Fall Sewing, A Mini Wardrobe

I decided to enter the Pattern Review mini wardrobe contest.  I haven't made it official yet, nor have I made a storyboard up, but it's a great way to jump start my sewing mojo.  I always think that I will sew more in the summer than I do.  Without ac my sewing room can get hellishly warm and I don't work well in the heat.  Fortunately, it's cooled off and I am working again.  I finished 2 out of the four pieces required for the contest.  On Saturday in fact and wore them Sunday to a family birthday party on the lower east side.  
I've had this leopard print fabric for awhile now and the success of my black and white brocade pants was a deciding factor in making pants out of it. I love them and got complements.  I need more tnt patterns! Sewing becomes so much less involved when you always  have a lot of fitting alterations. I  did make  some style changes to the pattern. Narrow pants are very big right now and have been for awhile. Skinny cropped pants are not for me, but straight narrow pants look modern and slimming.  I took in  1/2" front and back, inseam and out, at both the hem and the knee and then blended the  seams for a total reduction of 2" at hem and knee.  I still have enough ease at the  calf so that I don't get the fabric hanging up there and it still hangs nicely in back.  The second piece is another Giorgio's top, which makes 3 for that pattern.  I haven't blogged about the yellow silk jersey version.  This fabric is another double layer textured knit from Emmaonesock. I love these fabrics. 

The remaining pieces I have planned are a leather motorcycle jacket  with  skins  from a Fabric Mart sale. 
I made another muslin of my Hot Patterns moto jacket and the verdict was to scratch it.  Even after KK had altered it.  I really just didn't like it on me and it needed even more changes.  So on to plan B.  I took out the pattern for my Oscar de la Renta knock off motorcycle jacket of a few years 
ago and used everything but the collar and the center front. 
Burda 12/09 110

 I took the center front from Burda 12_09 110 and lengthened the whole pattern to mid hip instead of high hip.  I decided to  narrow the overlap so that while it is still off center it  doesn't go all the way to the princess seam.   I felt that with my fba the seam was just too curvy 
That seam on me is very curvy for inserting a zipper. I added another seam on the left underlap for  the zipper.  I also raised the gorge line on the lapel, making it more horizontal and the zipper comes up higher before the lapel breaks.  Using Sarah Veblen's HBL on my muslin I realized that it dipped on the sides in the back, or rather the center was high. Age has set in and I need a rounded back alteration.  Not drastic, but it straightened out the line.  I also have found lately that I end up with my side seam flaring to the back.  I had Seth hold a plumb  line to my side seam at the underarm and he marked where it hit my hip.  The back hem needed an inch removed and  added it to the front. 

The fourth piece will be Burda 135 5/12,  a white blouse with a convertible collar with long sleeves.  I think that I am going to use black piping to trim it.  I've never done piping before, can you believe it? and it's been on my list of techniques to learn.  The white fabric is a luxurious cotton from B & J.  A  definite splurge.  My fba made the side dart way too big and so I rotated part of the side dart into a vertical one so that the fabric isn't falling from my bust. Much more flattering. I added back darts, but I think I will leave them unsewn.  I don't want it to be too fitted.  I added a center back seam so that I could alter for the rounded back and I shaped the cb seam 
at the waist at the same time.

My fifth piece, the key piece that can be made ahead, is a pair of black cotton pants I made last spring.  

Today's To Do List includes cutting and sewing up another muslin for my leather jacket and washing the white blouse fabric.  Fortunately I remembered that I had never washed it.  Woops.  

I Won This!

If you belong to the BMV Club you are familiar with the periodic fabric giveaways. If I like the fabric  I enter, but I never expect to win.  After all, as my son said when I told him I'd won, "We  never win anything"    The latest was fabric from Marcy Tilton, a woman whose website has gorgeous fabrics.  On the last day this lovely black and blue striped coating was offered.  It came on Thursday and it's perfect.  I thought that it was a regular stripe, but it's  more like a panel with wide blue stripes in a field of black.  The other side is reversed in this lovely wool blend double sided coating.  2 1/2 yds were  offered but when it came there was a long section that had been used for samples and a note from Marcy said that the usable fabric area started after that and was 2 3/4 yd.  Since it seemed longer than that I measured it and it's actually 3 yards plus the long uneven piece.  There are lots of ideas running through my mind for this piece   I can see color blocking by  cutting the stripe and sewing it back to make maybe two stripes sections of stripe, maybe on the lower sleeve.  It's definitely  lots of possibilities and I've already been sketching  The big decision is which side will I use?  Do I want black with a blue strip or blue with black stripes?  Well, I've got lots of time as it's pretty far down on the sewing list.  Yes, I have been sewing, just not blogging.  Now that the weather has turned  hopefully I'll be sewing more and blogging about it.  I've got 2 pieces done for my mini wardrobe for the PR contest that's running this month.  More on that later.

More storage ideas:

If you'll remember my dh came up with pvc pipe for rolling up my lovely 60" wide interfacing, saving it from wrinkling and making them easy to find.  He was up in the sewing room last weekend and decided that all those tubes were wasting space.  The shelf is high, but with the rolls laying on the shelf the room above them was wasted.  This is what he came up with.

