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Understanding Seam Allowance in Sewing: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners and Experts
In this post you learn how to add seam allowance to sewing patterns.
Do you want to learn how to sew garments that look professional and fit well? If so, you need to master the concept of seam allowance. Seam allowance is one of the most important aspects of sewing, yet it is often overlooked or misunderstood by many sewists.
In this guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about seam…
This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...
It. It kind of fucks. Severely.
And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.
I'll explain:
As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.
Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.
(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)
Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:
"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."
--Genesis 3:24, KJV
Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.
(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.
...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)
So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.
But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:
The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.
Do you understand?
The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.
The flaming sword was given to be used against them.
So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.
That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.
...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.
They're Crowley and Aziraphale.
(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)
In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.
It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.
...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.
And the Serpent--
(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)
--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.
As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:
"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization."
--Robert G. Ingersoll
The first to ask questions.
Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).
And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.
And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--
(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)
--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.
To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.
Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.
It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.
And then you keep writing.
And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.
(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).
It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)
...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:
I love this shot so much.
Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.
You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.
"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.
But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.
I’m always a fan of actors embodying their characters, but there’s something so special about watching the Critical Role cast and their deep love and connection to the characters they created.
It’s Liam saying he has synthetic memories of falling in love with Will. It’s Taliesin knowing the library and gardens in Whitestone by heart because he walks them in his mind so often. It’s Laura getting a nose bleed when Laudna dies. It’s Marisha crying as Beau offers the hag her happiness. It’s the cast not sleeping well for days after an intense episode because they can’t stop replying it in their heads. It’s Dani and Taliesin tearing up together as they talk about Ashton’s chronic pain mirroring their own. Its Liam working through the death of his mother through Vax. It’s the intimate and unmistakable ways that this game of pretend affects their lives and the deep love they have for each other and the game.
It’s falling in love with your friends over and over again in every universe. Role playing really is a language of love and I feel so lucky to witness it.
The final moments of the Ring of Brass reminds me of a quote from Doctor Who:
"Good is good in the final hour.
The deepest pit.
Without hope
Without witness
Without reward"
There was no hope that their efforts would stop the calamity, that they would be saved. There was no witness to see that they fought tooth and nail for the world. To give others a better fighting chance. There would be no reward for it, no recognition. No guarantee that they would walk again on the world they fought for.
They did it anyway. They did it because it was right. Because it was decent. And because of love for their families, for the world and for each other.
They may have been a group of arrogant egocentric megalomaniac flawed beings, but they were also good, at the very end.
On May 20, 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.
Originally called “XX” as they were considered extra, extra strong, they have continued to be manufactured ever since, taking the world by storm. Originally they were called waist overalls or britches and sold as working wear to miners, cowboys and general workers in central California.
In 1890, they began to be termed “501’s”, after their “lot”number. The term “jeans” comes from the old name for a similar woven fabric from Genoa called “Gene fustian” in the 16th century. The material was used to make working trousers for sailors. It seems that the name “jeans” was so strongly associated with pants and trousers that it evolved from a fabric name into the name of a garment.
The term “denim” went through a similar process. The town of Nîmes in France gave its name to “serge de Nimes” that originally was a form of woolen cloth. In the 19th century however, the term was associated with a cotton twilled fabric that was made in large numbers into trousers for navy of the Republic of Genoa.
By the 1920s, Levi’s denim waist overalls were the top-selling men’s work pant in the United States. As decades passed, the craze only grew, and now blue jeans are worn and beloved by people old, young and everything in between around the world.
(Pictures of the oldest pair in the Levi’s archives date from 1879; courtesy of Kate Sommers-Dawes/Mashable)
Really wish we could go back to a time when movies were worth something as long as they were fun to watch
Like I mentioned the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot (the all-female one) to someone bc i had a lot of fun watching that movie!! And they were like “that movie wasn’t that good it was just a comedy… It didn’t win anything did it?” like bitch …. The first Ghostbusters movie wasn’t fucking good either but I’m still sitting here watching some dudes chase a ghost through a library to some weird synth music so maybe movies don’t have to win awards to be worth watching
When I ask people about their fave movies I always ask for two:
1) Which movie do you just fuckin. Watch over and over again (mine is Groundhog Day)?
2) Which movie do you recommend to other people/to me specifically?
Like. These are two VERY different questions. I know my bff from high school is obsessed with the star wars prequels like SHE KNOWS THEY AINT GOOD. I asked my roommate the first question and they were like “fuck dude I just love Mrs doubtfire.” Like yeah you’re not gonna be telling every person you meet to watch Mrs doubtfire! But it’s okay if it’s a movie you like some movies are FUN
There’s an Ebert review, I believe, of the Brendan Frasier Mummy film. It basically goes, “k, there’s only one nice thing I can say about this movie, and that’s … I enjoyed pretty much every minute of it.”
Like. Was it a cinematic masterpiece? No. Do you want to pop some popcorn and put it on while you hang out with your D&D group or whatever? Hell, yeah. It’s fun.
“There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased.”
It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”
Like.
No?
Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.
Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)
Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.
Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.
But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?
Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.
It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).
“women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected to love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty.”
According to the website smartbitchestrashybooks, which analyzes romance novels to a great degree, one common element of the average romance novel is what they call the grovel. That is, there’s a turning point near the climax of the book where the leading man says, in effect, “I hurt you. I had my reasons, but they don’t make it right. I am devastated that I hurt you, and I will do whatever it takes to make it okay again. Leaving you is completely on the table even though I find the prospect horrific.”
