Giving Thanks for Talking Back

Oliver wanted to help me say "Thank you!" to Meredith, Lisa Laree, Cindy, Cole's Corner, Gwen, Summerset, Julia, BConky, Elaina and Becky for talking back to my confession last Friday! :)

I confessed that we had allowed ourselves to be adopted by Oliver, and asked for stories of how your furry, four-legged friends had come into your lives.

What I got back was ten wonderful stories of people opening up their hearts and homes (sometimes, perhaps, a bit reluctantly at first) and getting back years of companionship, laughter and joy, with a dash of aggravation mixed in for good measure! ;)

There's no way I can do justice to those stories in this post - if a furry creature has ever made a home in your heart, then you'll want to read the originals! (here)

And to all a good night.

In the Queue Wednesday

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes! I'm doing a bit better - although not 100% yet... It sounds like some kind of nasty bug has been doing the rounds - my holiday wish is that it by-passes all of you and your families for the rest of this season.

My queue has been over-run with Thanksgiving cooking plans. Turkey, stuffing, ham, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, dilled green beans, etc. - the whole shebang! This is my favorite holiday and favorite meal of the whole year!

How about you? What are your plans for the holiday? I hope your day is filled with good food and the joy and laughter of being with family and good friends! :)

Weekend Project: Holding the Bed Down

Not exactly what I had planned, but sometimes you don't have a choice... :(

Friday Confession

We have done something very, very foolish...

Yes, our household has a new member. I would like to introduce you to Oliver.

"Why?" you ask.

Funny, that is exactly what Sammy and Milly (the long-term feline residents of the house) are asking - only in a more dramatically aggrieved tone of voice - "Why?!?! What did we ever do to deserve this?!?! How could you?!?!"

What can I say? A neighbor found him in the street, abandoned, starving and flea infested. And we are suckers. And our vet has another car payment in the bank. ;)

Four days later, feeling safe in his new home, flea-less and with a full belly, he is proving to be head-strong, feisty and affectionate.

You'll be seeing him again - probably tangled up in my weaving yarn! ;)

In the meantime, how about you? Any "sucker" stories for me? :)

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Gwen, Carla, Cindy, Shannon, Tamara and Elaina for talking back last week! I asked about people's experiences with sewing for charity.

As busy as we all are, pretty much everyone has done at least a little charitable sewing. And I learned about a ton of opportunities! Here are some of the causes that were mentioned:

The 100 Skirt Project - a blogger named Charity started a project to sew 100 pairs of coordinated skirts and tops to send to an orphanage in Central America. The project is over now, but the story and pictures are heartwarming!
http://vintagethreads.blogspot.com/search/label/Hundred%20Skirts%20Project

Project Linus - Make blankets for children in need.
http://www.projectlinus.org/

Craft Hope - Make blankets, onesies, booties, cloth dolls and burp cloths for children in need all around the world.
http://crafthope.com/

Ronald McDonald House - Make quilts and pillowcases for families staying here and for their hospitalized children.
http://rmhc.org/

Compassion Pregnancy - Make onesies and blankets for newborns.
http://www.compassionpregnancy.org/

ASG Charities - Gwen mentioned that most sewing organizations regularly sponsor a cause, and I fouond this set of causes on the ASG website:
http://www.asg.org/html/giving.html

Other ideas included wheelchair caddies for veterans, bibs for nursing home residents, sewing for local homeless shelters. And Cindy pointed out that there are other ways to use our love of sewing to help others, including things like providing volunteer sewing lessons.

Lots and lots of great ideas for charitable sewing in 2010! If people want to send me more, I'll set up a section of links on my side column as a resource. Thanks again, everyone for taking the time to share your favorite causes! :)

In the Queue Wednesday

Have you noticed how the internet is organized into little clusters of inter-linked sites? For example, most of the blogs that I read link to (and read) each other. It's as if we form one little neighborhood and we all are (pretty much) familiar with our neighbors in this particular community.

But there are other pockets of sewing-related blogs and sites out there that are highly inter-connected, but don't happen to link to our neighborhood and we, for the most part, aren't linked into them.

You think you know the "internet sewing world", and then you stumble onto one of those other clusters and realize that there's another whole inter-connected sewing community that is new to you...

