Tag Archives: fitting

December 29, 2010 · 12:02 pm

Whimsy

It’s Steph’s fault.

I should be making up another long-sleeve knit top, or at most cutting out another pair of jeans. But she left the sweetest little invitation to join in the Vintage Sewalong 2011 in her comment on my last post. So of course I had to go check it out.

Simplicity 5728, on the right

And the next thing I know, it’s 10:00 pm (we’re staying up late these days with the kids out of school and my hubby not starting work until 9:30 in the morning) and I’m pulling out the pieces of Simplicity 5728, doing a bit of tissue fitting on my duct-tape me (I suppose I should dignify her with a name…), and finally decided to make my first muslin as-is. I did trace out the bodice pieces first, however, since I was anticipating fairly extensive lengthening alterations. This is, after all, a pattern drafted for someone a good half a foot shorter than me. (I have, however mentioned that most of my height is in my legs. The pattern’s back neck-to-waist measure is 15″, which is the same as mine.) So I pulled out my trusty blue flannel ex-duvet (what will I do when it runs out?) and cut out the pieces. Then, bright ‘n early (okay, not early—you saw the bit about tracing this out at 10pm last night—and not bright as it’s snowing once again) this morning I popped out of bed and threw the thing together.

Oh, god. This means I need to show you…

fitting pictures.

ugh.

Simplicity 5728, Muslin 1: front

Well, it is a little bit short, at least in the front. The empire seam in the front could come down about 1/2″. The bottom of the front is almost exactly at my waist (and of course it needs to be about 5/8″ lower).

Simplicity 5728, back

The back is… well, practically perfect, length-wise. There are a couple of drag lines under the arms (if someone can enlighten me as to what they mean I’d be super-delighted… is is that the armscye is too high? it is high, although not uncomfortably so…), but they pretty much disappear if I cross my arms so I suspect I should just leave them (?).

Simplicity 5728, back, with arms crossed

The back hem could probably come up at bit at the CB, which I guess would be a swayback alteration? I’ve never done a swayback alteration where I had a waist seam to play with, so I’m not quite sure what the procedure is—I’ve heard some people rail that the hem must be kept on grain, and others say that you can just take a bit off it. I will have to do some research 🙂

Simplicity 5728, side view

There’s some tweaking to be done around the shoulders/back neck where I removed the collar—it won’t be a problem. The armscye is high but I think will be comfortable—I have pretty scrawny arms. The side-seams seem to be in the right place.

So… any suggestions on lengthening the front but not the back? Maybe I could just increase the curve at the gathered part to build that extra length in there, without having to mess with any of the other seams at all? Or add the 1/2″ to the CF neckline and curve that out. On the other hand I don’t really have the bust to fill in too much more gathering in that area, though I can always wear the bullet-proof bra, I suppose.

I eagerly await your thoughts and suggestions!

14 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , ,

December 17, 2010 · 10:15 am

Side seams

Lady Grey---all seamed up

What with (not) finishing Christmas cards, kids’ Christmas Concert, and general craziness, not a lot of sewing has gotten done this week (shocker, I know). However, I did manage to find a few moments (and I do mean few) to sew the side-seams and shoulder-seams of the coat together.

I think this is one of the most magical moments in garment-making—when you go from two or three flat pieces of cloth into something you can actually try on. Setting in the sleeves is a close second, but I still think sewing the shoulder and side-seams tops it. So here we go with some (ulp) fitting shots—unglamorous, no makeup, bed-head, and all.

The first thing I noticed was that the full hair canvas of the front and front side

Lady Grey---Front

pieces (as per Gertie’s sewalong instructions) was way too stiff. I don’t know if it’s just because my coat fabric is quite stiff to begin with, but it looked wooden, and was forcing the side-seam of the peplum back and making the excess flare at the back even worse. So I cut it out—everything below the waist on the front side piece, and curving down into a narrow front panel on the front piece. This helped a lot, though it’s still a bit stiffer in the front, as you can see (all these photos are from after I took it out).

