Stitches

by **Trynne** on July 16th, 2019, 3:13 am

2nd Summer, 518

Trynne sighed slightly, making her way into the shop and glancing around, seeing Deu working on something and mumbling to himself before a slight laugh came out of his frame and Trynne couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at the eccentric man.

“Morning Deu.” she said calmly, nodding towards him as she glanced around the shop, making her way to a table and glancing over the fabrics. “Got much interesting going on?” she asked, glancing over to Deu as she checked how much of each fabric there was and letting her eyes landed on a skirt that looked as though it had been partially taken apart.

“Oh not much, just working on some embroidery and trying to find a way to dye this thing.” Deu held up a cream coloured shirt that looked as though it had either wine or blood stains on it. At that distance Trynne couldn’t particularly tell which is was.

“I’m guessing it’ll be a red or purple dye? Is there anywhere in Sunberth you can get new dyes from?” she asked, tilting her head before Deu glanced towards her.
“There’s not many places but I’ll find some somehow. If I have to I’ll get it from traders.” he shrugged before pointing towards the disheveled skirt Trynne had spotted. “Young woman brought that in. Don’t know how it got into that state but she wants it stitched back together and the stitches there already reinforced.”

“I’ll get straight to that.” Trynne smiled slightly, running her fingers over the skirt. It was an ugly colour, a brown that looked as though it had been coated in mud, but running her hands over the garment Trynne could tell that it didn’t have the crusted feeling of dried mud and it must have just been dyed that colour or found itself discolouring over time.

Sighing to herself, Trynne shook her head and checked the places that would be best to start, finding the seam on the right hand side of the skirt coming apart the most.

Nodding, she turned the skirt inside out and then took hold of a needle. For a brief moment she looked at the threads that had been used. They were a light cream and stood out against the skirt too much. Trynne shook her head and fingered through the thread colours that were there and found a brown thread. It was slightly lighter than the skirt, though it didn’t look as though it would stand out as much.

Next she set the needle and thread down, happy with her choices as she picked up around ten pins, using them to hold the seam together, pinning the cloth together where she would stitch. They were placed unevenly, some of the pins being a half of an inch away from each other, while others where anywhere up to two inches away from each other.

She frowned at how uneven they were, but they looked as though they should do the job she needed them for, even with how uneven they were they outlined where she would be stitching.

Word Count511

by **Trynne** on July 16th, 2019, 3:14 am

Nodding to herself despite the frown, Trynne picked up the needle and thread, laying the thread against the seam two times, then a third to make sure she had enough thread, and then she cut the thread at that point, just under three times the length of the seam. Carefully she licked the end of the thread, closing one eye before she attempted to thread it through the eye of the needle, her hand shaking slightly as she concentrated.

The first attempt had failed, the thread just brushing against the edge of the eye of the needle as she missed. The second time was more successful. She’d taken a deep breath to try and stop her shaking before trying again, carefully pushing the thread through the eye of the needle and then threading it through until around three inches were gathered on the other side of the needle.

Carefully she lay the needle and thread down again, her hands taking the long length of thread gently as she knotted the thread twice at the end.

Now it was time for her to start stitching the seam together. Looking it over, she found the point at which the two pieces of cloth had started to pull apart but were still just managing to hold together. That was where she would make the first stitches from. She’d work from there and stitch the disheveled parts together, then she would restitch over the whole seam to reinforce everything and hopefully extend the life of the garment.

Nodding softly to herself, Trynne glanced around the shop to see Deu working on a new project that look as though he was sewing lace onto the bodice of a dress, and a slight smile spread across Trynne’s face as she shook her head and looked back down at her work.

She pushed the needle into the fabric she was trying to stitch back together and then pulled it all the way through until the knot caught in the fabric and Trynne smiled, glad that she’d tied the knot big enough. Next she pushed the needle through the fabric again, this time weaving it through each of the fabrics so that when she pulled the needle through, it would create about six simple stitches. Pulling the needle through, it worked and the six running stitches were made, although they weren’t very even and were messier than Trynne would have liked. Trynne was still pleased though, seeing that her attempt at speeding up the project was working even if it wasn’t the neatest. She found that her stitches weren’t often neat but they seemed to do the job.