So, this happened to me recently, when I came across the blog entitled "The Scientific Seamstress". With my penchant for crunching and summarizing numbers, you can probably guess why this title appealed to me! ;)

Carla designs her own patterns, and the newest addition to my queue is her adult sized Easy Fit Pants pattern:

This is an elastic waist, "one seam" pants pattern (actually 2, of course - crotch and inner leg - but no outer side seam) for a comfortable, wide leg fit. Carla is known for her detailed and well-illustrated instructions, so I'm looking forward to seeing those for myself. This pattern also features an equal front and back rise - I'm curious to see how that works.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to ANYONE that I chose bright and busy, heart-themed pink flannel for the pants, with a contrasting (yet still heart-themed) brown flannel for the cuff:

These will be pajama bottoms, just for lounging around the house. Don't worry, my husband can take all that pink cuteness - by now he is used to it! ;)

I'm not sure exactly when, but don't worry, I'll get to these... They're in the queue! :)

Weekend Project: Imperfection by Design?

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh - at yourself.

--Ethel Barrymore

Do you know the Greek myth of Arachne? She was a very skilled weaver and grew so arrogant that she challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving competition. As you can imagine, this doesn't go well for Arachne. You didn't want to annoy those Greek gods, and Arachne ended up a spider. And the lesson that some drew from this story is that no project should ever be done perfectly, but some small imperfection should always be deliberately included to avoid drawing the negative attention of the gods.

The thing I like about this story, is that it offers a good explanation for those little mistakes that always pop up in my projects! Oh, I did that on purpose... That's my story and I'm sticking to it! ;)

So, now that I have properly prepared you for an update on my weaving... ;)

I had a day off this week (Veteran's Day) and put the time towards my Christmas project of weaving kitchen towels. I finished warping the 402 threads, with only one serious threading mistake that had to be fixed.

And two minor mistakes, of the type that can be excu... ooops, I mean, explained, by Arachne's story. Here's one of them - see where two sea green threads line up together, instead of alternating like they should?

The kit is supposed to make 3 towels, one each of the colors blue, white and purple. I started with the blue weft:



After I finished the blue towel, I added a few "shots" of a thick white yarn, to separate the first towel from the second.


And then I started the second towel, with white weft.

Once the loom was fully warped, the weaving itself went quickly! :)

==============================================================

On a completely different "note"...

Would you like to hear the most beautiful love song ever written? My husband just wrote it for me. On the right side column look for his music player and click on the song "Your Voice Singing". It's just short of 2.5 minutes long. Here are the lyrics to read along as he sings:

When there's no breeze to stir the heather,

When you can hear the falling of a feather,

When you can hear a lone grasshopper springing,

I hear the sound of your voice singing.



When hurricanes send waves a-bashing

And lightening skies send thunder crashing

Though sirens wail and bells be ringing,

I hear the sound of your voice singing.




Through all the miles I've put behind me,

Your song has never failed to find me,

And when I to my last breath be clinging,

I'll hear the sound of your voice singing.

Friday Confession

Remember those UNICEF trick-or-treat boxes we used to take around on Halloween when we were kids? Do they still do that anywhere? We certainly haven't had any kids come to our house with these boxes in the 23 years that we've been in Florida...

Speaking of charity, today's confession/question is about charitable sewing. I have done a little bit. I made 50 flannel pillowcases for an organization that takes gift baskets to children in the hospital. That project was a lot of fun! When else do you get an excuse to buy 50 different adorable flannel prints? And the pillowcases sewed up so quickly and easily.

I have also started sewing for "Sew Much Comfort", an organization that makes special clothing for vets - clothing that has velcro closures along a side for ease in putting on and taking off over casts and braces, etc. But I am woefully behind in sewing for them. I have a stack of flannel plaids sitting in my sewing room waiting to be turned into pajama bottoms... :(

Hmmm... Now that I think of it, seems like all of my charitable sewing has revolved around flannel... That's kind of odd, isn't it? ;)

So, how about you? Do you, or have you done, charitable sewing? If so, I'd love to hear about your causes and your projects! :)

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Gwen, Wendy, Kristine, Amelia, Mamafitz, Lois, Cindy, Faye, Carla, Alison, Uta, Summerset, Goodworks1 and Elaina for talking back to my confession last week! I asked about people’s experiences with tissue fitting.

So, I think it's fair to say that tissue fitting is not THE most popular fitting method out there. ;) A couple of folks reported never having tried it, half a dozen said that they aren't fans and rarely (if ever) do it, and three people reported feeling that it was a useful skill in their repertoire, to accomplish certain objectives and in combination with other fitting methods.

The most commonly called out alternative fitting methods were, not surprisingly, flat pattern alterations (often in conjunction with a sloper or TNT pattern) and making a muslin.

