Sew Distracted

Learning

I haven't been quite as absent from the sewing studio as I have been from this blog, but I can't say that I've been making earth shattering progress either.  

 

I finally got around to finishing up the sloper that my friend Liana helped me start the beginning of March, and which I transferred from film wrap to paper the beginning of April.  It is what, the end of May now?  I am certain that a little more timeliness would have helped the project, but at least I am slowly inching forward.

 

I used that first paper draft of my sloper to make a pattern draft for a cardigan I was knitting, a cardigan meant to be rather boxy and knit with positive ease.  I wanted something a little less boxy, with better shape around the shoulders, so I plunged ahead, even though I had not yet made any attempt to fit that muslin.  Yes, fools rush in.  But there will be more about that on the knitting blog.  There would be more already but I have suffered from a great failure to take photographs of progress along the way.  

 

Anyway, although it seems incongruous, playing  with shaping through knitting has been instructive mostly because of the scale.  I don't have to cut an entire garment, I can play with shaping incrementally, ripping and reknitting as needed.  It may sound painfully slow but it has also been an instrumental process in helping me clarify my thoughts.

 

Eventually I decided I needed to fit the muslin.  

It went pretty well, and mostly was spot on.  The seams ended up where they were supposed to be. The neck and the armscyes were mostly ok.  The bust however was problematic.  Whether we compressed my breast tissue too much with the plastic wrap, or I componed the problem by allowing the plastic to relax somewhat I will never know.  You can see that I don't have enough width in the bust in the photo above, and the pulling is also pulling the armscye out of alignment -- that pucker.  It needed more work.  

 

Actually, in this photo I have actually captured one of the few times in my life where I have felt busty, or accepted that I might actually need a full bust adjustment.  Oh I knew it in my head, and although I gained volume post menopause, I also accepted retroactively that I had probably needed larger cups sizes when I was young and skinny and thought of myself as "dartless", a moniker coined by my mother and which I apparently struggled to outgrow, despite all evidence to the contrary.  In all likelihood I simply needed a smaller band size, and bigger cup size than I could find in my local JC Penny.  Add that to my own, also probably culturally-informed issues with my scoliosis, and let's just say that I wasn't helping myself in the fitting department.  

 

But this is not the time root out the past; rather it is time to dress me, now.

 

It seems this meandering path toward fitting and sewing has been a process of reaching some understanding.  My full bust is slightly over 5 inches larger than my high bust.  Obviously then I need full bust adjustment and I need darts. I wear a fairly small band size, slightly larger since breast-cancer surgery for comfort reasons, but that is neither here nor there.  I am also not only asymmetrical but tallish (5'9") and have a long torso, both of which serves deemphasize the bust, which can be to my benefit. Except when it is not, when it keeps me from fully realizing my own options.

 

Still I learned some things.  I did need more width at the bust, but not a lot, and mostly on the right rather than on the left.  There goes that old asymmetry thing again.  And I needed more length on the left than on the right.   

 

I didn't take another photo, post pattern-correction, and I was not absolutely meticulous about every little detail.  My plan for this muslin was that it offer fitting help and give me an idea of how to work with patterns and my own three-dimensional shape, not be a perfect model for drafting future patterns.  In fact, I am still having trouble wrapping my head around patterns, and how this muslin translates to other shapes.  That is part of the process I am sure.  Hopefully long forgotten muscle memory will be activated as I progress and I will not spend all my times floundering in the weeds.  

Here are the front pieces.  As you can see the asymmetrically is not is markedly noticeable here, at least not as much as in the back, see previous post for that.  I haven't gone to the trouble to give you a photo that highlights scale or the actual differences or sizes of anything here.  That is not the point for me at this moment.  Right now, this exercise is as much conceptual as it is practical. My immediate sewing needs are for summer garments.  Heat and humidity are not compatible with closely fitted garments in my experience.    I could probably spend my life playing with perfecting something that is supposed to be an abstract guideline.  And then I would have nothing to wear.

 

I don't think I want to think about any of it at all right now.  But I will.  I assume I will have to.

 

Addressing the Pattern Stash

It seems I continue to work in a rather roundabout fashion, working toward goals but not getting directly to the point.  

