I'm in no danger of being mistaken for a glover.

[bethzylla]

The next event I'll be attending is a Regency outing to the Fort Worth Symphony's Beethoven concert.  It's in about a week.  And since it wouldn't feel like a real event if I didn't heap tons of work on myself at the last minute, I figured I'd better make myself a pair of fancy evening gloves.

I started with Kwik Sew #2326, which is designed for stretchy fabrics.  My fabric is an off-white suedecloth and has a negligible amount of stretch.So, I did a LOT of slashing and spreading.  I also lengthened the fingers to match my actual fingers and allowed extra room at the glove top for my 'generous' biceps.


A lot of surviving gloves have embroidery.  I have a love/hate relationship with my embroidery machine, but if there's ever a time to get over yourself and just do it that time is when you need embroidered gloves!




My first hurdle came right away - literally my first seam.  I'd slashed and spread everything except the thumb!  Finger-sized thumbs just aren't gonna cut it.


Back to the cutting room for some slashing and spreading.  Oh, and more embroidery.


That's better!


From there it was a combination of tedious machine and hand sewing.  Seam allowances for gloves is 1/8" and that takes extra concentration.  I set the thumbs into the glove body by hand because that really is just easier, if more time consuming.  I have a special foot that helps get a true 1/8" seam allowance (in theory) but it does require you to sew 'backwards' with the edge of the fabric along the left side of the presser foot.


Still, I did have some issues that will need to be corrected before an actual wearing.


I think they'll be good enough for an evening event in low lighting.  One glove down, one to go!

Comments

[kaesha-nikovana.livejournal.com]

Well, I should preface this by saying my machine is now considered pretty bottom-of-the-line. But it was a cheap buy from a craigslist ad, and it's the same machine I was very first exposed to so I was already familiar with its features. It's a Brother PE-150.

I like that it has some on-board capabilites (mirroring, changing where in the hoop the embroidery will go, increasing or decreasing size by a small amount, and some monogram files loaded in on-board memory.) It does detect when there's a problem with the thread (breakage or bobbin has run out) but I've found it often doesn't detect this in a timely manner.

Which leads me into the things I don't like. After fixing a problem with the thread, moving forward/backward in the design to the point where the problem occurred is difficult. It's a serious issue in larger designs, as it only 'remembers' a certain number of stitches. The largest field it's capable of embroidering is 4"x4", which is inconvenient for me. I recommend buying a machine with as large an embroider-able field as you can. While many designs are offered in a variety of sizes, the larger versions tend to have more detail and 'wow' factor. Resizing designs is possible, but gets tricky at about 15% change. After that point you need to adjust stitch density in digitizing software, and finding something user-friendly is like finding a unicorn. I'd also prefer a larger and more detailed screen on my machine. I've also seen what's effectively a laser guidance system, so you know exactly where your design is centered (or where a corner is, etc.) That one feature could have saved me so many headaches!

I guess what it boils down to is buy the best machine you can afford. You won't regret having all the bells-and-whistles that comes with it.