Some New Tasks

A few years ago, I wrote a post about coming to terms with weight gain but never published it. Over time, I've thought to revise it but then something else would come up. However, I have decided to post it as is and leave the numbers and measurements as they were. The issue is much more a part of my life now as I meet the crossroads of losing some age-related weight gain (10-15 lbs) or making new clothes for the new size. But that would be a lot of clothes!

Depending on the day of the week I only have three pairs of pants that fit, two of them are jeans. Only a few skirts truly fit, then there are a few that are nearing unacceptable tightness (I don't believe a straight skirt should cup all under your butt. Sorry, not sorry.) Then there are dresses and tops which fit awkwardly tight around my upper arms and bust. Having thought myself small-busted the majority of my life it was a shock to find myself recently having to attach snaps between buttons on a top to stop gaping! When did I become this busty, what is going on here?

Worst of all, my winter coats can not be fastened over my hips, totally defeating their keeping me warm purposes. However, I must mention that they are both over 15 years old, 'cause coats are expensive, y'all! So thinking of the clothes I just mentioned and the possibility of replacing them all, losing the weight saves me the most money and sewing time. But how to go about it? I've been thin (sometimes too thin) most of my life and living off a high metabolism and junk food for all that time. This is going to be so hard.

I have started taking advantage of my job being situated in a park with its own 5-mile walking trail. I'm doing 1-2 miles every other day to start. This started on a whim without proper shoes or clothes so I was a disgusting, sweaty, and hobbling mess each time. However, I was being entertained and edified by awesome podcasts such as Buffering the Vampire Slayer, Hidden Brain, and Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard. Since I believe I can keep this up,* I invested in some supportive walking shoes and some wicking fabric.

New Balance 635 V2 running shoe

I will, of course, reevaluate my diet and while I'm changing my body composition I will simultaneously learn how to properly fit my body. Yes, I will be taking new accurate measurements and developing slopers for tops and bottoms so my new body will be well taken care of!

In the meantime, I may do a little sewing, perhaps the Grainline Morris, finally!! Maybe some tanks and underwear, since I have so many knit scraps and recently invested in some affordable fold-over elastic. Also I have a few baby shower gifts to produce.

However, my next few posts will be on the exciting and interesting measuring and sloper process...

* I just don't allow myself to leave the work parking lot until I've done some walking.

In Progress: To Frankenpattern A Shift Dress

The Goal:

Create a shift dress pattern that fits well at the neck and shoulders, skims the body, and has sleeves that allow a full range of motion. The basic pattern pieces will allow for creation of other not-so-basic variations.

  to 

For the longest time, I have been craving all types of shift dresses made in print fabrics with different necklines, sleeve lengths, and body silhouettes.

Reminds me of an elongated Grainline Scout tee.

I've tried a few commercial patterns and as with most patterns on me, they haven't fit correctly at the back neckline. I always find there is extra fabric. I don't know what it is, is my back so much more narrow than my front, because the measurements don't reflect that opinion? Or maybe the neckline is either too high or too wide, resulting in a lot of extra fabric?

NL6145 looks good from the front, right?

The problem is around back. I could carry a basketball back there!

I attempted New Look 6145 last summer and while the front looked fine, the back had so much extra fabric at mid-back. My thought was it had to do with the armscye and how the sleeve was attached, so I tried a few alterations but ended up abandoning that muslin.

This year I made a series of knit t-shirts, including one made from the Grainline Scout pattern. This reminded me of how much I like the way that pattern has always fit when made in wovens and I decided to use it with New Look 6145 to create my own shift dress pattern. I pulled out my MALA paper roll from IKEA to trace and preserve the finished full-length pattern.

The French darts and the width of the sides were never a problem in my muslin of New Look 6145, the problem was in the shoulder and neckline area. Therefore, I used my Grainline Scout pattern for the neckline, shoulder, and armscye portion and traced them onto my paper which when compared to the other pattern; flattened the angle of the shoulder line, increases the shoulder length, and decreased the neckline width.

I then positioned the dress pattern on the paper so that the lower armscyes matched and the fold line of the center front bodices lined up and traced the dart markings, length, and skirt vent shape.

Next Step:

Now to cut it out and see if it works or not. Check back later.

Part 1: Seeking a Sublime Shift

More On My Moss Muslin - Part 2

Yup, my Grainline Moss is still not done.

The Before

Above is what I started with, so my first step was to add some darts to the back for shaping. My first darts were only in the yoke and waistband as a test.


  

Notice the extreme bump-out out at the skirt portion. It was because I didn't extend the dart into the skirt portion. However, it did show that my thinking was going in the right direction. Seeking help, I emailed the designer Jen Beeman and according to her I had two choices: 1) alter the waist/yoke only and make a visible dart in the skirt or 2) alter the yoke pattern and adjust the skirt pieces by removing half the intended dart's width from each side in order to eliminate the need for a dart. I chose 2 for a dart-free skirt.




