Week 2: The Ogre

I was trying to decide what to focus on for this week. The first week consisted of a discussion about fabric choices because I hadn't taken good pictures of the block as I made it. This time I did take more pictures, so I figured I'd talk about how I make the blocks.

I'm a Type B person, so my approach to sewing isn't very organized. This is typically how I sort my fabric:

I keep the fabrics that are for the face (hair, eyes, skin, lips) closest to me, then toss the other bits slightly to the side. Typically, I don't label the fabric for my own patterns. Every so often, this bites me in the butt. I'm kind of surprised I didn't have issues with the shirt and sleeve fabrics given how close they are in color. But I use the little ruler at the bottom of my extension table to clarify any confusion lengths (e.g., 2.0 x 2.5). 

Personally, I hate stitch and flips. Especially rectangular stitch and flips (RSFs). I'll be honest with y'all: they suck. It takes more time to do them than it does regular stitch and flips because I have to pause to mark where to place the rectangle corners. Then (THEN) there's always a chance that my seam was off and I have to seam rip and resew them. I like to get it over with, so I always do them first.

This is just a personal preference. If you've made the pattern a few times, it may not hurt to try it! I chain piece all of my stitch and flips for the first few rounds of sewing. This lets me work on the entire block as I go, which is also my preference.

You can kind of see what I mean here. I've got the upper body going at the same time as the face. Also pictured: my messy table which needs some reorganization. 

Additionally, I always starch and iron each block/piece as I go. I prefer to press my seams open because of how many points they can have. I don't really press to the dark side; if I'm not pressing a seam open, I'm going with the path of least resistance. I starch the seams aggressively before ironing them so that they stay in place. I ran out of starch for the Lil' Lord and it was a massive pain to get the seams to lay flat. I would highly recommend starching for those of you that haven't tried it.

Once my seams are relatively flat and I've added another scorch mark to my ironing board, I'll start combining the pieces. I like having a little assembly line that gradually works from small to big. My goal is to have all of the small bits done around the same time.

That's about it for my process! To summarize, it's basically a progression of me getting the irritating bits done first, then jumping around in the pattern to insure that optimal assembly line potential is reached. In between these steps, large quantities of starch is used and I spend some time wondering if an expensive iron would be less likely to leave burn marks on my ironing board cover. 

And then I'm done!

Let me know what I should talk about during the next week. I'm leaning towards a bit of discussion regarding the design process, but I can pivot.