Seeing that it was a more simple stitch that she was using, she opted to strengthen those stitches slightly to keep them together before she reinforced the seams with the second set of stitches. Carefully she looked over the stitches and moved the needle to push it back into the end of the previous stitch, making a single backstitch to try and give the stitches some extra strength before returning to the running stitches, pushing the needle through each side of the fabric six times to create around an inch worth of stitches.

Word Count533

by **Trynne** on July 16th, 2019, 3:16 am

At this point she had reached one of the pins and carefully she pulled it out, trying her hardest not to move any the fabrics too much incase she pulled the stitches she’d made out. Then she made the needle return to the end of the previous stitch and pushed it through the fabric before she returned to stitching the pieces together. She continued on, making about six running stitches that took up about an inch of the fabric, being careful to remove the pins whenever she came to them, placing them to the side of the fabric.

At one point she had become so focused on stitching the skirt back together that she hadn’t noticed Deu coming closer.

“Running backstitch?” his voice came suddenly and Trynne half jumped slightly, not having noticed him finishing with what he had been doing.

“Running backstitch?” she repeated, having gained her composure.

“Well you have around six running stitches and then a backstitch?” he responded and Trynne nodded, looking back down at the fabric.

“Ah yes, I want to make sure the pieces stay together when I go over the stitches properly with a backstitch?” she said, watching Deu as he nodded at then turned to head back to his work without any more words, and Trynne raised an eyebrow slightly, a smile creeping across her face as she looked back down at the skirt.
She continued on with her stitches until the seam had been stitched and the two pieces of fabric seemed to be holding together.

Nodding to herself, Trynne checked over the seam again, looking to see that everything was fairly straight before she tied the thread and cut the excess off, preparing to start the second set of stitches to strengthen the seam more and make sure it lasted longer than it had done before finding its way to Deu’s Vestments.

Humming to herself tunelessly, Trynne checked what was left of the thread she had used for the first row of stitches, seeing that it was only around three inches in length.

Sighing to herself, she set out checking the length of the thread against the length of the seam, cutting the thread to be a little over three times the length of the seam and then licking the end of the thread, frowning as she cautiously fed the thread through the eye of the needle, managing to succeed on her first attempt this time and a triumphant smile spread across her face briefly before forcing it to disappear as she glanced around the shop to make sure nobody had seen her smile.

Now that the needle was threaded, she made another simple double knot at the end of the thread before readjusting the skirt, starting at where her previous stitches had stopped.

She positioned her needle just over the original stitches, pushing it through and pulling it all the way through. She moved her needle about an eighth of an inch along the seam and pushed it through to the other side, then move the needle back to the first point that the needle had penetrated the fabric and pushed it through, pulling the thread through after the needle.

Word Count531

by **Trynne** on July 16th, 2019, 3:18 am

Then she moved the needle up the seam about a quarter of an inch and returned it to the other side of the seam. She moved the needle down to the end of the previous stitch and pushed it through the seam, checking her stitches to see two stitches in a line with little to know space between them, and a smile came onto her face.

Carefully she moved the needle up a quarter of an inch, returning it through the fabric and pulling the thread tight, before moving it back to the end of the previous stitch and pushing the needle through the fabric, again pulling the thread taut enough to look neater but not so tight that the fabric was bunch up and deformed under the thread.

Taking a moment to look over the stitches, she nodded to herself, continuing on with the stitches and making sure that she took her time to ensure that the stitches were neater, stronger, and carried out in a way that would make sure that the skirt was repaired in a half decent manner.

It took her almost a half a bell to complete the whole seam, and once that seam had been completed she carefully moved the needle to feed the thread through the last stitch, tying it to the stitch, and then repeating the process to secure the thread fully before she cut off the excess and gently pulled on the fabrics to check that it was strong. When the seam held and the two pieces of the skirt stayed attached, Trynne smiled and checked onto the other side seam.

This seam looked as though it was in a better state. It wasn’t pulling apart and was holding the fabrics together quite well. It appeared that this one would just need reinforcing.

