a post of small things, part 2

To continue from the other day...though these are slightly bigger things.


1. So you remember back when I was making that wedding dress, and I had to muslin the top of the Cambie dress 4 times to get it to fit? Obviously, planning a wedding was messing with my judgment, because this was my thought process at the time: "The bulk of the dress is going to be supported from the waist, so I should fit the waist first and then adjust the bust to fit, even though this is for pear-shaped figures. Even if it takes me multiple FBA's and eventual conversion of the darts to a princess-seamed top." (Which it did.) 

Well, somewhere in the moving process, I lost the final muslin. And I never actually made those changes to the pattern, because I was sewing a wedding dress/packing and moving all my stuff/often working 6 days a week, and who had time to alter tissue patterns for later projects? But the next thing I have planned to sew, aside from the costume, is a "real" Cambie. And since I'm using a bigger table at my parents' house to cut out the costume, I dug into my refashion bin one night recently and found something to chop up and do a quick mock-up, which I'm hoping to turn into a wearable top at some point. Makes me feel better about muslin time, if I get something actually wearable out of it. But this time, I cut the size based on the bust, because it's ok for a casual summer dress to be a little looser at the waist. Around here, it might even be preferable.

Clearly, I should have done this for the wedding dress, too. This is straight out of the envelope, with the only alterations being that I took the back darts in a tiny bit and did Tasia's straight neckline variation. Oh well...live and learn, I guess.

For the record, I know the neckline looks gappy, but when I fold the seam allowance under, it seems to be fine. There's also some diagonal wrinkles at the sides, but the weight of the skirt should pull that out in the real version. I think I could probably take the front darts in maybe 1/8". Any thoughts, before I start chopping up my pretty dress fabric?

2. In other news, I'm having a surprisingly tough time with last week's Wardrobe Architect assignment. It's one thing to assemble silhouettes that I'm drawn to for various seasons, and another to use that to plot out a capsule wardrobe. I think where I'm getting hung up is the spring/summer bit--I already have a few projects in the queue that I'd really like to get to this season, and it's not necessarily stuff that would make for a cohesive chunk of my wardrobe. And I haven't really had a whole lot of time to sew in the past week or so. When I have, it's basically been that Cambie top mockup or working on a prom dress that I agreed to shorten for a friend of mine. (Only because she's a good friend that I see regularly--I'd already turned down one request this spring from someone else who I haven't actually seen in years but am friends with on Facebook.) For now, this week's assignment on colors is inspiring me more, and the more I think about this, the more I think I may be better off skipping spring altogether and focus on the summer, or even summer into early fall, since that will allow me time to get these next couple of projects done first. So I'll come back to these later.

Thurlow fitting

I have to say, this hasn't been nearly as painful as I'd anticipated.
This is what I ended up with when sewing it together straight out of the pattern. (I cut a straight size 8, for the record.) And it actually wasn't that bad! It felt a little bit tight in the lower crotch area. And it was definitely too tight in the butt, even though it was still gapping at the center back. But still...I've sewed worse. Which means that my hopes that the Thurlows would work well for my shape are fully justified. Hurrah for Sewaholic!






After about an hour of tweaking, this is where I'm currently at. The butt may still be a little too tight, especially when factoring in welt pockets, but it's passable. And I can sit in it, which is important. I know the front still looks pretty wrinkly, but I don't think I'm going to mess with it too much. I learned from the jeans-fitting process that I have to allow myself a little extra room at the top of the thighs, because I have what Tasia calls "strong thighs". (As illustrated by this initial jeans post here where you can see how far they protrude past my stomach and pelvic bones!) Besides, a lot of what is there is sagginess, and based on a few tugs I was doing when trying it on, I think that problem will be largely solved when the waistband goes on.

So here's what I've done so far:

• Let the inner thigh seams out 1/8", for a total of 1/4" per leg.
• Took in the darts and side seams 1/8", for a total waistline decrease of 1/2".
• Scooped out the back crotch seam to give me more room in the butt. I'm still not sure why taking fabric away from the outside of the pants gives more room, but it works. TARDIS effect, maybe? I also took that slanty back seam in quite a bit at the top. Probably a solid inch and a half.

I still need to play with the waistband, but that should be fairly simple. I was also thinking about taking it in a little more at the knee for more of a bootleg effect, but since these aren't jeans and I'm not sure how forgiving this fabric is going to be, I'm going to leave it for these. It seemed like a good fit when my knees are bent, so I probably shouldn't mess with that too much, either.

So, how's it looking? And do I need to add a little more into the backside still?

One more thing-- I recently discovered on my blog reader that this is happening again! So since my plans for sewing a lot of pants fit oh-so-nicely into the "Fashionable Foundations for Frosty Weather" category, I'm signing up for sure! I mean, two sewalongs in one? Three, even, since I am busting stash for all of these! How can I resist?

Pants fitting and finishing tips

I'm compiling as many fitting resources for pants as I can find into this link. I'm no expert on fitting adjustments myself, but hopefully you'll find these helpful. (I'll keep updating this post as I find more.)

General fitting:
Pants-fitting basics, via The Coletterie. 
A link list for several pants-fitting issues, from Sewaholic.
This one is more for jeans, but some of the principles could apply to regular trousers as well. From Threads Magazine.
Baggy seat fix, also from Threads Magazine.
Adding a wedge for if you need more coverage in back, from Sewingplums.
Another trousers sewalong at A Fashionable Stitch.  (Thanks, Joanne and Alessa!)
An in-progress "Fit-n-Sew Along" at Maria Denmark. (Thanks to Maria and Not Sew Simple for keeping me in the loop on the Twitter discussion they were having about this while I was at work!)


Pattern-specific:
Lauren at Lladybird hosted a Thurlow sew-along last year, which I would have been all over if I hadn't been somewhat distracted by muslining a wedding dress. The posts for that start here. She also has a bunch of helpful links in this post to various other blog posts about fitting!

There's also a series of posts at The Coletterie for sewing the Clover pants.

I haven't found anything specific on the Juniper pants yet, but feel free to comment if there's something I missed!

Stepping it up:
Adding a "French Fly" with a waist stay, from Handmade by Carolyn.
Sewing a blind hem, from The Coletterie.
Also from Twitter- a video series on drafting and sewing trousers, from Joost. (This one is more for men's trousers, so the fit would obviously be different, but I'm sure that the ladies can learn something from menswear construction, too!)

Do you have any other favorite fitting tips or pattern alterations? Feel free to share in the comments, and I'll add it to the list.

