Not for the faint of heart

Or, apparently, for the big of boob. 

I'm not going to call BWOF 9/11 #132 a wadder, and it really isn't the silk twill potato sack I feared it would be, but I think that I'm going to cut my losses before it becomes either, and reserve what's left of this beautiful fabric for some other project. 

The back of the dress doesn't look too bad, and the front doesn't either, but I made one mistake that I've made before - I love dresses with that nice straight line above the bust, and I have too much bust beneath that nice straight line for it to look, well, . . . nice. 

The drape looked good on the dress form.  It doesn't look bad flat on the table, either. 

But on me, not so much.  The drape just wouldn't drape properly - it centered itself over one boob and stubbornly refused to drape the way it did on the form.

Anybody ever see that Julie Andrews movie called Thoroughly Modern Millie?  This dress reminds me of the scene early in the movie when her strand of pearls kept locating itself over one or the other, until she finally went out and got the 1920s version of shapewear and flattened herself out.

Flattening would work, but it's not happening, and I don't think generic shapewear woudl be enough.  Certainly my most minimal bra made almost no difference at all.  Shapewear and I aren't particularly good friends, and this isn't the dress to push me over the edge into wearing it. 

Despite having absolutely the worst Burda instructions I've ever encountered, they were right about one thing - this is definitely a dress that would look better on a taller woman.  A taller, thinner woman.  A taller, thinner woman with smaller boobs. 

I couldn't bear to get Mario involved in taking photos of this dress.  He thinks I walk on water, or at least sew that way.  Some projects don't need witnesses.

On the plus side, I got the spring and fall Ottobre magazines today.  Their patterns never do much for me in the magazine, but I always tend to really like them made up.  Off to trace something practical and keep myself occupied while the hurricane attempts to wash away my chickens.

Once upon a time

This was a dress. It was a dress that made me look like a sack of particularly lumpy potatoes, however, I chose to forget that unpleasant fact and remember only that I didn't like the sleeves. So I remade the sleeves, tried the dress on, and all the memories came flooding back.

And the dress came off. Quickly.

And I took scissors to it before I gave myself the opportunity to do the inevitable: It's a nice dress, it's Liberty, that stuff's expensive, I'll wear it eventually, and I'll find a way to make it work. Right. I'm not that good.

The dress pieces sat around for a week or so while I attempted to locate my TNT skirt pattern, which was hiding in the depths of the workroom. I actually had pulled out a lot of my TNTs so I could trace them off onto cardboard to make for easier repeat usage, and then I lost the stack of patterns under an avalanche of fabric. Who, me, a packrat? Say it ain't so.

So . . . Sunday night I finally cleaned up my space, found my patterns and cut out this skirt. The dress pieces weren't big enough to cut the standard front and back pieces, so I did larger center pieces and narrower side pieces. I used the contrast fabric cut from the dress facings as an insert between the yoke and the skirt, and I used the inside of the tie belt as a border/binding on the bottom of the skirt, enclosing the batiste underlining left with the dress pieces. The pocket I carefully removed from the dress and reattached. Invisible zipper up the side and now I have something wearable from my Liberty, and a nice pile of scraps left over.

I wore it Tuesday with a white tank and a pale blue cardigan for my ever-arctic office. Much better than an unloved dress in my closet.

How sad is that?*

The other night, I decided that my aunt-induced stress levels could only be relieved with wine or sewing (or possibly some dangerous combination of the two).


I started with sewing. I ended with wine.

I decided not to do anything too complicated, since I was already vibrating at a frequency that felt like 2-3 glasses of that wine. I had pre-treated all my Liberty fabrics last week, and I decided to cut out the replacement sleeves for my dress. I found the wad of white batiste that I failed to fold when I put away, ironed it, ironed the Liberty, cut out sleeves and underlining for the sleeves and basted them together.

Then I sat with Mario for a few minutes and picked the old sleeves off the dress. They were cute, but they were a little too fluffy, and I don't do fluffy well. The new sleeves, even with a few gathers, seemed much more smooth and minimal. Sleeves off, pressed the seam allowances flat again, pinned on new sleeves, sewed, finished seam allowances, pressed again.

And then I tried on the dress.

And the memory came back.

Of how I didn't not wear that dress just because of the sleeves, but because it wasn't flattering. It made me look like I had no waist at all, and all the cute new sleeves in the world weren't going to give me one.

Guess what?

I'm making a new skirt out of some lightly worn Liberty fabric that used to be a dress. Photos to come.


* thanks to Andrea for the title of this post. That was her response to my email of what happened in the sewing room.

Things happen for a reason

The weekend: and a good time was had by all.

Yesterday we woke up and it wasn't January outside. I actually got to spend a few hours mucking around in my back yard, which always improves my mood. On the other hand, the unnaturally warm weather has my hyacinths above ground already, which isn't good for them. I covered them up with straw, and also covered my sprouting garlic, which seems premature as well.

