random thoughts – Day 2,228 (Thursday) – sweatshop saga – the final fourth tier

Preparation of the final tier.

 I woke up early. The pinned big skirt beckoned. After a couple cups of coffee the third tier was stitched, I was pleased, and it was time to start on the fourth and final tier. It’s the home stretch. 

Laid out across the floor, the flattened circle tier ran from the bedroom, through the living room, and ended in a heap outside the living room door. It looked like a fancy runway for a cat fashion show. Kiki was doing her day shift in the bedroom and had no interest in the metallic splendor laid out on the floor. 

The plan for the tier was to mark the center front and back, sides, and halfway between the centers and sides to help with setting the tier equally around the bottom of the skirt. During the marking, I realized the bottom edge wasn’t hemmed yet, which is easier when done as a detached flat panel instead of a gathered ruffle with the weight of the entire skirt to manage at the machine.

It took several hours to hem the 25 yards of fabric in the tier, and some if it was due to my planning. At first, I pressed the edge with the iron and then pinned the hem, which was time consuming. When my back hurt from hovering over the iron and hem edge, I decided to start the sewing. Several yards had been pinned and then stitched with complications. The thread tension dial on the machine kept changing from 4 to 0, resulting in the stitching on the underside being loose. Much thread was ripped out. I sew, therefore I rip. Then I resew. There was a lot of “for fox sake” being uttered.

I finally realized I was bumping the dial as I removed pins with my left hand and set them in the pin box to my right because there was no room to the left and the skirt would knock them all to the floor. That’s when I skipped pinning the rest of the tier and hand formed it as I sewed. It was slower sewing, but faster overall without the separate pinning step.

Pinned about 3/4 around.

The momentum of the hemming propelled me to the pinning of the tier. It was slightly easier than pinning the third tier yesterday, but still tricky. Despite trying to carefully space the tier, some sections ended up not quite matching and would run out of ruffle for the space (like the previous tier). Sections were reworked (some several times) to redistribute the fullness. After hours of labor, it’s pinned only about ¾ of the way around. The end is in sight.

A decent night of sleep, some morning coffee, and with luck, the rest of the tier will be pinned and the whole thing stitched by lunchtime Friday. Hopefully. Fingers are crossed.