#I've never sewn clothes on my own before. or at least never finished the things I've started. so I'm proud of myself so far

[fluffacep]

I'm doing it wrong but I'm doing it

[americas1suiteheart]

Weird Science | Chapter V

Egon Spengler x Reader

Summary; Y/n's proton pack is finally finished, meaning she gets to go on missions with the rest of the boys. It turns out to be a bit more eventful than originally thought.

Notes; This one was fun, sorry I've been gone from this fic for like, 3 months straight now. Egon isn't mentioned or doesn't really talk much in here tbh.

Warnings; Tiny bit of foul language, more mentions of smoking, and a lil' bit of violence (with ghosts).

Chapter: 5/? | <Previous chapter | Next chapter>

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"Can I drive? Please Ray?"

You had just finished your Proton Pack a few days ago (with the help of Egon of course.) and are finally getting to go on a job with the boys.

"Y/n, are you sure you're allowed to drive? You haven't killed anyone driving yet, have you?" Peter says, poking fun at you.

"You're very funny, Venkman. I've never killed someone, but I'm more than happy to let you be the first." You say with a glare.

"Oh? I'll be your first? Don't worry, I'll be gentle."

"C'mon, stop the unnecessary bickering. Go ahead and take the keys, Y/n. The wheel's all yours." Ray interrupts, tossing you the keys.

"Yes!" You quietly say as you get inside the car and start it.

The rest of the boys get into the car, with Ray sitting in the passenger seat beside you.

"Alright! Seatbelts, boys!"

You and Ray both buckle yours, then you look back to see Peter and Egon look at each other and then back at you.

"What?"

"Just go and try not to get us arrested or kill us, Y/n." Peter says, leaning onto the left side of you and speaking into your ear.

You scoff and put the car in drive. The address was roughly 10 minutes away. If you were going the speed limit of course.. just a little over the limit was fine, wasn't it?

Ray takes a cigarette out and lights it, taking a drag and blowing out the smoke as he rolls his window down.

"Hey, you mind giving me one?" You say as you look at him for a few seconds before going back to focus on the road.

He hums and takes another out of the carton and hands it to you. Lighting it for you as you keep it hanging from your mouth.

You switch on the alarm and drive to the address. You don't think urgency was a thing for this job, unless it was extremely serious, but going faster across traffic was fun.

Once you all reached the house, you hit the breaks and came to a quick halt, earning a yelp from each of the guys.

"Jesus!"

"That was fun! Hell of a lot more fun driving this thing then spending hours cleaning that goddamned ectoplasm off of it." You say after exiting the car, tossing the keys back to Ray.

"At least we know who to give the keys to when we need to get somewhere quickly.."

"I think I'd rather be covered in slime for the rest of my life instead of having her drive me anywhere ever again." Peter says dramatically.

"Shut up.."

All of you grab your proton packs from the back, a brand new clean, untouched one sitting just for you. One you created from scratch with Egon.

A black patch with your last name embedded was sewn into the coveralls, your very own piece of clothing that identified you to everyone that would possibly see you doing this job. L/n.

"...Y/n? Y/n!" Peter says, shaking your shoulder.

"Hmm?"

"Stop lookin' at it and put the damn thing on so we can get going."

You nod and grab the pack, putting it on your back with a grunt from the sudden heavy weight now on your shoulders and back. You shut the door and hold the proton wand, speed walking to catch up to the boys.

"Ready, Y/n?" Egon says, looking at you.

You look back at him and nod, a look of confidence on your face.

As you enter and see the mess and amount of bookshelves, chairs, paintings, and pictures fallen onto the floor that confidence quickly plummets and disappears, and is replaced with fear.

You freeze up as you look at the scene and look back at Egon with your mouth agape, cigarette at the corner of your mouth hanging on.

"I thought you were ready?" Egon says, a small smirk on his face.

You look back ahead of you and walk with the boys, using your free hand to take one last puff of your cigarette before extinguishing it and saving the rest for later as you put the other half into your pocket.

