Why did I want a sloper?

I am grateful that if I skipped utilizing my pants sloper in making or adapting a pattern for the drawstring pants I've been thinking of, at least I decided to do a muslin of the pattern in shorts first. Before cutting into one of the lovely and not cheap fabrics I got in NYC last month.  I actually did pull my fitted sloper pattern and compared it to the fashion pattern, which is what made me decide to do shorts first.  The fashion pattern says it gives 5" of ease at the hipline, and I wanted to believe that instead of what my eyes saw with both patterns out.  Hrrmph, 5 inches, maybe in MAN INCHES!

What I ended up with, after taking out the basting and sewing with the most narrow seams I could to give myself a little more, ahem, ease, was what every ill fitting pair of fat granny looking shorts I've ever tried on felt and looked like.  Well, I guess I have tried on worse fitting ones.  These are not a great fit and do seem to accentuate every flaw.  They'll be okay for mowing the lawn, maybe painting, intense house cleaning.  I gave them good pockets.  I went back and compared fashion pattern to the sloper pattern again:

Yeah, no need to modify here.  I estimate I shorted myself 3/4 inches of crotch curve, and maybe 2 inches of protruding belly room.  I know there is exactly 1 1/4" crotch depth I didn't add.  But that camel toe and crotch smile are pretty friendly, y'know?

On the back, the fashion pattern actually has a longer curve and the rest of the width isn't too bad either.  It looks pretty ok in the garment.  I am missing that 1 1/4" of depth though, the back feels like I may have crack exposure when all gets done.  I haven't got the waist on yet.  It was only after all this that I dug out the actual sewn- sloper and tried it on, knowing I've put on 15 or 20 lbs since fitting it.  I know 20 lbs is supposed to be a dress size, sometimes I can squeek by until 30 lbs are added, but tightly.

Stained, wrinkled, sewn in huge green stitches with pen and pencil markings in various places, this is still one good looking pair of pants. They now need a belly bulge adjustment, but the lines are still level and perpendicular and they don't grin or wave a hoof. I'm thinking I should put the sloper pattern underneath some tracing paper and draw a slightly roomier hip/pelvic/belly area and modify the legs to be straighter, no taper, slap pockets on it and a drawstring waistband.  Draft my garment off the sloper looking at the lines of the fashion pattern, rather than modify the fashion pattern to the dimensions of the sloper.  I'd like to get to where in 9 out of 10 cases, I could at most look at a line drawing to modify design and just use the slopers again and again for almost everything.  Why jump though all those hoops of pattern adjustments again and again just to make a pant go skinny or stovepipe or belled or darted, pleated, different pockets?

It all sounds so plausible, from the woman who just sewed a grinning pair of shorts.  From ugly, low budget and already mystery stained twill from the stash, yay.  I guess I should do another shorts muslin before cutting into the very nice linen with a touch of spandex that waits all prewashed and lovely for some nice beachy summer trousers.

No, I am sorry to say, I never finished the bodice sloper.  I'm not going to attempt any fitted tops until I have.

I did sew a fairly nice knit shirt with some pretty peacock feather jersey that I feel good about wearing in public.  But it's a darn t-shirt and I'd feel a little ridiculous modeling it for pictures.  I'll have to work on that I guess if I'm going to keep on with a sewing blog, unless I swing over to quilting full time.  Quilts have been calling......

*UPDATE* I was a little hard on those shorts.  -After I put the waistband on they looked much, much better and the smile a any weird bunches all went away.  Still not amazingly flattering- but a great indicator of where I need to go for the full length pants version.  And the shorts still look better than 99% of what I try on in RTW.  AWFUL stuff when you get to 3x range.
 

busy

I took a week off from work.  I finally made it to the NYC garment district, all by myself!

I didn't want to go with anyone who wasn't as interested as I in fabric, so I took a bus from Bergenfeld, NJ where my son lives.  The terminal is right there, no need to try out the subway.  I had a list organized by street, but it didn't take me long to abandon it.  There were just so many stores there beckoning to be concerned with a list.  I did make it to Mood and saw the dog.  I overheard 3 times while I was there salespeople telling customers to "check our website for that", so that was a little disappointing.  I do shop online from them. I ended up getting a nice linen spandex blend.  I don't know that I knew there was such a blend!

