#disabled sewing

[basketofmooneggs]

Happy Disability Pride Month! RetroClaude has great sewing content and talks openly about her disabilities. This video walks through tips for sewing and crafting with a disability. I use her tips on the regular and she put them all in one video just for disability pride month. Have a look!

[dngrcpckwithmurdericing]

Disabled sewing - YMMV

I watch a lot of what seems to be affectionately known as "costube" and I make a lot of my own clothes at this point, which is !!!!! to me, since it was always a dream of mine when I was a kid. I found costube invaluable to me to explain how garments piece together - which is the first thing I have realized about my "disabled sewing".

I have read SO many books and purchased SO many patterns, only to give up in frustration, but actually watching someone piece together a garment from start to finish (and not in the Project Runway sense) made my ADHD, visual learning brain go: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

(Not sure why that surprised me, since "watch one, do one, teach one" is how I learn the best and always has been.)

Modern sewing is pretty focused on sewing machines, and I have had many in my life (starting with one from the 1950s set into a wooden table that folded up to have a glass top !) but I find it difficult and confusing to keep track of what I am doign with a sewing machine. Hand stitching, just because of what it is, forces me to slow down and focus on one seam at a time.

But my hands cramp and have tremors and that does not seem to be the case for the folks who film their sewing adventures.

I have learned to use a long needle. This goes against most hand sewing advice for clothes, because a short, small needle gives you lss of a "puncture" through the fabric and more "cntrol", but a longer needle, as long as it is slim, can still fit throug the weave of the fabric instead of puncturing it - especially with how loosely woven modern fabric is - and since there's more room to hold it, I can switch ff which fingers hold it, change the shape of my hand as it is holding it, and also don't drop it when my fingers tremor.

In hand stitching garments, if you read manuals - especially historical ones from the Victorian era - and sometimes in the "costube" videos - there's focus on making tiny, neat stitches. Well. First of all, the interior of your garment is your own, so if you are doing a back stitch, your garment will pretty much stick together, and no one will see. But also, I learned (I think from something Matthew Gnagy said in one of his videos) that modern fabric is so much more loosely woven than historical fabrics that tiny stitches can actually make your garment LESS structurally sound, rather than more. Since I learned that, I stopped feeling bad about not being able to make my stitches one mm long, and started focusing on getting the stitching done in a way that does not hurt/exacerbate my hand, finger, and wrist problems. I usually end up with 2 stitches per cm, or 4-5 stitches to an inch.

Yes, this is drastically fewer stitches per inch than you'd get with a sewing machine, and it might not work for something like a kirtle, where the stitches are taking the full weight stress of the garment, but you know what? If I were making a kirtle, I could just do TWO LINES OF STITCHING and then I would have 10 stitches per inch, and that measure can take about 50 lbs of stress (per sewing machine guidelines), which would be fine. (Although there is a 0% chance I will ever make a kirtle, since I can't wear tight things and couldn't button the sleeves up anyway!)

I mark out my stitch lines with pencil or pen (I don't use fancy fabrics, so what do I care if there's a pen mark on my cotton until it's washed?), and am very careless with seam allowance. As long as the seam allowance exists, the vagarities don't really matter - and cutting in a straight line is a no-go because of my hands and wrists, so not having to worry about cutting along a seam allowance line is great.

And then I often take a bright cheap polyester thread and baste. I can't sew in a straight line. I literally cannot draw a straight line with a ruler. But that actually rarely matters! If there's a running stitch every inch or so, I can eyeball it enough to get a decent enough seam. If someone is looking so closely at my clothing that they can see the side seam or the hem is a cm crooked, they are frankly standing way too close to me and should step the fuck away.

One thing some costubers do that I thought would be helpful but turned out to not work for me personally is pin the end of the fabric to a tailor's ham, or pillow, to help keep the tension. But it may work for some folks.

Finally, the last thing on my list is that due to my migraines, I have a hard time stitching in natural sunlight. However, I've found that my seasonal affective disorder sunlamp, which has brightness levels and can be situated into the exact position I want, make stitching a lot easier! And also can be used at any time of day, so if I want to sew at 7 pm, I don't have to worry that I am losing the sunlight, I can just adjust my lamp that does NOT trigger migraines, and sew for a half hour that way.

Lots of breaks are also crucial! Every 15 minutes or so, I give my hands and eyes a rest, and move around as much as I can to stretch out, just like when I'm working on the computer. Or, like, how I try to do when working on the computer and fail because I'm too hyperfocused on what I'm doing.

\o/

What are your disabled sewing tricks and tips?

[ganbattesewing]

Sewing Custom Wheelchair Aprons by lifedisabled

Link: https://youtu.be/emhFbuk8jlE

[dngrcpckwithmurdericing]

More disabled sewing!!

I'm making my youngest sibling a garment and it has pleats. I made the waistband by sewing a soft piece of muslin to the top and folding it over, like a facing.

But then I want the pleats to be more stable, and I thought.... Top stitching?? But I can't sew in a straight line. But I can't leave the pleats to just do whatever they want!!

(see how naughty this pleat is?? Also it probably should be ironed but I'm not concerned with conventional solutions and also neither me nor my sibling are willing to wear a garment that needs regular ironing.)

So EMBROIDERY.

I simply used a bullet journal stencils kit, drew the shapes on, and stitched.

The only thing my sibling is going to see is fancy embroidery around their waist! It's exciting.

[dngrcpckwithmurdericing]

More disabled sewing with Ivinenn!