Lady Grey---Side

Raising the roll line really does reduce the lapel, doesn’t it? I think I kind of miss the big, from-the-waist look, but we’ll see. It’s too late to change now, anyway. (The anti-droop alteration I made probably reduced the lapels as well, although I tried to add it back when I re-drew them.)

The side—there’s that swayback! It’s still loose, as in the fabric is not actually following the curve of my back, but it’s not pooling and puddling, so I guess we’ll call that wearing ease. There’s still a lot of fullness at the rear. I added a full two inches to the hem at the centre back, which I thought would be too much but it actually looks about even, although faintly like I’m wearing  a bustle. Perhaps I just need an Edwardian skirt to go underneath? 😉

Lady Grey---Back

In the back view, you can see the gorgeous smoothness of the lower back, and still a bit of excess between the shoulder blades. Does this mean I have a narrow back (?!?) or just reflect the fact that I used a size larger pattern? No idea, although I guess next time I tackle a Colette, I’ll make the 0 and just do whatever brutal, soul-destroying alterations I’ll need to the waist. I’m not sure if I want to bother fixing it or not—I think I’ll wait until I get the sleeves on and some shoulder pads in to decide. The main thing holding me back is that I already catchstitched down the seam-allowances in this area.

From the rear it looks like there might be a little extra length at the back hem, although I’ll have to trim it smooth (joys of a knit) and then check again.

Can you guess what I forgot to do when I stitched up the side seams?

Got it one—pockets! *headdesk*

Now where’s that seam-ripper…

20 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,

November 7, 2010 · 4:49 pm

I can’t believe…

I made three muslins for a kid’s coat.

However, I do believe we have achieved “fit.” Maybe not perfect fit, but enough for a growing child who will be handing it along to someone else (likely several someones if it holds up) in a few years anyway.

Both the side seams and the centre-back seam have been flared out from waist down to give more ease; I also added an extension on the CB for a vent; hopefully the Cupcake Goddess’s instructions on sewing a vent in a pencil skirt will be applicable to a vent in a coat. I added 2 cm ease (one to each sleeve piece) to the sleeves to give a bit more room there, as they still seemed really slim. I made a small narrow-shoulder adjustment (1 cm narrower). I will still add in a shoulder-pad, but they do look surprisingly better this way. Now I need to go and make the same adjustments to the lining pieces (sigh).

In other news, Syo is prancing around in Muslin #1 (the smaller size), which fits her remarkably well (although I still think the sleeves are far too narrow for a coat).

Tyo’s about to head off to “Outdoor School” (aka camping in November… what are these people thinking?) for three days. Who knows… maybe she’ll get back to a nearly-completed coat.

Or, y’know, not. The kids do have both Thursday and Friday off school for Remembrance day, so I may save it for then.

2 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 1, 2010 · 8:24 am

Dear Tyo, I foresee…

… a lifetime of narrow-shoulder, wide-hip alterations. You’d better learn to sew.

Girls' Coat muslin I

I may have mentioned before that my sweet little Tyo has the build of all the women in her Dad’s family (and diametrically opposed to the women in mine, I’ll add): she is an incipient pear. Narrow shoulders and BOOTY. This has been apparent since she was, oh, two, but it’s only getting worse as the years go by. Let’s just say I could picture rap videos in her future. And a lot of quality time with the shotgun in her Dad’s.

So, I have to say, the muslin for the coat went together like a dream. The pattern is (surprisingly?) sophisticated, with separate lining pieces for everything. The overall shape looks good, all the seams (that I tested) match up beautifully; the sleeve-cap is drafted with a beautifully small amount of ease, just enough to curve it nicely without giving it any tendency at all to pucker (admittedly, the wonderful old flannel sheet I was using for the muslin was a dream to sew, too, so that didn’t hurt)

Side view

And, as you can see, it’s just a wee bit too small. Everywhere except in the shoulders, which are perfect. (The sleeves are long enough only because I lengthened those pattern pieces BEFORE cutting it out, as I could see they were going to be too short. Unfortunately paper-printout doesn’t lend itself to tissue fitting.)