I traveled up by myself from Delaware this time, usually I go with my daughter and she drives.  She likes to make it in 3 hours.  I took 5 1/2.  Part of the reason was this beauty that I found on Craigslist and made a detour for 2 hours from my house:

Singer 503, the rocketeer

I know, I know, it's a sickness.  She was CLEAN though, with all of her cams, attachments, even the manual.  In a well preserved plastic case.  The motor sings.  The stitches are fine.  I considered leaving it with my son, but I just couldn't do it.  Pretty, pretty.

So, I got home (I stopped in the middle of that trip for a visit and a nap, it took even longer!) with piles of fabric and a new machine.  I had to start the bodice sloper,  And I DID.  I've measured for the thing twice previously, but last time was a year ago so I did that again.  Wrote them all down compared to the pattern's measurements.  This is butterick's sloper pattern and came with alternative darts for c and d cups.  I pin basted the paper and tried it on and although I am a solid c the b cup seemed to work fine, in paper anyway.  I did have to add extra at the front shoulder line.  I was surprised there too.  I would have expected needing adjustments to the back but for paper purposes it was definitely the front that needed the adaptation.

I also had to lift the armhole some.  I've got the darts marked and will sew the thing together probably tomorrow.  It has sleeves to be dealt with well.  I'll be interested to see how it comes out.  I was surprised when I did the pants sloper with the adjustments.  The parts of my body I think are out of proportion were not the parts that needed the changes.  With pants it was crotch depth. and it seems I may need to make that adjustment to every bottom I sew for the lower half of my body.  Too bad I didn't do slopers back in 1980.  I might have been much better dressed for a few decades.

It's been hard sticking to this sloper thing.  I've got piles of great fabric.  Also Melissa over at blank slate patterns released a free t shirt pattern in all sizes that takes about 1/2 hour to sew.  I keep seeing all kinds of people posting their versions and I have some cute knits.....

Today I set up the total gym and got on it.  Would be very cool if I could keep getting on it.

Darn near a creative flow

I've got going on lately.  Trying to post tonight from a sadly injured laptop in a very dark room with an occasionally irritable client.  The computer is really buggy.

So, I got the periwinkle quilt done, bound, washed and ready for a road trip to go see a grand baby.  I'm happy with it.  I had intended to take more photos and present in better light, so to speak, but I really have been BUSY!

Avoidance sewing still going strong.  I swore I'd never waste time and fabric on something that gets as trashed as potholders. Never say never!  I don't currently have a free arm, and it is surprisingly easy to put work on a small sphere like the binding at the handhole.  Go slower and work the fabric how it goes.

And, here we go. The "wearable muslin" rapidly degenerated into a wadder muslin. The motivation just dropped when I realized I'd never want to be seen in these. I lost the second zipper and decided to just forge ahead, think about that later. I got the one I did have successfully in as well as the pocket bag. I sat down for my first real seam on my serger and thought, man, if  you sewed the wrong pieces or sides together it would really be a pain to rip out the stitching. You can see one leg above stitched right side and the other stitched wrong side out. It was either that or have two right legs. It finished the project for me. I did try on and the fit was great, nice to know that pants sloper I made last year is functional for telling me crotch depth/length on any pair of pants, not just wovens.  Handy.

I never made the bodice sloper, next on my list (unless I get sidetracked by a damn kitchen rug sewed from clothesline and or t shirts). (Just kidding, I THINK!!)  I went on and used the least happy of my knit fabrics Fabric Mart randomly picked and sold me in a bundle on a Style Arc shirt.  Another wadder. :(  I'm not sure if the cowl collar was off grain at the back neck line or if it was a fitting issue, but I know it's very unlikely I'll take it apart and try again.  I love the style of the shirt, but I don't know that I could have that much fabric around my neck and chest until I'm on the other side of menopause.  Whew!  But it was more good experience as a refresher on some sewing techniques (Style Arc said "stretch" when I would have said "ease").  It was also a strong admonition to do the darn bodice sloper,  I had snug here and loose there. I don't want to have to do a muslin on every stinking garment.  Matter of fact, I don't want to have to buy too many patterns anymore.  I think if I learned how to keep a fitted sloper bodice and pant I could easily modify them to most styles without getting a pattern.  I noticed when I was a little kid that the patterns that came into our house to clothe Mom, Dad, and the 5 kids were frequently the same thing over and over.  A shift is a shift is a shift, and a tailored shirt is a shirt.  Just raise, lower, twist, curve, tighten or loosen and you've got the new thing.  