Today on Disabled Sewing With Ivinenn, we have part 2 of bra-making. This post is also available at Dreamwidth for the full web 1.0 experience.

Part 1 is at this link for Tumblr; at this link for Dreamwidth.

I forgot to write a post about finishing my version of the Lengberg Castle bra! So here is what it ended up looking like on me:

It turned out very very comfortable, but not quite what I wanted - the darts just felt really wrong. You can see in this picture that I actually made the darts face different ways for each cup to see which was better, but I did not like either:

It also had way too much ease, even after I marked it up and modified it to be tighter:

So I started another garment, this time determined to move the darts into gathers on the bottom and sides.

Even though I KNOW that gathers don't provide as much support because they are looser by definition, I was still surprised that the gathers did not provide much support. Also I was not ultimately thrilled with the shape.

I guess I should have titled this one "neurodivergent sewing" because as you can see from the below pictures, I measured/draped, and then added several inches, because when I looked at the pattern from my measured/draped toile, I thought, "That is too small." Ahoy dysphoria!

I am very very fat, but apparently not as fat as I think I am, although this past week multiple doctors were grossed out by my fat body! Love the medical industry for me.

Anyway, this bra is made of pink cotton gauze so lightweight it is almost cheesecloth. This is a picture I took while putting together the third iteration of bust cups - I doubled the material and it is still transparent. It's so so so nice to sew, though - unlike when I was sewing with the beige muslin (or, if you look, you can see blue fabric with white and yellow flowers - that's a quilting cotton I was using for mockups) I didn't even need a thimble, even when I was making an eyelet through eight layers.

Here are my silly eyelets that are so so so big, threaded with a piece of string I made by sewing scraps together and then rolling them and then just whipstitching. Catch me making a tube that has to turn inside out! Never! My fingers simply cannot accomodate that kind of finesse.

Ultimately, v2 of the bra is not bad, but not what I want. But ok for wearing around the house! I guess I could mark it up and adjust it and make it tighter and more supportive but instead I moved on to iteration 3.

By the way: I know that you are “supposed to” sew in matching thread, BUT:

1. Thread matching neon pink cotton gauze is difficult and I don’t want to spend the money when I already have a spool of 5,000 yards of blue cotton thread;

2. It is MUCH easier to see what I’m doing when I can see the thread;

3. I knew this wasn’t going to be a final version, and I knew I wanted to upload it to tumblr, so I wanted to make sure YOU could see the thread. Look at my wonky stitches! Look at how nothing is the same size! And yet it is a garment that sticks together. I have had really bad tremors these past few weeks from weather related migraines, and also one of my medications, so my stitches will never be the tiny, neat stitches of a professional sewist, but that is OK by me.

Preview of iteration 3: the 3-piece bust cup.

To give you a sneak peek, here is the first version of this cup - three pieces. When I made it from the double-layered gauze, I then had to cut, like, viking style godets - 1 into the top of the inside and 1 into the top of the outside; then I had to match the top piece, so it got 3 godets. Exhausting. By the time I was done, my hand was trembling too much to take a picture. NEXT TIME.

(I KNOW I can buy underwires, but I don't WANT an underwire bra. If I wanted an underwire bra, I could just go to Lane Bryant and drop $80 on one that would be uncomfortable and I wouldn't be able to breathe. My ultimate goal here is to actually be able to make these "bras" with a longer torso so that I can wear them as shirts under cardigans when I have to go into the office.)

Anyway, I suspect part of the problem is the fabric I'm using. Loosely woven fabric just IS NOT IT for this kind of project. I know other folks have used linen, but I find that the linen I like against my skin is also too loosely woven; plus I am not here for things that cannot be thrown into the washer with all my other garments. I think a cotton sateen might feel nice but be too heavy. I don't want a fabric that is man-made ("man-made") like rayon, and I don't want something plastic like polyester. I also am on multiple medications that make me overheat, in addition to just being a person who is always hot in general, so while I feel like a wool suiting would actually be PERFECT for this, I could not bear it.

Coming soon to my mailbox is a selection of 21 yards of fabric in 8 different weights - yes, I'm getting a cotton sateen, but I'm also getting a voile (slightly heavier than gauze but still light!) and a poplin shirting (crisp! tightly woven!).

I am also getting two different cotton knits, because I like pain. I mean. I do like pain, but actually not the kind of pain that comes with hand-sewing a knit. But I want some tank tops and I really need a knit for that unless I want to go through The Pain Of Braless Boobs In A Garment With Darts.

In other news, Mariah Pattie made basically exactly what I want to make out of the Lengberg Castle bra pattern, but since she is, you know, like, a professional sewist, hers look amazing. Envy!

[dngrcpckwithmurdericing]

My personal disabled sewing

I’m making a quilt for my mom. It is super simple, just a couple of stripes. I thought for a while that I would quilt the top with topstitching like the above. And I was kind of into it, and how it really looks handmade - you can tell someone who cannot sew in a straight line is making this with love lol lol lol

But after a while, I realized it was too hard to push the needle through so many layers of fabric, and went back to the old “stitch in the ditch” standby. But I thought I’d share this picture of my uneven, wonky stitches.

Literally no one is ever going to look at this quilt and think, “The person who made this was bad at quilting.” Everyone is going to look and think, “Beautiful. Someone put a lot of time into making this craft.”

[ganbattesewing]

How to Make a Walker Bag by cher062

Link: https://youtu.be/ICm7OnJkJwQ

[danepopfrippery]

Some recent sewing work i did