Body Issues

Apparently I have them.

I spent hours going through my patterns to find a skirt pattern that I thought would fit.  I tossed aside many smaller patterns and a few larger. 

Last weekend, having a sewing day with friends, I made up Advance 9689.  It went together quickly if one disregards my inability to decipher pleats.  This is a known issue and I am discarding this problem.

I try on the skirt and my friends laugh….hard….rolling on the floor type of laughing.  Then came the comments that I clearly do not know what size I am on my lower half.  (I seem to have the upper half under control.)  Of course, some of this may be payback for me advising one of my friends was basing her pattern choice on a pattern that was at least 2 sizes too big.  Payback or not, it was well deserved laughing, I looked comical!

I was swimming in the skirt.  It was HUGE.  All I could say to the laughing is that I thought it would fit.  Then pleaded for help to try and make it fit.  I ended up increasing the darts and pleats which, of course, worked.

But seriously, this is the second skirt that I have had the issue that it was just too darned big!

Haven't yet removed
the hand basting from
the waistband.

Oh, I suppose you would like to see a picture of the skirt.  There is no picture of any kind of it falling off of me.   Here’s where it is now:  waistband on but no zipper and no hem.  My place has been like the surface of the sun so sewing has been out of the question.  I just cannot sew when sweat is pouring off of me.  If only I had air conditioning.

Could It Get ANY Easier?

 I want to thank Debi for chiming in on the likely date of this pattern.  She really confirmed what I thought!  And, of course if you have not read her blog...well you need to do so immediately!

I really do not think so!  So far, working with Simplicity 3835 has been a joy.  Simple and quick to put together.  The hardest bit so far has been pattern adjustments and those were merely tedious and time consuming.

Pattern adjustments included an FBA….it was needed this time.  Also increased the width of the skirt pieces by a couple of inches.  I left the back piece alone because it fit but if I were to make this again, I would add a smidge to the lower portion of the back piece so that it would be easier to ease into the back skirt piece.  I also made the ties double...I had the fabric and it looks more finished to my eye this way.

This has gone together so quickly, I wanted to do a marathon sewing day so I would just finish it. However, a clearer mind won out; no need to get tired and make silly mistakes.  Also, even though not done, I am thinking of making this pattern up again in a more practical fabric.

Construction is unusual for me.  The pattern has you make the front first, then the back and then you put it all together!

Love the v at the waist

Front

Back

Side

 

You can see how the front
is sewn completely before the back

The skirt is attached to the bodice using a technique you see all the time in 1930s patterns: fold over the seam allowance and top stitch on.  It was really easy after the flat fell seams of last week!  To do this, I measured and measured.  I also marked the placement on the bodice with one of those funky air erasing pens.  On the back, I hand pasted the skirt onto the bodice before sewing it on.  I did not do that with the front but if you have to do this technique, I recommend the hand basting.  It really does save time.

It Seamed Like a Good Idea

I would like to thank Leah for suggesting I check out her blog for some steampunky inspiration.  Totally cool and very inspiring!

In my world, I had to make the skirt larger because of the 25 inch waist issue, I also made the pattern a little longer because it was hitting at my ankles which did not allow for a hem.  While I was cutting the pattern out, the fabric was unraveling like crazy.  At first I thought I would serge the seams but then I got the brilliant idea to make flat fell seams which would enclose the raveling bits. 

Yeah…great idea except for the 3/8ths seam allowance.  Have you ever tried flat fell seams with such a small seam allowance??  If you were successful, I want to know your secret.  If not, you can sympathize with me.  Ugh, I could not make it to work so I picked out all the seam and re-sewed them with a 4/8^ths seam allowance.  Now the flat fells seams were easier mind you, but not easy.  What a bother though I do love the look!

1940’s Skirt

This is the pattern I am using

This little skirt with the same front and back piece is proving to be challenging.  I thought I needed to add a little bit around the hips based on the hip measurement on the envelope.  Good idea?  Nope because I forgot to re-measure myself.  All the running I have been doing has whittled an inch or so off of my hips.  Yay!  But I had already added to the skirt and cut the fabric.  Oops!

Second problem is the back piece is the same as the front piece and that does not seem to be working for me.  I would like to blame the rather stiff fabric.  But nope, can’t do that!  When I try on the skirt, the front looks great and the back looks like a big old bubble. Because I assume I did something wrong to one piece, I flip the skirt around, since the front is the back, and but it is the same thing – front looks nice and there is just too much fabric in the back.