Aggression was very clear, and ectoplasm covered the corners of the tables, chairs, and bookshelves.

Class 4.

"The client said that the apparition was visible and very aggressive. The PKE meter is going crazy so that alone already gives away that it's a class 4. This one's gonna be a fight, boys." Peter says as he walks around, touching the surfaces of the tables.

"And, uh.. girl." He says as he turns around and looks at you.

"So, let's split up and look for this thing now? Me and Egon will take upstairs, Peter can take downstairs, and how about Y/n takes the basement?" Ray says as he points to everyone.

"Me? Take the basement? Are you absolutely sure you want me to take the basement? I mean, I think I could totally take any other part of the house, too. Totally." You say nervously. 

You wouldn't admit in front of Peter you were scared out of your wits right now, and Ray giving you the basement was probably the worst thing he could've done.

"What? Are you scared?" Peter teases.

"No way!" You protest, scowling at him.

You look around to see that Egon and Ray were already heading upstairs and you were left with Peter. Knowing him, he wouldn't take the basement.

Y'know what. Maybe this is exactly what you need. Fear will only hold you back during this job, and expelling it immediately by going down to the basement will fix it.

You huff and open the basement door, looking down at the dark descending concrete stairwell and take a dry gulp.

You shine your flashlight and look at the walls until finding the light switch, turning it on and revealing a normal basement with pipes, boxes, old toys, a breaker, and concrete walls.

You search the area and open the breaker, finding no wires missing or out of order. Looking behind boxes, lifting toys, rolling away a Radio Flyer wagon, and even knocking on pipes.

You sigh after being in there for about 20 minutes and finding nothing and turn around. Then you're suddenly face to face with the class 4 apparition no less than 10 feet away from it. Just it's head to half of its torso. It sneered, crooked teeth visible with the image of decaying flesh.

You freeze and stay quiet, afraid it'd attack you if you made even the slightest movement or noise.

It suddenly charges towards you with a high frequency squeal, and you shoot your proton in its direction with your eyes closed.

The sound of objects falling and crackles came from the direction of where you shot in front of you and you suddenly felt wet and a slight heaviness on your skin.

You open your eyes and look around. The boxes in front of you were destroyed and collapsed, and you and your equipment was now soaked in ectoplasm.

"SHIT!" You shout.

You grimace at the feeling of the slime on you, and kick boxes out of the way as you stomp up the stairs muttering curses to yourself.

You were shaken up and terrified, but being you were in charge of the laundry you were not excited for how long this was going to take to scrub out.

You slam the door and lock it. As if that was going to do anything to keep the ghost from getting out and being anywhere but in there.

Ray and Egon come rushing down the stairs, Peter turning a corner to look at you.

"Y/n! Did you find it? Did you see it?" Ray asks excitedly.

"Oh, how unfortunate. You got slimed, and bad." Peter says with fake sympathy.

"Oh, I found your fuckin' ghost, alright. It not only screamed at me, but it came at me and slimed me!"

"You signed up for this, remember." Peter reminds you.

You sigh and try to calm down. Mumbling 'I know's' to yourself as you miserably try to wipe the ectoplasm off of yourself.

"Did you see where it went?"

"Uh, it went behind me towards where the stoves are in the kitchen I think.. I'm damn lucky the bastard didn't hurt me." You reply.

You all walk over to the kitchen, staying by Egon's side the whole time.

The PKE meter in his hand still going off like crazy, proving to be useless as its apparently been the same throughout the areas of the house they checked.

Once again you see it. It was wildly moving around the kitchen, destroying as much as was in its way, throwing objects at us.

"Alright, I'm gonna set the trap, everyone get ready.." Ray says as he throws the trap in the center of the kitchen.

"3... 2... 1!" Ray counts down and everyone shoots at the apparition, struggling to keep it from breaking from the grasp. After a moment, we finally trap it. The trap steamed and made a 'fzzt' sound as Ray picked it up.

