Pants Fitting - or "Why Do I Always Wear Black Underwear When I'm Making a Muslin?"

This muslin has taken me a little longer, but I'm really happy with it so far. I am having to do very little tweaking to get an "average" fit. Unfortunately, I probably won't be happy with "average" so I hope I don't make this into more of a major issue than it needs to be! When I looked in the mirror, I was pretty happy with the fit. Now that I"m looking at the pictures, I can see a lot more detail

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:



The Good: This view doesn't look too bad. If I really look at this, it looks like I might need to take a little out of the front side seam above the hip and add a little to the back side seams to get the side seam to perfectly perpendicular to the floor. It seems to pull toward the back because of my butt. I told you I was a "curvy" figure.






















The Bad: Actually, the fit isn't that bad. It's what's inside the pants that I wish I could change!

And why must I always be wearing black underwear when I am making these muslins?


















OK, the ugly. This doesn't look so hot - but again, who wears pants made out of muslin!? Actually, I think the fit is pretty good, and I think most of those wrinkles will disappear in a bit heavier fabric.
I had to take in the CB seam from about the bottom of the darts up, but it looks like I may need to let out the CB seam at the fullest part of the butt because there seems to be a lot of pulling there.


I'm not going to do any more tonight - but will get a fresh look at these tomorrow. And, it's Veteran's day. So I'm thanking the veterans for giving us a holiday so I can stay home and sew! Which is pretty meaningless considering what our veterans really have done for us.

Plain and Simple Bootcut - Not so Hot

Well, I did get to that muslin yesterday, and thank goodness I made a muslin! I used a size 12, which according to the measurements on the Hot Patterns envelope would have been right for me, but I could not even get those things half way up my thighs! I let out the seams to 1/4 inch sas and could still barely get them up my legs. They fit fine in the hips, except for the fact that the back didn't even come up to the top of my bikini-high underwear! I could have spent hours trying to make this muslin/pattern fit, or choose another pattern. I decided on the latter.


Now I am going to make a muslin for S2700. I bought this a while ago, but when I tried to use their formula to decide which pattern type (slim/average/ curvy) none of their ratios lined up with mine. Now, why did I even try to figure this out? I'm curvy and that's all there is to it! I cut out a muslin on these last night, and we'll see what happens. I do like that they have automatically built in 1" side seams all around. I also added an additional inch at the waist incase I need to raise the waist seam or lengthen the crotch curve. I hope I can get to it today. I have put off my school work long enough, and now I must get to that.


Oh, BTW, we went and saw This is it last night and I loved it.

Saturday musings

Even though I have a lot of school work to do this weekend, I am hoping to get some sewing done. Have any of you made the HP boot cut pants? I looked at Pattern Review, and could not find any reviews for them. I have this pattern in my stash and am hoping to do a muslin today.

Grace and I have our second cake decorating course starting today. Fortunately, we do not have to bring cakes until the last week, but you can bet we will be making cakes at home to "practice" I think my thighs cannot handle any more cakes right now, but it doesn't seem to be stopping me. I am having fun trying new cake recipes, but Grace prefers to stick with the box mixes. We are both experimenting with different frostings (and Nancy K, if you're reading this, I would still love to try your recipe.)

This afternoon, DH and I have a date to go see "This is it" Let's see, class from 11 - 1, movie at 4, report card comments to finish... I am still determined to get some sewing in!

And, on a sadder note, PotPie got into a little fight when he sneaked out of the house last week and ended up having surgery. You can see more pictures here, but be warned, some of them are gross. He seems to be handling it well and is being so sweet about having to wear that collar!

It's about time I finished something!

McCalls 5884
This blouse should have taken an afternoon or so, but I think it took me more like 3 weeks! First of all, I laid this out 3 times before finally settling on this fabric. The blouse is a bit of a fabric hog, and my first two choices did not have enough fabric. I do like the blouse, but I hate doing single layer cutting, which you do have to do on this blouse since the neck scarf is cut on the bias. I'm happy with the end result though. I've never made this kind of sleeve before, but I like the way it looks. There is an inner piece and an outer piece. There are a few modifications I would make to this blouse if I make it again and I've outlined them on my review at Pattern Review. I'd really like to be sewing more, so I'm hoping that I will start forcing myself to make time to do it. Too many other things seem to be getting in the way. Speaking of which, DD and I have been making a lot of cakes and trying different cake and frosting recipes. Nancy K, if you're reading this I'd love to try your recipe you referred to. I looked on the internet and found many variations, so would love to try the one you like. Our cakes are still fairly primitive looking, but we're having fun and learning.








































































You can see more cakes here. We feel pretty proud of our cakes for just having had 4 classes.