As for my own progress, I haven't actually started sewing yet! Between an open-to-close work shift over the weekend, church and music activities on Sunday, and going to Philadelphia to see Muse on Monday night, I've barely had time to even sleep, let alone sew. But I did get the pattern traced out, and my (hopefully) wearable muslin mostly cut out yesterday. I still need to do interfacing and lining pieces, so I'm going to try to get that taken care of this afternoon. And maybe even start constructing, if time allows.

In which our heroine changes the FBA yet again! And other fitting tales

I have to say, Craftsy classes are awesome. I'm currently doing the Couture Dress class, along with reading the Bridal Couture book (both by Susan Khalje). I'm on the Muslin Fitting video section (obviously), and posted a picture of my muslin so far with a question about when in the process I should start dealing with the boning. And I was quite pleasantly surprised that Susan wrote back the very next day with some excellent constructive criticism!So I've been tweaking the muslin as I could over the past two days, as per her suggestions.

As I reminder, this is what I had at the beginning of the week:



And this is what I have now:

1. For the back, I took a horizontal tuck across the upper back, I think about a total of 3/4". (The seam was about 3/8" from the foldline.) Goodbye, weird saggy armholes!
2. Susan pointed out that the side seam was pulling to the front a bit, which I hadn't really noticed before. She suggested taking a bigger dart and letting the side seam out just a bit. I think I'll still have to let it out a bit in the middle--I actually ended up pinning on the side seam again after deepening the dart (about 1/8" out from the original stitching, for a total of 1/4"), but it definitely looks better than before.
3. I also took a nice big chunk out of the center front, by starting the seam for that about 3/8" out from where it was.
4. It's just folded for now, and I'll need to play around with it some more, but I did fold the sleeve caps under further so the edges would be on my shoulder instead of hanging off the edge. I like this look much, much better.
5. Susan also mentioned that the shoulder seams were pulling too far towards the back, so I tried to center them up. Which basically meant shortening the front sleeve section a lot--I just checked the outer edge on the one side, and it's nearly a full 2" shorter than before!
6. The biggest change: After all of that FBA work, it looks like I'm going to have to turn this into a princess seam bodice after all! I just could not get it to lie right, and it was still gapping in the front, even after I played around with shifting the inner edge of those sleeve cap strap things. And the only way I could get it to lie flat was to pin a dart out, about 3/4" total on each side. You can see this best in the side view picture--I know it's still bubbling a bit funny at the bust, but keep in mind that this is only pinned in for now. I hate to say it because I really wanted to avoid altering the basic design lines too much, but it really does lie much better with the princess seam. So now I just have to figure out how the heck to make it work. I'm hoping that those side dart bits will just function as a flat piece, because I'd really like to avoid the look that I had to resort to on this blouse. 

I'm definitely going to have to lengthen this bodice some now, because there is absolutely no way that waistband is going to hit anywhere close to the right place now with all of that darting and tucking I've had to do. I'd say that I'd have to patch on some muslin, but in all honesty, I've made so many changes to the darts and all by this point that I might be better off just re-muslining the whole thing, if I can just transfer the changes to the pattern right. (Especially since I need to change the back anyway to split that into two pieces.)

The part I'm not so sure about is that neckline--I think the shape of it is great, and it's good to not have it gapping now! But I feel like it's maybe a little too high now--I'm not looking to flash a bunch of cleavage around in front of all of my relatives and friends, but I think the sweetheart would be a bit more flattering if it were maybe an inch lower.  Plus then I can have more fun with jewelry, because I still want a fun, sparkly (and possibly green) necklace! The only thing is, I'm not sure how to lower it, since letting out those shoulder straps will just shift the shoulder seam backwards again. Do I just need to redraw it a little lower or something?

I actually get nearly an entire day to sew on Saturday, which is super-exciting because this hasn't happened in months! I'd like to get the skirt muslin pieces traced and cut out, finally, but I'd like to do some tweaking work on this bodice as well, if I have time. We'll see, because it's looking likely that Hurricane Sandy Frankenstorm of Halloween Doom is going to hit my tiny little state pretty hard. I'm just hoping that if it does, I don't have to go to my retail job, because I do not want to sit at an outside register in all of that nastiness. And hey, if I lose power, I can baste and thread-trace by hand to my heart's content! As long as it's daylight out so I can actually see what I'm doing...

Previous wedding dress posts::
Tracing out the pattern
FBA attempt, part 1
FBA attempt, part 2 (with diagonal tuck adjustment)
FBA attempt part 3 (Bodice 2.0)
FBA attempt part 4 (Bodice 3.0)

And the fitting madness continues!

Previously on "Fun with FBA's"...

Our heroine, in her quest for the One Dress To Rule Them All, discovered that Really Big Darts are a nemesis that can only be overcome by breaking them into more (and smaller) darts. To this end, she went back to the drawing board....or tracing board, in this case...to see if she could come up with a more workable shape. Now, on with the show!

After carefully thread-tracing the darts by hand on the original muslin bodice, and trying to add some length to the front in order to make it line up with that center front part, I was left with this new muslin bodice. As you can see, the darts are much smaller than the original version, and the sides are a bit more angled. To be honest, I don't know enough about patternmaking to have an answer as to why the bottom is still wider than the top, aside from the darts, because I thought the whole point of those diagonal tucks was to make it so it was more fitted at my waist and still had more room left for my chest. Oh well.

Undeterred by this, I went ahead and basted Bodice 2.0  to the original back muslin pieces. An unforeseen consequence of my changes, unfortunately, is that the front is now at least 2" longer than the back, and much lower than the center front was in the original bodice . (This is why my usual fitting method is "try things on and pin the heck out of it while I'm wearing it".... obviously, I do not understand flat patternmaking AT ALL.)

This is how it looks now. And I have to say that the results of this experiment were...odd.


The front. On the plus side, the darts worked much better, and it looks like my chest has plenty of room. Also, the caps ended up a bit more gathered and narrow at the front, and from this angle, it looks better than before. Also, it doesn't look like the neckline is gapping quite as much, though it's hard to tell because I was crunched for time and therefore didn't actually press that curved edge under.

On the not-so-good side, diagonal drag lines under the bust. Also, I oddly have quite a bit of room left at the center front--it's like the reverse of the gapiosis problem that's usually reserved for me and pants waistbands.

Now, the back is where things get even stranger....

