Things I Learned to Do This Weekend

I've been carting around two books from the library for the last couple of weeks, The Sewing Bible, by Ruth Singer and Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting

From the The Sewing Bible, I finally learned a few things that I probably should know by now considering I've been sewing for almost a decade.

My beautiful first invisible zipper. So it's not so invisible on the right, but I think I got the hang of it on the left side. There's also a bit of a hole at the bottom where the zipper meets the seam. But, I think I'm going to stick to the IZ. I got an invisible zipper foot from an estate sale last summer which helps a lot and they just look so much better than normal zippers.

My awesome first bound buttonhole. All the sewing blogs talk about how hard they are, but I don't think hard is the word. The Sewing Bible lists 15 steps just for one buttonhole, so time-consuming best describes them. Not too bad, though, don't you think?

Since I was in a learning mood, I finally tried out the blind hem stitch on my machine. And it was terrible. Will probably stick to hand sewing blind hems (which I'm starting to enjoy and not dread).

I also finally learned how to use my bias tape foot. Yep, it worked.

And I used the Book of Fair Isle Knitting to learn, guess what? Fair Isle knitting. Here it is in the round (Alice Starmore says true Fair Isle Knitting is only done in the round).

And here is Fair Isle knit flat (I guess that's fake Fair Isle).

With Fair Isle, you actually have to knit with two hands, so I guess another thing I learned was knitting Continental style (or left-handed knitting). This made it not so much difficult as awkward, and I can get over awkward. I actually found Fair Isle easier knitting flat, it's easier to draw a long piece of yarn up than around, if that makes sense. Here's the back:

I originally thought all that loose yarn would be a mess to deal with, but they hold themselves pretty well.

That's all my learning for this week. I have a dress cut out in muslin, still trying to decide what fabric to use. And the dress involves an invisible zipper, yessss!

And if you want to see the results of the Auction Dress, click here.