Bustling

This week I had a sewing buddy! Lindsey is in town for a couple of weeks and we got a lot done on our costumes.

Here, Lindsey is doing her best Stella impression, “I like to sew with lethuh…”

I started The Pleat Strip From Hell, but messed it up and decided to call it a night. The next day, after spending the morning making buttonholes, I headed over to Heidi’s place for a sewing day, which was really low-key and fun. Lots of good advice and especially some good, aggressive egging-on from Kate. She pretty much shamed me out of my whinyness. I do get pretty whiny sometimes. If you’ve ever dealt with me in whiny-land, I hereby apologize and thank you for putting up with me.

Are you ready for the onslaught of pictures? Hold on to your butts! Here we go!

Yes! It’s a bustle! The color is really hard to photograph. The yellow bits are my boning channels. Kasper was interested in the ruffles. He knows I instinctively avoid them, but as I mentioned before, Kate was adamant, in a good way.

I learned a cool tip on making quick ruffles without any special equipment other than your sewing machine. Simply crank the top tension up to 11, set your stitch length as long as possible, and sew away. MAGIC!

I forgot to take a picture of the bustle finished (I was exhausted after sewing all day), but here are some pictures under the polonaise!

I love my mini bustle so much. I’m going to wear it just like that, with pants underneath. It’s really comfy and I’ll practice sitting in it next time I try it on.