He had a length of 4" diameter plastic pipe that fit the tubes and he cut it to length and fastened them to the shelf above.  He had to actually buy the black pipe, but it was cheap. I have room for more pipe if I need it, and look at all the storage room it opened up below the pipe.  How cool is that?  

More Fitting with Kenneth King.

A few women were envious that I have access to these fit clinics with Kenneth King. Well readers, he's making a fitting dvd for Threads magazine based on the series of articles he wrote awhile back on his fitting method.  Of course it won't be as good as actually having him adjust your muslin, but it should be useful as well as entertaining.

Eight women participated in the latest fit clinic with Kenneth King.  A couple had taken his moulage class and wanted to fit the blouse/dress sloper. Two women hadn't actually sewn up a muslin for the class. I guess they didn't read the preparation   instructions for the clinic.  One woman had brought the blouse she made up from her muslin from the last fit clinic. Unfortunately, she thought that she could just make it up without another muslin. Really not a good idea.  I was at that clinic and remembered how many changes KK made to her muslin.  She is a small woman and she was just swamped by the Lynn Mizono pattern for Vogue that she'd chosen.  He made it look much better than the original had looked on her but it still looked like the original.  I know that Vogue uses their own slopers for cutting designer patterns and the fit often ends up very different than the original shown.  Patterns tend to have a lot more ease than rtw and this style did not need more style ease!  
Only one woman had really extensive changes to make. She had a princess seam jacket that didn't meet at cf. Nothing daunts Kenneth and she ended up with a really well fitting muslin.  
The next two women brought muslins from Vogue patterns as well. One was a designer pattern and the other, shown here was an Easy Vogue, not my favorites.  They take too many shortcuts to get to the finished piece just to make it 'easy', often making it harder impossible for the sewer to get a professional fit and finish.  The pattern was the right size, but it was too boxy and had too much ease for her slender frame, something that is all too common in the big four pattern companies.   Patterns  are graded to fit a wide variety of bodies and sizes but smaller sizes need less ease than larger bodies which isn't taken into account by the pattern companies. From all the questions I've seen on Pattern Review about what the 'best' pants, dress, skirt pattern for their body type, a lot of women expect a pattern to fit  without having to make adjustments. This is, for most women an unrealistic expectation.    Fran brought this Vogue sheath dress because she thought that it would be a good tnt pattern; something she could make up in lots of different ways, a really good choice for her.  She's a slender woman with a good figure but this  didn't do her justice.  

He started at her shoulder, then started fitting her back.

KK  tucked the shoulder to bring up the dropped shoulder. She doesn't have narrow shoulders, but it was still too wide and there was  too much fabric.  He took in the back and front to slim the fit, blending in before he got to the hip, which fit well.  He then took in the front, above the bust. Simple adjustments that anyone can do. Just look in the mirror.  Well, more than that really.  We need to learn to  look at ourselves honestly and see what is really there, not what we wish was there.  During my marathon pants fitting journey I was constantly looking at how pants fit women I saw out in public. I thought about what was wrong with the fit and why.   Starbucks is a good place for this.  You sit, drink your coffee and you can see the rear ends of all the women on line for coffee. At least at the one I frequent.

Another woman, also slender, had this  Vogue pattern where the sleeve style, also a dropped shoulder, just had too much fabric for her. She even left off the lower sleeve which rolled and buttoned onto the upper sleeve.  Here King restyled the sleeve with a box pleat at the hem  for a more flattering look.  He also made some fitting open ended tucks  in the front to give the pattern more shape and match the open pleats used at the neckline. Sorry I don't have pictures of this. But, the point is that no pattern in sacred, no matter who the designer is.  KK doesn't just tweek fit, he makes judgement calls on style changes so that we ended up with flattering garments, the holy grail of sewing after all.

Another Fit Clinic with the Master

Recently I took another fit clinic with Kenneth King at Sew Right Sewing Machines in Bayside, Queens.  This is not a class on fitting, but a place to take your muslin and have Kenneth adjust your fit.  He transfers the changes to the pattern for you, explaining what he's doing  all liberally sprinkled with entertaining stories and useful tidbits.  He's just fun.  There were 3 women who had also attended the last clinic.  You do learn just by watching what he does but it is not a place where we fit under his guidance.

What did I have fit?  Jeans.  Yeah I still want to make my own.  I decided to go back and retrace the original Hot Patterns Dressy Jeans.  They were so over fitted by the time I threw in the towel  that  starting over seemed a good choice.  I made up two muslins and took the second one with me.  I was OK with the back but the front crotch was giving me  fits again.  He took a look at my back first and was kind of puzzled as to what I wanted. His comment was that jeans will buckle at the knee like this.  Then  I turned around and showed him the buckling and extra fabric there (this is not that easy to see in this photo, but trust me, there is too much fabric at the front crotch).  He turned back around, reached under my crotch and took a tuck.  The excess fabric in front had disappeared.  that's it.  I also had him place my back pockets.  I sewed up another muslin with the change and hopefully then I'll be able to make my own jeans.  Sewing up jeans is fun and  easy, it's just the fitting that's been a bitch.  I think that a lot of the issues I had where really of my own making.  Jeans just can't be perfect in back, especially on a woman with an ass as flat as mine!  But, I  think I can get a flattering pair, well I hope so.  
This is the muslin I took to KK.

