Ok so it may seem like a random combination but really was there anything safe from the insertion of Bernie Sanders and is rocking mittens?
For anyone who hasn't been following and missed it (don't know how you could have missed the Bernie Meme but found this blog but who am I to judge), a photo was snapped of Bernie Sanders at the Biden inauguration looking so very Bernie with a pair of the most awesome warm gloves known to mankind. Queue the internet photoshopping Bernie into anything and everything, Bernie himself printed the image on jumpers and sold them to send proceeds to Vermont Meals on Wheels. Jumpers sold out almost immediately.
Now maybe one day I will make a post about politics and costuming but for now let me just say the TL:DR for that post would be Hef believes that political discourse is not a requirement of costuming and would therefore prefer to keep the two separate. Many don't and whatever you do you, but I don't costume for political reasons. Having said that I can't say I am not a Sanders fan, despite being an Aussie and it having zero impact on my life.
So when Sewstine posted a video alerting me to the fact she had created a pattern for an 18th Century Pocket with the Bernie Meme on it I was on etsy faster than the road runner evading Wylie Coyote. I purchased the hand embroidery pattern and as a complete noob just winged it.
I located in my stash a mid to heavy weight calico and purchased a cheap hoop and the cheap embroidery thread from Spotlight. I decided Bernie wouldn't mind the utilitarian use of stash and cheaping out on notions so long as it got the job done.
My method to transfer the picture from pattern to fabric was rudimentary and wrong, tracing the picture on tracing paper in pencil and then rubbing the pencil onto the material, this explains both the fact that Bernie is transfixed (faces the wrong direction) and the B and S at the top are not perfectly positioned. The later happened because my method gave me a backwards B and S on the wrong side of each other - yes this is what tipped me off to the issue. I did however keep the direction and just tried to reverse and replace the letters on the top. I am not unhappy with my result but next time I'll tape to the window and trace directly to fabric.
I won't go into too much detail regarding how I stitched this since I am fairly certain I did it wrong, I did make a few artistic choices which deviate from the sewstine original design because it either was easier or seemed like a good idea at the time (lesson learnt future hef did judge past hef harshly for most of those choices). It is basically a satin stitch on everything. I will however note that I was very unhappy when i was stitching pants, but then when I got some distance to view it they became my favourite part of the stitching.
To finish it off I ironed on interfacing to the back of the stitched panel, no idea if this is what you are supposed to do but I figured since I wanted the pocket to be useable it would protect my internal stitches. I then placed a second square of calico behind it and cut the pocket out of all three at once. I returned to my stash to find a ribbon to edge with and though there were several choices (emerald green, grey blue, teal) none seemed right. I decided that it was too fancy for Bernie, a man so practical that this meme exists at all, and decided to edge it with a simple similar toned bias tape and a democratic blue seam line to match the initials.
I first whip stitched the bias tape to the open slit to make sure this didn't get damaged in the process of sewing up the rest. Call me crazy but my very careful external stitches look worse than my quick and functional internal ones... I think I need to work on my whip stitching. The bias tape here got folded twice because well that S was placed to close to the slit and a full half width would have gone over its edge. I think it looks fine though.
I sewed the top to be open as a tube to feed the cord (also from Stash) through that will then attach it to my waist. Couple of knots later and he's done.
Is he perfect, no - but I think Bernie Sanders would appreciate the imperfections exist but not to spite the efforts made. In short I am very happy with my work here.
By the way for more regular updates I now have an instagram
angelic_cow
come follow for the progress shots of these projects :)
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