Fiberaddict's Fiber Fumblings

Tonight begins Yom Kippur, so I wanted to get this dress finished and photographed today. It would have been finished yesterday, except we had to take 2 dogs to the vet (Chloe has bronchitis and Riley has an ear infection. We couldn't take them together, because that would have been too easy. More like total chaos! :lol: Chloe's never met a person she didn't need to hug..and at 96.4 pounds, it gets....interesting. :lol:), then I had to rip out the "invisible" zipper - which wasn't - and on the 2nd attempt I managed to sew my left pointer finger to the zipper. :sigh: It's OK - just a bit sore, and very very bloody.

Anyway. I have some photos!



I LOVE this dress. The fabrics work well together, it's cute, and it's totally, totally adorable. Very comfortable, too! I swapped the cuff pattern piece for the next size up, which makes the sleeve fit perfectly. I also managed to install the zipper correctly - it's invisible!



I did the insets the same way I did the ones on dress #1 - it's messy on the inside, but works. This time I was even more careful - the points still aren't perfect, but they are more pointy. It needs washing in these photos - usually I toss it in the machine right after I finish, but I wanted to get these photos done. (I had a photo of the left side, but I was laughing at something Herself said, and it looked like I was trying to do a pin-up pose. :rofl:)

There WILL be a version 3.0 - I want to use the brown paisley fabric we got at the sale, but I'm not sure what color to use for the contrast. I'm thinking antique gold or a soft orange; Herself suggested Olive. I'm leaning towards the Olive.....but I need to find some fabric.

However, that's going to wait. Himself has requested a Jedi outfit....and since he NEVER asks me to make him things, that's up next. Then Herself wants a dress....and a couple of tops. And I need a top....and underthings. :sigh: It's never-ending, is it? :lol:

So. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. I highly recommend you at least stop for a minute or two and ask God for forgiveness....because we all need forgiveness!

See ya on the flip side!

:heh: before I got sick, anyway. I'll put the behind a cut, since I have *11* photos to share!

( Click here for photo goodness! )

Um....I hate photos of myself, because I feel like I look silly. Please ignore my face - I was facing the sun, and had left my sunglasses in the house. Herself took the photo...she's OK, but not the best photographer. Ah, well - you're here for the dress, right?



I like it! I'm debating whether I need to tighten the waist any - I can easily pinch an inch on each side - but it's comfy as is. It's neat.....but I wonder if it's a bit frumpy. :shrug: As I said, I LIKE it.

Changes made: Not that many, actually. I cut a 40 out. When sewing it up, I went from 5/8" seam allowances to 1/4" seams at the bottom of the waist, to give me a little more "swish" at the hips. I added fusible interfering to the 2 fronts. I used actual buttons WITH buttonholes on the front, instead of the decorative snaps the pattern called for. I used a contrast fabric on the neckband, and added contrast fabric to the pockets (the pattern called for rick-rack only). I'm not totally happy with the green, but it was all I had in the stash that even came close to working. I also added snaps to the top of the pocket - it seems to be a common problem to have the top flop outward and look goofy.

Things learned: Buttonholes! I have a buttonhole attachment (the Singer "Professional" buttonholer) for my machine; it took a bit of playing around to get it working correctly. It did 8 perfect buttonholes, then quit.....I have 11 buttons. 9 and 10 are....um......interesting; 11 is perfect. I think I need to oil it.

I also hand sewed the hem....honestly? It wasn't that much of a chore. Normally, I'd have slapped that sucker on the machine, but I had already put so much into it I decided to do it right. I'm glad I did.

