When I was a small child, someone gave me a crewel kit, partly sewn already.  It was a hive of bees, with bees buzzing all over the place, and flowers.  There were instructions teaching each stitch.  I enjoyed sewing it very much... in fact, it probably started my love affair with needle and thread.  But I didn't like the pattern... I was not a fan of orange, and this kit was one of those 1970's shades of orange... Anyway, the kit came to me half-started and left me half-finished. 

Years later (2012), I was moving to a wilderness area with limited internet access and decided to bring some handwork with me.  I found online a beautiful crewel kit in the Jacobean style, ordered it, and waited. 

​I moved to Portland in March 2014, and one of my goals while in my new locale was to learn to draft clothes.  This circle skirt, made with brilliantly printed cotton with a hibiscus flower pattern, was one of my very first attempts!  Lacking a sewing machine, I hand-sewed it. 

Most of my early sewing projects have long since been consigned to Goodwill, in hopes that someone else will love them more than I did, but this happy skirt has been a prominent member of my closet since I made it!  When you're learning a new skill, it's nice to have an early success, to encourage you to keep going.

​One day in 2015, my friend Dwayne and I did a photoshoot, showing off my outfit and playing with his camera. ​ More recently, I took some pics of the hand-sewing and interior construction. 

​Sometime, I fall into a hole in the internet.  No, not a time-sucking vacuum of a hole, like when I go to TVtropes.com and emerge hours later wondering where my day went; I mean a content gap of a hole, where I can't find the information I'm looking for, and I don't know if I'm using the wrong search terms of if--incredible as it may seem--the information is not there!  Such was the case when I went looking for a pattern to sew a Glengarry cap.  Plenty of info about Glengarry caps was to be found, but when I added the search term "pattern", I only got crochet patterns (not useful for sewing) and a bewildering amount of Iroquois beadwork.  Now, I like Iroquois beadwork as much as the next sewing-obsessed bead-loving person, but it does not help me turn my upholstery scraps into a cute Glengarry cap!  

I made this underbust corset in April, 2014, based on Jacci Jaye's Corset Pattern #1, over on BurdaStyle.  I hand-sewed the entire thing, and later reviewed the pattern.  I'll go into more detail in this post.