#I've got the new piece all cut out and stay-stitched around the edges and the original center front piece removed

[sheliesshattered]

I got the sleeves set into my velvet Yule dress, pressed the seams, tried it on

and then made the absolutely unhinged decision to completely replace the center panel of this 9 panel princess seam gown

[sheliesshattered]

I finished Jack's Very Fancy Santa Hat yesterday -- or well, finished enough to call it done for now. I might want to re-do the fur (or parts of it) at some point, but hey, is that or is that not a Very Fancy Santa Hat:

I'm like, 95% happy with it, and that last 5% is really down to learning new techniques on the fly, and my goal of making this 'heirloom quality'. It is, I'll grant, both very fancy and obviously a Santa Hat, and Jack seems really happy with it (he's wearing it while I type this up). But if I get a chance in the future I might try to improve it, we'll see.

I've also decided not to finish my Santa hat right now, since there's only a few weeks left until midwinter and Christmas, and given the choice between the two, I would rather have my velvet Yule dress done and wearable and save my Santa hat to finish for next year. So I've put away all the hat-making things and shifted gears into getting the velvet gown cut out. Here's one of the side-back panels ready to be cut out:

I'm really hoping to have this dress done and wearable three weeks from today, for an event Jack and I are going to. Three weeks is pretty quick for any sewing project for me, much less for a silk velvet gown. But, on the bright side, I know this (self-drafted) pattern really well, I know which parts are fiddly and which parts are easy, and I don't expect there to be any fit issues. And sewing the seams for the Santa hats gave me some practice working with this velvet, so I already have a good handle on what I need to do to make sure the dress's seams don't creep around on me.

This velvet is gorgeous and not nearly as difficult as the other silks I've sewn in the last few years. Like any velvet, I'm cutting it face-down, and on the backside there's a really obvious weft and fairly obvious warp, so it's pretty easy to get the grain squared up before cutting. It's only moderately wiggly, generally stays put unless nudged, though I do try to get the pattern weights on just as soon as I'm certain of the placement. Both of the silks for my Rhaenyra cosplay were much more annoying to work with, and so while this isn't the easiest fabric I've worked with recently, it's not so bad.

But cutting out full-length gown pieces is exhausting, a slow process of getting the velvet laid out and squared up, figuring out which piece best fits there -- cutting them all in the same direction just in case the nap decides to make an appearance eventually -- laying out the pattern and weighting it so it doesn't move, cutting it out with my rotary cutter and then going back through with scissors for any notches. The part of my back that I injured late last summer generally doesn't hurt anymore, except when I lean over my cutting table for long periods like this. So I keep having to take breaks to go sit with my back on my heating pad and let the muscles calm down a bit.

We're doing a Lord of the Rings marathon today (and the one benefit of sewing in a ~825sqft place is that I'm never far from the TV lol). We're a little past the midway point in Two Towers and I've gotten four panels cut out and a fifth ready to cut, before sitting down to take a break and write this post. The dress has nine panels and then the two single-piece sleeves, eleven pieces total, so I'm not quite half way through the cutting process. If I can get this whole thing cut out by the end of Return Of The King I'll be happy, and barring that I should be able to get the last of it cut out early tomorrow.

This velvet doesn't fray nearly as badly as the brocade for the Rhaenyra dress, but I might want to stay-stitch the edges of each piece just to stop the fraying from happening. If I decide to do that, it'll be before I start pinning pieces together. Either way, I probably won't run the sewing machine until Monday, when Jack is back at work, rather than tomorrow while we've got cozy movies on.

Three weeks really isn't a lot of time, but my holiday shopping is nearly done, I don't have any other major craft projects or work demands, and I'm not planning on any significant baking or cooking between now and midwinter. So maybe if I can keep myself moving, especially on workdays, I'll be able to get this done with all its finishings in plenty of time to wear on the 21st.