.
Che sarà più lento, dato che non è più a maglia legaccio, ma insomma. Dubitavo di riuscire a finire per dicembre, e invece la cosa inizia ad essere anche abbastanza fattibile.
Sto lavorando ai ferri uno scialle in due colori, e in base alla bilancia di precisione ho esattamente la lana che mi serve per fare ancora due ferri con il primo colore, prima di passare al colore successivo.Ho infilato un filo di sicurezza (si chiama così in italiano?), perché so che perderò questa mano di #yarnChicken.
Solo che adesso dovrei fare colazione, ma farla ritarda il momento in cui scopro *chi ha vinto*.
In the spirit of #FallFinishAlong, 3 days ago (3 days??? just 3 days???) i posted about a #YarnChicken victory at the middle of the shawl I'm knitting.
Pictured here, because I'm slow at moving pictures over from the camera to the pc :D
Anyway, the whole shawl is made of 4 balls of yarn, I started it in mid June, finished #knitting the second ball 3 months later. and now I've almost finished working the third ball, and I'm ready to attach the last one.
The last quarter of the work is probably going to go significantly slower, because it's no longer garter stitch, but still. I wasn't sure this would have been ready for December, but now it's starting to look realistic.
I'm #knitting a shawl in two colours, and according to the precision scale I have exactly the amount of yarn I need to knit another two rows with the first colour before moving on to the next one.I've added a lifeline, in case I lose this round of #yarnChicken.
And now, I should really stop knitting and have my breakfast, but that would delay *knowing*.
Non-e (Note)Book
Posted on September 18, 2023
Some time ago our LUG bought some things from soldered.com and while browsing around the website my SO and I decided to add a junk box to the order and see what we would get.
Other than a few useful things, there were two mostly unpopulated boards for the inkplate 10 which would have been pretty hard to reuse as electronics.
On the other hand, at 23 cm × 18 cm they are a size that is reasonable for a book, and the slit near a long edge made them look suitable for the cover plates of a coptic bound book.
Since the size isn’t a standard one, I used some paper I already had in big (A1) sheet: Clairefontaine Dessin Croquis Blanc at 120 g/m², and cut 32 sheet 466 mm × 182 mm big, to have room to trim the excess at the end and straighten the edges. This would make 8 signatures of 4 sheet each, for a total of 128 pages.
The paper will make it suitable both as a notebook (where I’ll write with liquid ink, of course, not ballpoints) or as a sketchbook for pencil (but not wet techniques).
I could have added a few more signatures, but this felt already good enough, and the risk to end up with an half-empty notebook was non-trivial (I will already have to force myself to actually use it, rather than keep it for a good topic that will never be).
First we finished depopulating the boards, using it as a desoldering exercise and trying (and not always succeeding) to save as many components as possible, even if most of them were too tiny for our current soldiering skills.
And then I only had to sew the book, which was done mostly while watching the DebConf streams.
And a couple of days later, trim and sand the pages, which as usual I could have done better, but, well, it works.
The next time I do something like this I think I will have to add a couple more mm also to the height, to be able to trim also those edges.
And now of course the Big Question is: what should I dedicate this notebook to? Will I actually use it? This year? This decade?
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/09/18-non-e-note-book/index.html
@devrtz :debian: ,
btw, I think I need a t-shirt with these words. or a patch on my backpack. Yeah, I think a patch for my backpack will happen in the near future. And if anybody wants to print stickers or anything else, I will submit this to the usual places :D
(And until I've submitted it to the right places, the source can be found on https://eoval.org/YFf9WaTC#debian_phone-source.svg , under the same license as the debian logo)
@Fabio , @Diego Roversi and the other locals: if you also want something with these words, we can talk about it :)
Banners and Signs
Posted on September 8, 2023
I forgot to write down the details back when it happened, but now that the surprise has been delivered I can write about it.
Some time ago, I decided to make a small banner with the GL-Como penguin for a friend, because reasons.