Now, I can’t be 100% sure this is a problem with the original sizing, as it’s entirely possible my crude efforts at tiling let to some re-sizing of the printout and there’s no handy-dandy scale square to allow me to be sure (actually, according to the tiling program my printout is .01 feet smaller… which I didn’t think could throw it off by this amount, but anyway). But the fact remains that there is definitely not enough ease in the pattern AS I PRINTED IT OUT. Well, there would be if it were a dress. For a coat… not so much.

If it were just the skirt pieces that were the problem, I would just spread them. In fact, before I got the sleeves on, when

Rear view... split to let the side-seams hang straight. >_<

she first tried on the body and it became obvious that the skirt of the jacket didn’t have enough ease for her lovely bottom, I was all set to slash and spread the skirt of the back pieces, just enough to give her a couple of extra inches in the derriere region. But with the sleeves in place, it became evident that some extra ease was required there, as well.

So I’m torn, folks. What’s the best way to proceed? Re-print in a larger size? Slash-and-spread to widen sleeves, armscye, and the lower part of the coat, preserving the fit in the shoulder?

There’s only one part of the pattern that has confused me a little. Along the front princess seam there are two

Front pattern piece: princess seam with ?vent

expansions (places where the seam allowance goes from about 1 cm to 4 cm. The top one is for the placement of the pocket, but below that the seam allowance returns to normal for about an inch, and then widens again I’m not sure what’s meant to go there, as it doesn’t appear to be any different from the rest of the seam on the illustration (or the limited instructions available on m-sewing.)

It does resemble nothing so much as a vent or pleat, though I’ve never seen one in this precise location on a coat. What do you think? Ignore? Make as a vent or pleat? I should add that the lining doesn’t have an opening here and the seam between the CF facing and the lining does not coincide with this princess seam, either. So maybe that eliminates the vent option but still allows the pleat? I dunno. Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions or revelations, I’d love to hear them. Or I can just ignore it ;).

Probably I should go up a size, right? Bigger is always better with kids. (D’oh!)

7 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

October 29, 2010 · 6:36 am

The Business Woman Pants

 

The Business Woman (AKA Ellen) Pants

 

Well, I wanted grown-up pants, and it appears that’s what I’ve got. Tyo took one look and said “Mom, you look like a business woman!” Syo concurs.

I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment, I guess ;).

Whether that’ll feel too weird to leave the house in, is yet to be determined, I suppose.

 

 

They feel deliciously warm. The wool on the inside of the waistband is a tad scratchy (perhaps this would’ve been a perfect opportunity to face with a different fabric… say, more of my lovely Kasha. Hindsight and all that…) but I think it’ll be fine; I’m not super-sensitive. With the lining, they feel very, very substantial… perfect for winter. We’ll see how the un-lined bottom of the legs interact with the knee-high socks I often wear in the winter.

 

 

You will note how smashing they look with my grey blazer. Mmm. I’ve had this blazer since high school. It fits perfectly, has just the right amount of structure, and almost never gets worn because…

you guessed it. The sleeves are too short. *headdesk*

I have an ongoing plan to add black corduroy cuffs, at such time as I come into possession of some black corduroy of the right wale-thickness.

Anyway, although it pains me, here’s a couple of more “fitting” shots. You can see that the pockets are still gaping, showing the lining. However, it’s pretty even on each side, so maybe I could pretend that’s a design feature?

 

Rear view. A touch tight.