Humming to herself again she shifted the garment until the untouched side seam was closest to her, and carefully she laid down the thread again, measuring it against the seam to get a piece of thread that was just over three times the length of the side seam before she cut the thread off.

For the third time that day, she licked the end of the thread, though this time she rolled it between her fingers before she concentrated and held that needle up with the eye of the needle to the light, carefully feeding the thread through the eye. As she moved the thread closer, she found it just brushing the edge of the eye and her attempt at threading the needle failed and Trynne couldn’t help but frown.

Sighing to herself, she attempted again and found the thread did not comply with her wishes, and frowning more she found the other end of the thread, licking it softly and feeding it through the eye of the needle and smiling as she was triumphant and the needle was threaded. Again she tied a double knot at the end of the long side of the thread, before beginning a backstitch along the seam, reinforcing the stitches that were already in the seam.

Word Count514

by **Trynne** on July 16th, 2019, 3:18 am

Again she pushed the needle into the seam and pull the thread through until the knot caught, before she returned the needle through the fabric and brought it to the initial entry point again. She pushed the needle back through the fabric, then move the needle up to about a quarter of an inch from where the first stitch ended, before pushing the needle through and pulling the thread through the fabric. She returned the needle through the seam at the end of the previous stitch, before continuing up the seam making backstitches that were roughly an eight of an inch in length.

Her work wasn’t the fastest and again it took her just under half a bell to fully reinforce the stitches on that side, though once she was done she tucked the needle and thread back through one of the stitches to make a loop, then passed the needle and thread through that loop to make a knot to anchor the line of stitches into place before repeating the action again to ensure that the knot wouldn’t loosen.

Carefully she cut the thread and lay the needle down at the side, before picking the skirt up and checking both seams over. Both seemed to be holding up fairly well, and as she held the skirt up she looked at how it fell, making sure that the seams didn’t seem to stand out too much before she nodded.

Next she lowered the skirt, looking over the hem that would sit on the waist, seeing part of that hem beginning to come undone, the cream coloured stitches on the outside still visible, though the inside of the skirt showing it coming apart.

Frowning, she checked the bottom of the skirt, finding that hem to be large and sewn in a much more secure manner and there were no signs that the hem was going to come apart any time too. If anything, it was just discoloured and stained by various different things that Trynne didn’t even want to begin to imagine.

Nodding at the bottom hem, Trynne turned her attention to the hem at the waist and she threaded her needle once again, must less confident about these stitches as they would be visible from the outside, unlike the seams which were hidden on the inside.

Inhaling, she tied her usual double knot and put the needle down at the side ready. She took hold of the pins she’d been using earlier and pushed them into the waist hem, holding the folded fabric that was beginning to pull away in place, ready for her to reinforce them.

Frowning to herself, she pushed the needle through from the inside of the fabric to the outside, pulling it tight before beginning to make small backstitches around the hem, holding the folded fabric in place and ensuring the waist looked neat, rather than just the cut fabric.

She was careful as she made the stitches, running them around the waist and keeping them in as straight and neat a line as possible. This part took her the longest, taking her around forty-five chimes of carefully making a few stitches, checking that they were lined up, then making a few more and removing the pin she’d pushed into the fabric.

Eventually, though, she’d found herself completing the skirt and a triumphant smile spread across her face as she tied off the stitches on the inside of the skirt, cutting away the excess thread and holding up the skirt so she could look over it properly.

“Done with that?” she heard a voice and she jumped slightly, not quite having expected it.

“Yeah, I got the seams sort and fixed the hemming around the waist.” she started, watching Deu nod as she spoke. “The hemming on the bottom seems pretty sturdy though?” she questioned and watched as Deu took the skirt from her, checking it over and nodding.

“Yes the bottom looks as though the stitches are sturdy enough,” he said then went quiet for a bitch as he looked over the rest of the skirt and the stitching along the seams before he nodded and folded the skirt, tucking it away ready. “This looks like what they wanted done.” he said before getting back to his work, and Trynne looked at what was left to be done.

Word Count724
Total: 2813