Studio Saturday - sewing a slippery slip and a cosy cover

The main event in the home studio this past week was a bit of garment sewing, thanks to a bit of slippery fabric found in the local charity shop. It suggested "bias cut slip" and I went along with that suggestion, first making the pattern from a slip on hand, then laying it out on the fabric... 

 ... and cutting bias strips to face the neck and armholes and extend into delicate little straps...

The slithery, limp, cheap, synthetic, floppy, slippery fabric was a nightmare to work with. Cutting with a rotary cutter was All Wrong. Sometimes, good old-fashioned SCISSORS are the right tool!

It took me a while to realise that visible pencil lines could be drawn on the back of the fabric (rather than invisibly on the front) for cutting the bias strips - and that delicate straps could be made by simply pulling on the strips, which obligingly rolled up, ready to pin and stitch. Of course an extra hand would have been useful for this manoevre -

 Sewing the french seams, on the (uncertain) bias, was another slippery-sloppy nightmare. Lots of pins, use lots of pins....

 Uh-oh, what happened to the hem??

Pinning it up to hang evenly was challenging. In the end I put it on over the dress and pinned it at an inch above hem length, which gave 1/4" at the shallowest part. Adding a bit of false hem (deeper hem would help it fall better?) did my head in - this was after about 10 hours of grappling with the whispy item, figuring out how to get the bias binding to lie flat and undoing and redoing those wobbly side seams even as they willfully frayed....

Instead of prolonging the hem agony, it was basted, cut to 1/4" all round, turned up again, stitched, and is DONE. Now to finish the top, simply attaching the straps at the right length and without too much lumpiness -

For a quick'n'easy project, I made a hot water bottle cover out of on old woolly jumper, first making the pattern out of two pieces of A4 paper, to be cut as one for the front, and to have a bit added as overlapping hems on the back.

The front is two layers (the hidden layer has lots of moth holes and has been in and out of the soapsuds and freezer to deal with any sneaky lurking moths). A bit of intact ribbing adds a jaunty look -

The back uses intact ribbing as the hems (any holes are hidden in the bit turned under) and decorative embroidery hides the unavoidable mothholes -

It was pronounced cosy and serviceable. Job done!