 

You can see that the waistband is a little, ah, snug. I suspect this is a case of me curving less than the pattern does, especially since I had to take the back in for a swayback a bit (though it seems worse in these pants than in the first pair for some reason). More curve in the back, less in the sides. The pants themselves are actually quite loose through the seat/hips. And I’m not sure what it is, but once again I was unable to match up the seam-lines on the waistband with the seamlines on the pants and have the waistband match for length the rest of the pants. I don’t know if it’s because of the pants stretching (I would expect this of the soft wool but not the firm lining) or the fly somehow not being square in the front (though I tried very hard to make sure it was) or even the fly shield throwing things off (it’s an addition not in the original pattern, as far as I can tell). So basically what I’m saying is the waistband is a bust, but provided it can be covered the pants will be fine.

 

Front view

 

 

Here’s from the front. Again, snug waistband=some distortion at the front closure, though the fly isn’t gaping in this version (yay interfacing 🙂 ). The wrinkles at the hips go away if my feet are together as they should’ve been for taking a fitting photo. Did I ever mention how much I loathe fitting photos? ;). Also, I love this shirt, but pouffy sleeves + sleek pants =linebacker look. Holy cow.

Not much more to say. I’ll try wearing them tomorrow, see how they feel. And how they go with my regular boots! Because I gotta tell ya, the heels are gorgeous but not going to happen. Just not.

I have a feeling this will be my last outdoor photo-shoot of the year, which sucks mostly because our indoor light is not great. But man, it was chilly. I don’t have Elaine’s fortitude to take outdoor pics all winter!

 

So stylish! (?)

 

23 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,

October 5, 2010 · 5:58 pm

Next big thing

I feel a little floaty with having the coat done. Not sure what to tackle next. Now that I have my whole wardrobe back, it seems like I’ve got jillions of clothes. Make something for the kids? It’s Tyo’s turn, I guess, but she just got two whole big black garbage bags full of hand-me-down clothes from a friend. I could work more on my Lady Grey coat. I’m distinctly behind, but since I can’t buy my fashion fabric yet (and probably not util the very end of October) it’s hard to get too pumped up about that. Not to mention I’m heading off to a conference on the weekend that I need to get ready for (myself, but the family also, house clean, childcare figured out).

So what do you think I should do next? Something frivolous like the 50s petticoat? Be good and work on the Lady Grey (make my muslin wearable? I have a few ideas floating around for knit tops but I haven’t got the fabric at the moment. I want to try knocking off some of the drape-drape ideas I’ve seen, since the odds of me actually getting my hands on one of those actual books are vanishingly small.

August Burda jacket---finished

Anyway, I did manage to motivate myself to stitch up the last of the lining hem on this jacket (first mentioned here), which has been hovering between wadder and UFO status for the last month and a half. It’s my first (and so far only) stab at a Burda magazine pattern; I guess I need to make at least one more thing from this issue to justify buying the magazine, otherwise I might as well have bought the pattern off the website ;). The biggest problem with it is that for some reason I cannot fathom, the shoulder seam is wonky. It sits in the right place at my neck, but angles backwards from there. Which means that when matching the shoulder seam to the top of the sleeve, it hung and pulled very strangely. Basically I had to pretend that the apex of the sleeve-cap matched up with a point about and inch and a half in front of the

August Burda Jacket---Back

actual shoulder seam. And they’re still a bit wonky. A more minor problem is that it’s a petite. I made the 18, which is allegedly the petite equivalent of my regular 36, but somehow when I got the lining in it became really snug. Maybe I should’ve gone up a size… or done an FBA? Seriously, if I need an FBA, it’s pretty silly, folks.

These are, of course, all the reasons why you do a muslin, but when your thick wool fashion fabric came from the thrift store for three bucks… well, I rush in.

Being a petite, it is quite short, but we’ve already discussed the disproportions between my limb-length and body length ad nauseum :). I could’ve added half an inch above the waist, perhaps, but it works. Most importantly, it conceivably gives me something to wear right now when my awesome winter coat is still a wee bit too warm.

Also, I lengthened the sleeves by one inch. Incidentally, this is the sleeve pattern I swapped in to the winter coat—the problem with the armscye/shoulder seam is why I didn’t want to try and use the armscye from this pattern, too (because that, y’know, would’ve saved me about fifty headaches.)