I'll be sewing more of this pattern - it went together relatively quickly, and was mostly easy. The neckband was the trickiest part - and it wasn't THAT tricky, just a bit fiddly in the corners. The sleeves were also a bit tricky, but that's because my machine is cabinet-mounted; no free arm here! I've learned how to sew them, though, thanks to the bags I've made. :lol:

Next up, however, is a dress for Herself. :sigh: She chose a PROM dress pattern (a Simplicity vintage re-issue), for taffeta and net fabrics :ugh:, with a poofy skirt :Ugh!:.....but she wants it in COTTON. :bangs head: It's disgusting - she's a perfect pattern size 12. :rofl: I have the bodice cut and sewn, but. The pattern wanted 60" fabric; we bought 40". So....I scrapped the skirt and am doing a 3-panel dirndl. I have the panels gathered, sewn and serged, I just need to attach them to the bodice, insert an invisible zipper :gulp!: and add the trim. And hem it. Not difficult...but......:ugh: I want to finish it tonight/tomorrow so I can move on to something else. Like more dresses or tops for me - I NEED decent clothes.

First up, this isn't a Sewing blog - I AM sewing right now, and I want to share what I am learning, and track WHY I make the decisions I do when I am trying to fit a pattern. *I* like knowing WHY someone decided to do what they did, instead of just reading "and then I added 6" to the front and it fits perfectly!" - I need to know WHY so I can figure out what to do for me. I also decided to show my fails, as well - because, again, I need to see WHY something failed so I can understand the whys of the fixing of it. (Make sense?) So, for the next little while, I will be posting a lot on my sewing - because I want to help other newbies, and I want to track what *I* did, so I can do it again later on. I'll share finished projects, of course - but I am not planning on doing a diary on every single item I make (especially since I am planning on doing multiples of patterns that work well with my figure. Why mess with something that works, right?)

:deep breath:


So. Here we go again. This time, I am sewing the 1944 House Dress from Decades of Style - this one:



It has a lovely shape, doesn't it? So flattering to just about every body. A really GOOD thing about this pattern, though, is on the back of the envelope:



See the chart? It gives you not only YOUR measurements, so you can choose the right size to cut, but also the *finished* measurements of the dress. This is good - I can see that this dress is supposed to have 4" difference between my measurements and the dress; that's plenty of room to move around in. (More than *I* want, actually, but we'll worry about that later.)

Anyway. According to the chart, a 38 will fit me like a glove. :lol: So, that's what I cut out, knowing I'd need to do a bit of fitting - because my full bust is 42.5", and my waist is 35-ish. (Depends on the time of month, the weather, what time I got up, etc. :lol:) After a bit of thought, I decided to cut the pattern out as written, and sew it up as if it would fit perfectly.

Here's how it fits:



The front is a bit snug across the bust, and the waist is too large - just like I thought. The hips are a bit snug, too. So much for the 4" of ease, right? :lol:



The back looks OK, except for the hips. I *did* try it on me, just to verify - yeah, the bust is too tight, yadda yadda yadda. Cat is a pretty good match for me, shape- and size-wise.

I sat and had a good, long think. See, there are many ways you can adjust the bust on patterns. One of the easiest on princess-seamed items (which this is - see the seams down the front? It's what gives it that lovely shape.) is to simply drag the pattern pieces apart the distance you need to add (in my case, that's 2" or so) - wait, let me show you the calculations:



You can see that I need 5" more in the bust area. Because there are 2 sides (and 2 seams), you divide that by 2; I decided that 2.5" was a bit more than I probably needed, so I decided to add 2" to the side front. (It was just a feeling I had - I don't want a tent, here, just something comfortable and Non-trashy looking. Plus, it's easier to add a flat 2" - for ME - than it is to futz with that .5". Lazy? You betcha! :lol:)

Anyway - I gave it some thought, and simply sliding the side piece - while being easy, and it WOULD work, would also add a bit more fabric to the waist.....which would mean I'd have to do MORE tinkering (which, honestly, I WILL have to do, but.....if I'm honest, I didn't want "easy". I wanted something more......"professional". Yeah, I'm weird. I also want to learn.). So I decided to do a "real" FBA, involving cutting the pattern and adding paper. :cue freakout:

So, I pulled out the side front of my pattern (because I had checked with google.....on princess-seamed garments it seems to be the proper piece to mess with. *I* don't know, but that was the overwhelming consensus.), and started marking it up. I checked a LOT of websites on this technique - and I will be honest. These pictures? Are from the 2nd attempt. The 1st attempt involved slashing the pattern at the waist, doing the FBA, then attempting to tape it back together....and...um...I didn't take photos because it FAILED, miserably.