And that’s a very important fantasy. To have your feelings, your pain, be made so absolutely central to the narrative, to someone else’s world. You could call it a power fantasy, but I don’t think that’s exactly right. It’s a significance fantasy. A romance story is a story in which the woman is the most significant damn thing in the book.
And when you think of it like that, you realize why some people are really, really threatened by it.
the Met Gala funds the Met Costume Institute. meaning, basically, the Met’s clothing collection
from what I’ve read, it is the main source of funding for the Institute, which houses over 31,000 garments and accessories from the 17th century onwards
as for why the Costume Institute needs a separate fundraiser from the rest of this vast world-class museum with many high-profile donors…I have often wondered that myself. in the same breath as wondering why the Met has so few and sparse costume exhibits in any given year, and why some pieces on their collections website are outright misdated
but that’s the situation, so. that’s what the Met Gala is for. it’s not just rich people parading around in couture for fun. it keeps a huge museum collection of historical clothing preserved, so people can learn from and be inspired by those garments for years to come
(via ticket sales to the aforementioned rich people parading around in couture. and, in the case of guests who attend for free, the designers who make said couture and pay for tables for their celebrity models as publicity)
I’m not affiliated with the Met or the Met Costume Institute, but I am in graduate school and work in a museum with a substantial clothing and textile collection, so I will take a stab at it:
Storage: Clothing and Textiles (C&T) take up A LOT of space. Garments are usually stored by laying them flat in drawers or by being hung. You can’t fold them, you can’t store them on mannequins long term. They require space and (like all museum collections) sympathetic and specialized storage materials like acid-free tissue and boxes. That stuff is expensive.
Conservation: to put older garments on exhibit, you often need to bring in specialized textile conservators to just prep the garments for exhibition. Some historical pieces are too fragile to go on a mannequin (we have an AMAZING beaded 1920s flapper dress that lives in its drawer because the straps aren’t strong enough to hold it up on a mannequin and the skirt is approximately 600 billion seed and tube beads that need pinned in place). A lot of historic garments need conservation and/or restoration work before going on exhibit ( I spent MONTHS repairing the bodice of a 1950s gown, including recreating the beadwork). One of the common materials from the late 19th century was weighted silk; weighted silk has been treated with lead and other metallic salts. This means it literally breaks down over time. Chunks fall off. It shreds. You have to make sure the object can stand up to the rigors of exhibition before going on exhibit.
Exhibition is stressful for objects. Light is extremely damaging to most museum objects, and exhibition means extended periods for days on end. People coming in and out of the gallery means that the temperature and relative humidity is going to fluctuate, also causing damage to the objects. Just being on a mannequin, and out of its dark, safe, controlled environment is stressful for garments. My museum is talking about putting an exhibit of out 19th century clothing in the next year or so; our C&T curator needs to bring in a conservator to guide the process because we have to make sure the garments can handle it.
Also, textile conservators are expensive and highly sought after. Most museums don’t have one on staff. I don’t know if the Met does. Work on historic garments takes a long time, especially since most of it has to be done by hand.
Mannequins are also expensive. Many historic garments can’t go on adult mannequins; the mannequins are too big and the garments are too small. When C&T in my museum has exhibited 19th garments, we have to break out the kid-sized mannequins, and even then, they’re sometimes too big. Plus you have to store the mannequins when they’re not being used, which takes up mire space.
People: C&T is traditionally underfunded. It often doesn’t draw in the big donors. For things like quilts and other fiber arts, it’s often not seen as art the way paintings are. It’s women’s work, and women’s work is traditionally undervalued. Our C&T curator is constantly trying to raise money for her position’s endowment, to ensure that when she retires, another curator will be hired. There’s a museum about 2 hours north of where I am; they have a large C&T collection, but haven’t had a curator in years.
I don’t know how the Met’s budget is laid out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Costume Institute’s budget was one of the smaller ones.
sharing this again because, as a museum worker myself, I deeply appreciate you adding all the related info!
and as for C&T being underfunded. it’s so true.
one of the museums I work at, a 19th-century historical house, has a collection of amazing period garments and accessories. we have a general curator, but guess who’s the primary person on staff with specialist textile/dress history knowledge?
me
the tour guide/admin assistant/museum tech with no graduate degree who learned textile conservation from working with antique dolls
(fortunately I have a lot of field experience and do independent research, so I do know enough to keep the collection stable, mount garments for temporary display, etc. but still. before me, we had no C&T person at all. after me, we likely won’t have one again. and that’s normal)
this is a huge area of museum work with precious few resources to spare. and it’s not like museums have pots of cash to throw around in general. so sometimes, we have to let donors peacock a bit to get their money
[ID: a tweet from @/posthuman. It reads, “Remember, if you buy an album from bandcamp, it’s around the financial equivalent to the artist of you streaming their music every day for 3 years.”
/end ID.]
bandcamp fridays 2022 are coming soon!! if you buy from artists on friday march 4th, april 1st or may 6th, they will get all of the earnings from sales (as opposed to the usual 80%). support ur local independent artists ^^
There's a tumblr post floating around somewhere that says "We think that if we get better at writing, it will someday stop sounding like we wrote it" or something along those lines.
Does anyone happen to have a link handy? I want to reference it in an advice post.
[ID: a tweet by elicia donze that reads "People hate their own art because it looks like they made it. They think if they get better, it will stop looking like they made it. A better person made it. But there's no level of skill beyond which you stop being you. You hate the most valuable thing about your art. /end ID]