Anyway, here it is.

Open

Another cute back view

Seriously, though, people, what do you think should be my Next Big Thing? 🙂

22 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , ,

September 30, 2010 · 9:42 am

Lady Grey Muslin

So last night I managed to get the sleeves on and make some preliminary adjustments to the fit. Namely, I took in the centre back about 2″  and each back princess seam about another 1″. I might let the CB out a tiny bit—it looks awesome as is, but it’s probably a little more snug than an overgarment should be. Though I’m not aiming for this to be my awesome-warm-all-winter garment. Just a nice spring/fall coat. I also lowered the armscye by just taking another seam 1/4″ below the existing one, which eased that area  a lot. I may experiment with taking it down a bit more. There’s still a bit of extra width in the upper back, but if I take that in I lose range of motion.

I think I really do have to fix that lapel. 😛 What do you think of the back? There is still some wrinkling around the sleeves, but everyone seems to have that.

What about the length?  I haven’t turned anything under yet (hopefully get to that tonight). It really looks pretty ok just how it is… does this mean I should be adding hem-allowances? 😉 But that’s probably getting ahead of ourselves. Anyhoo, further thoughts/comments would be very, very, very welcome.

In Self-Stitched September news, I’ve been kinda slack documenting the last couple of days. I’ve been wearing the ex-capri Jalie jeans, tuesday with the red JJ blouse, yesterday with one of the Lydia tops. You can see portions of those outfits in today and yesterday’s muslin pics, but I didn’t get proper outfit photos. Today, for the finale, I’m attempting to jazz it up a bit with my Kasia skirt.

Self-Stitched September Day 30

Trying to fix my hair while posing (windy!)

Top: black JJ, red Simplicity 2603 cardi-wrap
Bottom: Kasia skirt from burdastyle.com, lacey tights from Joe (AKA Superstore) and my cute-librarian heels. I’m nots ure the busy tights work with the outfit, but oh well.

Also, while running up the steps of the deck I ripped the back slit of the Kasia up about three inches. Have to decide what to do about that (shoulda done a vent! 😉 )

Self-Stitched September Day 30

This would've been a cut pose except that it looks like I'm doing the dandruff check :P. Again trying to fix my hair in the wind at the wrong moment.

17 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

September 29, 2010 · 6:12 am

Lady Grey Muslin… on your mark, get set…

So, I have dryer-steamed my “muslin” fabric. I attempted a tissue-fit of the pattern, with limited success, but I did decide to shorten the waist slightly and do a small swayback adjustment before I begin. Probably I should’ve done an SBA to start, too, but we’ll see. May I just say that swayback adjustments do scary thing to pattern pieces?

Anyway, yesterday I managed to cut out the pieces for the muslin and get the bodice, at least, sewn together.

I won’t post them up to the group until I get the sleeves and collar sewn on, but I couldn’t resist a quick preview for you guys (and myself).

The biggest issue I see is need for further swayback work. There’s also a slight gaping/sagging of the lapels at the front, but the princess-seam curve works surprisingly well (the whole time I was cutting it out, I was thinking “this is a really intense princess curve. It’s totally not going to fit me.” Once I get done butchering the swayback, I think I will need to lengthen the back hem by a couple of inches.

Now, my bust and hip measurements correspond to a Colette size 0. My waist, by contrast, is a size 6. So I was really worried about this coat wrapping around enough to sit properly. Also, since my shoulders are fairly broad (or at least, since I definitely do not have a C cup), I decided to cut the size 2. I thought this *might* give me a better fit than the 0 which is presumably designed for someone with a larger bust hung on a smaller frame. Additionally, when I shortened the waist, I did my best to remove/widen the smallest part of the waist, although it didn’t amount to more than a few milimetres at any given seam, so I’m not sure if it’s noticeably affecting the fit. It seems like there might be a little too much width across the back now, but I don’t really want to mess with that until after I’ve got the sleeves attached.

