Post · bonfire.cafe

Happy May Everyone!

Since it's the first Saturday of the month, we've got a Hack & Craft today from 8-10 ET (technically tomorrow from 0:00 - 2:00 UTC). I hope you'll join us: https://fossandcrafts.org/hack-and-craft/

I'll be working on a challenge that @cwebber recently gave me: how long would it take me to make a complete publicly appropriate outfit in an emergency? (I.E. airline lost my luggage and I have to go out and buy/find a sewing machine and start from scratch.)

My dining room table with a sewing machine, 5 yards of fabric, a cotton tee shirt, two spools of thread, an 18" ruler, pins, tape measure, seam ripper, chalk pen, pencil, scissors, and 4 index cards with measurements and pattern notes on them.

Hack & Craft -- FOSS and Crafts

Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber

@mlemweb@social.coop · 2 hours ago

@cwebber

My self-imposed rules to make this challenge more realistic:

1.) I'm only using a basic set of tools (18" straight edge, pins, tape measure, seam ripper, chalk pen, pencil, scissors, and a basic sewing machine since I wouldn't have my extended set of tools available in an emergency

2.) I'm only using natural fiber supplies that I'd be likely to find in an emergency. You can almost always find 100% cotton woven fabric (either quilting cotton or bedsheets), so I'll be using that for most of the clothes. 100% cotton jersey knit fabric is really hard to find in stores, so I'll be using a tee-shirt for the bra and socks. I'll also be using elastic for the boxers (not pictured, oops), but if I can't find that at the store, I can salvage it from the pair of sheets I use for the dress).

aeva

@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place · 1 hour ago

@mlemweb @cwebber silly question: is fashioning a simple dress out of a blanket and an improvised belt a valid solution under the parameters of this challenge?

Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber

@mlemweb@social.coop · 1 hour ago

@aeva @cwebber

Yes! I answered that to Christine as well! If I went the Roman route and did a tunic with essentially two rectangles of fabric, some strategic pins, and a belt, I could get a dress fashioned in about a half hour.

Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber

@mlemweb@social.coop · 1 hour ago

@aeva @cwebber

The main thing is that I'm looking for a 'publicly appropriate' outfit. So something I could still go out of the house in. And I would have to *really* trust those pins and belt to do that

Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber

@mlemweb@social.coop · 2 hours ago

@cwebber

The list of clothes that I am going to make for my minimum viable outfit with my initial estimates on time:

- Full-length tunic dress (1.5 hours)
- Boxers (45 minutes)
- Sports Bra (2 hours)
- Socks (30 Minutes *I have worked out a pattern to sew socks since my usual knitted method takes 15-40 hours per pair. They are not the most comfortable socks, but they'll work in an emergency)