I re-traced the pattern piece, then started marking it up:



I marked the apex of the bust (the "fullest part" - I measured me, then transferred that to the pattern), then drew a line up from the hem to it, then from it to a spy about 1/3 of the way around the armhole. (Because that's what everybody said to do. Not sure WHERE the 1/3 came from.) I was supposed to then drew a line from the bottom of the dart, thru the apex, and thru the side of the pattern - but I moved that line down a bit. The dart, as written, points ABOVE my apex, and it's supposed to point AT it. I traced the dart onto a piece of scrap paper and taped it on in what I thought was the "correct" place before cutting the fabric. I just guessed at the position of the 3rd line. I think you can see them on the photo - I tried to make them as dark as possible, without tearing the paper.

Then I picked up my scissors....and CUT the pattern:



I taped the front seam down, then spread the pattern the 2" I needed, and taped the other side down. Interestingly, doing so CLOSED the gap caused by the cut thru the dart (which I had forgotten to cut in this picture - oops!)- it was supposed to open up the dart a LOT, so that I'd have to close it later. :scratches head: I taped everything down, added the extra length to ALL the pieces, re-cut them (in muslin-muslin, this time - I wanted a change from white. :lol:), and basted them together.



The new front - the bust is much better, now, but the waist! AHHHHHHHH! :sigh: Looks like I have enough fullness in the hips, now, but it's all concentrated in the front. Not sure about that....



The back is the same, except a titch longer. Somehow it ended up a wee bit shorter than the front...but this is pretty much a wash, anyway, so I'm not worried about it. Did I mention this attempt was really a learning experience for me? :lol:



The arm was a surprise to me - it's MUCH too loose, now. It makes sense - sort of. I did manipulate it a bit in the FBA, but I didn't think it was by THAT much.

I think I'm going to do a bunch of grading. I THINK, if I do a 38 for the shoulder/neck, go to a 40 for the bust, then back down to a 38 - or maybe a 36 - for the waist, then up to a 42 for the hips, I should be good. It's a LOT of blending, though.....but if I mark the areas I start the blending from (with sticky arrows), it should be relatively painless....right? :sigh: (I'm also not sure if I need to do anything to the back - guess I'll try this and see if I need to do anything else to it.) I'm kinda thinking it might be a wee bit...big, though, because of the ease. :scratches head. We'll see - I'll double-check my measurements before I start tracing off the pattern again to be sure I don't go TOO big, especially in the hip area. I like swishy skirts, but too much fabric is a problem. (I have plenty - the largest dress takes 3 1/3 yards. I bought 4+ yards of everything I wanted to use on this. So.....it's all good.)

Why all the work? Because why settle for OK when I can - with a bit of effort on my part - get FANTASTIC? And, this only needs to be done once for this pattern - then I can just cut my fabric from the Frankenpattern for each successive dress (until I loose enough weight that I have to do it again. :wink:) And, knowledge is NEVER wasted - what I'm learning with this can - and will! - be applied to other patterns down the road. AND - it's good sewing practice.

That actually LOOKS like a dress, and appears to maybe, possibly FIT!!!!!!