I never thought I'd see the day

that I'd get my daughter to use the sewing machine, but low and behold, we are making aprons! Do you know how long I've wanted to teach my daughter to sew? And how long she has resisited? Well, I don't think she's really that excited about it, but she was a bit shocked at how easy it is to use the sewing machine. And, she really is doing a good job.

As I mentioned a post or two before, we are taking a cake decorating class. Well, she decided that it would be good for us to have aprons. While we were at JoAnns getting something for our class, we went over to the quilting area and I let her pick out the fabrics for the aprons. I think she was expecting me to make them, but somehow I got her to cut hers out and even get on the sewing machine! She's a little more than half done on hers, and I just finished mine. I figured I better stay a few steps ahead of her so that I could head off any problems or confusion. I am not having her read the guidesheet at this point; I'm just telling her which step to do next. Also, I did the double turned hem since it is a curved seam. I want to make this as easy as possible for her so that she will want to do it again! Hopefully I'll have pictures to post tomorrow of her finished apron! Oh, BTW, this is from MCCalls 5825



On the kitchen side of things, we have been making cakes. A lot of cakes. I think I am sick of cake. Pretty soon my husband's office will be sick of eating cake. My daughter's work may even become sick of eating cake - but right now, everyone loves that we are taking this class, because we want everyone else to eat all the cake!





















WE are learning a lot about frosting. We are learning that it takes a LOT of powdered sugar and shortening to make frosting. We are scouring all the local stores for the best prices on powdered sugar and shortening! We are up to our elbows in powdered sugar and shortening.

We are also learning that the littlest amount of sunshine in your car can melt the frosting on the 10 minute drive home from JoAnns!








and, since I'm off work this week (our school district takes a week of in October. That's why we start back to school the first week in August!) I'm actually doing some cooking as well as baking. Made a great Spinach Vegetable Soup for dinner. I thought it was going to be spinach overload while I was making it, but it actually turned out pretty yummy. Now, if we could just get the fall weather to go with the soup. It rained all day yesterday, but today it was 75degress. I'm not complaining, it's definitely better than 95. :-)

Cake Decorating 101

I've been a stranger to my sewing room lately, but I'm hoping to rectify that this next week while I'm on vacation!

In the meantime, DD and I have decided to take a cake decorating class. Last weekend was our first class, and basically, it was all demonstration for that first day. Our homework assignment is to come in on Saturday with a frosted cake ready for decorating, and 3 different consistencies of frosting divided into different batches for coloring and decorating. Sounds so simple, doesn't it?

Well, let me tell you that cake making has never been my forte. They always come out tasting good, but usually are about 1" tall. Grace and I decided we'd better make some practice cakes before we have to do the "real thing" Grace made the first cake earlier this week. Hers came out pretty good, but one layer broke when she turned it out of the pan, so she had to glue it back together with icing. Her icing was a little too thick, so she had trouble getting it to go on smoothly. Also, her sides were not straight up and down, but more at an angle going toward the top.

Last night I made another cake, and she and I frosted it today. Well, my icing was too thin, so it kept sliding off the cake! Also, my layers shifted because the icing was too slippery. Who knew that the perfect consistency for frosting would be so difficult to attain? My goal is to have one of those cakes where the top is perfectly flat and absolutely parallel to the bottom, and the sides are perfectly smooth and perpendicular to the top.


This cake is not it. I figure by the time I make 30 or 40 cakes, I should have it down! I think my co workers are probably going to love me because I will be bringing these cakes to work lest I eat every one of them!








Well, since we had left over icing, and since we could tell how badly we suck at the basics, that we better get a little practice on using the tips and the decorating bag. We practiced on wax paper first, and then put a little design on the cake. Hopefully the next cake I post will look better than this one!

V8522 jacket finished!

This would have been finished a week ago, but I didn't have any big snaps. Well, actually I do have big snaps, but they are not black and I can't find them. Story of my life - I can never find things when I want them. I try to be organized, but I'm like that ADD kid and don't always pay attention to what I'm doing, so half the time, I don't remember where I put things, even though it makes perfect sense to me at the time I put them away. sigh.....









Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the jacket. It does have a problem with the lining wanting to roll out to the front. The jacket is lined to the edge, meaning there are no facings. It doesn't seem to be a problem in the sleeves or even at the hem, but where the lining meets the collar - that's another story. I added an additional snap to keep the front from fold ing back, but if that doesn't stop the lining from rolling out, I'll probably have to stitch it down from underneath the collar. I did understitch the lining under the length of the collar, but that's not doing the trick. I may have to actually stitch part of the collar to the jacket to hold it in place. We'll see what happens after the first time I wear it. Which, actually is why I did not hurry to finish this - it's just to hot to wear a jacket. It is still in the high 90's here - but I'm not complaining. Although I am ready for fall, I love the warm weather and could live in it all year long. Even though it is sometimes too hot to sleep at night (I think part of that is just that I'm having my own personal summer in addition to the one outside), I still love the feeling of the sun on me because I am usually too cold.


Last weekend I went on a women's retreat with the women from our church and roomed with a good friend. We had a great time and it was nice to meet some of the women and talk to others that I really only know by name but had never talked to. It was about a 3-1/2 hour drive to get there, but I think it took us more than 4 to get there. We went to a place called Lopez Canyon. It is near the coast. There were some really cool rock formations and examples of plate tectonics and folding there

A new project

School has kept me so busy that I haven't had time to do much of anything else! I'm behind on email, blog reading, and definitely blog writing! Not that there has been much to write about - I certainly have not been doing much sewing. I did, however, finish a top this weekend and start on another new project.

This top at the right is New Look 6807. It is supposed to be a 2 hour top, but it took me way longer. Especially since after I finished it I couldn't stand how big it was in the back, so I had to undo the tie opening in the back, cut part of that out, and make the CB seam much larger in order to keep the top from falling off. I'm pretty happy with it now, so if I make it again, I will be taking almost 2" out of the back on this one!

Even though it is still in the high 90s here with the occassional 100+, I'm kind of getting in the mood for some fall sewing. Today I decided to start on a jacket that I wanted to make LAST fall! It is Vogue 8522 and I am making the one shown in gold.











I got this really interesting fabric last year, but today as I was looking at it, I realize that it is just to flimsy to make this jacket. I decided to underline it with silk organza to give it a little more body. I want it to be lightweight, but I also want it to hold its shape.

So, basically, I had to cut this out 3 times - once in the fashion fabric, once in the silk organza, and once in the lining. All three of these fabrics are very "shifty" and difficult to lay out and cut. I might have been able to stack the fabrics and cut all three at once, but I was having a hard enough time as it was keeping the fabrics from moving and distorting out of shape.

After cutting out the pieces, I sewed the underlining to the fashion fabric. Since both layers were so fluid, I had to be really careful not to have them shift around when sewing. As you can see below, first I laid both layers on top of the pattern piece, then I sewed them together. Next, I laid the pattern piece on top of the fabric pieces again, and cut to even them up. So, basically, that is all I got done today on this jacket. A lot of pinning, cutting, and sewing layers together. I did also get the lining cut out, so I think I am ready to go. Hopefully I'll have some time to sew this week in the evenings. DH is out of town for the week, so that does give me a little more time to sew!


As you can see in this picture, I stitched down the center of the darts on the underlining. this helps the layers stay together when you are sewing the darts and really helps get a neater result.
This is laying out the layers on top of the pattern piece.

Here, the layers are already sewn together and the pattern piece is placed on top to trim the excess.


I hope it will not be another 2 weeks until my next blog post!

NL6681 pants

I can't believe I finally got into my sewing room and got to finish something! Since school started (actually before that) I have been so consumed with work that I have not even had time to sew. I think I started these pants a month ago and I'm glad I finally finished!
I really like these pants and think I will make them again.


















I really like the fly construction on these. It was pretty time consuming and there was about a million and ten pieces, but I think it gave a good result

Actually, everything was pretty different in this New Look pattern. The construction was unlike any other pants I have made before. The pockets and the fly are done first. The waistband was in two pieces (left and right) and each pant leg was constructed separately and the waist band and facings were attached to each side before the crotch and center back seams were sewn. This was great because it allowed me to really adjust the fit at the waist after the waistband was attached.

They're a little "bagged out" at the end of the day now, here's the pix anyway.













The pockets were also constructed a little differently, and I like the way they look.





















Yeah, this is me at the end of a long day. I think I am a little delirious

Oops!

I tried out some new alterations on these pants and I screwed up! OK, I screwed up in a couple of ways, I think, but the main problem I could have avoided if I would have been thinking. The front piece has side pockets. I was doing a hip curve alteration to raise the side hip according to the measurements I had taken. The problem was that I did the alteration to the front piece at the side - and I did NOT have the pocket attached. whenever you do any alteration to the front of pants, if they have pockets, or any other attached piece, those should be pinned together before doing the alteration. In fact, I should have had the wasitband/yoke attached as well. Not only did this raise the side of tha pants too much, it also meant that the pockets and the front center did not line up at all. I outlined the difference in chalk on these pieces so you could see what I mean.