Anyway, please share any thoughts you have. Hopefully I’ll have the sleeves attached, hems pressed up, etc. by the end of the day to post to the flickr group 🙂

13 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , ,

September 10, 2010 · 9:50 am

Second verse, same as the first!

Lydia, v. 4

Actually, this is what, version 4? Youch! But—take a look at that. And, since my preferred poses really don’t show the fit, here you go with

Lydia---front view

some straight-on shots.

Lydia, back view

Here’s what I did: Since people were divided on whether I needed less length (petite through the armscye) or less width (narrow shoulder/narrow back), I just went down to basically a 32 (I normally make a Burda 36, though I could probably get away with a 34 sometimes). Then I took a deep breath, had a minor panic-attack, and shortened the front even more. I also shortened the sleeve-cap (while trying to keep as much width as possible. Going down to the 32 took almost an inch off the back armscye, so I left it at that since there wasn’t as much gaping in the back. It looks pretty good now, but I think I could probably petite it even a little bit more; there’s a small amount of horizontal folding still happening along the shoulders at the back. Probably I could’ve kept a little more width in the back, but it’s comfy, anyway. The armpit sits incredibly high, but that’s comfy, too, actually.

My awesome neck binding!

The swayback is obviously still puddling like mad, though it doesn’t actually bother me. I have read a technique for shortening the back without a centre seam—basically you drop the neckline down at the top, squaring off the shoulders in the process—that might or might not help with that… maybe I’ll give it a try some other time. All in all, I am a pretty darn happy camper.

Here’s a closeup of my awesome neck binding! (Ok, not really awesome but I am pretty happy with it.

And now the neckline, which was too low on the last couple of attempts, is too high again. But we’re getting closer!

So—exciting? No. But comfy, and fitting much, much better, so a trimph. And apparently I’m petite from bust to shoulder. Who knew?

Also, how did the red background work out for photographing the black? I still don’t have anywhere inside that has adequate lighting, but I thought the red (which is my sweater knit by the way) might be better than a white wall or a black curtain.

Speaking of the red sweater knit, I’m a touch torn here on what to do with it. I want to make a flowy cardi-wrap. I have several options.

One is this tutorial here, which has the advantage of being free and cutting into the lovely fabric minimally. Another alternative is this Simplicity pattern that has all the rave reviews on PR; Simplicity patterns are on sale at Fabricland right now, which is good because I wouldn’t want to spend the full $15 on it. The third possibility is the Karen Cardigan off Burdastyle, probably with the waist-tie moved up to underbust level. Probably the Karen is my least favourite of the options… I’m wanting the long, long look.

Any thoughts? Anyone tried the tutorial? It seems a little too simple to be true, kind of thing.

15 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,

July 28, 2010 · 4:20 pm

Setbacks

Frank-Halter-Top

I wish I had more progress to show you, especially as I’ll be disappearing for a bit in a few days. As usually happens when I venture into “my own design” (even when franken-patterning), progress is, shall we say, not so smooth. I was progressing at a good clip this morning (barring my usual haven’t-thought-things-through construction errors), got everything together except the buttonholes, and realized I need to re-adjust the position of the triangle tops and their gathering. The first iteration of this top, in the sundress, was a little

Showing: gathered triangle on left; shirred back on right.

too spread out and flat. This version, a little too concentrated and gathered. Not quite in my “just right” zone. Of course I didn’t discover this until I not only had both tops attached, but had bound the edges. Fortunately I didn’t trim (much) off, but that means I have about three times as many seams to pick out. And I still haven’t remembered to get a new seam-ripper, by the way.

My original length of shirring was too loose, so I shortened it by a couple of inches; now it’s very snug. This thing is going to need a lot of buttons. What do you think—boring black, or bright and vibrant? Might have to spend some time tonight digging through the button collection! 🙂

Hopefully I’ll make some more progress tonight. I’d really like to have this to wear on the vacay, and I am running out of evenings to work on it.

Comments Off on Setbacks

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , ,