Working in fits and starts

Yesterday I began  the scary task of attaching the ribbons of text to the kittle. I tend not to be someone who uses pins. I know that most of the world will pin stuff that needs to be sewn straight before sewing it in place. If I use pins I am guaranteed to stab myself in a horrible way. Most of the time I manage by holding things tightly, and most of the time, that method works.

My hold tight method failed miserably. It failed when I chose to do a complicated multi part stitch that ended up being sewn completely crooked onto the shoulder yoke of the kittle.

It took over an hour to unpick 21 inches of sewing. Let me repeat that, it took over an hour to unpick 21 inches of sewing. That was not a fun hour.

I then turned to the emporium that saves me from nearly all emergencies, the dollar store downstairs from my apartment. The dollar store always carries iron on hem tape. I thought that I could baste  the ribbon to the kittle with the hem tape.

Well, the dollar store had double sided hem tape. rather than the iron on kind. On the plus side it works great holding the ribbon in place. On the negative side,(and it took me entirely too long to figure this out)  the needle gets gummy from the sewing through the hem tape. A gummy needle skips stitches.

 I have spent lots of today unpicking bad stitches and removing the needle from the sewing machine, wiping all of the adhesive off with a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol and then reinstalling the needle in the machine. Yes, it is exactly as annoying as it sounds.

And yet....

by the time I had completed appliqueing the text onto the yoke, I was pretty pleased with the result.

I then decided to begin applying text to the back of the kittle. I need to add pleats to the to kittle back. I assume that the pleats will be above the shoulder blades, just like on a dress shirt.

I decided to add the block of text in a V shape. I pressed the V into the back piece and began the process of stitching and needle cleaning.

Yes, you can see some

of the skipped stitches if you look closely. Yes, I plan to repair those.

I have a few more rows of  to add to this unit. Below you can see my trusty rolls of hem tape.

I plan to outline this V with additional ribbon. Don't worry, it will look tidy by the time I am done.

Now you can see the yoke with the kittle back. 

Now I am switching topics. I drive my husband crazy when I do that without warning. So feel warned. 

After finishing today's work I walked towards the living room. Our living room faces west.  On evenings with especially wonderful sunsets the yellow painted  living room glows- that's actually why I chose that color for the room. Tonight the room glowed. 

I checked out the sunset, and it was indeed spectacular.

Tomorrow more kittle work awaits me.