As Good As It Gets

Ok after 2 months of tweaking and tweaking I surrender!! This is as good as it gets folks!

I am done my bodice sloper!! Yay I can finally move on and start practicing dart manipulation.

Last week I was so mad at myself because I went to pull out my moulage and compare the back moulage to the sloper guess what???? Its missing in action!!!!!! I think I accidentally threw it out. Son of a #@%%@@ I would basically have to start over again. So I did my best with what I had and decided to keep tweaking. Here is my sloper on tag:

See how neat and organized I am! I have all the measurements noted  (as neat as I can in my left-handed chicken scratches lol)

And some pics of me wearing the muslin sloper:

So I have one more piece of fabric I bought to make a skirt. I have drafted 2 long skirts that I love the shape but unfortunately I need 60 inch fabric for those two designs.  So I am on my 3rd drafted skirt and will be trying out the design in muslin soon.

I started off in sewing by quilting and for the longest time would use quilting cottons for clothes for my daughter so now that I am starting to make myself clothes I am so “fiber inexperienced”.  What sort of fabric would you use for a circle skirt? Both my other designs take a lot of fabric and they both are on the bias. I have never made anything on the bias before and I am excited to give these skirts a try.  Any suggestions on fabric type? There is a gazillion different types out there lol.

Vintage Blouse Complete

Finally my journey is done! I think it turned out pretty cute considering I am new at the whole pattern making process. I used some black chalk to mark my center front and I tried to take a damp cloth to wipe these lines away for the pictures but they are still there a bit. Into the wash she goes on delicate cycle after these pics!

I do like the white trim I think it pops against the grey and brings more interest to the design.

I must have redone the shoulders 4 times I keep getting “peaked shoulders”, “pointy shoulders” ???? WHY?? Does anyone know what I may be doing wrong? Please share!!

So now my next journey is skirts! Something I rarely wear or make but thought it might be nice to bring more of this into my wardrobe.  I am taking Suzy Furrer course on the skirt sloper right now and made my first mock-up muslin sloper. It is very close but you see I have the belly problem that causes drag lines in this area. I am awaiting a response from Suzy on what changes I should do next? I did a lot of reading in the comment section of the course and reviewing other people’s sloper with similar problems and it seems she says the same thing to this common problem.  I think I need to move my darts over by 1 inch to the side, maybe even reduce them a bit. If that does not smooth them out then I may need to get rid of the darts altogether or slash from base to waist and add a bit of fabric to the muslin to give more room for my spare tire 😉 I think the back is pretty good and I think the side seams are in the right place?

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Custom sloper used as base for vintage pattern

I decided to go ahead and use my custom bodice pattern as a base to make this vintage style pattern.

I wonder if I will  be sucked into another downward spiral of alterations after alterations or just maybe I will need small little tweakings!

In this day and age I am all about instant gratification! Time is precious and not to be thwarted or wasted. So I hope the base sloper I have for myself can be easily transformed for all sorts of blouses.

I decided to cut out my size and make a muslin with the commercial pattern itself. I then used my base sloper and customized it to look like this pattern …I think.  Now that I know how to make a sloper I can use this to make anything right? Hell Ya!!! Do I know what I am doing?? I have absolutely no friggin’ clue!!! Ha ha BUT do I have the enthusiasm to try to make it work??? Hell Ya!!

Here are the pattern pieces in comparison:

This is a pic of the commercial pattern muslin fitting:

Here is the sloper converted muslin:

I used the bowed in darts in the front and it pulled in too much I think,  not a good comfortable ease. So I decreased the amount of fabric in those front darts. The back of my neck was gaping ever so slightly so I also did a shoulder adjustment and dropped my armhole by 1/4 inch and 1/4 inch more seam allowance in the side seams.

This is what I got so far. Now what?? Hmmm working on that one 🙂

Happy Sewing

Moulage Edging Towards the Finish Line.

Ok I have been trying to escape and find time to work on my moulage and I am glad I am tenacious. I WILL NOT GIVE UP!!

The second moulage I tweaked my draft a bit to try to get rid of some of these wrinkles. But the major problem was lowering my bust points by at least an inch. This caused me to have to redraft an entire paper plotted moulage because it changed all three of the darts that derive from the bust points.

Here is my second cut out muslin. Yay for the bust darts in the right place but its obvious I measured my waist wrong since I can not close up center front easily! It turns out my natural waist is much higher and when I measured exactly where we are supposed to by the naval I was off by 4 inches!!!! Son of a %#%^#^#%#%#%%#

So yes after walking around the house like an angry bird and cursing the air blue I counted to 1,000 and proceeded to triple check all measurements……. Yup you guessed it!! I was off on a few more (not by 4 inches) but 1/2 inch to 1 inch will make huge differences when it is supposed to fit like a glove.

At this point my glumness, and sour mood intrigued my husband. He decided to peak in on my plotted lines for the moulage and saw the detail of all the measurements and angles, math, etc. He exclaimed “Wow that looks like Leonardo Da Vinci sketches from the 15th century! What a ridiculous amount of work!” Being a computer programmer he can sympathize with hours upon hours of work and the end result still not quite what you need it to be.  SO MUCH TWEAKING!!! I swear sewing is sometimes so stressful I need a scooby snack or two or three!

Yes once again it was “back to the drawing board” I drafted my 3rd paper moulage and had a difficult time with the shoulder slope. In order to construct the armhole with my new measurements I had to raise the slope by 1 inch. My instructor talks about the slope nearly ALWAYS needing to be LOWERED!! Thank goodness in the comment section there was another student in the same dilemma as myself and the instructor suggested to only raise the shoulder by 1/2 inch. So I tried that and nervously cut out my 3RD MUSLIN!

Much better. I can close up center front and it lies closer to the body, but that darn shoulder slope was throwing off my bust points now! Which looked like they were 1/2 inch to low! Who wants saggy sisters!??ARGGGGGGHHHH more alcohol, more deep breaths and I tried that cotton nemesis back on!

Ok, so yes I will raise the shoulders up by 1/2 inch. I will deepen the armholes to get rid of wrinkles around the armsyce. I will bow in my seams near my natural waist!  I proceed to try these changes on the muslin and EURKA!!!

It did work! IT WORKED! IT WORKED! I am now perfectly happy with the front bodice.  Now here is the back bodice picture! Yes I have not reworked or redrafted my back moulage a 3rd time.  It seems that my back length is too long; that is why I am getting the folds at my waist. I think? There are also drag lines around the under arm so I will scoop my armsyce out more in the back as well.

So close, but no dice; yet! I plan to send these pictures to my instructor to confirm I should leave the front be? And what back changes should I make?

I hope to be done with this moulage fitting soon because my angry bird routine is wearing on my husbands patience. He keeps saying “Why don’t you just go to the store and buy some clothes!?” or “Just buy a pattern that actually fits you!”  HA HA then I proceeded to laugh and laugh and laugh!