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.

 

Comments

[Liana]

I wish we had gotten a better fit on the bust. I don't know what I did that made it too small, but I'm sorry about it. It looks like you have corrected it, though.

I think most women are probably wearing a bra with too big a band and too small cups, just because you wear what you can get. It's much easier to get a wide variety of sizes now online, than when we were stuck with whatever Penney's, or the local department store thought we should wear.

[Dara]

I am in the same situation. Scoliosis is a bummer but I keep trying! I wished we lived closer maybe we could Help and encourage one another. I live on the East Coast.