Yep.  I’m spectacled. I’ve been noticing for a few months that my eyes ached after I’d been doing a lot of detailed hand-sewing, or a lot of research on the computer.  I tried to ignore it for a long time.  After all, I’ve always had perfect vision, my parent’s didn’t get reading glasses until their late 50s, everyone else in my family has perfect vision… But I did end up avoiding reading and research and hand-sewing, and reading on the computer, and that wasn’t good.  So finally, last week, after a doing a lot of reading for university work, I noticed how bad I felt, and finally got myself to an optometrist. Turns out that while my vision is still excellent, I am the tiniest bit long-sighted, and  have a slight astigmatism.  It’s so minor that most people wouldn’t notice, and wouldn’t need glasses, but since I spend hours peering at old newspaper articles online, and teeny-tiny stitches in fabric, I give my eyes a serious workout. So I need glasses for reading and fine …

When I posted about the Modern Red Riding Hood Cape, I promised to post some construction details. The cape is made from McCalls M6446.  I made some changes to the pattern: Cutting: I cut the the pattern as directed, except for side back panel 6.  The pattern has the grainline placed so that the grain of the fabric runs straight across the shoulder: I felt this gave the cape a stiff, tent-like shape, and wasted fabric, so instead I cut panel 6 with the side-back seam (the seam facing down in the image above) cut parallel to the selvedge, along the grain of the fabric.  Not only does this improve the fall of the cape (in my opinion), it also saves fabric. You can see here how the grainline as panel 6 meets the side-front seam is almost cross-wise of the grain now: Lining: M6446 doesn’t come with a pattern for the lining.  To make one, I cut the lining fabric the same as the outer fabric for the side-back panels 6.  I pleated and …