People brought up 4 main concerns with tissue fitting - the primary one being that the tissue paper can easily rip and/or disintegrate (5 commenters). Also mentioned were the facts that tissue paper doesn't drape or move like fabric (2), it's difficult to tissue fit yourself (2) and you can't easily do patterns that call for knits or lycra (1).

On the "pro" side, several people like tissue fitting (or at least holding up tissue pattern pieces to a body) to get a quick feel for overall sizing. Cindy, for example, uses it to convince her students that they really do need to use the size that she is recommending! Goodworks1 uses it to estimate the bust point adjustment she's going to need to make to a pattern, and Lois uses it for patterns that don't easily compare (in flat form) to a sloper, such as a pattern with pleats.

Elaina is the strongest proponent of tissue fitting. She offered some work-arounds for the cons, like fitting to your dress form instead of to your own body. The idea of hers that I found most intriguing was that she doesn't pin the tissue pieces together - rather she pins each separately to a close fitting garment that she can slip on and off. She also recommended the book Modern Pattern Design by H. Pepin as a good source of fitting methods. (By the way, I found an online version of that book - here.)

Thanks again to everyone who commented! I learn so much from you all! :)

In the Queue Wednesday

Another Christmas gift / weaving project in my queue... Most people asked for waffle weave towels, but a couple of friends loved the colors in these kitchen tea towels. It's another kit from Halcyon Yarn and this one makes 8 towels. The amount of time it takes me to warp (thread or prepare) my loom is ridiculously long compared to the amount of time it takes me to weave a couple of towels (kind of like using the serger!), so I like the one-warp-to-eight-towels ratio of this kit! ;)

Well, I can't guarantee that they'll be done before 25 December, but don't worry, I'll get to them... They're in the queue! ;)

Weekend Project: Halfsie

The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

--Stephen R. Covey

As promised, a post with actual sewing content! I followed Mr. Covey's advice and started working on the onesie for my friend Susan's baby boy (due after the New Year). Despite the title of this post, I'm actually more than half-way done.

I think I already mentioned that the two fronts are not symmetrical - here is a shot of the right front (which will tuck inside):

And here is a shot of the left front, which will wrap around on the outside:

There were several pattern pieces for little strips of fabric, not cut on the bias, for edging around the legs:


Here I have the facing pinned onto the garment (right sides together). This is the seam that is giving me grief, as my wooly nylon thread keeps breaking every time I try to serge it... :(


There's a cute little tab snap to hold the right front together on the inside:



Other than the thread breaking repeatedly on that one seam, this has been a fun pattern to put together. I had to walk away from the serger for an hour or so, or one of us was going down... (No guarantees on which one, however, as that machine is darn tough!)


If I can get that seam done without any more interruptions, there is maybe 30 minutes left of sewing to do. I think I'll make this pattern again!


I hope you had a good sewing weekend! :)

Friday Confession

So, I have never tried tissue fitting.

How about you? Have you tried it? Do you like it? Why or why not? If you don't do tissue fitting, what method do you use to ensure the fit of a garment?

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Christine, Julia, Mamafitz, Gwen, Elaina, Uta, Cindy, Summerset, Becky and Sandy for talking back to my confession last Friday! With Halloween almost upon us, I asked about costume making experiences...

So, do we do costumes? Oh my goodness, do we do costumes!

Of course, there were LOTS of children's costumes mentioned, like Mamafitz's superhero son pictured here:

For children's costumes, people called out:

ANIMALS - like a giraffe, monkey, fish, starfish, ladybug, turtle, dragon, dog, cat, Hello Kitty, one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater, Quack and a bionic bunny!

CHARACTERS - like Pocahontas, Sacagawea, Pippi Longstocking, Nancy Drew, Indiana Jones, Flintstones and the little boy from "Where the Wild Things Are".

Check out the amazing Sharpay (from High School Musical) costume that Sandy made for her niece here and Cindy's very own Ghost Buster and Twilight character here (scroll down to see)!

TRADITIONAL - like a princess, fairy, witch, angel, mermaid, sleeping beauty, jester, cowgirl, cheerleader, Spiderman, Zorro, pirate, and ninja.

Check out more of Mamafitz's great costumes over the years - doctor, archer (NOT Robin Hood), and Caesar and Uta made this wonderful witch costume without using a pattern!

And there were some odds and ends, like a pumpkin, a flower in a pot, a shrimp sushi, an Egyptian and a spooky dead bride.