Maybe I'll take another look at the shirt tomorrow. Probably not since I'm working extra and extra long shifts these two weeks before vacation.  I'd better just try and sleep tomorrow!

creatively detoured

I have no idea what is growing here.  It just struck me strong enough I had to pull over and snap it.

I have finished all of the machine-sewing parts of the periwinkle quilt and have it beside me now to handstitch the binding.  I'll post photos when it is actually done.  Hopefully, this week. 

Sadly, progress is s.l.o.w. in the garment division.  I pin basted and tried on the athleisure pant project and hate the fabric. It shines and thus highlights every bulge.  Definitely pajama pants.  The fit looks right.  I haven't decided whether to skip the pockets and just serge them up, breaking in the new machine.  I'll check for old zippers tomorrow or Sunday or Monday......  Locate some old ribbing or decide to skip that part... Definitely saving the new zippers and ribbing for a "real wearable" pair, I'm sure I've got some better suited fabric in those two big cardboard boxes.

Anyway, this nurse weekend (known to y'all as Monday and Tuesday) I got sidetracked by machine embroidery, specifically cutwork.  I've a certain amount of experience mucking about with embroidery but every time I tried the cutwork part I failed miserably.  This time after watching several inspiring videos on YouTube, it just worked!

I did the flower and cut work on the right first, then I came back the next day to continue practice and did the one on the left.  My satin stitch is very clumsy, this is done on a straight stitch machine by rapidly shaking the work in a hoop, to free motion the zigzag.  Yeah, it can be done very beautifully with loads and loads and loads of practice. If I were doing a design for real, I would probably have to use a zigzag machine and cheat a little.  The fabric is a poly-blend mistake that tends to pucker up, if this were cotton or linen most of that puckering surrounding the stitching could be pressed out, I never bothered putting iron to this sample, or spraying out the marker.  I did come back the third day to play some more and then THIS happened:

Over and over and over and over.  I checked and re threaded a couple times.  Checked and reseated he needle, flat side correctly oriented.  Changed the needle. Played with upper tension.  Took off the entire needle plate and thoroughly cleaned everywhere in the bobbin area, oiled the bobbin race.  Finally, this machine's (my singer 201-2) bobbin case has never seemed quite right, the thread likes to jump out of the track from time to time.  Enough so that I had purchased a replacement bobbin assembly off eBay, but not yet switched it out.  So I did that and could see this one will probably work better.

Hopefully, tension will now remain like the top most sample and not require frequent fiddling.  So, I gave the satin stitch one more whirl.....

No dice. I put it up and went to sleep like I was supposed to.  Next try will be on the good ole Kenmore 90 model, using the machine's zig zag for the satin stitches.  I'd like to master the cutwork first on wovens, then take it to knits and see if I could use some more modern shapes on garments.  Possibly to leave open as cutwork or back as in reverse applique.  I love Alabama Chanin but hand working it.....yeah, but.  I'd like to try to master a machine technique first.

If you'd like to see an in depth tutorial of this technique by someone way better than me, here's a link.  A faster and very inspiring demo without any teaching aspect to it can be found here.

creatively trickling

 but at least it's not damned up.  I have been a tad distracted, but most days get in 5 or 10 minutes on something or another.  Some days more.  I bought a darn digital pressure cooker last week and that took me on a detour for a few days.  It's got a bit of a learning curve.  I made lasagna soup in it last night, though that was not my intent.  Ate it anyway.  I have to learn about how much liquid and how much time.  I think I'll get it in time.

Meanwhile, I've been quilting away on the periwinkle and I have 1 and 1/4 border left, and then binding.  I'll take some pics when it is finished.