This is the second pair after his alteration.  It's a lighter, stretchier fabric and it really needs to be a little looser I think.  I will not be wearing tucked in tops, so the narrow leg should be ok.  I know that if I try to get out the wrinkles in back I will end up over fitting again and not be able to sit down without having the center waist sit  too low to be comfortable or pretty.  The only other thing that I can do is make the pant a little wider in back, from above the knee down and see if they fall a little better.  Looking at them in photos, maybe I really need to make a slightly wider leg to begin with.  Hmm.  Maybe I'm not there just yet.  Note to self,  perfection is often an illusive object in fitting pants, especially jeans. Don't overdo it!

Now would someone tell me why some jeans sell for over $200? That doesn't even include the big fashion names whose jeans sell for over four or five hundred dollars.  Is the fabric that much better?  Is it the name?  Is the fit that much better?  I don't know. 

More fitting next time.

Don't Miss This Opportunity to Give Your 2 Cents!

A lot of us have been pretty unhappy with Burda Style of late, especially their plus sized offerings.   I've certainly bitched about them all too frequently.  Now you can let them know exactly what you want.  They actually want to know!  Of course, this is the New York based Burda Style office and how much pull they have with the mother company is any ones guess.  But, still, don't miss this opportunity to voice your opinion. I certainly didn't. http://www.burdastyle.com/blog/plus-size-members-pattern-feedback-needed

How Reliable Are the Experts, Really?

Why is it that people who criticize you  almost always post as anonymous? After my post on Mood I got this comment: "Hi, I am couture trained and find it interesting that you contradict others advise when you are predominantly self taught."
I can only speak for what works for me when I sew and couture trained or not I've been sewing for a lot of years which brings to bear a lot of experience. BTW, the training I have had was a year  of couture sewing lessons. Most of us who write sewing blogs are pretty opinionated and we  sew for pleasure and are not professionals.  but, that doesn't mean we have to agree with everything the so called experts say on a subject.  There are lots of ways to do  something in sewing and in my mind no one right way, only the way that works for you.  
When I was taking Kenneth King's fitting clinic I got to ask lots of sewing questions.  One of them was about, as he was fitting a princess seamed dress, Roberta Carr's book on couture sewing.  She asserted that the side panel, or weaker side was the side to have on top when sewing a princess seam.  This was contrary to everything I'd heard or read.  The side panel should be down against the feed dogs to ease in extra fabric often drafted into that seam.  The other was that the stronger or more stable side should be the side on top.  He paused a moment and said, he thought that Carr had often only absorbed part of what she had been taught, and no he didn't agree with her.  He was also rather disdainful of another highly regarded couture expert.  She doesn't sew was his comment.  
There have been a lot of books published on sewing lately and as with anything else, some are good and some just not worth your time or money.  Experts also contradict each other all the time.  Read some fitting books, like the one I just reviewed and then listen to Peggey Sagers and they have very different approaches to fitting.  I feel quite justified in having an opinion on a technique that contradicts some expert if it doesn't work for me, and I feel free say loud and clear.

Fitting, an Endless Journey

It often seems like that, doesn't it?  Learning to fit is a journey and along the way I've collected what seems to be every fitting book on the market and I still have issues figuring out  how to solve some of my fitting problems.  Enter a new fitting book, The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting by Sarah Veblen.  It already has a large number of favorable reviews over on Amazon.com.  however, one of the reviews complains about it's lack of specific answers to her fitting problems.  But, to me that is the uniqueness of this book. There is no table of contents of fitting flaws, rather Veblen treats fitting in a much more organic fashion.  Every action we take to fit cloth affects the rest of the garment.  She teaches us to see the whole garment. To this end she introduces the HBL, or horizontal balance line.  It is drawn in perpendicular to the center front or the grain line.  It is always parallel to the floor.  This is not a new concept to me, but not something I've used.  But, after reading through her book, it's something I intend to start using.   I have found that fitting can be very hit or miss because there is often no frame of reference outside of the change being made.  Veblen's asserts that the HBL gives that reference and makes fitting that much easier.

This is a book that uses muslins for fitting.  More than one in fact.  Fitting is work and a process of training the eye first to see and recognize the problem. second, how to alter the cloth to get a good fit and third how to transfer the changes to your pattern.  To facilitate that Veblen gives us lots of wonderful, large format photographs that do a great job of showing  problems and how to fix them.  The text is well written and easy to understand.  She explains how she alters a muslin but more importantly, she explains why. Understanding  why should make it easier to learn how to fit anything or anybody. I am hoping that  her method will finally let  me work out some nagging problems I've had in my fitting.  Sleeves in particular come to mind and she covers this in detail.


 I really like that she doesn't approach fitting as a list, because inevitably that list is lacking in the one thing I need, which is probably why I have so many fitting books.