Holy swayback adjustment, Batman!! Turns out my reverse front gapiosis is due to it somehow ending up too small in the back. At least, at my lower back. Based on what that neckline is doing, it's actually too big up top!  This is also after my fitting assistant (aka my mom) pinned the back out an extra quarter-inch to try and alleviate the tightness, and after I'd loosened the original back dart adjustment by 1/4" each as well. Also, it seriously looks like I need darts by the armpits. (Though, to be fair, that was a problem the first time, too.)

So I think it's safe to say that this particular pattern adjustment is NOT going to work. Back to the tracing board...again.


Next time on "Fun with FBA's, in which our heroine attempts adding a side seam dart to the original bodice pattern. Will she find success? Will her nemesis, Gapiosis, come to annoy her again? Will she ever solve the Mystery of the Saggy Back Armpits? Stay tuned!



Previous wedding dress posts::
Tracing out the pattern
FBA attempt, part 1
FBA attempt, part 2 (with diagonal tuck adjustment)

fun with FBAs, part 2: Getting closer (I think)

 
After some fiddling around tonight, including trying the double dart (which just wouldn't lay right, there was just too much fabric), I discovered a solution that just might work. I took a smaller dart in each side of the front, and then took a slightly diagonal tuck all the way up. That seemed to solve the excess fabric problem pretty nicely, and the front looks pretty good now! (See lower left). You know, aside from the completely wonky lower edge. (See upper left.) The center front looks like it's a pretty good placement for the waistband, so I'll have to go with that. I think the best bet will be to cut an entirely new front piece with these changes, because I need to make sure it's ok with the grainline changes that those tucks will make at the side. If that doesn't work, I'm going to attempt the princess seam adjustment.

Aside from evening up the lower edge, I do need to play with the sleeves a bit. (See front sleeve picture.) On the left side of the picture, I folded the outer edge in to make it more narrow, and on the right side, it's as sewn. I'm thinking the left side will probably work better with the lace. The other issue with the front is that the neckline is gapping slightly on the curved edges, and I'm not really sure what to do about that.

I also took a bigger dart on each side in the back, about 7/8". I think I need to slightly loosen that up again, because once I get all the layers and especially the boning in there, I think it might be a bit uncomfortably tight if I don't. I'm a flute player, so I'm a big fan of breathing, you know? Looking at this picture now, I can also see some diagonal pulling towards the center seam, but I guess I'll let those darts back out a bit first and see what that does.

The other thing I need to figure out is the back armhole, because it's gapping pretty badly. But I think that's an adjustment that may need to wait for after I get the waistband and a skirt on this thing, because I know that's going to weigh things down a bit more.

All in all, I think this is pretty good progress for the evening!

Previous wedding dress posts::
Tracing out the pattern
FBA attempt, part 1

fun with FBAs

You all know I mean "fun" in a sarcastic way, right? Ok, good.

I've finally managed to start the muslin process for The One Dress over the last two days. (My sis-in-law and maid of honor have taken to calling it the One Dress To Rule Them All, in honor of my ongoing love affair with all things Lord of the Rings related, so that's what I'll be going with here. Anyway.)

First of all, I have to say that Sunni is my hero for starting to carry that waxed tracing paper, because all of the Craftsy videos and couture books were right. This stuff is amazing for muslin marking!  Secondly, I have to say that this dart is going to cause me some issues. This is what my dart ended up looking like after my attempt to work an FBA on the pattern without compromising the integrity of the design. And when I pin-tested it with the paper, it looked like it could possibly work. In fabric, it's proving far more difficult.
This is what it looks like after sewing the bust dart right on those slightly curved lines. Waaaaaaay too pointy.

Once I saw that, I decided to try the other side a little differently and compare them to see what direction I need to go in.

So this is the second one-- for this one, I straightened out the stitching line overall, and tried to stitch into the point in more of a concave curve. From this angle, it definitely looks better.

From this angle, not so much.  I realize that part of the issue is most likely that the darts just go up too high, and I'll need to end them at least an inch lower. The far more difficult prospect is going to be how to pinch out the ginormous darts and take that big of a chunk out of the fabric without getting those annoying bubbles at the top of the darts.  I may have a bit of trouble in the center front, too, if this picture is any indication. But, to be fair, this test was basically holding it closed behind my back at what felt like the thread-traced lines, mainly to get an initial idea of what I'd need to do with those darts.

The side view looks even worse! (And, for the record, this was with me pinning it closed, though I was doing it to myself by feel and only at the very top and bottom. I was also tugging it down to try and simulate the weight of the skirt.)

I took the darts out and played around with some other solutions-- just not taking out as big of a dart period, double darts, etc. So far, no dice. So I think I have two choices here: either I can try a more narrow dart and trying to taper some of the extra difference out of the side seam just in the front, or I can try to alter this into a princess seam cut to make it easier to control the curve. I'd much rather do option 1 if I can, because that keeps the design the same. Not to mention that since I plan on overlaying this entire bodice with a patterned lace, that's one less place I'll have to try to match up floral motifs.

I do know from this initial test that there are a few other things I'll have to address, and a few things I don't quite know about yet. I didn't take a look at back fitting at all, because my first priority is smoothing out those bust darts before I even try to deal with a zipper. I'll also need to actually put in that zipper/check back fitting and all before I can check to see if the neckline is going to gap at all  (and where it's actually going to hit, so I can see if I want to raise or even, dare I say, lower it!) I'm also thinking I might want to make the shoulder bits a little more narrow so it fits more smoothly around my shoulders. But I'll have to check first to see how nicely the inner edge of the neckline lays, along with the back armhole. There may be some gapping there, but it was hard to tell under the circumstances.
I'll also need to tweak the waist seam a little, since the front ended up a little longer than the back. I'm guessing it's due to my FBA tweaks. (The lengthen-shorten lines aren't lining up either, but I'm not sure how important that actually is.) So I'll need to see if I want to lengthen the back or shorten the front to match.

So, how am I doing so far? Are there any of you ladies that are *ahem* a bit bigger up top that have made the Cambie? If so, I'd love to hear your suggestions for that bust dart!

I'm also going to start doing a link list for these dress posts, for an easy reference to the process.
Tracing out the pattern

An hourglass in a pear-shaped world

 It took a little longer to fit the bodice of the Lonsdale than I'd anticipated, but I think I've got the kinks worked out now. I really wanted to take my time and do it right with this one, since the fact that I'm basically building a corset of sorts into it means that I need it to fit pretty closely. I also discovered that my phone is a pretty handy fitting tool in a pinch, thanks to the camera! (And much easier to take mirror shots with than my actual camera.)

