Sunday, September 15, 2019

The D-Shaped Veil--Doing It My Way

Last night, when my husband and cat were asleep, I went back to the D-shaped veil project and attempted to make more progress.

Progress was slow in coming.  I kept having a hard time seeing where to put the needle in for the best results.  Despite that, I managed to sew another 3 inches or so...

And then I realized that I was sewing  the hem on the wrong side.  That is, I was working the hem toward the front side--where everything would be visible when the veil was in wear.  And I had quite a few stitches (maybe 10-12 to the inch) to undo.

So I undid the stitches, and started all over again.  This time, I decided that learning how to do a rolled hem was not in the cards for me.  Or, at least, it was not in the cards with this fabric.  Instead, I did a tiny double-folded hem (a bit like the one on St. Louis's shirt, a 13th century CE linen tunic) and whip-stitched the bottom edge to the base fabric with tiny stitches with my matching gray thread.  This is coming out so much better!  Now about 8 inches of it are done.  

We'll see how I feel about this decision when I reach the curved part of the veil, though!*


* Photograph from Heather Rose Jones's essay "Another Look at St. Louis's Shirt". The essay can be found here. The photograph I linked to from the essay was taken by Stephen Bloch.

2 comments:

  1. Wait, what is going on in that photo of the St. Louis's shirt can't be a normal rolled hem, or it wouldn't have those extra extensions that make an X at the base of the neck. It kinda looks like there is a closed slit below the crossing which is similar to the length of the X, yet if the arms of the X came from that slit then there should be more gathering where the area from which they were removed are brought together. If the "rolled hem" is actually a separate bit of cloth folded over the cut edge of the neck hole I would expect it to look thicker.

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    1. Hi, Kareina!

      I've given up on making a rolled hem--that's the point I was trying to make. The hem I am making is more like a small folded hem, of about the size as the neckline finish on St. Louis's shirt. I do agree that it's odd how the "X" on the shirt's neckline was made, though.

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