Embarking on a pants project....

So, I find myself hard to fit (as afore mentioned) and I have this pair of jeans that I've loved til wholly.

Before I found them in this situation, I bought a pattern, and then when the pants gave up the ghost, I took them apart to compare them to the pattern. Of course they don't match at all and I also dont think I got the right size.... so I decided to disassemble my jeans for use as a pattern.

I took them apart over the course of the week and then tonight dug out my Starch....

....and mixed a fairly strong batch in a spraybottle and starched the crap out of my worn out jeans to use them as a pattern. Here you see my waist band...

...yoke of the back of the pants the old zipper (which I will reuse since it is in fine condition) and the zipper flap.

Here I've got it laid out to figure out how much denim I need of my stash so I can preshrink it and hopefully get them sewn together tonight.

You can kinda tell by the picture how starchy the material is because its nearly shiny... seemed necessary though, because the fabric was nearly misshapen from having loved them so much.

Here goes nothing.....

Sewing Hiatus

My first garment made from scratch (pattern as well) went ok. I made a funny snaffoo putting in the invisible zipper backwards - not exactly invisible, but it looked ok, so I left it. It was a princess line shirtdress of sorts, I obviously need to learn how to do collars..... but the construction of the body of the garment worked well and it fit me. I need to take a bit more out of the center front when I do closures on future garments, but I've got an excellent start.

I have, though, taken a small hiatus from sewing to learn to knit. I never quite had the patience before and I was always trying the "throwing" method because that's the most popular here in the states.... but it's for the birds. "Continental" makes so much more sense and I watched a youtube video where a lady said that when they taught knitting to crocheters, they always teach this method.

On Fitting Sleeves - Threads

Here's another.....

On Fitting Sleeves - Threads

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Making Sense of Pattern Grading - Threads

I've always had trouble with patterns not being the right size and I stumbled across this article today, and thought I'd post it - first to share with others, and second so I could come back to it later. I bought some fantastic retro patterns and of course they are all a size 12 or something tiny and since I wear a G bra cup I'm considered a pattern size 24 or 26 depending on the company.

The other thing that is great about cutting to pattern grade (read the article...) is that you can do pattern alterations while you have the pattern all cut up to do pattern grading..... hmmm I think I'm on to something here.....

Making Sense of Pattern Grading - Threads

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Good news! ... well for me anyway....

Went home for the weekend and my mom looked at the sloper I had created in it's "so-far" state. She (with her whole life of experience) was really impressed and her only criticism was about the sleeve (which I had ascertained I did not have enough wearing ease yet) and the back seams weren't as smooth in the shoulders as they could have been after the alterations I had made and she pinned them for me how she would do them.

I just discovered blogging from my phone and while it works, my phone won't email pictures because one of the applications you pay for with this phone is picture sending and I refuse to pay for it.

For the sake of documenting the process, my sloper seems to be coming along rather well. I went with a basic princess line sloper for this first one because my Halloween costume will be based on that design, so I'm really working on hammering out that sloper to have a good, well fitting design. I took my design that I drew (on graph paper), added seam allowances, printed it off at kinkos, then added another 1" to each pattern piece to give me AMPLE alteration room and when it comes down to it I basically altered it back to the the size of the drawing. I did have to make some changes that were necessary and so I have sewn and seamripped the whole thing 2 or 3 times to ensure the changing of the flat pattern correctly and get the proper fit. It sounds very tedious, but that is why I've only posted twice in a month.... I've done little bits at a time so as not to be absolutely frustrated about sewing and resewing... which is why I've never had the patience to do this before. It has probably taken me 10-15 years of maturing to quit swearing at craft time and not expect myself to just sit down and sew something all together and perfect in the first sitting.

I took the advice of many websites and I made a ducttape form of myself for doing fitting on and I have found it to be irreplaceable in making alterations to the back because I can hardly pin and make changes behind me where my arms don't reach. Absolutely necessary tool when sewing for self - especially when others around you don't have the concept of pinning correctly.

More later....

Deal of the century/best $45 I've spent on sewing....

I've been looking for good reference books to learn from since my mom, who's been a professional alterations seamstress for 25 years, lives in Minnesota (and I'm in Georgia). I've read TONZ of reviews on amazon on different books and the only thing "bad" that people have had to say about Singer Sewing Reference Library books is that they are being re-published without the Singer name on them so some people have bought the same book twice without realizing it. So I googled SSRLibrary, and I found an auction on ebay with 10 of the books!!

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I started this blog like a month ago and forgot about it. Since writing this I've received and read most of the books. I am in LOVE with the Singer Sewing Reference Library! The pictures of the techniques are phenominal and they have explained things better than any other tutorial I've seen anywhere for free. The only thing wrong with them is that some of the clothing in the pictures are a little outdated, but for the demonstrations they seem to have picked classic pieces that transcend the current fads. I've already gone to these books several times for the items I am currently working on. Nothing completed yet, so I'm not confident enough to plaster pictures all over, but down the road you may see tutorials..........

SO excited about the SSRL books!!!