HISTORY: Preserved

I am finally making some progress on my entirely hand-sewn chemise! I even took it to book group last night and finished the hem. I'd say that was a valuable use of my time! Intellectual stimulation, female social interaction, and sewing progress all the same time! It was a lovely evening. :-)

Now all I have left is to cut some bias fabric to sew around the neck, put in the drawstring, and hem the sleeves and then it will be finished! I do hope I'll get it done at least before the end of the month. It's ridiculous how long it's taking as it's a fairly simple garment to make, but I just keep putting it off. Just the thought of hand sewing can be intimidating, but once I get going, it's not that big of a deal.

On another note. I just heard about a giveaway from American Duchess shoes and had to write about it. Their historically inspired/repro shoes are absolutely stunning and I'm not even that big of a shoe person! However, when I see shoes like their "…

Okay, so I had to fall off the bandwagon of The Historical Sew Fortnightly. What with homeschooling and my sporadic sewing habits there was no way I could keep up with a sewing project every two weeks. The good thing is that it kept me motivated with working on what I do have to do. I even found a sewing buddy who lives in D.C. (1 hour away) via the Sensibility.com sewing message forum. She came over with her little girl last Saturday and we chatted and sewed for several hours. I got all my seams flat felled on my linen/cotton Regency chemise! This is totally awesome because I was at a standstill with it mainly because I had determined the whole chemise would be hand-sewn and I kept forgetting to sit down with the darn thing and just sew it! Now all that's left is the neckline and hemming the sleeves and bottom. Yippee!