I was gonna do a twitter-type thing, spot blogging as I went, but......didn't want to keep stopping to post photos. I took 1 of me actually CUTTING the fabric:



Then I got to sewing. I started the cutting at a little after Noon; it's now 2:30 and the dress is DONE and on Cat to hang for the night:

Front:



Back:



What you don't see is that the cherry fabric is split in the front, showing off a faux pencil skirt of the green. You also don't see that there's really only 1 layer of fabric in the back - the front piece just wraps around and snaps/hooks and eyes at the waist. It's all open back there.....so I have to be careful I don't do too many twirls. :O_o: :lol:

It still needs bias tape, but I need to MAKE some, first. Herself suggested that I use the cherry fabric to bind the green parts, and the green to bind the cherry parts - and I like that idea. I'm just not sure if I should bind the hem in the green, or if I should just do a quick rolled hem (on the machine - I'm not a sadist! :lol:) I'm also not sure if I want Real Buttons (with buttonholes!) on the overlap, or if I want to do snaps with "show" buttons sewn on top. Decisions, decisions......

I do promise to actually MODEL the dress for you when it's done - but that might not be until later in the week. I need to make Herself some tanks first....the pattern came in today and she's agitating for them. My House Dress pattern ALSO came in.....that's on the schedule for either Wednesday or Thursday. I need to gird my loins to start the muslin process again......hopefully I can nail it in under 5 muslins......:lol: (Glad the outlet has MORE of this fabric, because I seem to be running thru it. Ah, well - I only need to nail the pattern once, then it's good to go for however many I want to make of it. The house dress? Will have at least 3 makes, maybe more if it looks as good as I think it will.)

Got some clean up to do!

I have photos for you, but I won't post them until tomorrow. Long story short - the Diamond Dress is a DUD. I have thrown in the towel, because the pattern pieces do NOT fit into each other - and I have photos to prove it. :sigh:

So. I started on the Walk-Away dress. Hearthie kindly sent me the pattern (THANKS again!); she had done some fiddling with it and left the adjustments on the pieces. I gave it a good thought, and decided to keep the adjustments in the bodice (because I know I need to do a FBA, which she had already done); I would cut MY pattern to my size, adding in her adjustments, and see how it went.

Um. 5 muslins later.....it seems that, for whatever reason, this dress fits me almost perfectly right out of the box. :scratches head: I know everyone says the bodice is loos and baggy....not on me. In fact, I had to re-do the armhole; in doing so I got rid of the weird dart that was right there (darts are supposed to point to the apex of your bust - the nipple. This one? Pointed 1" ABOVE my bust. :weird:) The french dart things end right AT the apex, so I'm keeping them there. On this version, anyway. :lol:

I cut a 16 of the front and back, and a 22 of the circle skirt. My collar bone matches the size 16 bust size, my waist matches the size 18....but my butt is a wee bit larger than the 22 hip. :sigh: It means I'll need to either gather or pleat the skirt into the waistband (in other words, ease it in. :lol:), but that's not too hard. (For the muslin, I took 2 pleats, one on either side of the mid-back seam.) I think I'll still have to do a couple of small tucks in the neckline - on the muslin, it gapes a bit. Not much, but enough that I don't like it.

Other than that, the fit is GOOD. Not perfect, but a) it's my first dress, and I want to WEAR it NOW and b) I'm pretties sure I'll figure out ways to fix it as I get more experience. The muslin is wearable (or....it was before I re-did the front. Only, I only cut it a little past my waist, because I was testing the re-drawing of the armholes. SO.....I have a mini-skirt in front. :lol:) (Well, and if you ignore the fact that the muslin is see-thru. :shock:)

So, my "real" fabrics are washed and ironed.....why am I here posting instead of cutting? Because I am SCARED to cut the actual fabric. :sigh: It's only $3/yard fabric; the dress will only cost me $15 if it bombs. Which it shouldn't, since the muslin fit.

Oh, my new shears? ROCK. I LOVE them - best $10 I've spent in a long time! :lol: I'm honestly considering picking up another pair next time I'm out that way - they are great!

This dress is in time-out for now. I reinserted the new diamond - one side with pocket, 1 side without. The without side I did "correctly" - I ripped all the seams, tried to sew in the insert (more on THAT in a moment), then re-sewed the seams, running the side seam in 1 go. :sigh: Here, have some pictures:

This is the side done the way the pattern tells you to do it:





See that hole? Yeah....