"Holy shit.." You say as you put your wand down. "HOLY SHIT!"

The adrenaline had finally hit you and the realization that you could've died back in the basement came back to you. How on earth did the boys do this everyday and night and come back fine and unshaken with just a scratch or two?

Ray leaves the house to put the trap and his equipment safely back into the Ecto-1, with Peter following behind him.

You stand, looking around the area with your mouth slightly agape. What on earth just happened?

"Y/n. Let's go." Egon says, placing a hand on your back as he looks at you.

You tense up and look at him, pausing for a moment before pausing and walking to exit the house.

After putting away your equipment you get into the back of the Ecto-1 with Egon and sit quietly, still thinking of how awful it was going to be to clean this uniform and the inside of the Ecto-1 this time.

After arriving, each of you exit, take your equipment and place it back into each of your respected lockers.

You'd have to clean off your proton pack later on when you have the time.

You sigh and grab the zipper of your coveralls to pull it down. Or, at least try to pull it down. You stood by your locker, trying to pull as much as you could, the slime wasn't helping, no matter how much you tried wiping it off.

"Do you want help, Y/n?" Egon spoke as he stood in front of you.

"Uh, yes.. please." You say, taking your hands off of the zipper and letting them rest to your sides.

Egon steps towards you and tries to help open the coverall zipper. The proximity and heat radiating off of his body made you quickly flush, so quickly that you could feel your head rush.

You let out a shaky exhale as he finally budges it and zips it halfway down your torso.

"Ah, thanks. The ectoplasm dries and makes it harder to actually unzip these but I guess it's a lot harder to do it yourself, huh?" You say as you get out of your coveralls and fold them up so you could put it in the laundry room neatly to wash tonight.

"Yes, though I've found just some warm water works quite well." Egon says as he wipes his hands on his lab coat before pushing up his glasses.

"I don't know how you could just go back to working after doing something like that?"

"You just get used to it. It's not bad, I've been doing this for years." Egon responds.

"Are you serious?"

You understood staying up late and working all day and night for projects, but even for you, trying to do something after that was intense..

"I'm always serious."

Right. You'd heard that same response a thousand from him since you started working with him here and being around him almost everyday.

"I know that. Anyways, I'm going to get to scrubbing and doing the laundry now. do you have anything that needs cleaning?" You say, taking off your boots and replacing them with your sneakers.

"No, that's alright. And it's not necessary, I'll do the laundry tonight."

"What? No, no. Egon, you go work on your stuff, I do the laundry." You say as you look at Egon dumbfounded.

"Y/n, you're clearly exhausted. Leave early and get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."

"But, Egon-" You stop before continuing to argue. Trying to argue with him would prove to be pointless, and you were exhausted, and very near falling asleep by now.

You sigh. "Alright, thank you. I'll see you tomorrow then. Goodnight, Egon." You say, placing a hand on his arm before walking away.

You grab your coat and scarf, making sure to tell the boys and Janine goodnight before you left.

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Sorry I've been dead for so long, but I'm very all over the place and have been writing like, 7 different fics all at the same time now, on top of school and a job (oops!). I think this was the longest chapter in the series so far. Can't wait to write the next chapter! I promise I won't give up on or totally forget about this series like I did to all of my other ones!

[dandelionsandderivatives]

Advice on finishing seams without a serger?

I don’t really want to own a serger and I feel like they’re fairly recent machines anyway. There must be a better way to finish seams?

For my skirt I just turned the fabric twice and hemmed so it would be a nice finished edge. The issue is that then when I attached two seams, the poor needles had to go through 6 layers of fabric and sometimes I was at a corner and they had to go through so much it didn’t fit under the foot. There must be something I’m missing because this wasn’t even a thick fabric.

