Super Online Sewing Match II Round 1: A Sparkling Sutton

Here's my version of the Round 1 pattern for the Super Online Sewing Match II:  the Sutton Blouse by True Bias Patterns!

(more photos and details after the jump!)

Sewing Confrontations: Pants, Part 2--Muslin Time!

Whenever I try a new pattern, I usually do a mockup (or muslin) of it in some cheap fabric.  It helps me see if the pattern and whatever adjustments I’ve made actually work before I commit to cutting the fabric I’ve actually purchased for wearing.  Last week I wandered into WalMart and found: some pretty hideous and cheap giant pink gingham at $1 a yard.  SCORE!  

Full disclosure:  I actually like gingham, but not so much the 2" gingham for pants.

So with fabric in hand, I commence to dealing with the pattern.  As I mentioned in the first post, I’m using a pattern from a BurdaStyle magazine.  Here it is:

Let's get cutting!

Simple, right?

(lotsa photos after the jump!)

Sewing Confrontations: Pants, Part 1

confrontation

As I mentioned earlier, my friend Jessica over at Quilty Habit is doing a series this month called Sewing Confrontations, challenging fellow sewers to tackle some lingering challenge.  Being all super ambitious, and thinking I had all the time in the world when I signed up, I decided I would work on making myself a decent-fitting pair of pants.

Any of you who know me in real life know that I don't wear pants all that often.  7 days of 10--probably 9 of 10 in the spring and summer--you'll find me in a dress.  This is not because I don't like pants, or because of any exceptional twee-ness on my part.  It's really because a) dresses are easier to fashion into a proper outfit;  and b) it's much easier to find (or make) dresses that fit decently.

One of the first things you want to do when sewing garments is to anticipate possible problems.  I already know ready to wear pants give me all kinds of fitting issues, due to the following facts:

1) I'm tall, and long-legged.  I wear a 34-inch inseam, which is hard to come by.  Most stores' "long" pants are 32" or 33", which is not-quite-sufficient for me.  Or, (very occasionally) they go the other way entirely and offer 36", which is way too long.
2) My waist is both high and small.  My hips are both wide and long.  Sometimes a pair of pants will fit just about everywhere, and then I sit down and it's like I'm wearing legwarmers only, because they do not really cover anything anymore.  If the rise is high enough that everything's covered, and the pants fit my hips well, my waist is probably swimming. 
3) I have a fairly significant swayback.  For those of you who don't sew clothing-- a swayback is the term people use for that hollow at the small of your back, just above your hips--when it curves inwards dramatically, you've got a swayback.  Do you try on pants or skirts and they seem to fit everywhere except the back waistband is always floating in space inches away from your actual back waist?  You, my friend, are a member of the Swaybacked Sisterhood. 
4) I have full hips and thighs.  Sometimes pants in my size are tighter than they should be up top, but a larger size is so much bigger everywhere that that doesn't help. Usually at that point I just give up and leave without any pants. 

So knowing these things, there are certain lower-body fitting adjustments I am always on the lookout for, even when I am sewing dresses--lengthening the leg and hip, grading the waist in and hips out, and taking in or adjusting the back waist.  In skirts and dresses, these things are relatively simple to do, but how to translate them to pants?  These are the challenges I'm setting out for myself this winter. 

For this week, however, I need to get into the habit of actually constructing pants.  (photos after the jump!)

Sewing Confrontations

My friend Jessica over at Quilty Habit contacted me a few weeks ago about a new series she's putting together:

The series is called "Sewing Confrontations" and she's asking a number of other bloggy friends this November to man up (or woman up, or trans up, as the case may be) and force ourselves to work on some sewing issue that we have been struggling with or avoiding.  Since my machines have been gathering dust on their shiny avocado-and-lemon-smoke exteriors, I thought this might be a good way to get back into things.  After all, it's football season and it's soon going to be too cold to even run errands.

I thought hard about something I have been neglecting but thought I could realistically accomplish in a month.  I'm not going to successfully free-motion the bed quilt I made for myself last winter by the end of November.  This I know is simply not happening. I've been putting off quilting it at all for a year.  I mean, it took me an hour last night to quilt straight lines on a POTHOLDER.  Yeah.

But you know what is bothering me and I might be motivated to do?  Pants.  Like many women, I struggle mightily to consistently find pants that fit worth a toss.  And once I do seem to find a brand and style I like, THEY CHANGE THEM!  Sometimes the entire style is revamped (so much for the J. Crew Favorite Fits that got me through grad school--were they only my favorite??)  sometimes they decide to get cheap cute with the fabric (*cough*GAPbrands*cough*) and they are no longer worth the money. (jump coming here!)