32 Sewing Mistakes

Here's a list of my Dickens Faire 2010 sewing mistakes. 

The list is not comprehensive, but you get the idea:

1. Who knew historical bloomers don’t close at the butt? Yeah, I’m hanging wide open here.
2. Sewed bloomer ruffle inside out. Will have to live with this one… sewed on smallest stitching so it’s impossible to take out.  Oops.
3. Pins disappear into carpet. Ouch.
4. So… that cute 3D fabric with popup flowers I bought for my Chemise… well, it’s a PAIN and-a-half to get the thick flowers to fold inside a French seam. Flower fragments line my floor.
5. Oh, THAT’s why we make the armband twice as wide… it’s supposed to cover over the ruffled sleeve seams. Too bad I sewed it shut. Oops.
6. Are the sleeves of my Chemise supposed to stay ON my shoulders?  Hmm…
7. The instructions warning that the blue tailor’s chalk won’t come out if you iron it are right. Chemise has blue polka dots on it.
8. By the way… Walmart white chalk does not mark on dark fabrics worth ANYTHING.
9. Yay! Second bodice toile is long enough! Let’s try to make a straight sleeve.
10. Let’s try again.
11. One more for good measure. Alright, whatever... it will do.
12. Somehow ruched my bodice darts.
13. Thought I was being cool by using two different colors of threads (one for lining, one for front. Not so cool: Blue shows through.
14. Did some sort of weird edging on bodice sleeves. Must problem solve this later.
15. Can’t figure out if the bodice boning should curve toward body or away. Did a combo of both. Bad idea.
16. Used super small popper-snap buttons to close bodice … big mistake.
17. Couldn’t get buttons to line up for the LIFE of me. Spent all Thanksgiving doing this.  32 button pieces later…
18. Somehow forgot to clip curves on collar border before finishing seams
19. Can’t figure out how to make a collar to fit my bodice neck
20. Added facing to bottom of bodice without adjusting it to coincide with the bodice lengthening.
21. Made facing again.
22. Made facing in contrasting color thinking it would form some sort of contrasting accent to bottom of bodice. No, it’s just meant to be turned to the inside (hence the word FACING), so the contrasting color was a stupid idea and can be partially seen from the front.
23. Didn’t buy enough brown thread. Using super dark thread now. Oh well.
24. Keep getting dull pins that snag my fabric.
25. I asked Heather how long to lengthen my skirt (due to my giantess status). She said three. Fabric worker at Hancock said 6. I lengthened 7… for good measure. This ended up causing me to keep the selvedges attached to tops and bottoms of skirt. (Can’t tell if either of these things are a mistake yet. I’m sure they are…. Just waiting to see.
26. Cut skirt panels along the selvedge instead of against it (or whatever way’s wrong… I can’t figure out how to say it right)… Therefore: 
27. a) Fabric print goes left to right rather than up and down.
28. b) Fabric hangs crappy
29. Sewed skirt seams together on wrong stitching setting therefore seams are bunched up
30. Somehow sewed front skirt panel to back skirt panel without side panels in between. Oh well, I’ll just move the markings to another panel. Weird.
31. Sewed waistband too short
32. Sewed waistband too short again; it started to fray I took it apart so many times.
33. To be continued…