Lady Grey Progress (Details)

After all my weekend travel in October, I finally had a chance this past weekend to get back to work on my Lady Grey Coat.

Some things I accomplished since Friday:

• Cut out shell fabric
• Sewed sleeves, belt and belt loops.
• Made two practice bound buttonholes and two real ones and one self-covered button (had to use my teeth to get the back on!)
• Seamed back pieces
• Pad-stitched the under-collar and one lapel (working on the other tonight).

As one might guess from this list, I'm kinda going at this a little scattershot.

I sewed the sleeves and belt because I wanted to see instant progress, and I wanted to get all the pad stitching set up so I could do the actual hand-sewing watching TV during the week. My hope is to have all the hand stitching done by the end of Friday and get the majority of the shell sewn this weekend and the lining fabric cut out. The goal is to have a finished coat by Thanksgiving. Wish me luck!!

Here are some progress photos of my favorite details:

Top stitching on the seams. It makes the coat look particularly "coaty" to me.

Pad stitching on the lapel.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but it makes a huge difference in the way the lapel lays. It's a time consuming process, but totally worth it I think. The finished lapel took me some Jeopardy!, an hour of the Ken Burn's Mark Twain documentary and two hours of Circus on PBS. (Which, have you seen Circus? It's really really well done. I'm enjoying it lot.)

Pad-stitching on the roll line of the under-collar.

Getting Back in the Swing

I certainly didn't intend to take a month-long hiatus, but life, as it is wont to do, often does it own thing. Having now had an entire week of evenings to do whatever I want to do with them I finally felt ready to come back.

Generally, I knit a lot and sew a little in the cooler months and sew a lot and knit less in the warmer ones. Despite tonight's frost warning, we are definitely edging into those warmer months here in Maine and the sewing bug is hitting me hard.

I made  pair of aprons back in March for my new York trip, but the last item of clothing I made was this skirt, back in December, which I don't think I ever showed here. 

Before I could jump into new projects though I made myself tackle my small mending pile first, so Saturday morning I sewed on some buttons and darned one of my handknit socks while making gardening shows on New Hampshire PBS. It was rather relaxing. Later that day Mr. Cleaver and I headed out to the theatre to watch a pair of readings and then went to try the famous fries at duckfat, which are seriously good.

On Sunday, I started (and finished!) a new sewing project, as well as put something together that was nine-months in the waiting. Both of which I'll share later this week, when I've taken some photos.

It's good to be back.

Things I'll Miss about Chicago

This list is in no particular order, but here are some of my favorite things about Chicago:

• My friends and coworkers
• Katie Cakes at Taste of Heaven 

• Seeing free performances and films in Chicago public parks
• Wistfully dog-watching on Montrose Beach
• Gazing at Toulouse-Lautrec's Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando) at the Art Institute, while everyone else in the room is look at A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.
• Spending my Saturdays like I'm Bueller cutting school (minus singing in parades).

 

• Museum Campus and The Shedd, The Field, and the Adler Planetarium.
• Seeing an original Francesca Woodman photograph in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art.
• The Great Kids museum passes available at the library that let me see all the great museums for free.

• The perfectly wonderful, perfectly free Lincoln Park Zoo.
• Shopping with Kasey and finding awesome deals.
• The non-equity theatre scene.
• Len & Bob's coverage of Cubs Baseball on WGN.
• Wrigley Field. 

• Scoring free tickets to not one, but two original plays involving talking paintings.
• Concerts and the photo booth, not to mention eating dinner near Eisley, at Schubas.
• Amy Freeze, the meteorologist on Channel 83. (Take that Tom Skilling!)
• The folks at Epworth United Methodist.
• Vogue Fabrics in Evanston and the friendly folks at Loopy Yarns.
• Going for walks in Andersonville and buying Zanzibar Dark Chocolate Ice Cream at Sweet Occasions.
• Barbecues on Foster Beach.
• The doormen in our building. 
• Being 3 blocks from two grocery stores, a deep dish pizza place, and a Blockbuster.

• People watching at the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park
• The El on a good day.
• The Harold Washington Library.
• "Check Please!" and the generally good programing on the local PBS/WTTW.
• SnB Northside. 

I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but it's a solid list. Yes, I'll miss a lot about Chicago, but don't worry too much about me. I'm going to Maine!