However, this friend has a big problem, he, well, is from Pisa (no, I’m not from Leghorn, why do you ask?), and I had a screen printing kit, openclipart and no inhibitions.
So, with the encouragement of a few friends who were in the secret, this happened. In two copies, because the first attempt at the print had issues.
And yesterday we finally met that friend again, gave him all of the banners, and no violence happened, but he liked them :D
If somebody is interested, the source image I used is on openclipart, with links to all of the sources I’ve used.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but when I was working on the Pisani sign I also stumbled on the “no dogs” sign and decided that the world needed a “mandatory cat” sign, and well, here is the full set (all images are a link to the openclipart page).
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/09/08-banners_and_signs/index.html
La foto
E quello spazio vicino alla tasca? è più grande degli altri, ma troppo piccolo perché ci stia un'altro occhiello, e non ho segnato un'occhiello lì in mezzo.
E quindi ci sono 30 occhielli, non 31.
E chissene. Funziona ugualmente. E di sicuro non sentirò la mancanza di un bottone da allacciare tutte le volte che indosso la giacca.
Comunque, al momento tutti gli occhielli sono fatti, mancano da attaccare buona parte dei bottoni.
The picture
And you see that space close to the pocket? it's a bit bigger than the regular spacing, but smaller than a space that would fit another buttonhole, and I didn't actually mark a buttonhole in it.
And now the front only has 30 buttons, not 31.
Whatever. It will work anyway. And it's not like I'm going to miss closing another button when I wear this jacket :D
Anyway, all of the buttonholes are done, now I have to attach the buttons.
(too lazy to add English, sorry, it's shitposting)
Questa cosa era in un paio di jeans da uomo (non comprati da me :D )
è un segno che la profondità delle #tasche è un surrogato della lunghezza del pene, vero?
non ho (ancora) controllato se i cm del righello sono corretti, o se son stati accorciati un pochettino
@More Than This @LaVi 🕊️📚🐈 beh, sia interlingua che esperanto sono delle realità: sono lingue parlate regolarmente da comunità di dimensioni ampiamente sufficienti a mantenerle in vita.
Perché possano diventare *la* lingua internazionale parlata da tutti, beh, innanzitutto ci si dovrebbe mettere d'accordo su quale delle millemila proposte di lingua internazionale adottare, e poi…
Origami Document Folder
Posted on August 1, 2023
A long time ago, around the turn of the century, I was looking at some Useful Origami website and found a pattern for a document folder with a lot of pockets.
And by a lot of pockets I really mean a lot! I immediately had to fold one, and then another one, and then a few others, both in a size suitable for business cards and as a folder for A4 sheets of paper.
And then, a few years ago I needed a new document folder, and looked for these instructions, and couldn’t find them anywhere. Luckily I still had some of the folders I had made, and the model was simple enough that I could unfold those and reconstruct the instructions.
I tried to show them around to see if anybody knew where it came from, but had no results.
Now that I’ve prepared a new website for patterns for non-fiber crafts (and that I needed a new folder :D ) I’ve decided to post those instructions on it, so that they will have a stable place to live on.
And now that the #origami crowd on the fediverse has grown, maybe somebody will stumble on them and will remember where they come from: if you do, please let me know, with a comment if you’re reading this on the fediverse, or through one of my contacts if you’re reading the blog directly.
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/08/01-origami_document_folder/index.html
Elastic Neck Top
Posted on July 26, 2023
Since some time I’ve been thinking about making myself a top or a dress with a wide gathered neckline that can be work at different widths, including off-the-shoulders.
A few years ago I’ve been gifted a cut of nice, thin white fabric with a print of lines and lozenges that isn’t uniform along the fabric, but looks like it was designed for some specific garment, and it was waiting in my stash for a suitable pattern.
And a few days ago, during a Sunday lunch, there was an off-hand mention of a dress from the late 1970s which had an elastic in the neckline, so that it could be optionally worn off-the-shoulders.
And something snapped in place.