The guilt is starting to gnaw a little because I have a serger and a large pile of knits and new patterns and no new clothes yet.  I'm a little befuddled (or was) about whether to sew for spring or winter, but I procrastinated long enough for that to be settled.  I did kind of want to finish the quilt before dragging out all the stuff for a new project but I've gone ahead and dipped my toes in. Just the toes, like a toddler in the kiddie pool.

 I whine all the time about nightshift influencing how much natural daylight comes into my life.  Let me also let you know I'm severely nearsighted but do most of my cutting and ALL of my sewing with my glasses off, because I focus everything closer than a foot better with naked eyes.  As soon as I sit up straight, this is how my world looks or worse.  Out of focus with weak lighting. My world.

So, I finally decided on one pair of sweatpants for walks I hope to take with my daughter's dog. I measured my hip and thigh and compared to the pattern and laid my pants sloper that I made last year under to check for any glaring need for adjustments.  I added my crotch depth 1 1/4 back and front and gave 2" to the lower legs and then cut the fabric.  Of course there is stretch involved and it's not extremely fitted so I am hoping this is enough fussing.  These are the slightly more fitted type of sweats though, and of course there's always some way of messing a garment up, so we will see.  I am grateful I've still got all the doo dads from years of sewing- look at that beat up old curved ruler.

I bought another PILE of fabric from Fabric.com last night.  MUST SEW CLOTHES.  I have nowhere to store it unless I move it out of the bedroom.  That's a slippery slope as the house is pretty big.

New fabric stash

Assembling and cutting PDF files seems to be the perfect night shift activity.  If  I knew more sewists close by, I could hire my services out for this.

going on at my house since I bought the serger.  And, no, I haven't actually sewn anything with the blasted thing yet. To be fair, I have been washing said fabric and assembling purchased PDF patterns, no small feat.  I've also been quilting on the periwinkle, pretty much some daily. I'm grateful for every time I fought to reduce bulk on that sucker, because it is indeed a bulky sucker and a challenge for using a ruler with.  It should improve my technique significantly, even though it may not actually show on this quilt!



One bumpy seamed sucker.  I made many pains to reduce bulk, but there are so many seams coming together in relatively small spaces.

I caught a great sale at Style Arc and purchased 6 or 7 patterns from them, and then went over and got one more from Hot Patterns.  Most of them required knit fabric, of which I only had a few in the stash.  Of COURSE I had to get more.

This is where the picture of the overflowing pile of new fabrics should be. Having prewashed any with cotton content and then folding them all neatly in an ugly cardboard box, I forgot.  So instead here's a shot of yet another delivery truck in my yard, braving the sideways rain that knocked panels off my neighbor's fence again. 60 degrees the day after surprise accumulation of 2" of snow.  I haven't got tired of winter this year, it keeps spinning off in different directions.

Fabric Mart was my first internet stop.  I've never bought from them before but have read their name on some great sewing blogs.  I purchased 4 lengths with specific projects in mind, then threw in a mystery "grab bag" of 6 yards of their choice.  I wasn't blown away with the package on arrival.  None of the 4 specifics were exactly what I had in mind. The best of the four was this mind-blowingly HUGE floral stretch twill.

I bought this on purpose!

I thought it was smaller (because who would use that huge of a print for what?) and when I hold it up and imagine it as tight capris I just have to laugh.  I've pondered making a jumper or jacket with it, but it still remains very very huge and quite colorful.  I may just have the chutzpah to carry it off though.  Drapery style from the 80's  squeezing up on my 5'11" 270 lb 50 something year old frame, going to walmart and then the slots.  I'd just have to remember to grin or scowl, and keep the lipstick fresh.

The knits I picked for the active/leisure wear seem somehow wrong weight/stretch, though they might work.  A ponte I picked for dress slacks has a ribbed appearance selvedge to selvedge that may look odd with the legs cut lengthwise grain.  The surprise bag had some pleasantly nice pieces, probably nothing that I would have personally picked but I think I'll use it all.  Quality of the whole lot appears to be quite good, and prices were excellent.  I'll just have to get better at internet buying fabric, a tricky business for an old sewer like me.  I use to spend hours in fabric stores, feeling, scrunching and stretching.