Jen Beeman's hand drawn instructions

I extended the dart about an inch or less down into the skirt. If the end point is perfectly placed it works. I outlined the dart with colored pencil while it was still sewn together, unpicked the entire back portion separating the three elements, and then traced the dart lines on each piece. I also traced these dart markings onto the pattern pieces, cut them along the dart legs and taped them back together. Using a piece of tracing/artist paper along with my design ruler I softened the angles. I will make another muslin (just to be sure) instead of cutting into my fashion fabric.

New patten pieces. Quite a metamorphosis, right? From practically straight across to extremely curved.

In addition, to the dart changes above I added a little more curve to the vertical back seam and added some width to the hip area at my widest point to address the "protruding thigh" issue. These changes seemed to have worked until I returned after the holidays and found the skirt was a bit too big now. (Yes, it could only happen to me!) I also believe the angles on my new pattern pieces were too sharp. So, I refined the yoke pattern piece and tried again. However, as the second photo below shows there is still a little puffiness where the yoke meets the waistband, so I think the waistband curve may be too extreme. So I will try again with even more refined pattern pieces.



New pattern piece for the yoke incorporating the darts.

  

New side view with a bit more pattern alteration to do.

Note: I may have seen a solution to my waistband problem, or at least half of it. Adrienne of Stitching on the Edge chose to fully construct her front and back skirts separately, including the waistband. This means that I only have to perfect the curve on that one section that needs to curve and not the front waistband section.

Now the front is a bit loose in the center? Why?!

Messing With My Moss Muslin Part 1

I Won A Giveaway!



Patternmaking by Dennic Chunman Lo

I can hardly believe it! I rarely win things and definitely not things that I really REALLY wanted. But this time, I did.

Thanks to the generous giveaway last month by Shams of Communing With Fabric, I won a fabulous copy of the above book, Patternmaking by Dennic Chunman Lo, the director of the Creative Pattern Cutting program at the London College of Fashion. He is also the designer of his own Lo and Cabon label.

The thing I love most about this book is that it provides a detailed step-by-step guide to creating the basic pattern blocks for a bodice, sleeve, skirt, dress, and pants along with information on how to create patterns above and beyond the rules, ex. the book's cover photo. This book looks at pattern making as it applies to the actual human body by giving written and photographic examples of  the body's range of motion and the considerations that must be drafted into a block to accommodate them. There are no complicated formulas to memorize and everything is created by using true body measurements. Although, the book uses a standard English size 12 in the examples all you need to do is replace those measurements with your own.

Patternmaking is part of the Portfolio Skills series of books for student designers (architecture, advertising, fashion, etc.) that are written by top professors at leading art and design schools. They are all published by Laurence King Publishing, Ltd.

For more information on his course, click on any of the links in this post. You will find more detailed reviews of the book on the Flossie Teacakes and Fashion Incubator blogs. In addition, you can also check out this video by Mr. Lo himself:


Pattern Cutting by Dennic Chunman Lo from Laurence King Publishing on Vimeo.

Ahh, The Bodice Muslins And Some Cheating

First Try at the Muslins:

McCall's 5686


I can't show you the "real" first try because it would be scandalous because it just wouldn't fit! I had cut this one out as a size 10 at top and tapered out to a size 12 towards the waist. In order to get these pictures, I had to remove the waist darts completely and shorten the neckline darts just to close the back. You can see it is still too small because of the strained direction of the neckline tucks which should be almost vertical. Oh, and also the fact that I can raise my arms only so high...

As far as they will go...

I still like this neckline and the general idea of what this could look like, so I will be attempting a size 12 muslin of this same pattern before jumping off to use something completely different like the lovely Vogue 8701.

McCall's 4052


Here's the only decent photo of the first McCall's 4052 muslin, also in a size 10 tapering down to a 12 at the waist. Between the time I made this muslin (and it fit perfectly!) and when I posed for this picture, I had gained some weight, which is evident in the horizontal stretch marks and mono-boob situation. I also do not remember that much gaping in the neckline before.

Therefore, because of my frustration with both muslins, I then moved along to two other projects during Thanksgiving weekend. I will probably also work on a third top or bottom before returning to these dresses. Hopefully, in that time, I will get answers for this bizarre weight thing.*



How I cheated: I didn't want to trace the pattern again or paste paper to the tissue pattern to regain the size 12 seam allowances that I had cut off making a size 10. So, I used a regular office copier. Voila! Instant white borders around the pattern pieces that I could use my curved design ruler on. I will be using this technique from now on for any small pattern pieces.



*No, I did not gain the weight during the holiday weekend, but before it happened. Weird, right? I've since lost some of it by walking more.