Alright, I have spent WAY too much time working on my sloper. Way too much time! I've always admitted up front, forthright, truthfully, and so on, that sewing is not my bag. It's Sheila's bag. Not mine; I'm a professed lover of crochet. (I love it, love it, love it!) I mean, if I had to sew, I could do it, but it doesn't sing to me like crochet does! I use my sewing machine to wind bobbins of thread for me -- to make crocheting easier! Not to sew with. So you can see where this story is going ...
I had a such a rough time with this homework assignment that it nearly drove me nuts, er, to a more pleasurable experience -- to knit! -- but alas, I decided to call in the troops for help: my two sewing books. Ever so carefully I removed the several inches of dust off of them and eagerly flipped through the pages only to be sadly disappointed that the books didn't even mention the word "sloper" or any word closely resembling what it might mean.
So next I called upon the almighty Internet. The Internet is known to contain a wealth of information and I figured that there has to be some website, somewhere, that shows details of what a sloper should look like when you're done connecting all the required dots. But the only thing I learned worth while in all of my hours of surfing for slopers was that there was once a beautiful car in the 1940s (limited production as I understand it) called a Chevrolet Sloper. 
I know the sloper I was to create is for an upcoming crochet class -- could it be that I was meant to design a car to crochet? I mean, if they could knit a Ferrari, why not crochet a Chevy Sloper, right? Ah, but I took a guess and figured that's not quite what the homework assignment called for. So I called in the Reserves.
And in they marched, happy to assist me: my son acted as the scribe, my daughter as the model, and my husband as the direction reader & appointed measurer. My job was to draw on the graph paper with my red and black colored pencils.
A few trial & errors later, we've come up with the finished product you see to the right. As you can tell, it looks nothing like a fine yarn-mobile. We think it's a sewers sloper.
"Imagine," said my husband, "that you'll be able to walk into that class with your sloper, and if everyone else had a hard time with it too, they might be impressed that you were able to complete yours."
"Hmmm," I replied, "you may be right. Keep your cell phone on as if that's the case I'm calling you all into class to explain how we did it!" {{Grins}}
Tags: crochet, sloper, sewing
3 comments:
And even I didn't know what a sloper was!!! Interesting!
Glad to hear that your family all came together for you to get you through this. My husband hides when I ask him for help! LOL!
Love and hugs,
Sheila
Hey Dee, it's Tracy from FF
Huh, I use slopers all the time and mine aren't anything like yours!!! LOL From way back when in the dark ages when I sewed more than anything else I learned a sloper was a basic pattern from which you worked modifications. For example I have a slopers of jackets, coats, skirts, dresses, etc. They are all made of muslin and technically I could wear each one...they are actually basic garments from which others are created all made to my personal measurements. And then seperate pattern pieces are made from the sloper. Sometimes people just pull out the seams and use the original but I'd rather cut more pieces than undo the sewing once it's done. <BG> Or say you wanted a dressmaker to sew a dress for you, you'd pick out a commerical pattern and give it to her, then often times she would take your measurements, adjust the paper pattern and then make the garment out of muslin for the first fitting. this muslin garment being called a sloper.
Here's a link to explain it better than I
http://www.sew-whats-new.com/sewinglessons/sloper.shtml
Hope your sloper and the sloper that the instructor wants are the same thing!!!
Dee,
Your sloper looks great! There will be at least 2 in the class. Jane
Post a Comment