So I did the FBA as directed in Tasia's Lonsdale sewalong, and it worked much, much better than my original attempt. But I still had a few things that needed work. Exhibit A: The back was doing this weird diamond-shaped wrinkle thing. I didn't take any pictures of the muslin once I'd fixed it, but here's what I ended up having to do:

That off-white bit sticking out at the side is the original muslin. I did have to take some of the slantiness out of the side to the left, where it joins the bodice. I also had to add 3/8" at the top, because once I did all of the other adjusting, they just didn't match up anymore. For the center back, I suspected that I needed something along the lines of a swayback adjustment, but I just couldn't find any instructions for how to do a swayback adjustment in a dress where it actually curved in well above the waistline seam. So, in typical fashion, I winged it and just curved the actual center back seam. It seemed to work pretty well, so I'm running with it and adjusted the pattern accordingly.

I ended up having to make some pretty major changes to the front, too. This picture was after redoing the front with a real FBA adjustment, and it fixed pretty much all of the unsafe-for-public-viewing issues. But there was still a bit too much bagginess in the front for a successful attempt at using the boning, as you can see. So after some fiddling with the front and side seams, I realized that the best solution would just be to add a couple more darts.

So that's what I did. Pretty different from the originally dart-less bodice, but I think that this will work much better for me. Makes sense, anyway....after all, this pattern was designed for women who are generally less top-heavy than me. Ahem.

But wow...the difference between the original pattern and what I ended up with is pretty crazy!

There ended up being a difference of about an inch between the original pattern width and what I ended up with after the FBA, but the dart that I needed to add in front ate most of that up. I still needed to add about 3/8" to either side of the waistband after pinning and fiddling with the pattern pieces to "walk" the length of the waistband. So then I added half of that to all of the side seams on the skirt, as best as I could estimate between 1/8" and 1/4" on my gridded ruler. I'm not too worried about fitting the skirt, since that's going to be much easier to adjust as I go.

I made three more adjustments to the pattern-- I shortened the ties so it will be an actual halter dress, I split the front bodice lining so that I had a facing of self-fabric for the top and ties (didn't have enough fabric to do a full self-fabric facing), and I'll be lining the skirt too. I did manage to get the dress entirely cut out last night. It's a good thing this isn't a one-way print, because it took some very creative pattern layout work to get this to fit! I did manage to squeeze it all on with only scraps left over, so one more piece entirely busted out of my stash, hurrah! Aside from figuring out the boning, I think it will be fairly quick to sew together. I actually went ahead and cut out the pattern with my pinking shears so the seams can just be pressed open and not otherwise finished. Since it will be fully lined anyway, it will still look nice, and that will save me some bulk at the seams. I'm rather excited to see how this comes together, and am hopeful again that I can get this all done in time for the Summer Spark Sew-Along!

Wrapping up: thoughts on Me-Made-May (and the month in general)

So now that I'm at the end of another month of me-made, here's some thoughts and stats....

First off, the day I apparently forgot to post, which was day 16:

The "If I Had $1000000" dress, worn with a Modcloth belt and those Montego Bay sandals. Jewelry is the "Earth" set from the elements series. I was a bit ambivalent about the outfit, personally, due to the over-poofiness of the skirt. I'm strongly considering chopping out the organza that makes it do that in the lining, and just letting it hang a little longer. (It also feels a little too short for comfort to me.) However, this was one of the outfits that got the most love in the Flickr group, with 7 comments. (A lot for me.)

Now, some stats:
# of me-made/refashioned clothing items worn: 36
# of repeats: 0
# of pieces of handmade jewelry worn (counting necklace/earring sets that were designed to go together as one): 29
# of repeats: 5
# of non-jewelry handmade accessories: 1
Favorite outfits: Days 3, 4, 8, 13, 21, 23 and 30
Least favorite outifts: Days 2, 7, 9 and 31-- the common thread in all of these was that I just didn't feel like the store-bought pants looked good and/or flattering with the tops.
Separates combinations that I'll be most likely to wear again: Days 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 14 and 17
New articles of clothing made: 1 (the "Zeros and Ones" blouse from day 10)
Articles of clothing discarded: 1 (the Pendrell blouse from day 22, due to unfixable fitting issues).
 I'm still on the fence about the t-shirt from day 19, but I guess with the right pair of jeans, it won't feel too short. So we'll see.

Other thoughts:

• Me-made May, June, July or August is not going to be a struggle for me, for a very long time. I've been switching out my wardrobe in pieces due to the up-and-down temperatures this spring, and when I was hauling out the summery-est of my warm weather clothes near the end of the month, I did a quick little count...I could probably go for at least 2 more weeks without repeats, depending on how I mix things. And that's not counting things that are seasonally inappropriate, like all of those jackets I made earlier this year. (Now, if they ever do a Me-Made December or something, I'll be in trouble for that.)
• I am surprised at some of the clothes I ended up not getting to this month. It's not that I didn't want to wear them, and I can think of at least 3 pieces off the top of my head that I thought about wearing, but just didn't get to for one reason or another. Mostly weather-related, I think. It's certainly not that I still don't like them.
• A fashion blogger I am not. It's like I've said everything interesting that I can about an outfit, once I've blogged the making of a piece. And I still feel a little silly taking all of those pictures of myself.
• That being said, I did have fun putting the different outfits together! And I do think that my little unspoken challenge to myself to not repeat outfits (and to not repeat them from Self-Stitched September, if possible), helped me to put together some more daring, interesting combinations than I would have otherwise.
• Though it's still my least favorite part, having a boyfriend who really likes taking (multiple) pictures of me every time I hand him my camera definitely helped on the photography end of things.
• The handmade accessories bit was surprisingly hard! I wouldn't have thought so, given all of the jewelry I've made over the years. But there were some days that all I wanted to do was throw on a pair of dangly metal earrings and be done with it, especially if said dangly metal earrings would have gone with the outfit better IMO. There were also days where I'd wished I had accessory options other than jewelry. So I'm trying to expand my repertoire there a bit--I have one in-progress answer to this, and an idea for a second project that also isn't jewelry, (I think handmade accessories might actually end up being easier in cooler weather, because then I always have the option of knitting a small project! When things are as warm as they've suddenly gotten around here, the last thing I want to do is throw on a knitted scarf or hat!)
• I know I've said it before, but this month certainly reinforced that the biggest holes in my wardrobe are casual knit tops and pants. I have plenty of t-shirts, but not that many that I've made, so that part of my wardrobe certainly suffers in the me-made months.
• Since this seems to be a list of contradictions, I did find that wearing dresses is more comfortable than I thought! At least, this time of year. But I still want more jeans/pants!