At the same time, I was surprised by how many people reported making costumes for themselves – for costume parties (such as New Year’s Eve parties), carnivals and renaissance fairs. Summerset, for example, has made herself a German maiden costume and a Barbie costume!

Here is a picture of one of Becky's many beautiful Lord of the Rings inspired costumes!

Check out some of her other costumes: an angel, Eowyn #1, Eowyn #2, pirate, dark fairy and the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.

Some of my favorite stories were about the pairs of costumes – Cindy & her husband, for example, have gone to parties dressed as a pregnant nun and a priest! And Elaina and her son do paired-themed costumes whenever they attend a comic book convention – recently they were King Cactuar and Lulu from the Final Fantasy videogame. Isn't that cool?

All in all, only a couple of people reported waning enthusiasm for making costumes – Christine pointed out that commercial costumes are readily available and inexpensive these days and Gwen seems to have developed costume-overload last year while gluing red sequins onto an Elvis costume...

Of course, I’ve heard that happened to a lot of his actual tailors. ;)

Thanks again, to everyone for your wonderful stories and pictures!

In the Queue Wednesday

This is the last of my fabric finds from my Missouri trip in October. It's probably some polyestor blend, and I think it will make great dress slacks for work. I'm going to draft my own pants pattern, following the instructions in the January 2008 issue of Threads magazine. I've done this before, and the results showed promise. The one thing I want to change is to make the circumference around my ankles wider - the pair I made before were a bit too narrow-legged for my taste.

So, the pretty flowy skirt fabric that I showed you last week is calling to me more loudly than these dress pants, but don't worry, I'll get to them. They're in the queue... :)

Weekend Project: From Rehearsal to Performance

Her one chocolate today and it was a damn artificial damn pink-and-white damn sickly damn stupid nougat!

Well, no one could be expected to believe that counted.

--Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

My apologies for the language. I picked this quote because I thought you might like some help with the Halloween candy! ;)

This week I pulled my practice kitchen towel off the loom and started warping a "real" one. The waffle pattern formed amazingly nicely!

As you weave, you continually wrap the completed weaving around a beam on the front of the loom. Thus, you never see more than a few inches of the fabric. It's easy to lose track of how much you have woven. For example, it appears that I accidentally went a little overboard with my practice towel...

And that's just HALF of it! ;)

Oh well, I'll know better for the real towels... Speaking of which, I spent most of the weekend preparing for the next set of towels. They will also be waffle weave, but in the combination of colors called "Sea Glass":

I'm about 1/3 of the way getting the 402 threads individually through the heddles (hanging needles).

There's no doubt that preparing the loom takes (me) much longer than the actual weaving!

I promise, cross my heart, that next weekend I'll have some SEWING progres and pictures for you!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Friday Confession

Happy Halloween!

As often as I sew for my nieces and nephews, and as crazy as some of the outfits they have asked for have been!, I have never sewn a Halloween costume...

How about you? Have you sewn any Halloween costumes? I bet it was a blast! Any stories about a costume project that stood out as especially epic in some way? If you have pictures on the web and would be willing to leave a link, I'll include some (and the links) in my post next Thursday. Thanks!

Photo credit: Elisabeth Audrey

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Gwen, Jodieth, Connie, Faye Lewis, Mamafitz, CarlaF, Lori, Summerset, Joannely, Karin, Cindy, Gaylen, Meredith, Lois, Sharon and Elaina for talking back to my confession last week! I asked about experiences with the American Sewing Guild (ASG) and other sewing organizations.

I was a bit surprised to see that almost two-thirds of the people who responded (10 out of 16) are ASG members!

As you might expect, however, among the members there is quite a bit of variability in how active people are. Some, like Joannely, Gaylen and Meredith are extremely acitve and have even started new neighborhood groups and/or served as leaders for their groups.

Other people are not as active, and you can probably guess many of the reasons why: they don’t have a neighborhood group (NG) close by, they have schedule conflicts with the local NG meetings, and/or the local NG has a different focus than they do (for example, more quilts and crafts, less garment sewing).

For the people who are able to participate, it sounds like there are both technical benefits (having workshops and speakers) and social benefits – just getting to hang out with wonderful, classy people! And the 10% discount at Joann’s and other retail stores might have been brought up a few times too… ;)

I did get the impression that that not all NGs are "created equal" and finding an NG that is a “good fit” is a very important factor in determining how much you get out of the organization. In fact, Connie recommended starting your own NG!