Then I found out from a neighbor that it was half price day at the thrift store, so I headed off down the street to see what there was to see. I picked up a pair of pants for me to cut up - Talbots, silk/wool blend, pleated front and very full legs. I think they want to be a skirt.

Before we met up with some friends for dinner, I found out that my previously posted BWOF wadder isn't a wadder after all. It's my friend's new dress, when I get around to finishing it. To add insult to injury, it's actually too big in the hips and boobs, so I can actually use more than 1/8" seam allowances. Skinny b*tch.

But I guess it's better than throwing it out. I just made her promise she wouldn't wear it around me until the sting went out of it.

I also found out that I'll be making another dress for her - for an upcoming local theater production . Thankfully I have a while, because the costume designer came up with a pale blue strapless number that's going to be a bit of a challenge. After she sent me the drawing, she changed the design to make it a full-skirted cocktail dress, because the character has to make a grand entrance and there needs to be some skirt-swishing. She also suggested taffeta, which set my hair on end. Can we not? For one or two wearings, maybe, but for a 3 hour show, under hot lights, for 24 performances? How about a rustly taffeta petticoat underneath and a more durable fabric for the dress?

Today I spent slogging around in the rain, visiting my aunt, thawing out in her tropical 80 degree apartment, then going back out in the rain. I spent 3 hours traveling back and forth, and only 2 hours visiting. Somehow that's just wrong.

MLK Day tomorrow, but I have to work. Law firms like holidays when the courts close - it gives them time to catch up.

Tomorrow after work is the first official planning meeting for Philadelphia's Patternreview Weekend, which is going to be held on May 14-16, 2010. Details to follow.

Riddle me this -

Did I make a wadder? Is it a new dress for my size-smaller friend with similar coloring? Or is it a pencil skirt waiting to happen?

When January's BWOF arrived before Christmas, I dove right in. As has happened a lot lately, I wasn't tremendously impressed. I did, however, like #117, the petite faux-wrap dress.

I've had some good results with BWOF petite patterns before - I am under 5'4", after all - and the one time I made a petite top, I un-petited it and got a pretty good result. So for this dress, I decided to wing it and not muslin.

When the sewing gods decide to pay you back after a string of successful projects, they have a particularly dark sense of humor.

I'm a 38 in BWOF. In BWOF petites, I'm a 19. This dress was for dress fabrics with "some stretch." The fabric I had on hand had some stretch, but I wasn't certain that it had enough stretch, so I cut really wide seam allowances.

But not wide enough. Apparently. Since I look like a sausage about to split out of its casing. Especially the back view - check out that rippling hipline. Ack.

I don't look like that.

As for the top, it's tight. Tight, I tell you. While I did un-petite, I didn't do an FBA. I've never done an FBA with BWOF, so I didn't even consider it. Plus, even though it's not a true wrap, the structure of the faux wrap looked like there would be plenty of room for the girls. But thinking about it now, maybe BWOF petite people have petite boobs. Mine aren't. They're not more than average, but they certainly didn't fit well in this dress. I think I managed to achieve the always-attractive mono-boob look here.

And can I tell you that I'm annoyed that I put in one of my best invisible zippers ever here, and the dress is so tight around my hips that the zipper actually looks skewed. It's not, honest and truly.

At this point, while the sleeves are cut out, they're not being sewn on. The sides are only basted together, at the furthest edges of the seam allowance. I haven't hand-stitched the facings in place, either, because I'm really assuming that this will get torn apart and made into the skirt this fabric was probably intended to be anyway.

I emailed my friend Jen, who got married last year in my great-aunt's wedding dress, and asked her if she wanted to come over to watch Project Runway tomorrow night and try the dress on.

She made me promise not to mutilate it until she tried it on.

Okay, I promise. But get here soon, because this is really bugging me.

Warning

Foul language ahead.

What happens when you sew full speed ahead on something you know how to sew? What happens when you don't bother to read the directions because hey, they're BWOF and mostly inexplicable anyway? And besides, you know what you're doing?

What happens?

****** PROFANITY ALERT **********

A clusterfuck of epic proportions, that's what happens

****** END PROFANITY ************

Mario's jacket is no longer with us. It met an undignified end this evening and ended up in the trash. I was too mad at myself to even take pictures before it was bundled away in black plastic.

So what did I do? Remember that nice collar I showed you, the one approved by Lily the cat? Well, if I'd bothered to read the directions and think beyond the last thing I made, I would have remembered to not to sew all the sides together because then I couldn't sew it into the facing properly.

Of course I didn't, so tonight I pinned the collar down, pinned the facing, sewed it all together, pressed the seam, clipped the seam, turned it right side out, pressed it again, and then actually looked at it.

It doesn't matter how long you've been sewing, how much experience you have, how many jackets you've made before. At least GLANCE AT THE FREAKING DIRECTIONS because otherwise your hubris will bite you in the ass.

I'm going to take my recently returned mojo out back and shoot it.