Nice blue.  If only I can make this work
for me!

I do not know what you do in these situations, but I just throw the project aside and think about starting something new.  Some thoughts have occurred to try and fix the situation.  Both pieces have gathers on either hip so it does not seem as if a dart could be added.  What I may do instead, since I added about 2 inches to the width of the skirt is cut the back up the middle and put in a seam with the hopes of manipulating the seam to get a better fit.

Do you think this will work?  I have only a few days to finish my April skirt.

Line Backer Shoulders

Apparently I have these.  

A week Saturday, I went to a class on making an Edwardian waist using a book based on a ruler system (it sounds more difficult than it was).  When it came time to fitting the muslin, out of a class of about 20 students, only 2 experienced extreme fitting problems.  My luck….I was one of the fitting problems.

However, I did learn a lot.  First, I was told that I have broad shoulders….that is only in comparison to my allegedly small waist.  Who knew, because I do not consider my waist on the small side.  I would say it is average.  The focus was on the large differential between waist and shoulders which cause all of my fitting problems.

Remember, that civil war bodice that I have temporarily given up on?  Yup, the fitting issues there are exactly the same.  When the teacher went through and explained how to make the muslin fit, it was downright enlightening.  Really, a light bulb went off and explained so much.  The need to take out inches from side seams was due, as explained to me, to the waist/shoulder differential.

Dress prior to making changes

I learned that a center back seam will assist in fitting this issue without having to make crazy alterations to side seams.  You can bet that civil war bodice is now going to have a back seam.   As you can well imagine, big darts are also my friend!

With the Brown Leaf Dress as I am calling Advance 7065, as I was making it up I found that it was really not fitting through the bust and waist.  Here I was worried about an FBA and it is too big in that area.  Part of this is caused by the dreaded waist/shoulder differential.  So I made some changes to the seams around the waist and low bust area also increasing the darts in these area.

Take a look at this:

Original dart highlighted in blue.
New dart highlighted in purple.  Wow!
That is some difference!!!!

Original seam line highlighted in blue.  The new seam
line in purple.  Take a look at that difference! 

Seriously the darts are an inch width on one side for a total of two inches removed in the waist area from 2 darts on each side.  That’s a whopping 4 inches on each side.  Did I make any changes to the shoulders?? Nope….they fit quite nicely. 

Sewing can be crazy making but you can never say it is dull!

Fear

So this is the pattern I would like to work on. 

Why am I afraid of this pattern?

Two things are stopping me: 1. bound buttonholes and 2. princess seam FBA.  These techniques scare me. 

I know I can skip the bound buttonholes and just make regular one.  But no matter how you slice it, I will need to make an FBA on the princess seams.  I spent yesterday dithering around looking in my sewing books and online for assistance making a FBA on the princess seams.  All this research and I found a variety of ways to make the FBA and am not utterly confused.  I have rather decided the FFRP method is not for me.  It would increase the rest of the dress unnecessarily.  The Reader’s Digest Sewing book just has you draw bigger curves in the bust area which is a better idea because it focuses on the problem area but the question is how much bigger?

I think I will be doing the Sandra Betzina method of increasing the bust area with princess seams.

Why is this so confusing?  Does anyone have a favorite way of doing an FBA on a princess seam dress??

Fabric Alert

Amazing!  Did hell freeze over?  Were pigs flying?

Why?  Because for the month of October I purchased no fabric.  Nada, nope, nothing.  No money was spent buying fabric.  Just a few dollars on necessities such as thread or .75 on a zipper.

Seriously, miracles of miracles!  No money spent on fabric.  Not that it's bad thing; quite the contrary, it is fabulous since I saved money...kaaaaching!  Really, I have bins and bins of fabric because I have no self control when I go fabric shopping.  Even if I tried, I will never be able to use it all.  Perhaps it is time to try and sell some of it.

Besides, I know November will not be as kind.  I have white silk dupioni on the horizon and that will cost a pretty penny.

What about that Hawaii dress you ask.  Well, there is a bit of fine tuning going on adjusting side seams.  I am also adding another strip of bias binding.  This is what I love about sewing, making the adjustments that make it oh so special.  Now, I can wear the dress as is; but putting it on tonight, I just wanted to make a few oh so minute changes.  This means that I need another pair of buttons, but that’s okay and they can be added later.

Adjustment

I am stymied by how to make a FBA to this pattern.  While I am not sure if I actually need an FBA I tend to think I will.  But how?

