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.

 

muslin progress

 Well, I did manage to get the skirt muslin sewn together and the initial alterations done.  The pattern was no where near my current size (although it was the smallest iteration I still had of this pattern.  It must have been from the end of 2005, not the beginning as the skirts that only needed an inch or two taken out of them are from early 2005.

I ended up taking 2 inches out at each side seam, or 8 inches total from the girth of the skirt, all the way down from waist to hem.  That certainly makes me feel better about my efforts now, although somewhat appalled about my history as well.

Here's a quick photo of me in the substantially narrowed skirt.  The hem will be a little shorter than is marked here (olive line), just at the bottom of the knee, which will be a much more flattering length.

I haven't finished fitting the skirt at the waist yet.  It looks like the skirt pattern extends up about 2 to 3 inches above my natural waist.  I probably just chopped it off as I made each skirt, although several of my older skirts are too high at the waist.  

I am putting it aside for now because I had a gluten encounter over the weekend.   I am still a bit bloated from the GI symptoms and also from taking prednisone which I need to control the rampant hives which are also brought on by the smallest bit of gluten.  

 This is my favorite belt this spring.  I usually wear it on the third (middle) buckle with my jeans, at about 1" below my waist.  I last wore this belt on Friday and can't buckle it at all now, the closest I can get is to about an inch from the largest hole, which is what, 3 inches over normal? I am wearing an old belt that I hadn't given away yet, a belt that I stopped wearing because it was too large.  This amount of bloating will make a difference in the final fit of the skirt.  It behooves me to wait.

Since I have the basic dimensions of the skirt, I could probably start cutting the lining at least.  But things should be back to normal by the weekend.  Once I pass the belt test, it is full steam ahead.

The second pant muslin

Once again I am here in my hotel room in NYC with a big happy grin on my face and my poor tired feet propped up on the bed following another fabulous day.  

I've just come in from a wonderful dinner that Marji arranged with a group of charming and very talented sewing bloggers.  Marji has a great group photo so you really need to go over there and check it out.  Of course Marji and I were both there as were Carolyn, Robin, Claudine, LindsayT, and NancyK.

T he sewing class has been also been very productive and a lot of fun.  We were the first of the students to arrive in the classroom this morning and we got right to work.  I finally threaded up a machine and started stitching up my second pants muslin, and Marji continued to work on her jacket.  There were also brief lessons from both Susan Khalje and Kenneth King.  Then I got my second fitting by Kenneth, which was very interesting.  

On the first pant fitting Kenneth had only marked changes to the right leg, and on the second fitting there were more changes to the right leg as well as a few changes to the left, but not necessarily the same changes on the right and the left.  A second fairly good size tuck was folded out of the right rear pant piece, and you can see the two folded pieces in the photo at right and again below.   The second tuck folded another 1 1/2 inches out of the inner seam just below the crotch curve as you can see in this close up of the same area.

On the right front pattern piece, where a significant tuck had also been previously taken in on the first fitting, Kenneth had pinned out another small dart, this one shown with the red line formed by a tracing wheel .  This little dart was translated into an equivalent move in the shaping of the front crotch curve and seam as shown in this picture.

The center back seam was also moved to the right at the waist.  Shown in this picture is the corresponding left back piece which had to be extended the center back waist to accommodate the move, after which the darts were repositioned so they are balanced on either side of the new center back.

Very few changes were made to the left leg of the pants muslin.  A large tuck was taken out of the back, similar to the one on the right, and a small tuck was taken out of the front, but not nearly as significant as the corresponding tucks on the right.  The hip curve on the left was pretty much left alone, unlike the one on the right,  where the front hip was pretty much redrawn as a straight line down from the waist (the straight black line in this photo).  

T hen the curve of the corresponding back piece was extended at the hip making a much more pronounced hip curve on the back piece, which you can see in this last picture.  Of course the point is not how the final pattern pieces look, but that the final garment looks straight and balanced and symmetrical on me when I am wearing it and we seem to be making good progress in that direction.  

Tomorrow, pant muslin number 3.  I hadn't anticiapted that the pants would take so long.  Do I mind?  No.  Getting a great muslin is worth the effort.  Once that has been accomplished, the pants are easy.

Perhaps with luck I will even get started on that second blouse muslin.