A Year in the Making, Day 173

I missed out on the light today to get pictures of the antiqued turquoise piece. Tomorrow! *fingers crossed*

I also missed out on yesterday altogether. I had pictures taken all ready to post. I also tweaked my neck this weekend. We're rearranging the basement, and got new desks, and then I set grommets and was hand-sewing buttons, and my head support was very vocal in its unappreciation of my efforts. I took a muscle relaxer, and was *zonked* on the sofa at about 8:30.

I never posted the first stages of a vest alteration project, I just realized. I've had this vest for over a year, maybe as long as 2 years, and have had this idea for an outfit based on it for that long. The vest when I bought it was a little too big, and after losing 15 pounds over the last year, it was even baggier. I took a long thing wedge out of the back and an elongated oval out of each side, and finished the raw edges with extra wide double fold bias tape:





There it sat until last night, as I was procrastinating the setting of the 72 grommets I'd set for myself to do. I finally got around to it last night. I'll be redoing the laces. I bought 1/4" black grosgrain ribbon, I know I did. I don't know where I put it safely so I could use it when I finally got around to setting the grommets. My sewing room is a black hole. Especially when you consider how much black fabric I have.

Helpful hint, a general rule of thumb I've discovered for lacing. Whatever the length of the piece you need to lace, measure out a piece of lacing with about an inch extra on either end, then multiply by four if the edgings will meet when closed. That's the bare minimum.

On to pictures of the newly laced vest:





The next step, in progress already, is to replace those shiny brass ball buttons with some silver ones. It's missing three of the 36 buttons already, and they're just too bulbous and bright for me. And besides, black and burgundy and silver is MY color combo. I got 8 done last night. I would have gotten more if I'd remembered "Hey, this vest is suede. It's going to be hard to sew through. Better bring a thimble!" But I didn't. Owie.

As an added bonus, here's photographic proof of what a geek I was in high school, found during the great basement re-org of 2010:



That's right. My senior year in high school (1989, for those interested), I lettered in Academics and double-lettered in Band. Oh, and by the way, no, I never went to band camp.