Speaking of advice, Meredith gave what is probably the most important advice that anyone can keep in mind when joining any organization – never leave the room when they are looking for volunteers and/or leaders! ;)

Finally, it was also cool to read about some other sewing-related groups. Elaina belongs to a Burda club, Summerset belongs to a quilt guild, Cindy has a "meetup" group and Mamafitz used to belong to an independent pattern club that sounds very interesting! They would pick a specific indie pattern to try each month, and then get together to compare notes (and garments) afterwards.

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to tell me about your experiences! I’ll let you know how it works out for me. :)

Photo credit: Cornell University LIbrary - Human Ecology Historical Photographs Collection.

In the Queue Wednesday

This is another of the fabric purchases that I made in Missouri during my visit with Lori of Girls in the Garden. It is a grey sheer with pink and white paisley. I think it will make a lovely skirt. I don't have a particular pattern in mind, but I'm imagining something a bit fitted at the waist and hips, and then godets or something to make the bottom very flowy and full. It will definitely have to be lined! Any thoughts?

I've got some higher priority projects that I SHOULD do first, but this one is showing signs of wiggling its way to the top of the pile! ;)

Even if I do exert some self-control and submit to more pressing responsibilities, never fear - I will get to this eventually! It's in the queue... ;)

Monday Morning Quarterback: Baby Onesie

The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.

--Dorothy L. Sayers

I mostly worked on my Christmas weaving this weekend, but I cut out the pieces for the baby onesie and I bought the wooly nylon thread for my serger - man, that stuff is expensive! :(

So, here's the layout for the pattern:

Okay, really? Are they serious? A ONESIE for a NEWBORN requires TEN pattern pieces? Yikes!

At first I couldn't believe it, but as I looked over the pattern pieces I realized why. There are two main reasons:

1. The front of the outfit is not symmetrical, so they have separate pieces for the left front and right front (and different facings, too).

2. They don't use bias tape for the edges - they use fabric strip bindings (not cut on the bias) and attach the snap tape to those fabric bindings. That adds several more pattern pieces.

Well, that's not much progress, but hopefully I can get some work done on this during my evenings this week! I hope you had a good sewing weekend! :)

Friday Confession

I joined the American Sewing Guild last week. I have been hesitating for a long time, because the local neighborhood group meets in the middle of a weekday (apparently most of the members are retired?) and the closest full-fledged chapter is about an hour away. I did ask for advice on Pattern Review and got mostly encouragement. It does sound like some chapters are more active and rewarding than others...

So, how about you? Are you or have you ever been a member of ASG? How about any other face-to-face sewing groups? What is your experience and opinion on this (or similar) organization(s)?

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Gwen, Myrosia, Amelia, Cindy, Lori, Summerset, Elizabeth, Lisa Laree, Elaina and CarlaF for talking back to my confession last Friday! I confessed that I often forget to add pockets to pocket-less patterns and am always annoyed with myself after the fact.

Most, but not everyone, likes to have pockets in their clothes. The main "pro" for pockets, of course, is that they give you a place to put things - including your money & keys, a bit of Kleenex, the odds and ends that children always seem to be handing to their Moms, and even your own hands. (Oddly enough, no one explicitly mentioned kittens - I guess that was just taken for granted by everyone!)

Not everyone reported being a "pocket person". Gwen only adds them to her clothes when they are an important design element, and Elaina prefers to keep the lines of her garments clean and smooth - not disrupted or bulked up by pockets.

It was a bit of a relief to know that I am not the only person who forgets to add pockets when a pattern doesn't call for them. Isn't there some quotation about how we are never quite as unique as we think we are, in either our virtues or our vices? (I'll have to look that up...)

I think I may sort through my patterns someday (in my free time, ha!) and try to establish a couple basic pocket patterns that I can reuse across many different garment types.

Thanks again, everyone!

Photo credit: online pictures thundafunda

In the Queue Wednesday

Remember my friend, Susan? She's the reason I started blogging - I wanted to document my adventures (and mishaps) sewing her wedding dress for her March 2008 wedding. Well, she and her husband are pregnant with their first - a baby boy! :)

So, next in my queue is this "onesie" (upper left hand corner in the photograph portion of the envelope - short sleeves, snaps between legs) for the upcoming addition to Susan's family:

As soon as they found out from a sonogram that they are having a boy, they picked out a theme for the nursery - the zoo! And while I was fabric shopping in Missouri, I found this adorable knit:

Isn't it perfect? She still has several months to go, but I want to get to it ASAP. Maybe next weekend. In any event, I will get to it. It's in the queue. :)

Weekend Project: A doozy and the zoo!