These are the pattern pieces.  Hmmmm….I can’t find anything to help.  There really is no arm hole and no darts and not even a bodice.

I traced out the pattern and then cut up the front skirt/bodice piece.  I first tried cutting up the bottom and spreading the pattern.  That could work but I didn’t really want to widen the bottom.  I then came from the top and I didn’t like that idea either since it would make it so the yoke would not fit.

Finally a light bulb went off…..I selected a spot fairly close to where the I thought the bodice would end.  Sliced the pattern in half.  From there, I cut up and out to spread and widen the putative bodice.  Hopefully this will work because I cut out the fabric.


Now for the fun part.

One Step Forward

The Green 1918 skirt is now cut. It took hours to piece that skirt together. The skirt is supposed to be 2 panels 36 inches wide and for me 47 ½ inches long. I was able to cut one panel with this dimension. I then had to create 2 panels approximately 18 inches wide. I actually think I will like this set up better. The pattern, with the 2 panels, means that there is a seam down the front. With the gathers it does not look horrible. But on this dress, the seams will be on either side and in the back for the opening. I kinda like this. Went through hell to get here but it is good. I think I may put in pockets; I like pockets and always forget to put them in my dresses


The panels are cut and the gathering stitches in. So, just need to sew them together with pockes, gather, hem and tuck. I CAN DO THIS! Of course, I need to throw together a corset over the weekend as well. Maybe I need to rethink that one.

I am bummed that I cant just stay home and sew this up. I have the time sucking class tonight so I will not be able to sew until tomorrow.

What Time? What Sewing?

Time was at a premium this weekend. That does not mean that sewing did not occur. A little bit occurred. In fact,, because I knew that time would be at a premium I did not create a to do list because I knew I could not keep up.


What did I do you might ask? Well, I ripped out the cream color zipper on McCalls 5150. I will replace it with the almost matching one. It bugged me. I did get the hem measured, so I can sew that up sometime soon. I also want to lower the bust darts a tad. I don’t think I need to get into that one in detail.

The new 1918 dress got some action as well. One sleeve was set in but then I forgot about the fichu. So out came the sleeve. Tonight I am going to hem the fichu and start put it in and re-do the sleeve. That was a silly mistake.

All I can say, is that I have a lot to do in the next 2 weeks and I know I cannot finish everything I would like to finish. I do not know what I will want to wear. I am getting a little wishy washy. The Teal 1918 dress will be worn. That is the only “for sure” I have at this point.

Problems

The Mint Chip Dress came along swimmingly over the weekend. However, I perceive some problems on the horizon. First, I cannot figure out how to completely attach the bodice to the skirt. It appears that some directions are missing. There is an explanation of how to attach the back bodice to the skirt but not the front bodice. Maybe it is supposed to be a modified wrap dress? I am flummoxed to say the least. I also think something is missing because there is an instruction 17 and 17a but no 17 b. Second, the neck hole is teeny. I could barely fit my head through and my head is on the small side! I have never seen a neckline so small outside of children’s clothing. Third is a problem of my own making. I do not like how one of the insets is a little off center…must fix….will go crazy if don’t fix.

Here’s a look but please forgive all the threads.


 There is a lot of basting and stay stitching in this dress and I have not yet removed any. In fact, there is too much topstitching for my liking and all seams except side seams are basted in first! However, I will admit that I like the look and it didn’t take too much extra time. So next time I poopoo basting, I need to be reminded of this experience.

I also really need to pad out this form to be as busty as I am!

Curses ...Foiled

This morning I cut out the Mint Chip Dress. I knew that fabric would be tight. I did a lot of maneuvering with the fabric, staying on grain, to place the pattern pieces. I was so concerned, that I cut out the pieces in an order so that if I had to piece, it would be on the pieces that would not be so obvious. I also shortened the skirt length a lot as well. The skirt out of the package was floor length. Even to get it ankle length like on the pattern drawing, at least 3 inches needed to come off. I think I took about 6 inches off and could have gone shorter. Given the paucity of fabric, perhaps I should have done this.

Alas, when I came to the ties on the dress, there was not enough fabric to even cut one out with out many many pieces making up the tie.

So…..some quick thinking occurred. I had already planced to make the collar out of black. So what about the ties out of black as well. I liked the idea but I do not like the black fabric I have on hand for the ties. The collar it is ok for but not the ties. Instead, I tried some white swiss dot that I had on hand and really, that did not make me happy either. The fabric was the correct weigh but ugh not a great color combination. The black just looks better to my eye.

