What Do You Wear to an Intergalactic Kegger?

In my case, a high-waisted, chocolate-brown pencil skirt.  This is Butterick 5249, and it is my third recent attempt at a pencil skirt but only the first one that I'll wear out of the house.

The last two pencil skirts that I made were too big, and you think that I could just take them in, but the hips, waist and back fit fine.  The part that was too big was in the front, right across my hip bones.  I tried looking this fitting problem up, and all I found were alterations for a full stomach.  Which I don't have.  I'm actually pretty flat.  Or maybe the part of the skirt where my thighs started was too small and the excess of fabric was created by the skirt having to rise up to accommodate my reportedly massive legs.  (I don't think they're particularly huge, but I've heard "Oh, you've got thighs," one too many times over the last couple of months, and I'm starting to get a complex.)  So, I decided to mix things up and change the style of pencil skirt I've been attempting from one where the front is one piece cut on the fold, to princess seams.  I also cut out the pattern in a size 18 to start with and fit the pattern before I cut into the fabric.  

But as in most of my projects, this didn't quite go as planned because when I pin-fitted the pattern, I didn't line up the center front properly and ended up cutting out the fabric in a size that was slightly larger than the 18.  But when I basted it together to check the fit, it was falling off me.  Luckily, even though the skirt has princess seams in both the front and the back, these pattern pieces and stitching lines are the same for every size, so the only difference between the sizes is the side seams, and I started there when I took it in.  I suspect that this pattern has a lot of built-in ease because after my adjustments, I ended up with a skirt somewhere in between a size 14 and 16 even though my measurements of the largest part of my lower half put me directly between a 16 and an 18 per the pattern sizing.  I also used the princess seams in the front to take out the fullness in the front.  I didn't attach the belt carriers, but I'm considering it.  And I also used Rigilene boning at the seams of the facing to support the high waist, and that worked really well.  I sit at a desk for most of the day at work, and the waist didn't collapse at all.

 

 There seems to be some rippling in the back.  I swear that I don't see it when I look in the mirror, but the next time I make this skirt, I'll pay a little more attention.  (Also, I don't know what that light spot is to the left of the zipper, but that's also not on the actual skirt.) 

Overall, I really love this pattern.  It's easy to make with straightforward instructions, although I don't remember looking at them very much.  I used the instructions for inserting a zipper with a facing from The Complete Book of Sewing Shortcuts (which I love, even if it's misnamed and doesn't have color pictures), and rather than finish the facing by turning and stitching the bottom, I used some leftover bias tape I had from edging kitchen towels.  I think this helps keep the boning from digging in.  I used a stretch twill I picked up at Fabric Depot last summer (woo hoo! stash usage!) that's very comfortable and a good weight for all but our hottest and coldest days here in Portland, so I foresee this skirt getting a lot of wear in the future. 

Oh, and I seriously need to find a better place to take pictures.  Or start sewing with lighter fabric, because you can't see anything in these pictures except for how frizzy my hair is.

Am I Being Too Picky?

I recently misplaced my only pair of chinos (don't ask how a person loses pants because I have no idea how I managed it), and since we're not supposed to wear jeans to work, I thought I should replace them before my argument that I'm wearing trousers that just happen to be made out of denim starts to wear thin.  Because J.Crew's chinos fit really well and don't make me look like my mother, I decided I'd just man up and pay full price for a good pair.  I pre-shopped online and narrowed my choices down to the following:

The Original Fit chino and the Favorite Fit Everyday chino.  I went to the J.Crew in Pioneer Place to try on pants, and while they had both styles, they only had limited colors.  I figured this was no big deal.  I would go to a bigger store on the weekend and get the color I wanted (the fatigue color on the right).

I get to the J.Crew at Bridgeport Village on Saturday, and it takes me a good 10 minutes to even find the chinos, and then there was only one style (the Original Fit) and two colors (natural, which is very light, and pink).  So I ask where the rest of the chinos are, and these are the only ones in the store.  If I want anything else (like the exact pants the model on the website is being shown in), I'll have to order them.   I point out that the reason that I'm in the store is because 1) I don't want to pay shipping; 2) I don't want to take the risk that these pants will fit differently than the pair I tried on in the other store (seriously, when mass production cuts multiple layers at one time, the item on top is always smaller than the item on the bottom) and to make sure that I like the color; and 3) I'm in a bit of a time crunch.  I was assured that if I ordered them through the in-store catalog, I wouldn't have to pay shipping and that I could return them in-store if they didn't work. 

