It’s March First and it’s still snowing. I’d like to be as every other New Englander and complain about it, but I’m just done. Maybe we’re all done. It’s time to adjust to the “new normal” of cold, bitter snow and probably-forever winter weather. So I can’t go outside, and half of our things are packed to move to the other side of the river (this winter has really proved its point in this need), and so I shall sew.

But before I can do any type of sewing I have to prep the pattern. I found this pattern at the thrift store which can mean a variety of things, some worse than others. So the first thing I do is check to make sure all the pattern pieces are, in fact, included.

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In this case, they are. I verify each piece against the back of the pattern packaging to how many pieces I should have compared to what I have.  The next thing is to see the condition of the pattern. Luckily for me, it appears that this pattern was cut and traced instead of cut and used.  So the next step is to iron the pattern pieces flat.

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I have a terrible habit of using steam when it’s not at all necessary, so I remove the steam container from my iron to ensure I cannot steam the tissue pattern. If I steam the tissue, the entire pattern is a) ruined, and b) ruined. There’s not much of a way to recover from an accident of this sort, so I just do myself a big favor now and take the entire steam compartment out.

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A word on my iron. I freaking love this thing. A) I can remove the steam chamber, so that’s already a win. B) it’s cordless. Yes, cordless. And that alone is pretty much the best thing ever, but there’s one more thing: it’s pointed on both ends. Because it is heated in its charger, it doesn’t need to sit upright and therefore both ends of the iron are at a point which makes so much freaking sense, I don’t know if I can ever go back to a regular iron.

So the next step is to trace the pattern to newsprint. I use old-school carbon paper to make the transfer. I can re-use one sheet probably 30 times. Justin & I always buy them when we see them at the thrift store because I think it’s one of these things that aren’t easily produced any more. Their original purpose was to make duplicates on a typewriter.  I imagine we could buy some transfer paper made just for sewing, but this is likely way, way cheaper.  And you know me.

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I use an embossing tool to trace the original to the paper because I don’t want to mark the pattern pieces in the event I should like to sell it. Which I might.  Then I simply write all the instructions as necessary from the piece to the paper.

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So this is what Part One entails. A lot of youtubes and pencil work.  Next step will be cut out the pieces and then to alter the pattern (slash & spread) to fit my body.  This is a vintage pattern, size 14½. I think this would equal to a vanity size of about a US 8-10.   So I’ll either update tomorrow or later today depending on how much I get done.