Other thoughts on the month in general-- I've found myself very discouraged about my sewing lately, mostly due to the lack of time. Except for the one weekend where I was visiting friends out of town, every single weekend was taken up with long hours at work. So I barely got anything done, and I sadly have to admit that I really didn't do so great on the Colette Palette Challenge. The top got done, and I have been working on the jeans (which are being more difficult than I'd hoped.) I guess I can't really call the skirt a total fail, since it was more a case of discovering that I already had that spot in my wardrobe filled with the red dress from day 4, in a more versatile way than the skirt would have allowed. But I still didn't make it.

As far as the other goals go, I did succeed at Me-Made-May, with only one flakeout day on the photos (and given that I was at work for 11 hours of that day, I think it's allowed.) And I did finish clearing out my wardrobe, though the pile is still in my room and not at Goodwill. The knitting project did get worked on, though I ended up ripping out most of it in order to fix an issue with my decreasing--it was too much too fast, and looked awful.

For this month, I do want to keep working on fitting those jeans. It's one of those projects I can do when I have a few moments here or there, but not when I'm around other people due to all of the trying on and adjusting. So I think my new goal there will be to get the jeans muslin fitted and the pattern altered by the end of the month. I'm going to keep knitting on my Strafford tee, of course. And despite my Colette challenge failure, I am strongly considering the Summer Spark Sew-Along. I mean, I only have to sew one thing. Surely I can manage that, right? I do have one particular project in mind, which will also nicely assist me in my Check The Technique list. But I'll save that for the next post, along with some show and tell....stay tuned.

And Mr. King made it look so EASY....

The good news: I've managed to scrape together a couple of hours over the last couple of days to cut out and baste together my test "muslin" for the jeans.

The bad news: the fitting is going to be way more complicated than I thought! I'm going to assume it's probably my own fault for tracing the pattern the way I did-- for lack of good paper to use with the tracing wheel (the only option at Joann's is terrible), I had to approximate with a wash-off fabric marker. But somehow, not only were the jeans too small all around my thighs, the rise sits lower to the point where my cut line is probably where my seam should be, and they gap in the back. And I still don't know how to draft the waistband. So no pictures of the progress so far, because it is not going to look good. Or safe for public consumption, for that matter.

On the plus side, the wrinkles in the front that I had so much trouble with on my last jeans-fitting attempt weren't that bad, and when I have a waistband to hold the top up, that problem just might be solved. (I won't know for sure until I have a waistband, because I also need to see what happens when I try to sit down.)

So I've already abandoned the idea of trying to reuse this particular piece of fabric-- I'm going to have to do a lot more marking up than I thought, and possibly re-cut the yoke entirely. If it's bad enough, I may have to just suck it up and make another one with regular muslin, because I don't want to blow another $18 on twill that I'm just going to destroy. I'm a bit bummed that I blew this one. But I guess it's better than ruining the more expensive denim, right?

So far, I've let out both the inner and outer leg seams about 1/8" (for a total of 1/2" per leg) down to about the knee, and that made a big difference already. At least I can put them on without breaking the zipper now! I think I still might let it out a little bit more, because it's still a bit tighter around the thighs than I want to do with non-stretch fabric. I can't continue on it any more tonight, because I have some chores around the house that need to get done, but at least I have something started. And if I can get this figured out, it'll be a great learning experience!

I may need to look into getting some of that better tracing paper from some website or other....I'm already cringing at the thought of transferring this back to the pattern!

The one productive thing I've done all day....

Apparently my motivation to do anything productive decided to take a leap out the window in honor of February 29. But I can halfway check one thing off the list from the last post-- I made a croquis! (Yay, I can delete those swimsuit pics off of my computer now!)

So here's me, in sketchy form. And here's what I've noticed from looking at this so far:

1. I guess I'm a little more pear-shaped than I thought, at least it looks that way from the front view. Though my shoulders balance it to an hourglass pretty well. But this explains why empire waist stuff always makes me look pregnant.
2. I'm not dreaming it... I do have proportionally extra-long arms!
3. Helloooooo, reason why I always have so much trouble fitting pants--my stomach is pretty flat, but look how far my thighs stick out in comparison!
4. I think I need to add "swayback" to that list of alterations I need to learn to do and use on a regular basis. I didn't realize my back curved quite that much.

Yeah, I should go cut something out now.

Now why didn't I do this a year ago?

As it turns out, I had a rather crafty Thanksgiving weekend. My family has the same routine every year--on Thursday, we go to my dad's parents, and on Saturday we go to my mom's parents. My dad's side is a lot smaller/quieter, so I brought a box of beads and such with me and spent most of the non-eating time making earrings for the craft fair. My original plan was to do the same yesterday, but we also have a yearly tradition of decorating gingerbread houses (though now that the cousins are basically all adults, it's just the girls that do it) and my gingerbread house was, shall we say, a little involved. So I did that the whole time instead. As for Friday, my friend Nicole came over and we had a pillow-making party! She's making some as gifts for her nieces and nephew, and I've had some stuff sitting around for well over a year to make some for my ongoing room decorating project. We both had a rather productive afternoon...and I have to say that after that jacket, it was SO good to have a quick project!

So here's my finished results. The green is a kind of faux silk-looking weave, and the velvet is my salvage from that total fail of a wrap that I was planning on wearing to my brother's wedding last fall. After all, hand-dyed silk velvet is way too yummy to just throw out. (Even if it did turn out to be a huge pain to cut out, since it kept shifting every which way.)

I'm happy with the trim on it, too--that was leftover from a minor shirt embellishment/refashion from a couple of years ago. Adds a little more interest to the fabric. (And just ignore the lumpy look of the bolster pillow-- I was having trouble getting it to stuff evenly.)

I know the velvet in particular is not going to stay this pristine-looking--but I don't believe in pillows for decoration only, and fully plan on using them to shove under my head while I'm reading and such. And I think it'll be cool to see how it changes as it crushes.


I also ended up getting an early Christmas present from my parents...

Meet Donna 2.0! The old one served me well, but it did have its limits. And fell over a lot, since the base was rather unstable. And was constantly tilting to one side. So since a big overall goal for my sewing these days is improving my fitting skills, having one that stays still is a plus. And I think this one will be a little nicer to pin into than duct tape! I'm just getting started on figuring out the measurements-- I know I'm going to have to do some padding for sure, because Donna's a good bit flatter in certain areas than I am! But hopefully I can have all that sorted by the end of the month.