I had plans for that afternoon, but they were scrapped, and I started to draw, measure, cut rectangles of fabric, pin and measure again, cut more fabric.
two rectangular tubes for the sleeves laid so that they meet the body just at the corners, and a triangle (a square gusset folded on the diagonal) joins them to the body.
I decided on a pattern made of rectangles to be able to use as much fabric as possible, with the size of each rectangle based mostly on the various sections on the print of the fabric.
I’ve made the typical sleeves from a rectangle and a square gusset, and then attached them to the body just from the gusset to keep the neckline wide and low.
The part of the fabric with large vertical stripes had two different widths: I could have made the back narrower, but I decided to just keep a strip with narrower lines to one side.
The fabric also didn’t have a full second strip of lozenges, so I had to hem it halfway through it.
The casing for the elastic was pieced from various scraps, but at least I was able to match the lines on the center front and back, even if they are different. Not that it matters a lot, since it’s all hidden in the gathering, but I would have known.
And since I was working on something definitely modern, even if made out of squares and rectangles, of course I decided to hand-sew everything, mostly to be able to use quite small sewing allowances, since the fabric was pretty thin.
In my stash I had a piece of swimsuit elastic that feels nice, looks nice and makes a knot that doesn’t slip, so I used it. It’s a perfect match, except for the neon yellow colour, which I do like, but maybe is a bit too high visibility? I will see if the haberdasher has the same elastic in dark blue, but right now this will do.
It was a quick project anyway: by the end of the working week the top was finished; I think that on a sewing machine it would be easy to make it in a day.
And it can be worn off the shoulders! Which is something I will probably never do in public (and definitely not outdoors), but now if I wanted I could! :D
As usual, the pattern (for what pattern there is) and instructions are on my pattern website under a #FreeSoftWear license, and I’ve also added to the site a tip on how I use electrician fish tape to thread things through long casings
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/07/26-elastic_neck_top/index.html
Mia zia è stata in vacanza, e mi ha portato a casa, come souvenir, questo:
Significa che devo farmene almeno uno, vero? (prima o poi)
My aunt went on a holiday, and as a souvenir she brought me this
I have to make at least one of them, right? (eventually.)
@Elikorokoros non che con la macchina vera si veda molto meglio
una delle righe verticali non è una piega, ma una cucitura piatta, ma si indovina appena ingrandendo l'immagine
@Katy B. :debian:📚 🥛 @Tappello
una foto brutta, no, non è troppo sbattimento, l'ho ritrovata facilmente :D
In realtà rispetto a quando ho fatto quella foto adesso c'è una specie di copertina di stoffa (e mylar) tutto attorno ai lati di legno, per isolare, e al posto dei barattoli di vetro con sopra della stoffa nera di solito uso un pentolino antiaderente di colore scuro (sia dentro che fuori) con coperchio di vetro e manici di metallo (adatto ad andare in forno, e quindi anche qui)
Project #linocut steampunk #piecepack is under way!
Quite a few months ago I started the project by making this
and buying some supplies (such as non-black linocut ink :D ), and then procrastination happened and I got quite stuck.
Today I've actually drawn all most of the pieces on tracing paper, I need to add the smaller suites, trace everything from the reverse, and then finally carve the linoleum.
And then maybe I'll start procrastinating again, or maybe I'll actually do some test prints in the weekend?
I may also be thinking of regular piecepack suites and playing card suites in the same style, but first I need to actually assemble a piecepack and discover whether it will work.
I may have accidentally a thing.
This came from wikimedia commons
https://openclipart.org/detail/342614/no-dogs
And it was remixed as:
https://openclipart.org/detail/342615/no-cats
which isn't a sign that is very useful, but was needed for
https://openclipart.org/detail/342616/mandatory-cats
and since I was already working on this, I decided I might as well
https://openclipart.org/detail/342617/mandatory-dogs
(if you're reading this on mastodon you probably can't see that the images are in the middle of the text, before the URLs).
@Baylee fatto in fretta e furia prima di bere il té della colazione (nero, quello verde lo preferisco a metà giornata), e ho pure macchiato il foglio.