Here's the whole pocket:



There are gaps on either side....

Here's the side with the pocket removed:



And IT has a hole, too!



Yes, the penguins are upside down. I'm not sure WHY, but that's the way it wanted to fit (but...if I attached the pocket to it, they were right-side up? I dunno WHAT'S going on here....

Here's the front, without the zip. There's a good 1" overlap, it looks like:



And the back:



Part of the problem that I am having is the shape of the inserts. They sew in as diamonds. The pattern drawing has diamonds. The photo of the 1 dress on the website shows diamonds. The insets? Are NOT diamonds - they have cut-out bits in the side corners. I kinda see what they are trying to get you to do - the pocket goes to the bottom corner, leaving a "bite" out (sort of "L" shaped) - with me so far? When you sew the inset in, you only sew in the top - the bottom is free, because you attach the pocket (which is sewn onto the bottom of the inset) to the pocket facing (which is already sewn to the bottom inset opening on the dress).

Problem (MY problem anyway): the bottom fits just fine. The top, though - it doesn't make it to the top corner. If I MAKE it fit (which I have done, by easing it in - which the pattern does NOT mention!), you still have that "L"- and it will NOT match up. I've tried matching up the bottom (which is already sewn to the facing, remember) - and it just WILL. NOT. FIT. :bangs head: No matter how I sew it in, no matter how I pin it, I still end up with a bit of the "L" that isn't attached to *anything*. The drawings in the pattern do NOT help - they don't show this part, they only show what it looks like after everything is sewn in - and *I* don't see any stitch lines on the "L". :sigh:

So. I am going back to the drawing board. I am going to re-trace the dress front and back as designed. THEN, before I cut it out (because I have 2 complete sets already cut out), I am going to lay it over the inserts, and trace the side curves (because this dress IS NOT straight-sided, oh no. It's slightly curved. Of COURSE it is.). I will then cut out the new dress pieces. (And don't forget I have had to Frankenstein this dress anyway, thanks to my big hips. I am going from a 38 (which, by the way, is NOT my bust size - it's my *over* bust size, so I still get to do some tinkering *there*. Fun stuff!) to a 46 (which....I am not sure is going to fit correctly *anyway* - the muslin looks awfully tight in the hip area.)

Tomorrow we are going to the outlet store. My budget is suddenly smaller (because I screwed up and put off applying for Herself's disability - MY fault. I didn't want to admit that she IS disabled, so I ignored it. Now, I am paying for it with less money each month. :sigh: SS takes FOREVER to decide disability cases, and they usually DENY it the first 2 or 3 times. :big sigh: MY fault...but after paying bills, I have $0.39 for groceries. Don't panic - SG's aunt will give me some money for her expenses (it goes to SG's account and pays her bills), and SG said I can have some of it, so groceries ARE covered, just not now. :shrug: It's not like I don't have a full pantry and freezer - it just means I need to use some of my fabric money for necessities today. But not all of it - darn it, some of that money is a payment on my sock machine, and THAT I am keeping for fabric.)

Anyway. Tomorrow I plan on getting as much muslin as I can (along with enough fabric for a couple more dresses) - then I will attempt muslin #3. It should go MUCH easier, since it's just a plain dress. I will fit THAT, make the changes to the modified pattern, THEN I will draw the diamond insets on the "finished" pattern, cut them out, add the 5/8" seam allowance to *them* (since it's already in the dress itself), and make muslin #4 (hopefully out of "real" fabric - but not my cherries! :lol:)...which should, if I've thought of everything, be a wearable dress. Finally. I'm thinking of doing muslin #5 (again in real, but not cherry fabric) WITH the pockets, using MY pattern pieces. We'll see.