In the meantime, I started the new jeans muslin tonight. And I have the backs of play capes embroidered and ready to go. And craft fair jewelry, of course. So hopefully, despite having a much fuller workload this week than last, I'll find some time for crafting!

Thank you, Mood!

As those of you who are on BurdaStyle know, they sent out a code early last week for a discount on fabrics (except for the stuff like the silk jersey, boo!) But I still got three pieces and wanted to show them off. I got two yards of each, so I think that should be enough to do pretty much whatever I want.

Yeah, so you know that thing I was saying about needling to start sewing more solids than prints? Well, they had cotton jersey prints that really caught my attention. Obviously, that is my weakness...

With the stripes, I'm going to have to be really careful what I make out of this. (Donna's modeling it on somewhat of a bias, which is how I think I'm going to have to end up laying this out.) But I loved the colors, and it's so soft. So maybe a nice basic top.

I am trying to branch out on my usual color scheme-- you know, the one where nearly everything I make tends to be some shade of blue, green, black or brown. This one still has brown in it, but warmer colors than what I usually tend to go for, so it should work nicely! I'm thinking maybe a wrap top for this one...though I'll have to be rather careful how I lay this one out too, now that I'm thinking about it!

The only thing I don't like about these knits, really, is that they're both a much lighter weight than I thought, and therefore somewhat see-through. So I'm going to have to either come up with something that's automatically layered, or make sure I sew styles that call for a camisole underneath.

Now, this last one really is branching out for me...

Yeah. Cherry/tomato/fire engine red. (And here I thought the rusty brick color in the Ayden shirt was stretching it for me!) This is an organic cotton twill, and I'm thinking a basic pencil skirt for this one...I have a couple of thrifted shirts with mostly black backgrounds that I was thinking would look really good with red. (And this would also probably look nice with the previous knit--see, I'm thinking outfits now!) And no way am I wearing red next to my face, because it would look simply awful on me. Especially with my freshly-henna'd hair. Plus I really enjoyed reading Sunni's pencil skirt sew-a-long posts, and it's inspired me to give it a whirl.

I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they arrived--just two days after I ordered it! And, being used to Joann's fabrics, it was nice to find some stuff in natural fibers! So we'll see how they wash and sew up, but I would definitely be inclined to shop there again. (When stuff is on sale, anyway!)

Of course, first on the menu is my Burda jacket! (Which I have no pictures of yet, other than this one from the magazine.) I worked on sewing the muslin together today, and am so glad I'm doing a test version! I already had to take it in a bit all around, and figured that I'm also going to have to add some length to it because I like the place that the unhemmed jacket is hitting. On the plus side, I already raised the neckline a bit when I traced the pattern out, and I think that's going to end up looking really good. On the down side, I'm having a lot of trouble with the sleeves--they're not going in smoothly no matter how I pin them in. (Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure I didn't put them in backwards, but I've tried it both ways and it's not working either way.) The other problem I'm having is that once I put the sleeves in, it felt too small across the back. So I think I'm going to have to add to the back some-- I haven't tried letting the top of the center back seam out yet, but I think I may need to do that and/or add some fabric to the armhole edges. But I'm not sure how that's going to work with also needing to take some ease out of the sleeves... any suggestions? I'm beginning to think I definitely need to add a book on fitting to my sewing library!

Me vs. the flowery explosion, part 2

And the saga continues! As you can see, taking the sleeves off did help a lot. (As long as you ignore the tank top I'm wearing underneath. Too lazy to change.) Now it's not so much "bad girls of the Regency era" and a bit more 60s flower child, which is a little more like what I had in mind to begin with. Still not the most flattering fit on me, I have to say...I feel like it looks boxy and huge, and I kind of wish the sash was a darker color. But the orange would have been too much to match, and that weird coral color would have come off too pink in any solid I could have found. (It really is more of a reddish coral color, but I probably would have had to go with a salmon. I am not a pink girl, as anyone who has been reading this blog for any stretch of time knows, and this fabric was a bit of a stretch for me to begin with!)

If I cut it to about this length, though, it might not be so bad...

The armholes are still a bit of an issue-- I had trouble showing just how gappy they are when the shirt is on, but you can see the ripples. I do think I probably need to take it in there at least half an inch. Also thinking that the easiest bet might be to just suck it up and bias bind it like the pattern called for in the first place. Though maybe if I use some more of that seafoamy green, it won't be such the shocking pop on the sash.

Not sure if I'm going to get to playing with it today-- I'm just feeling really tired and headachey this afternoon, I spent the morning running errands, I've got a total experimental biscotti recipe in the oven that I decided to try spur of the moment (I had to turn it on anyway to make cookies for my dad for tomorrow, at his request), and I'd already decided to grill dinner tonight. I'm not motivated to work on my jeans muslin, either. So I think once the biscotti are done, I'm just going to cut out my next sewing project, since that's relatively brainless compared to tweaking fit. (Besides, cutting is one of those things that I need to take advantage of having actual motivation. One of my least favorite parts of sewing.) And then just play video games the rest of the day. Because I got myself a Wii this week, and it's Saturday, and I can, darn it!

But I am hoping that I can finish this top, the jeans muslin, the next project (a maxi-dress) and maybe a reconstruction that's been simmering in the back of my mind all summer, by the end of the month. I have a secret project for July, which I can't actually start yet. And it would be nice to get these couple of things taken care of first!

Slowly moving along....

I know I've been quiet lately. I really haven't been that productive, honestly...it's been difficult for me to find time to craft this fall! But I do have a little progress to show, so here goes...

1. The skirt fitting class. The lessons are all up, the chats are done, and I spent most of it feeling behind because of how long it took me to fit the muslin. But I know I wasn't the only one in that class having trouble with it--and mine was relatively easy compared to some. I did finally get the muslin fitted pretty well, I think, and so since I had some unexpected time off yesterday, I made my master pattern.
To give you an idea: I made my muslin from McCall's 3830, a basic straight skirt, in a size 14. The black lines are the the original waist and darts. The red and orange ones are what I had to do to make it work-- 1" seams on the side or more, tiny little darts, the waistband lines up with the red line, and I had to make a contoured waistband to use as my default because a straight one was way too gappy. (I did have a larger view of the muslin with the two lines, but I seem to have accidentally deleted it from my camera. Oops.)
This is my master sloper pattern that I made yesterday. At my mom's brilliant suggestion, I put it on heavy non-fusible interfacing, because that would be more durable than paper, easier to store than posterboard, I can see pattern lines through it, and I can iron it! So, theoretically, if I make a skirt from this pattern it should fit quite well.

