Here’s another Camera 360 shot. It contains basically everything I hate in a FO (Finished Object) photo. That is, my posture is akward, the colors and lighting have been played with mercilessly, and look! On purpose blurring! What is this, a cover for Vogue?

The picture was taken by the Geekette’s sister, who is awesome enough that she deserves her own name (the mad editing is my own). We three had a crazy-fun, impromptu photo-shoot with her iPhone a week or so ago. A hasty request last night, a short text, and suddenly I have photos of the belt in action. Yes, the belt is the thing on display here, reader. Here it is in a more utilitarian shot:

I’m rather pleased with it. The pattern was discovered simply by searching for “obi,” and you can get it here. I modified it in that I cut out double of everything, sewing all the pieces right sides together and then turning them out to hide the seams. The pattern was easy, but I still managed a couple of beginner mistakes. The most obvious is that I didn’t change my thread from pink to green. Who’s going to see it? I thought. So now I have delicate pink stitches peeping out from the edges of my deep green belt.

Luckily they seem to be pretty invisible from a distance. I’m also having an on-going issue with puckering seams. I assume this is some kind of tension/feeding problem, but none of my knobs are fixing it. I have a sinking feeling my sewing machine needs its under half cleaned and oiled. My other trouble was with matching sides. I still have no idea what actually happened, but at one point I seemed to have four tie pieces, all with the right side exactly the same (instead of having two of them flipped). I think I spent twenty minutes trying to figure out how this was possible, and ended up just pinning up two pairs and cutting new tips.

The other change I made was lining the stomach with an awesome light-but-stiff purple fabric, which I think of as acrylic organza. I was gifted a whole bolt of it. It’s quite special to me, as it was used as the back drop for a wedding between two very dear long time friends. I like thinking that little bits of their commitment are being used here and there around my house, as if by such constant incorporation their bound is being strengthened. Poetics aside, my intention was to stiffen the belt so that it wouldn’t scrunch or wrinkle as easily. Though the organza helped a bit, next time I make this belt I will definitely use a heavier fabric. I would also shorten the stomach by an inch. My notable areas are quite brief, and the belt spreads beyond the borders of my waist, giving it another excuse to fold up at the edges as I move throughout my day.