HALP PLS!!! 😭😭

Hello! I'm so sorry for the late response; I've had a few disruptions to my regular schedule in the last few weeks, and I wanted to give this a good, long, thorough answer. You absolutely don't need a serger; I'm pretty sure my grandmother has never owned one, and she's still wearing things she made back in the early 90s. I'm not as good a needlewoman as she is, but most of my stuff has held up at least as well as its storebought equivalent.

(Probably) the easiest and simplest option is just to zigzag over the edges of your fabric with a sewing machine. A serger essentially rolls sewing the seam, trimming seam allowances, and zigzagging/overcasting into one step. Depending on what you're making, you might want to trim seam allowances after sewing the seam, and then zigzag over the raw edges, or, if you've got a lot of short seams that won't fit nicely under the machine after you've sewn them, you should be able to zigzag over the raw edge of the fabric before you sew the seam. (The issue with the second option is that you'll have the full seam allowance left in there, but if you're doing that sort of precision piecing I expect the seam allowance will be narrow enough that it doesn't matter.) This doesn't necessarily have to be a zigzag stitch proper; my mother's machine does a finishing stitch that looks a bit like a blanket stitch, and I've seen other variations. But practically every machine made after 1970 or so has a zigzag, so you'll probably have the equipment to do it. The key part is that you want to catch the edge of the fabric inside the stitch, so that the stitching thread is binding the last few threads of the fabric together.

The hand-sewing equivalent to this is whipping (whipstitching) the edge of your fabric with needle and thread. I generally don't put my handmade clothes through the dryer, but all of the ones I've finished with this method have been fine in the washing machine. Most of them have survived at least one trip through the dryer unscathed. I suppose you could also do a blanket stitch, but that seems like an unnecessary amount of work.

Other methods:

Seam binding: I haven't personally tried this one. It's usually used for heavier fabrics that won't be lined (a single-layer blazer or skirt, etc). I'm sure it has other applications, but I haven't seen it often.

Pinking: This is the old-school way to finish seams. I haven't really tried it myself.

French seams: These are annoying to do on a curve and can add a good amount of bulk, but they're a very clean finish. Usually used on lingerie and other lightweight fabrics (doing this in coating weight sounds like a nightmare but also a really good high fashion concept).

Flat-felled seams: This is the way the inside of your jeans is finished. Historically it was often used for shirts, shifts, and other high-wear areas where you wanted to avoid chafing. It's somewhat similar to the French seam.

All right, now for Sewing Confessions: I'm pretty lazy when it comes to finishing my seams. I started sewing with historical stuff that wouldn't get washed super often and vintage dresses, all in quilting calico. (This is generally a bad idea but for some very specific eras of fashion it can work.) My most-washed historical piece was probably my chemise, which was sewn from old sheets. I didn't bother to do much finishing on any of these, partly because I didn't know how, and partly because I didn't really want to flat-fell all the seams in my chemise if nobody was going to see it. (Now that I'm thinking about it, I may actually have flat-felled most of my first chemise. I made a second one fairly quickly.) The other fabric I worked in was cotton flannel for nightwear.

With all of these pieces, the fabric began to wear out/get shabby long before the seam allowances frayed enough to make anything structurally unsound. I have popped a few stitches here and there which could have been saved by a more robust seam, but in general I didn't have many problems. Once I was sewing in nicer fabrics (silk and rayon, especially), I started to have issues with seam finishing. So far, simple hand-overcasting has stood up well for most of these. My usual sewing machine is straight-stitch only, so zig-zagging hasn't been an option for most of these. They've held up fine so far.

Maybe if I got some really nice fabrics, it would be a different story; I'm not telling you not to finish your seams! But bargain-bin cotton flannel, in my experience, wears out too quickly to make conscientious finishing worth it. Don't stress too much about it! I'd advise, from what little I've seen of your sewing posts, to stick to a good zigzag, or whatever finishing stitch on your machine looks interesting. If you want to be strictly historical, try pinking or flat-felling, depending on era and context. When you make some really nice sheer blouses, then maybe pull out the French seams. When you're doing a pair of wool trousers, try seam-binding tape. Go forth and sew boldly!