Given all that I have going on, my original plan (which I formulated about halfway through the class) was to get my sloper made, and then put this aside and try fitting another pattern with it later. I don't think that's going to be happening, though-- some of the ladies in the class had the idea during the last chat to do a sewalong to work on our second skirt muslins, and the teacher said she'd try to stop in and check on our progress every so often. So I kind of feel like I should do that while I can still get the help.

Item #2: I was house/dogsitting this weekend, and my plan was to use the time to get a good chunk of my bedspread quilt for my new bedroom done. I actually did make some rather good progress, considering that the plan evolved into also hanging out with another friend who came down to keep me company while I was alone in the house/helping her a bit with her Halloween costume/taking a couple of hours to go to a flute recital. (My first flute student from back when I was in college is now a college senior majoring in music ed, and she had her recital on Saturday!) My quilt top consists of 15 blocks, which will have strips between them, and then borders and stuff. But I got all 15 blocks sewn together with little drama, other than thinking I'd lost half of the pieces to block #4. But I kept moving through them, and my suspicions that they'd gotten stuck with another piece proved true. (#14 to be exact. That's what I get for trying to sort them and watch FlashForward at the same time!) I also got all of the leaves fused onto the blocks, and started appliqueing a few of the stems. But I didn't get very far on that, because the lighting in her living room wasn't the greatest and my machine hasn't had a working light for years, and I was getting rather tired by this point of Saturday night anyway so I gave up and watched the last of my Star Wars trilogy run without sewing. This is a sample of two of the blocks, just to get an idea of how they work together. I think I'm really going to like the way it turns out!

What do you think?

I've been so bad at keeping up with this blog this week...between trying to recover from my brother's wedding/stay caught up on work/use almost all of my free time working on my Pattern Review class (which I'll probably post on later, once I have time to make a muslin to show for it), I just haven't had time to write!! But after the huge fiasco that was sewing my dress for my brother's wedding, I'm thinking that maybe I should get a bigger head-start on making a dress for a friend' s January wedding that I'll be attending. And I'm weighing my options, so I'm blatantly fishing for feedback on this one!

This is the pattern I'd picked out, Vogue 7762. I'm planning on trying the one sketched in purple in the middle (which is actually also the one in the photograph) because I love those funky elf sleeves. And I have a problem with finding long-sleeved dresses that don't look frumpy on me, but since it's January and I get cold easily, long sleeves are a must. I don't think a sleeveless dress and shrug are going to cut it. Problem #1: When I bought the pattern, the sketch was on there and in the pattern catalog, and the photo was not. And in the photo, the dress looks a little...boring. I don't know if it's the color or the way she's posing, or what, but I liked it much better when it was the sketch! But I'm thinking that making it out of a print instead might liven it up-- I kind of like the look of it with the print on the sketch to the right.

So question #1: Print or solid? (And if you say print, should I go for something really graphic or more understated? I'm thinking understated since I don't want to draw attention away from my friend the bride, but I still want to look good! And, admittedly, funky prints are way more my style, as you've probably figured out if you've been following this blog for any length of time.)

The second issue: The dress calls for a woven. And it looked fairly fitted on the sketch and the pattern drawing when I was looking at it. But when I was reading it more closely after buying it, I noticed that it called the dress "semi-fitted", and that set off some alarms for me because one of my usual biggest fitting "problems" is my waist. It's not a bad problem to have--it's just small compared to the other curves, so I guess I'm pretty much an hourglass figure. But that means I have to be very careful about wearing clothes that aren't fitted at the waist, because that can easily make me look pregnant! Also, there aren't really any darts around the chest. So what I'm seriously considering doing is making this dress from a knit instead of a woven. It would probably be more comfortable that way, both for the hour-and-a-half or more drive to Baltimore and if I actually make it out to the dance floor (we'll see, because I'm not going to have a date for the wedding. I'm not a believer in asking some random guy to go to a wedding for two people he doesn't even know just so I don't have to sit by myself. I don't know anyone I could ask anyway. And it's not like I won't know anyone there--my best friend is a bridesmaid. I just won't get to sit with her for dinner, that's all.) Also, from a sewing standpoint, I figured then it would be a lot easier to make it more fitted at the waist and still accommodate the fact that I'm not flat-chested without getting weird "I don't fit" wrinkles.

So question #2: Go with what the pattern says, or take a chance on a knit? Also, other than eliminating the zipper and making it pull-over, and maybe eliminating the back dart, any advice on such a drastic change in textile?

If I don't go with a knit, I need to figure out what to make it out of. The dress calls for "Lt.wt. Wool Crepe, Soft Faille, Silk Like Crepe, Matte Jersey and Lt.wt. Double Knit." I don't want to go too lightweight, though... I'll get cold!! And I can't wear wool because then I'll break out in hives.

Question #3: With the potentially big fitting issue, should I just go for a different pattern altogether? If so, any suggestions for what won't look too old or frumpy or high school on an almost-29-year-old?

Decisions, decisions....

And the dress saga continues...

I did get the dress cut out on Sunday, and mostly sewed together on Monday. As you can see, this is already a huge improvement over the last attempt. I'm trying not to be bitter that I'm doing much better with Joann's-brand polyester shantung that cost me a total of about $15 than the now-possibly-useless silk charmeuse that probably cost me around $50.

It's still not perfect, though... while most of it fits (and looks) much, much better than the silk version, I'm still having trouble with those blasted side darts. Despite hand-basting them together by hand and several tweaks to the slant and depth of them. I'm still getting those points at the end. So this is leading me to two conclusions: a) if all goes well with the skirt fitting class I'll be taking over at Pattern Review over in a couple weeks, I should probably look into taking a bodice-fitting one as well as the pants one, and b) perhaps in the future I should stick with princess seams instead of double-darts whenever possible.

This whole thing has been a really discouraging experience, honestly... I can't help feeling like I shouldn't be having this much trouble with such a simple pattern. I keep telling myself that it's because it's one of those really tailored, classic silhouettes, and my style generally isn't so classic. And I know a big part of it is that I went for a higher-quality (and far more expensive) fabric than I tend to go for and it failed in spite of making a muslin. I don't like feeling like I wasted that money. And it really doesn't help that getting this wedding together has been a very frustrating and not very enjoyable experience for my entire family. Right now, I just want nothing more than to get it over with. So I just need to finish this (hopefully tomorrow...today ended up getting eaten up by handwork and further attempts to get the darts to lie better), and then maybe this weekend I can get the wrap taken care of. And then I need to find something to sew that's just fun... I'm debating between just whipping up another article of clothing, or holding off on that (since I start the skirt fitting class pretty much right after the wedding) and starting on some of the sewing for my room. Which has the bonus feature of not having to be fit on me. :P

Making it work!!