(Koh-I-Noor Document Blue su ritaglio di carta Clairefontaine Dessin Croquis Blanc 160g/m²)
@Scott Sews☸️ I've made a late victorian combinations suit
Worn over clothing for decency, but since then I've worn it properly as the first layer of underwear and it's so nice to have linen against the skin when it's hot outside.
Correspondence Book
Posted on May 26, 2023
I write letters. The kind that are written on paper with a dip pen 1 and ink, stamped and sent through the post, spend a few days or weeks maturing like good wine in a depot somewhere2, and then get delivered to the recipient.
Some of them (mostly cards) are to people who will receive them and thank me via xmpp (that sounds odd, but actually works out nicely), but others are proper letters with long texts that I exchange with penpals.
Most of those are fountain pen frea^Wenthusiasts, so I usually use a different ink each time, and try to vary the paper, and I need to keep track of what I’ve used.
Some time ago, I’ve read a Victorian book3 which recommended keeping a correspondence book to register all mail received and sent, the topics and whether it had been replied or otherwise acted upon. I don’t have the mail traffic of a Victorian lady (or even middle class woman), but this looked like something fun to do, and if I added fields for the inks and paper used it would also have useful side effect.
So I headed over to the obvious program anybody would use for these things (XeLaTeX, of course) and quickly designed a page with fields for the basic thinks I want to record; it was a bit hurried, and I may improve on it the next time I make one, but I expect this one to last me two or three years, and it is good enough.
I’ve decided to make it A6 sized, so that it doesn’t require a lot of space on my busy desktop, and it could be carried inside a portable desktop, if I ever decide to finish the one for which I’ve made a mockup years ago :)
I’ve also added a few pages for the addresses of my correspondents (and an index of the letters I’ve exchanged with them), and a few empty pages for other notes.
Then I’ve used my a6_book.py script to rearrange the A6 pages into signatures and impress them on A4; to reduce later effort I’ve added an option to order the pages in such a way that if I then cut four A4 sheet in half at a time (the limit of my rotary cutter) the signatures are ready to be folded. It’s not the default because it requires that the pages are a multiple of 32 rather than just 16 (and they are padded up with empty pages if they aren’t).
If you’re also interested in making one, here are the files:
After printing (an older version where some of the pages are repeated. whoops, but it only happened 4 times, and it’s not a big deal), it was time for binding this into a book.
I’ve opted for Coptic stitch, so that the book will open completely flat and writing on it will be easier and the covers are 2 mm cardboard covered in linen-look bookbinding paper (sadly I no longer have a source for bookbinding cloth made from actual cloth).
I tried to screenprint a simple design on the cover: the first attempt was unusable (the paper was smaller than the screen, so I couldn’t keep it in the right place and moved as I was screenprinting); on the second attempt I used some masking tape to keep the paper in place, and they were a bit better, but I need more practice with the technique.
Finally, I decided that for such a Victorian thing I will use an Iron-gall ink, but it’s Rohrer & Knlingner Scabiosa, with a purple undertone, because life’s too short to use blue-black ink :D
And now, I’m off to write an actual letter, rather than writing online about things that are related to letter writing.
- not a quill! I’m a modern person who uses steel nibs!↩︎
- Milano Roserio, I’m looking at you. a month to deliver a postcard from Lombardy to Ticino? not even a letter, which could have hidden contraband, a postcard.↩︎
- I think. I’ve looked at some plausible candidates and couldn’t find the source.↩︎
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/05/26-correspondence_book/index.html
Late Victorian Combinations
Posted on May 26, 2023
Some time ago, on an early Friday afternoon our internet connection died. After a reasonable time had passed we called the customer service, they told us that they would look into it and then call us back.
On Friday evening we had not heard from them, and I was starting to get worried. At the time in the evening when I would have been relaxing online I grabbed the first Victorian sewing-related book I found on my hard disk and started to read it.