As it turns out, I ended up cutting off almost all that I had added on to the side, but I have not yet sewn on the waist band, so there may still be tweaking to do. I'm happy with the way the rest of these are fitting, but I'm also thankful that the fabric has some stretch!

There are several things that are different about these pants. The pockets aren't really all that different, but I do like the way they are put together and the way they are looking at this point.

I have never done a multi-pieced fly before, but I really liked the way this one was done. There is a separate fly piece, fly underlap, underlap lining. The method of putting it in is also different than others that I have seen, and the fly is assembled before any of the pants pieces are put together.
Another thing that is different is that after the fly is sewn together, the outside side seams are sewn. Then the waistband is attached before the inseam or CB seam are sewn. Also, the center back seam is sewn at an angle instead of parallel to the cut edge. In other words, the seam allowance at the bottom of the CB is 5/8", but it is over 1" at the waist.

I did baste the pants together to see if they would fit, so now I will take that stitching out and sew the waist band on before sewing the legs back together.

Since things have been really busy this week, I'm only sewing about 30 minutes a day, so hopefully I will get to finish the pants this weekend.

Sneak Peek

Yesterday I went to the quilt shop and I worked for 5 hours on my quilt! The top is almost finished and I really like it. I have to sew on a couple of more border pieces, and then I will take pictures. It's kind of an artsy thing, and although at first I wanted to use it as a throw, now I'm thinking I might hang it up. but, it's kind of big. So, we'll see.

Here are some of the blocks.






















My piecing isn't perfect, but it is certainly better than any I've done before. I was excited because my instructor said that my quilt was "exceptionally good"










But, seeing the blocks individually like this isn't really a "fair" preview. The whole idea of the quilt is putting the blocks together in a way that creates a certain movement, theme, or overall design. I'm very pleased with how mine is turning out. You'll see what I mean when I post the finished top - of course, I have to find a place big enough to put the finished top and get the picture.







On the home sewing front, I've started making some cropped pants from a New Look Pattern. I think it may be OOP (out of print) since I couldn't find it on their website. I can see why - the pants have about a gazillion pattern pieces, and I'm not even doing any of the additional tabs, loops, or patch pockets! I'm hoping to get these made up in the next few days. I did not make a muslin. Somehow, I lost one of my favorite fitting books "Fitting Finesse" by Nancy Zieman. So, I ordered her new book, "Fit with Confidence" which is basically a revised version of the former. Anyway, the reason I ordered it was because I used her measurement fit method for pants once before and I liked it. I don't think I did it right last time though - either that, or I didnt' do it right this time! Anyway, I'm making these pants according to her method (or at least my interpretation of it) and making the pants without a muslin. I would like to say I am going to make them with wide seam allowances, but it seems that I forgot to cut them out that way. Hmm, I guess I better hope they fit!

Unexpected Pleasures

Last week my husband had a business trip in the Bay Area, and since I was on vacation, I got to go with him. I figured I would go shopping while he was at work and drive around. I have a cousin that lives in the same town as where we stayed, so I decided to give her a call. My cousin is a few years older than I am, so growing up we didn't really get together very much. Her mother and my father were brother and sister. Since my aunt and my dad were pretty close, I did get to see this cousin once in a while as adults, but we never really got to know each other that well, although I have always liked her a lot. Well, we are both in our 50s now, but as I was on my way over to visit her, I wondered what we would have in common. We've never really had the opportunity to just sit and talk with just the two of us. When I got to her house, which I knew would be very cool, and it was, she started to show me her kitchen which had been recently remodeled. As we talked about the process, she mentioned something about her "sewing room". As you can imagine, my ears perked up. After a while, I said, "I want to see your sewing room." Well, I think we passed the next few hours just sitting in there and talking about all things sewing. It was so fun to find out that we had so much in common. In addition to sewing, we found out many other things that we have in common, but the sewing gave us an avenue of conversation.

She is so fortunate to live where so much is available to her. In addition to all of the wonderful fabric stores the SF Bay Area has to offer, there is also a plethora of fabulous sewing instructors. She is attending the design/fashion program at a local college and I got to see all of her samples from all of her classes. I would love to be able to take some real-life (as opposed to on-line) sewing classes and workshops like tailoring, pattern drafting, draping, etc. From the sample I saw, her worksmanship is very good and she also has a good eye for design. I hope we get to get together again soon and spend more time together.