I had an unexpected day off of work yesterday. It was pouring down rain for most of the day, and generally when that happens, I get called and told to take the day off from the garden center job because they don't get enough customers to keep a cashier there all day. Bad for my wallet, good for my time. And then my one flute student of the day ended up not coming because her mom forgot about it! (Which is understandable, since this was just week 2 at her new time.) It was probably a good thing I didn't have work, because I had a massive nauseating headache (I miss the days when I didn't have allergies), but it also gave me time to work on my sister-of-the-groom dress.

Thanks to Antoinette's suggestions, I was able to make some tweaks to my muslin that made it look much better-- still not the perfect fit, but good enough (and probably still better than I'd get with a RTW dress, since those tend to be huge at my waist) given that I'm basically at the point of trying to make a couture dress on a Project Runway deadline! So I'm giving my inner perfectionist the smackdown and carrying on with it. Yesterday I finished the muslin, marked all of the seams, and transferred that to my paper pattern (you kind of get the idea here-- the original black lines were the ones I marked on the muslin at first, and the red lines are where I ended up having to move the darts and seams to! Except for the shoulder--I had to take in a good bit there too so that's the new seam line.) I also spent a couple of hours last night doing my first attempt at thread tracing the seam and dart lines. (Except on the last piece I got lazy and decided to skip the neck and armhole seams, since they're still going to be your basic 5/8" seam).

It was insanely time-consuming, but I'm glad I did it because so far it's been helpful. I'm having my own personal Project Runway day today (currently on lunch break) and trying to see how much of this dress I can get done before my best friend comes over for Beatles Rock Band time!! So far, I've gotten all the darts sewn and pressed, and the invisible zipper put into the back. I'm still afraid the side darts may have gone a little wonky because I had to tweak them a bit further to get the ends to line up properly and not take a huge chunk out of the seam. But I'm thrilled with the zipper-- provided I don't screw up the rest of the back seam, this may very well be the best invisible zipper I have put in to date. I'm also glad that I thought to do a test seam first with some of the scraps to check about stitch length and pressing, because I discovered that silk charmeuse will show every single line from both the edge of a dart and the edge of the iron. So I had to play around with a couple of pressing cloths around here in an attempt to avoid that. I'm also going to be making my first attempt at a Hong Kong seam finish, because the edges of the fabric are fraying badly and I know it won't hold up to a serger. So this project is just a ginormous learning experience, isn't it? I just hope it looks good at the end!!

I think I have a winner! (But I need some help.)

So I finally have a pattern that I think I can work with in making that dress for my brother's wedding! It's just a very basic McCall's sheath dress, and I've spent the last couple of hours basting it together and tweaking it. There are some definite changes that have to be made-- namely the neckline, which I'm going to have to reshape due to needing to take a bigger shoulder seam in order to get the armholes to stop gapping and get the bust darts, which I'd lowered some, to go back into the right place. (I decided to experiment with this to try and get it to fit, and it also told how to measure to get the point of the darts pointed at the fullest part of the bust, but I think I may have gotten it a little off.) But there are also some fitting adjustments that will need to be made, and for this I'm asking for the help of you lovely readers.


#1: The zipper in the back is gapping at the neck. I've already partially unbasted it and rebasted it to curve it in more-- currently at 1" in rather than 5/8". Is this something I should be worried about, or will reshaping the neckline throw it off further, or will putting the facings in (and therefore removing some of that raw edge) solve the problem?

#2: The bust darts. I've never quite been able to get this double-dart bodice thing down--it seems like I always get that weird fabric bubble between the two. This is no exception. I tried tapering the side dart to get less of a point, but I'm not sure if that made it better or worse. I did also have to take the vertical darts in a bit more because it was hanging way too loosely around my waist. Which I tapered it out from the seam, further down than the point. You can see that I'm also getting some weird wrinkles in the front from the picture, too, though I think it may hang a bit better on me than on the dummy.

(And another shot of the darts on the other side.)

#3: The back. This is where I'm getting the weirdest wrinkles. Again, I had to take the darts in some more, but I actually ended up letting those out further again than what I'd originally taken in, and then taking in a little bit on the side seams. That helped a bit, but I still don't think it should have all of those wrinkles in there.

So please, please, any advice you can offer me would be so welcome--the wedding is 3 weeks from Saturday, and with balancing 3 jobs right now, this pattern is pretty much my last shot at getting a dress sewn up in time! If the fabric is a factor, I'm using silk charmeuse, so it would be drapier than the muslin. And I really don't know what on earth I'm going to do with it--not to mention the silk velvet I bought to make a matching wrap--if I don't use it for this wedding. (Not to mention I really would prefer to not have to shop for a dress when I've got gorgeous fabric to play with!)

Summer Wardrobe, part 1 con't: the highly unwearable muslin, part 2

The good news: This jeans pattern definitely has potential to actually work for me! Spent some time tonight basting it together to get a basic idea of the fit. Now, the last jeans pattern I attempted (which I don't remember, because it was so bad I threw it out in the middle of the muslin) resulted in bootcut pants that I couldn't even get over my thighs, let alone my hips. These went over both my thighs and hips just fine, which already gives them bonus points.

The fit does need some work, though. Checking it from the front, the fit seems mostly pretty good (although I'm not sure about those puckers right around the crotch area... guess I'll have to try on another pair of jeans and see if they do the same thing.)

The back is another story. (Apologies for the butt shots.) I don't think it's supposed to be quite that baggy in the back. At least in the legs. The actual seat isn't bad, although the yoke needs some tweaking for gapiosis. (And possibly getting raised a bit higher...I haven't basted on the actual waistband, so we'll see if that's necessary.)


The legs are a bit loose on me too, at least for a bootcut jean. I experimented with pinning down one of the legs to bring it in more around my knee (a good inch in from the seam in some places!) And from the front, it seemed to work pretty well. (Gotta love my markered-on grain lines...)
The back, again, was a different story. The leg on the right is the one that I tightened... apparently, how I tighten that needs some tweaking too! Maybe I should take from both seams instead of the one next time!

Still, I'm feeling optimistic. This isn't anything I can't work with.