Update: mending and alterations

Not a lot of interesting things to post I'm afraid, as I stopped making the cushions and bags and decided to catch up with 'the rail' in the sewing room.

'The rail' is an Ikea MULIG clothes rack in white which I have in the sewing room.
On here I hang any garment which needs my attention in someway, separated by cardboard spacers.
The categories are ironing, repairs, alterations and then one at the back which is for orphans, things I am wondering if I should keep and the 'other halves' to things earlier in the rack.

I decided to see what I could do to tackle the rail, and so started off by doing all the ironing over several sessions. This one keeps coming back of course, because I then happily wore a week of tailored shirts which needed ironing again. I did enjoy them with my work suits though so it is worth it, and having nixed the backlog is now managable.

I then did a couple of RTW repairs, one to sew up a little gap at the bottom of an invisible zip, and the other to repair an inseam pocket in a zip front tweed jacket. I also let out the legs slightly in some RTW trousers, and moved the buttons on a jacket. These are all now back in the wardrobe so a great win there but are too boring to take a photo. I still have a couple more repairs to do, but they need other colours of thread, so I decided to do a couple of alterations which needed black thread used for the other things.

I have a lovely purchased suit. It is classic black and has jacket, trousers, skirt and dress. In the changing room they were fabulous and I was a very happy bunny. In reality I can't actually walk in the lovely tapered skirt, and the dress front neckline chokes me.

So.... I decided to add a godet to the back of the skirt, this maintains the lovely tapered shape (which is exceedingly flattering I have to say) but allows a girl to actually walk about without mincing. I also added a godet section to the lining, so I wouldn't get any issues with it being see through.

Having experimented a bit I will share that a godet needs to have straight sides, but a curved hem. Which perhaps is obvious if I'd thought about it, but you live and learn.

I'm going to do the same to the dress next, plus alter the boat neck into a V so its more comfortable. This may take a while so don't hold your breath too much for the next post.

There is quite a lot of stuff on 'the rail' so it might be a while until I sew anything new from scratch. Sometimes though you just have to deal with those annoying sewing jobs, and I seem to be in that zone, so might as well make use of it.