So - that's where the dress stands at the moment. I did say I love a challenge, right? Because this? Is a challenge. Oh, and Hearth - thanks for finally pushing me to actually JOIN the pattern review site. I hadn't done so, because I have too many memberships and didn't want to add another time-sink. However...the 1 person who has attempted this dress had the same type of problems I am having with the diamonds. I honest think there's something screwy about the shape, but.....:shrug: I am not an expert or a pattern designer, and I'm sure there's some reason for the "L" cut-outs. *I* just can't SEE them.

OH, and to top everything else off...this AM Tigger and Chloe got into it AGAIN. I have no idea what sparked it - I was at the bar putting on my fitbit when it went from everything's-coming-up-roses to I-hate-you-and-want-to-EAT-you. SG came out and grabbed Chloe (she got him with 1 tooth on his finger, but immediately let go); I grabbed Tigger, who Chomped down on my leg. I kicked her (sorry, but that HURT), and she let go and lunged for Chloe AGAIN. :sigh: She's banished to the bedroom, Chloe is sort of repentant, and I have 5 tooth-marks on my leg. I've been bleeding since 5:00......yes, I hit it with peroxide (I am allergic, but what do you do?) AND tea-tree oil, and it's bled enough that any icky stuff that was in there is gone now, but...:sigh: It's slowed to a trickle now, but....I have a lovely bruise (I bruise at the drop of a hat, so that's nothing new) and a lovely set of teeth marks. The detectives can use it to positively ID the culprit, I guess....:lol: and :owowowowowowowow:

I am going to go knit for a few minutes. That's something I can do successfully. :lol:

First off, Thank You for your comments! Ali, don't be jelly - I don't have mad skills. Honest! I can sew a relatively straight seam, and I can cut sort of straight. If YOU can do these 2 things - and read and follow directions (I am working on the following part. I think I know a "better" way, and that's when I get into trouble.) - then YOU can sew clothing. Just be prepared to fail spectacularly every now and then! :lol:

H, you're probably correct in the changes I need to make to the back, but......I am not going to do anything until I get muslin #2 done. With a better choice of fabric. AND - I am actually going to do what 1 of my books TOLD me to do, but I ignored: I am going to sew the entire thing - pockets, facings, EVERYTHING - before I try it on Cat or me. I was trying to save time....but I think I need to pretend this is for reals, and THEN start making changes. (I do have what the books so kindly call a sway-back. Let's say it like it is: I have a big butt. :snicker: As well as a full bust - one book calls my shape "Matronly". Um.....OK. It is what it is. I prefer curvy. :lol:)

I'll be begging for help when the time comes to fit - I understand the process to fix a sway back....but this dress, with the diamonds (which are hiding pockets; yet another reason muslin #1 sucked. I didn't DO the pockets. :sigh:) is going to be a bit more problematical than a normal, easy dress. Apparently I need more of a challenge than most people do.....

So. Here's a shot of fabric choices #2:



You guys have NO idea how hard it is for me to cut the main dress out of the white and use the penguins for the contrast - the idea of a penguin dress is just turning my crank so hard it's not funny. I have to keep reminding myself this is a FITTING attempt, not a Wearing attempt - and I only have so much of the penguins. I think I need to pick up a few more yards of it, and some solid blue or black for the contrasts - because I think it'd be cute and fun. (Why yes, I DO have a warped sense of humor, why do you ask? :lol:)(And yes, I WOULD wear it - outside the house, even. :lol:)

The actual dress - once I GET to that point - will be black and white polka-dot with cherries for the main dress, and a mid-tone green as the contrasts. The fabric is totally cute - I had intended it for the Walk-away dress, but Herself is convinced it'll look better in this one. The Walk-away would have been easier....but hey! I actually *do* like the diamond dress better, so there ya go. (The diamond dress is a reproduction of an actual 1950's housedress. I was skeptical, until Saturday. I had a friend and her mom over, and I showed them the pattern. It seems that they have one of Grandma's vintage dresses that IS this exact pattern! I am awed.....and more determined to sew one up for me to wear.)

Gotta go iron, then do school. Today's project is to sew up this dress completely......wish me luck!