Go Figure

After posting 3/08 #108 as one of my least-worn garments of 2008, I sat down the other night to consider the reasons why that might be. I liked the general design of the shirt, loved the collar, the pockets, the fabric. I liked the little glittery black buttons I found that set off the black striping in the fabric, but when I looked at it, they were the only thing that stood out as wrong.

This past Saturday was half-price day at the thrift store, and I went on a notion and button mission. I spent about $10 at the store, and in addition to buying a Ralph Lauren suit (which is asking nicely to be taken apart and remade), I bought several blouses and sweaters which had interesting buttons and which were in sufficiently ratty shape that I felt no remorse at cutting them up. One of those pieces was a gauzy white Express tunic with flat gold buttons that looked a little like coins. And they were small, about the size of the black buttons on my shirt.

In a few minutes, my black buttons had become gold buttons, and I liked the shirt a whole lot more. I wore it to work yesterday, got several compliments on it and felt pretty good - at least until I got home and looked at the picture that the receptionist took.

Honest and truly, it looked completely different when I looked in the mirror! And I'm not saying I think I look that bad, but I recognize that body. It's not mine; it's my mother's. I'm not happy about assuming my mom's vaguely fire hydrant shape in my mid-forties. I made fun of her for it, and apparently she left it to me. Thanks, mom. I've been getting back to the gym more frequently since the holidays ended, but if I needed a picture to put up on the fridge, this is it.

But I do like it the top itself. Instead of not wearing it, I'm going to wear it more often - but without a tank top underneath to bulk it up. I like the stretch shirting aspect of the top (I think one of the reasons my blouses tend not to be worn is that they're a little boxy); there just needs to be a little less of me in the shirt.

Considering that last week I was thinking about getting rid of this blouse, I'm now thinking about altering the pattern slightly and making it up in white, because it could be the start of a perfect TNT white shirt if it were (a) longer, (b) had a less distinctive collar, and (c) had regular cuffs. Which would make it not like this blouse anymore at all, so I think instead I'll keep the collar, lose the pockets, and add some length to the bottom. I also think I want to curve the hem instead of leaving it straight - I think that would be more flattering to my general shape. I also think one of the reasons the top makes me look a little thicker is because it ends at the wrong point. Nothing I can do about that now, but that's the joy of making another version.

On a less positive note, I spent the first part of 2009 making a very successful wadder. More about that later - whether or not it stays draped over Evelyn or ends up in the can is still up in the air.

It's a Wadder!

As a follow-up to my recent discovery that I have sewing standards, I actually pitched a project last night. As #3 in my mini-wardrobe, I was doing a KS 3093 turtleneck out of a cream-colored rib knit from Fabric.com. The fabric had been on my stash shelf for so long it was dirty along the fold line, but I figured that would come out in the wash. I probably should have washed it straight away, because that smudge annoyed me every time I looked at it, but that's not why the project was doomed.

I cut the pattern in my usual KS medium, then cut it down to a small because it looked big. I did the basic steps – shoulder seams, sleeves, attached the collar. I had been afraid the collar was going to be tight, but it wasn't. In fact, it stretched as I sewed it (and I wasn’t stretching it) and when I pulled it over my head, the collar was downright floppy. I folded it over to see if I liked it as a modified funnel-neck, but it didn't thrill me. Put it aside for the night and cut out my next two projects – it was too late to start sewing but I was awake enough to be trusted with the rotary cutter.

Last night I went in, looked at the top, tried it on again, and threw it out. It just wasn't worth continuing to work on it. The style wasn't interesting enough to attempt salvage, and the fabric wasn't good enough to handle the abuse of any ripping and re-sewing anyway. All I could see was another one of those projects. You know, the ones you finish against your better judgment, wear once to say that you wore it, and then hide away in the back of the closet where you can’t be annoyed by your failure to make it work.

Hey, sometimes it's not our failure. Sometimes the pattern's not right, sometimes the fabric is crap. And sometimes it is our fault. But either way, life's too short to finish projects that aren't worth wearing.

I actually feel good about this.

And now for one salvaged from the wreckage - the absolutely adorable box-pleated jumper/dress #105 from the October Burda. I wanted it as soon as I opened the issue, and despite reading several reviews on Patternreview about its snug fit, I went ahead and cut my usual 38, thinking that because my fabric had some stretch I would be safe.

Ummmm, no. It looks fabulous on Evelyn, but she wears her boobs in a better (shall we say, less natural) place, apparently. There was no way to re-cut, and I used 1/4" seams as it was. I still lined the dress, but I didn't line the sleeves, thinking that would make it even tighter, and just to be on the safe side, I made a matching jacket out of the leftover fabric. There wasn't quite enough fabric for the jacket, so I cut the side panels on the bias, which I think makes it look more interesting anyway. The two pieces together are totally cute.

The dress is snug across the top, but certainly not unwearable. Since it's a fall/winter faric, I'd most likely have worn something over it anyway, not really being the turtleneck/blouse under type. I'd like to make a spring/summer version, but that time I'll cut the bodice in a 40 and give myself room to breathe.