This past week I cataloged and organized sewing patterns.  It was admittedly something that needed to be done as they were in no particular order, which was proving difficult when searching either for a particular design or even for ideas.   The search for patterns was not what prompted this fit of organizational mania however, although perhaps it should have been, as I went out and bought a duplicate of a pattern I already owned simply because I could not find the original.  Now I have them both.  Silliness, silliness.  We must be kind to ourselves over our various sillinesses.

 

In fact, I started unpacking, sorting and cataloging patterns last weekend because I felt unsteady doing anything else.  I had been through another episode of atrial flutter and had an ablation last Friday.  On Saturday I was somewhat tired, and someone slow in terms of focus despite only having "light" anesthesia.  It seemed unwise to cut patterns, sew, or perhaps even man a hot iron -- the potential for errors was too high.  The patterns were there, completely disorganized and apparently overflowing the allotted space, waiting to be unpacked and organized.  

 

It proved to be the perfect activity, not completely mindless, but not requiring attention either.  Sorting through the pattern stash filled my mind as I imagined the things I dreamed of making, remembered sewing projects and outfits of the past, and not least also indulged my penchant for organization orderliness, lists, and organization. 

I used Pinterest to catalog the patterns, primarily because of its visual orientation, but partly also because many patterns had already been uploaded, which made it easy to add them to my own boards.  By using Pinterest, I can sort patterns into categories and I have the option of putting one pattern in as many categories as makes sense to me.  Then the actual patterns can be filed in a very straight-forward and orderly fashion.

There were of course, too many patterns.  There may be some patterns I am not fully convinced I still want to make, but I am also not convinced that I am ready to give up on them either.  For example there are two dress patterns I bought because I wanted to knock off a particular dress, and each pattern offered some of the necessary components.  I don't remember exactly what effect I was going for, only that these patterns seemed like a good starting point.  Maybe I can work with that; perhaps I am no longer interested in the outcome.  I don't know yet.

There is also this collection of patterns.  I was entranced with them when I was at JoAnn fabrics with my mom early in the spring of 2021, before I knew I had breast cancer.  I knew I needed summer clothes, and thought they would be a good starting point, giving me some good, simple, options to kick off my summer sewing.  All of these garments would be suitable for a hot humid summer, and would give me clothing options while I worked on other fitting issues.  Then my plans changed and I didn't sew.  I still have the patterns.  For the most part I still like them and see their use.  One is questionable.   But I will never really know what I think until I sew them up.

 

There is also much apparent duplication in he pattern stash, in some categories more than others.  I am OK with that, although it is something I intend to address.  There is no rush because, once organized, all the patterns fit in the space I had allotted to them.  This was something of a happy surprise, made possible because I also found a use for five baskets I had purchased for another purpose, but found they did not work as well in that application as anticipated.  Win-Win.

 

That doesn't mean I don't intend to deal with duplicates.  Although I am basically attracted to sewing clothing because of my love of wearing clothes,  there is another side of my sewing life as well.  I am also subject to a certain nerdy, process-oriented, curiosity and a tendency toward comparison.  

 

I can't just say to myself "pick this tee pattern and work from there".  If I did so, I would always feel I had potentially missed out on something. I actually look forward to the process of comparison, of taking the six or so tee patterns I have, laying them out, comparing them, figuring what works and why.  This is the same reason I occasionally buy a pattern because of a single detail that fascinates me. It is the same instinct that makes me have sets of knitting needles in different materials despite the fact that I have one favorite -- there are always instances where my favorite is not the best choice.  This is the same instinct that makes me want to take on, or at least be highly attracted to, projects where other knitters, sewers, cooks, etc had trouble making something work.  This is not because I think I can do it better, it is more a curiosity as to why something fails, what it takes to make it work, if possible, and what I can learn from the process.

 

I will need some basic tees and turtlenecks come fall.  I am not desperate, although it is possible I may be before I finish playing. I have some materials for experimentation and perhaps opportunities for learning.  I suppose life could be easier, but as I spent time the last week sorting through sewing patterns, I actually grew more excited by the possibilities for not making life easier.

 

There are some of us who just seem to be wired that way.