I then went to Mood online and purchased a lovely, appropriately grandma and (bland, safe, oh, what's that word for socially normal?) khaki stretch twill. It did take 10 days to get here, a little long in my opinion since I can actually DRIVE to the NYC metro bus station in 4 to 6 hours, depending on driver and conditions.  Shipping is cheaper, but one day I'm going to have to go in person. 

The lovely Fabricmart person who packed this stuff gave thought several times about color coordinating me. The indigo sheer in the back will have to work into some details with the knit print on the bottom.  There's enough for a scarf that could go with the tourist print.

Subtle shimmer, sweet lightweight knit. The classic tourist petting it.

The tiny mirrors throw off  multi color lights.

ANYWAY, I gave FabricMart another try.  This time they had the grab bags at buy one get one free.  12 yards for 10 bucks.  I know, if it sounds too good, etc etc.  But I didn't get any obvious garbage in the first bag, and there's always wearable muslins to be done.  It was only 10 darn dollars. Well.  I was thrilled!  There was some pretty good stuff in there!!!  Maybe I would never pick out that lacy tiny mirror embossed fluid knit stuff, but you know, it's really cool.  It will make an awesome dress, or part of one because 3 yards would be a smallish dress on my afore-described frame. Or a fabulous top, just not to wear with the billboard capri pants.  There was some very lovely slightly gold shimmery t-shirt knit, some bodacious bold cotton sateen print, a great sheer nylon net in a nice modern print that exactly complements the swimsuit fabric I purchased separately from the grab bags. Finally, a classy but kind of modern cotton plaid that is perfect for a summer shirt.  All  in very  useable lengths, thank you very much!

mustard colored lycra on bottom, chiffon-like sheer print happy on top

My fabric storage is filled, there is no room to store any of this. I need new clothes.  I guess I better start sewing!

Starting

 

to quilt the periwinkle, FINALLY.  Projects sure get paused at my house. I started out on the singer 15-91 because I had read on several reviews/forums/blogs that it was superior for free motion quilting to my 201-2 because the 15 has an oscillating bobbin.  The 201 has a drop in bobbin and the thread is more likely to drag they say.  I was playing with the straight ruler and the 15 would not play nice.  Then I tried just free motion and I couldn't get the groove going there either.  The feed dogs drop in both machines, but seem to drop further down in the 201 and I wonder if that was a contributing factor.  Even with dogs down and stitch length at zero there is still a little up down movement of the dogs on the 15. I wonder if I push my layers down enough for them to enter the hole and drag.  Or perhaps that machine would be happier with a darning foot that does not hop. I have one good one right now that I prefer to hop on the 201, so I'm not modifying it.  Besides, the 201 has more harp space and I like the sound of the motor more.  It does resist slightly for side to side quilt movement compared to forward and back, but I've learned to adjust my fabric manipulation for that. 

 

All that said, the going on the 201 was a little rough too.  I guess you should quilt every now and then if you want to be good at it.  I have two blocks that need the little hummingbird center quilting all ripped out to redo because I didn't play on practice blocks (imagine).  I figure I'll probably be 1/4 to 1/2 the way done before I really get a smoother consistent stitch size and better in the ditch and just better.  But it'll get done and  maybe I'll do another before a year is up.  I hope so, because I've still got that sampler quilt in the back of my brain and a box under the bed.

 

Speaking of ambition!  I saw a great sale at Style Arc for 30% all of their  downloadable patterns, one day only.  I bought 6.  Then ordered 2 more in paper.  I haven't sewn a real garment for me in many many years.  But I DID get that serger and need to break it in.  And I really need some new clothes, as I haven't bought much of anything the past few years, and nothing but underwear and socks for the past 18 months or so.  I COULD be motivated AND ambitious.  We'll see.

 

(UPDATE THE NEXT NIGHTSHIFT: I've just spent 2 1/2 hours combing fabricmart online for deals and will be awaiting a nice package of knits from them to start the garment sewing.  Exciting!)