Spring Sewing

Vogue came out with new patterns this week and I managed to buy a few on sale.  I missed the last day of the regular sale but gave in and bought a Club BMV membership. They have finally included 15% off on Marfy patterns which was an incentive. With the decline of Burda's offerings I am having to branch out and sew more Vogue.  I used to sew Vogue almost exclusively until I was introduced to Burda World of Fashion, as it was then called.   Times change and the new direction at Burda Style mostly doesn't work for me.  I was hoping that the excellent May issue was a turning point but the previews of June are pretty dismal.  I also bought two dress patterns from Hot Patterns catching their 20% off sale, which runs through the end of the month.  I run hot and cold with them. The fitting seems to so uneven across the line.   That's one of the things I've loved about Burda, the fit consistency was better than average.  I love wearing easy dresses in the summer.  We don't have ac and the loft I work and sew in gets pretty hot.  Dresses are comfortable and cool.  I was looking for semi fitted dresses and decided on these two.  The Plain and Simple Dress and Top for some lovely linen I've got and maybe even a casual LBD in some silk linen blend I have. 

I have two pieces of fabric in search of a dress and I think that this one will fill the bill, finally.  The shorter version with the v neck would work for me better than the round neck or the maxi dress. I can see that one getting caught in the wheels on my chairs. 

How many unmade patterns do you own?  I have quite a few, but that doesn't count the Burda Style magazine patterns I haven't made.  The cheap sales make it easy to succumb to patterns that really don't either work for our bodies or our lifestyles.  I've been trying to be more discriminating lately so that I might actually make them up!

Here are my picks.  This is not to say that I didn't like some of the others quite a bit, but these meet my criteria of fitting my lifestyle and being flattering or at least having the potential for looking great on me.  I am very careful to buy patterns that work on  my body, not patterns that I love but won't love my body. All those unmade patterns in my drawers have taught me a lesson.  Finally.

The round neck on this isn't the best for me, but I wanted the 3 piece sleeve and the jacket instructions.  I will have to take a look at Chanel and see how I can change this to make it more flattering for me.  I don't think that I'll get to this one until late summer for fall.

I wasn't interested in the fuller top, but this princess seam version looks interesting as well as flattering.

Finally, I bought this peplum blouse a style I've been looking for to knock off a blouse I have up on my idea board.  I like the second view in this one as well.  The high round neck has to change though.

I've got fabric in my stash for most of these and that's good for the budget.  
Add pants from my tnt pattern, a skirt or two and at least one more cardigan and you have  my spring sewing goals.  The leather jacket is on hold till summer for fall. I've got some reservations about the neckline on that one so I'll have the summer to decide.

The Never Ending Quest

Hubris does come back to haunt you and in the case of making jeans it's certainly bit me on the ass.  I was so sure that I could make a better fitting pair than the jeans from Net a Porter I posted some time back.  Quite a while back. 

I started out with copying a rtw pair that was too small but I thought had fit me nicely.  Enlarging them seemed to focus on how they really hadn't fit as well as I thought they had.  I guess I was just willing to accept less perfection from a pair that was really just ok as long as I didn't have to make them.  The front was fine, but the back had my usual problems due to a flat low seat.
I chucked those and decided that of the many jeans patterns I owned I'd make the Hot Patterns dressy jean.  It had that L shaped crotch that fit me and after all my tnt pants started out as the Razor Pant from Hot Patterns.  Enter many, many muslins and two pairs that were supposed to be finals.  The  black corduroy I posted were great in the front, but way too short in the back and pulled down uncomfortably. The  pants ended up with a really pointed back crotch and when I cut it off it made the back crotch too short, and if I didn't cut it off it made the front crotch look like this:

This is what the back crotch ended up looking like as I tried to get more room in the back crotch so that the pants wouldn't pull down when I sat.  

The back didn't look bad, unless you count the fact that they were just too low at the waist.
I've put them aside for the time being while I figure out what I want to do.  I've gotten so far from the original pattern, which by the way also had this very point back crotch, that I am considering starting over with another pattern.  But not now.  It's taken too much of my time and a lot of denim.  I need clothing for spring and summer so I am going to give it a rest and try again later.  I may even go shopping and try to find a pair that I can live with.
If anybody has a pattern recommendation that works for a flat low rear end do let me know.


I leave you with my pile of rejects and this isn't even all of them!