For the record, it wasn’t actually Victorian, it was Margaret J. Blair. System of Sewing and Garment Drafting. from 1904, but I also had available for comparison the earlier and smaller Margaret Blair. System of Garment Drafting. from 1897.
Anyway, this book had a system to draft a pair of combinations (chemise top + drawers); and months ago I had already tried to draft a pair from another system, but they didn’t really fit and they were dropped low on the priority list, so on a whim I decided to try and draft them again with this new-to-me system.
Around 23:00 in the night the pattern was ready, and I realized that my SO had gone to sleep without waiting for me, as I looked too busy to be interrupted.
The next few days were quite stressful (we didn’t get our internet back until Wednesday) and while I couldn’t work at my day job I didn’t sew as much as I could have done, but by the end of the week I had an almost complete mockup from an old sheet, and could see that it wasn’t great, but it was a good start.
One reason why the mockup took a whole week is that of course I started to sew by machine, but then I wanted flat-felled seams, and felling them by hand is so much neater, isn’t it?
And let me just say, I’m grateful for the fact that I don’t depend on streaming services for media, but I have a healthy mix of DVDs and stuff I had already temporary downloaded to watch later, because handsewing and being stressed out without watching something is not really great.
Anyway, the mockup was a bit short on the crotch, but by the time I could try it on and be sure I was invested enough in it that I decided to work around the issue by inserting a strip of lace around the waist.
And then I went back to the pattern to fix it properly, and found out that I had drafted the back of the drawers completely wrong, making a seam shorter rather than longer as it should have been. ooops.
I fixed the pattern, and then decided that YOLO and cut the new version directly on some lightweight linen fabric I had originally planned to use in this project.
The result is still not perfect, but good enough, and I finished it with a very restrained amount of lace at the neckline and hems, wore it one day when the weather was warm (loved the linen on the skin) and it’s ready to be worn again when the weather will be back to being warm (hopefully not too soon).
The last problem was taking pictures of this underwear in a way that preserves the decency (and it even had to be outdoors, for the light!).
This was solved by wearing leggings and a matched long sleeved shirt under the combinations, and then promptly forgetting everything about decency and, well, you can see what happened.
The pattern is, as usual, published on my pattern website as #FreeSoftWear.
And then, I started thinking about knits.
In the late Victorian and Edwardian eras knit underwear was a thing, also thanks to the influence of various aspects of the rational dress movement; reformers such as Gustav Jäger advocated for wool underwear, but mail order catalogues from the era such as https://archive.org/details/cataloguefallwin00macy (starting from page 67) have listings for both cotton and wool ones.
From what I could find, back then they would have been either handknit at home or made to shape on industrial knitting machines; patterns for the former are available online, but the latter would probably require a knitting machine that I don’t currently1 have.
However, this is underwear that is not going to be seen by anybody2, and I believe that by using flat knit fabric one can get a decent functional approximation.
In The Stash I have a few meters of a worked cotton jersey with a pretty comfy feel, and to make a long story short: this happened.
I suspect that the linen one will get worn a lot this summer (linen on the skin. nothing else need to be said), while the cotton one will be stored away for winter. And then maybe I may make a couple more, if I find out that I’m using it enough.
- cue ominous music. But first I would need space to actually keep and use it :)↩︎
- other than me, my SO, any costuming friend I may happen to change in the presence of, and everybody on the internet in these pictures.↩︎
https://blog.trueelena.org/blog/2023/05/26-late_victorian_combinations/index.html
@oɔiƚɘᴎ @Zand :arch: :terminal: @Yaku 🐗 e niente, ieri sera non sono riuscita a dormire¹ fino a che non ho fatto questa cosa
¹ il fatto che fossero ancora tipo le settemmezzaotto non ha assolutamente influito sull'insonnia :D
@Sini Tuulia no, I was thinking this kind:
picture from https://www.thesewingdirectory.co.uk/how-to-use-a-ruffler-foot/ (first searx result), which has more pictures.
What this is making are really pleats, but it can be setup to make short pleats every stitch for a more gathered-like look.