Now this might seem reasonable, but how many of you want to walk into a store to purchase a standard item and have to order it to even see if you like it?  I'm not that person.  I find this whole system to be horribly inconvenient, and I was told by the sales staff that the next closest J.Crew location at Washington Square was exactly the same way (by the way, kudos to the sales staff for dealing with the snippy woman first thing on a Saturday morning, but I had just tried to go to the office to get some extra work done, and all the servers were down, including the print server, and while I can work without the main servers, I cannot work without the printers, so I was extra aggravated by the time I got to the store).

I don't know why I'm so annoyed.  I mean, other than chinos, I really have no use for J.Crew.  I find that they are overpriced for the quality of what you get, and other than the chinos, the fit of most of their clothes is not right for me.  Anyway, I walked out of the store pronouncing the whole experience as "inconvenient with a capital 'I,'" and went straight to Anthropologie and purchased three tops.  And despite two and a half hours in the mall, I never did find chinos.  Probably serves me right for being a bitch.

Have You Recently Had a Close Encounter?

Well, I have, and I'm very satisfied with the result.  LOOK!!!  I finished something!  And it fits, and I'll actually wear it!  Actually, I already have.

 This is New Look 6808, and I think it's very cute.  Please don't try to disabuse me of this notion.  This is the first of the four patterns that I learned how to fit in the Fit For Real People class I just finished.  Over the past several months, I have completed multiple skirts and a blouse that did not fit at all, and even though I have had a copy of the book Fit For Real People, I couldn't make the transition from reading the words on the page and seeing the pictures to actually cutting into a pattern.  Luckily, I live in Portland, Oregon and was able to take the four-week version of the course from one of the book's authors, Marta Alto.

I made adjustments for a full bust, a high, round back and a slightly forward right shoulder.  My biggest complaints about the way patterns were fitting me were that they were too large over the decolletage area and too big under the bust and through the back.  Starting with a smaller size and making the above adjustments did the trick for all of these issues.

See how nice this fits from the back?  (Please excuse the saggy backside.  These jeans are actually really cute, but I had taken off my heels, so they weren't hanging correctly.)

The pattern itself is a great basic with several neckline and sleeve variations.  I will definitely be making up the other views.  As others who have made this version of the pattern have mentioned, the instructions to attach the collar are not great (at one point, you're stitching through the facing, two layers of interfacing, the neckline and two layers of collar), but I did follow them as I don't have the experience where I know a better way.  Also, the facing keeps wanting to pop to the outside despite understitching, topstitching and tacking at the side seams.  I will probably blind stitch it to the body of the blouse all the way around.  I would also recommend tacking down the knot for the bow as it keeps pulling the facing up as well.  The last change that I made was to use an invisible 12-inch zipper.  I checked out a few ready-to-wear blouses with side zips, and none of them zipped open all the way to the hem, and it's unnecessary to put the blouse on comfortably.

Anyway, despite the above, I love this little top, and I'll get a lot of wear out of it in the coming months.

I'm Not Dead Yet

Well, that was an unintentionally long break.  Let's just say I got totally derailed when we got a computer virus, and the computer had to go to the tech hospital for a few days.  By the time it came home, I had lost all blogging mojo.  I tried to get back in the swing, but every time I sat down to post, I convinced myself that I had to fill in everything that had transpired including finishing the dining room, spending a week confined in a cabin with my 64-year-old mother and 98-year-old grandmother, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Orthodox Christmas.  It was all too overwhelming, and I just couldn't.  But then it came to me.  I could just skip it.  And so I am.  I've been hard at work.  As noted above, we finished the dining room, and I don't want to see another can of stain as long as I live.  But now we have to do the entry and the living room.  And I just finished the Palmer/Pletsch four-week fit class with Marta Alto (one of the huge benefits of living in Portland).  I'll be reviewing the first of the four patterns that she helped me work through later this weekend.  And I'm nearly done knitting a new scarf which is beautiful and soft, and I'd better get it done soon or it will be too warm to wear until October.  So, see you back here soon, and have a great long weekend.