I scrounged around for a while and the only other black I have is a black pique left over from the Halloween costume. That isn’t the best fabric choice either and I do not like the pique with the swiss dot.

A decision had to be made and I am going with the linen type black fabric.

Why Does McCall's Hate Me?

So back to actual sewing…..it has occurred. 

The next step was attaching the bodice to the skirt.  Should be easy peasy right?  Wrong!  The bodice front is much to big for the skirt front.  So what I do is match the pleats to the darts which is really the common sense thing to do.  Where the zipper needs to be inserted onto the front bodice, the bodice bit is 2 inches wider than the skirt bit.

Yes…..I know this is probably human error.  Ok, I admit it is human error something went terribly wrong in cutting out this side of the bodice (even when I say it it doesn’t make much sense) but by now I hate McCall’s and we have already determined that they lie.  So why not just place all of the blame on the pattern.  See:

 

So what do I do?  Easing it in didn't work.

Then I do what anyone would do (kidding) pop the whole thing in the washer to see if washing it will make it magically spring back into place.  Big surprise, it doesn’t!   Now it is wrinkled and I am frustrated.  Again, big surprise.

The question is now how do I get the zipper in?

Should I cut the darn thing to make it work?  I like it too much to make it a wadder (yes that is my wonky dressform from Goodwill).  Let the zipper games begin!

Here is a tease about View B:

 

Look at the gorgeous silk taffeta!  This picture just doesn’t do the silver portion justice.  It is rich and makes that lovely crisp taffeta sound.  Yum!

When big hips are not so big or The envelope lies

So starting with view A:

 I decided to trace out the pattern rather than used the already cut out pieces because when I looked at the pattern envelope for the measurements I noticed that my hips were significantly bigger than the hip measurement provided for by the patter.  Given that this is a straight skirt combined with my wide hips and well endowed rear end, I felt that a big hip adjustment (my words) was in order. So, I figured out how much to add to the pattern to make the skirt fit over my hips.  I slashed the pattern and followed the directions provided for a big hip adjustment.

I cut out the fabric and first put together the bodice.  It came together quickly and fit very well indeed.  The collar and facing went together with ease.  My first raglan sleeves were a joy to insert.  No puckers here. 

The skirt, likewise, went together quickly.  No problems; not even with the back kick pleat thing (yes that is a term of art in the sewing world).  It is now time to try the skirt on prior to attaching it to the bodice.  You must understand that at this point in time, I was feeling proud of myself.  No seams to unpick.  The complicated collar and neck facing turned out perfectly.  I was amazed that this dress was both coming together quickly and that it actually looked professionally made.

Then .....the horror.....I put on the skirt and...........its ..............tooooooooooooooooo....BIG.  Not by a  little bit.........but by ALOT....super huge amounts of fabric swallowing those hip and rear.  My big hips unimaginably lost in acres of fabric.  How could the skirt be this huge? 

Imagine the stunned look on my face as I gazed in the mirror.  The mixture of horror and amazement.  I checked math and no that quarter of an inch would bring the skirt to my hip size. 

Then came the next 1 1/2 hours of taking in the seams, taking in the darts, making bigger pleats.  I finally got the back of the skirt and the waist to fit.  But from the front, skirt still looked HUGE.  If the bodice did not look so perfect, I would have thrown the whole thing out at this point blessing the good that is $1 yard fabric.  The zipper could be used for something else I could rationalize.  But I loved the bodice.  I had set in my sleeves perfectly, no puckers.  Oh the frustration.

Finally, I made the drastic decision to take the skirt apart and re-cut the front piece to start with to see if that would fix this size issue. 

So unpicking began.  Goodbye nice darts.

The next night the skirt started from scratch.  First the front piece is recut and I basted it onto the back pieces.  Lo and behold, the skirt looked normal and asif it fit.  Now remember, the back pieces have darts which have quadrupled in size and huge seam allowances.  But looking at the front piece, the heavens opened up lighting up my joyous face and I knew that I had to re-cut the back pieces as well.  Goodbye basting and back kick pleat thing; the unpicking begins again.

So the back pieces are recut and then the skirt sewn back together.  At this point you must understand that matching the plaid was just not an option. Taking the skirt to the mirror once again yielded a totally different sight……a well fitting skirt.

Hallelujah…..it is time to attach the bodice to the skirt with the funky ribbon waistband thing.