Work in Progress Wednesday

I'm working on tracing another Ottobre pattern, #5 Canvas cargo crops from issue 5/2008.

I've pulled sheet A as per the instructions, and I'm tracing the pieces that are outlined in black onto Pattern-Ease, which is a Pellon product (last time I bought it at JoAnn's it had a different name on the bolt -- it's the stuff that's about 45 inches wide). I'm tracing the lines for size 36.



The shapes to the right are the pieces I've already traced; I've written a number on each one. The upper left shows the Pattern-Ease over the pattern sheet -- you can see that it's very translucent. And the bottom left shows what the pattern sheet looks like.

At this point I haven't added any seam allowances. Some people do slick things to add the seam allowances while they trace, but I like to trace the outline first, then add the seam allowance later. Also, I've traced these pieces with a Sharpie. Really, this is considered Bad. Drawing pattern pieces with marker is messy and imprecise; also, it bleeds through the Pattern-Ease and gets on the original. But my cutting is rather messy and imprecise, and I have loads of Sharpies available.

Next photo, I'm starting to add a 1 cm seam allowance using my hem measure and a fine-tip Sharpie ... and we see that I have help making sure that big piece of Pattern-Ease doesn't drift off of the table:



Yes, besides the fact that Pattern-Ease is translucent, it also holds up to marauding cats. If you've ever had cats searching for stray "mice" in your tissue patterns, you know why that's important.

Hey, look what else is on the table:



Another lace collar is drying! You think you're getting tired of looking at lace collars every Wednesday WIP? Yeah, well, just imagine crocheting the things. Yikes. I was halfway through another one when I realized I was going to run out of crochet cotton. I headed to the store to get more, and realized the store was closed ... had to go to a different store, which had a different brand, and I swear, the brightness factor of the white was different. So, ditch the half-made collar, and start over with a new brand of thread. I don't know if I'll ever get all of these done.