What a player does best, he should practice least.

Practice is for problems.

--Anonymous

This weekend I worked on weaving my first Christmas-gift kitchen towel. You remember the great start to this project when I cut 3 yards, instead of 4, for the warp (length)? At the time, I hoped that all of the future mistakes associated with this project had been wrapped up into a single doozy of a mistake, and it would be smooth sailing from then on.

Apparently my idea of a “doozy” and fate’s idea are not the same size… ;)

I’ll spare you the painful details - let’s just say that this towel has been relegated to a practice piece and ne’er shall Christmas wrapping paper touch its waffle-weave. ;)

Here’s a full shot of the first few inches:

And here's a close-up:



I’m guessing (i.e., hoping) that once the fabric is not under the tension of the loom it will shrink-in a bit and form the bumpy waffle pattern…?

I am way overdue at replying to some comments that folks have left for me over the last few weeks. Julia had a wonderful idea for the lace on my pink skirt. She suggested that I cut away the fabric behind it. I’m not going to try it on this skirt, because I think it would be problematic given the way I positioned the lace relative to the hem of the bottom band. But I love the idea and will keep it in mind for next time! Thanks, Julia!

Thank you also to MJB, Meredith, Sew-Ann and LaKaribane for their advice on how I should arrange the border print of my paisley jersey for a dress. I’m going to play with the layout of the pieces and see what is even possible, before I make any final decisions - but you all gave me some good things to think about!


And, as for meeting online sewing friends - Meredith, you hit the nail on the head with the word "classy"! Cindy - I can't wait to meet you too, and I can't believe I've met two people from other states before meeting someone from my own state! And Gwen - you are definitely invited to join me and Lori the next time we get together in Missouri, but you may want to skip one trip, as I'm probably going back in January, which is not the ideal time to visit that part of the country! ;) After that, I'll probably go back in May, which will be much more temperate. :)

Parting shots: The first fall-weather day in Florida was a perfect day for a trip to the zoo, with my sewing student Ana, her friend Marguerita and Marguerita's five-year old daughter, Mariana (of the princess dress and the alphabet quilt). Riding a camel...

And a tiger! ;)

Friday Confession

Pockets. I love pockets! I hate clothes without pockets! And I NEVER remember to add pockets when I'm sewing my own clothes! :(

I wore my new pink skirt on Monday, and wanted to kick myself when I went to slide my hands into side pockets and there weren't any! It would have been SO easy to put them in while I was making the skirt... :(

How about you? Do you routinely add pockets when you sew something for yourself? If so, always the same type, or do you have different versions that you can do, depending upon the garment? Do you have a favorite pocket tutorial? Speaking of tutorials, have you seen Summerset's recent pocket tutorial? It's excellent! :)

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Mamafitz, Uta, Meredith, Elaina, Cindy, Summerset, Linda, CarlaF, Gwen, Webfrau, Becky, Sew-Ann and Alison for talking back to my confession last week! I confessed that I never really know what pattern size to make, given that my body measurements don't perfectly fit in any one size.

Cindy and Sew-Ann gave the advice that I was kind of dreading - fit your largest measurement, because taking in the extra fabric is far easier than the alternative. (But I'm partial to my smallest measurement!) Cindy has a lot of experience as a sewing teacher with many different body shapes and sizes, and she says that few people fit the established sizes perfectly. She also recommends starting with a muslin and taking notes on the adjustments that you have to make to achieve a good fit - so that you know exactly what to do the next time. :)

A lot of other people recommended a slightly different approach - well, for tops at least. For skirts and pants, there was a general concensus to use the hips measurement (the largest measurement on many of us), and adjust the waist as needed.

For tops and dresses, on the other hand, a lot of people recommended using the high bust measurement (even though this may point to a smaller size), and doing a full bust adjustment and/or adding fabric along the sides to accomodate larger proportions in those areas. Meredith and Gwen helped explain why - the size of your shoulders is relatively stable during your adult life and clothes hang from your shoulders (and hips), so those are the places to fit first.

Finally, both Uta and Webfrau reminded me that when you are tracing from a BWOF or similar pattern, you aren't restricted to picking one size. You can mark along different size lines at different points on your body, and grade in between - resulting in a pattern that is adjusted perfectly for you! :)

Thanks again, so much, to everyone! Next time I crack open a new pattern (hopefully this weekend!) I'll know exactly how to pick my "starting" size and why! :)

Photo credit: anomalous4