On Working Without a Net:

Yesterday I sewed myself a mini or opera cape.















It is black cotton, 3/ 4 inch wide grosgrain ribbon for the tie, and 1/ 4 inch wide grosgrain ribbon and clear glass buttons for decoration.















I wasn’t careful with my scissors and cut a little where I shouldn’t have, so I added a strip of ribbon down the center back to hide the mistake and added a little bow and button there too, just for good measure.

I was going to make the mini cape shorter but with my elephant ear upper arms… (You know what I mean. The excess flesh on your upper arm that when you are done waving goodbye it keeps on waving long after the person is gone from sight.) Well, when I made it to come to mid upper arm it came to a bad place bringing attentions to the flab on my arms so I went with making it a little longer and hiding the ugly. So now it comes almost to the elbow.

Of course it doesn’t matter if I wear it with long sleeves but if I wear it over a gown or short sleeves I’m joke fodder for weeks.

The reason my sewing projects take a bit longer to accomplish is I rarely work with a pattern. And although I do have a dressmakers dummy it is not larger enough for my ample size at the moment. I wind up having to try the thing on any number of times, accidentally sticking pins into myself as I go. (It’s not the prickings that gets to me, it’s the blood stains.) Ha, ha.

Thankfully they don’t show as much on black. Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true.

I also worked on my long, hooded, black velvet cloak/cape. It is getting a light gray lining and a matching muff. But I’ll post more about that at another date.

Yes, I know it is nearing the end of winter and you are asking yourself, why is she making it now? Because now the fabric is on sale to make room for all those colorful spring and summer prints I don‘t buy.