Which pant pattern should I choose?

Recently there have been several discussions at PatternReview.com concerning pant fitting. Here’s one that starts out with a discussion of sizing and crotch curves and by page 10 has a side topic of flat and wide lower torso fitting.

Several years ago I was trying the Land’s End virtual model (I tried to find a link, but it seems to be inactivated at this time) and noticed that the model was much thicker through the lower torso than my body when viewed from the side. On the other hand, the model looked slimmer through the lower torso when viewed from the front or the back. It has taken many years to figure this out, but finally it has become clearer where my shape varies from the ‘norm’ and standard patterns and ready-to-wear.

Back in my teens and twenties I would sew patterns directly from the envelope with only three easy alterations: lowering the bust point by 1.5″ and adding 1 or 1.5″ to each side seam (for a total of 4 to 6 inch hip increase) and lengthening pant legs and skirt lengths substantially. Occasionally I would scoop out some fabric from the back waist to get a skirt to hang straight. Or would use a larger size neckline to make the collar more comfortable. Or would lengthen the rise on a pair of pants back when the waist was at the ‘real’ waist. lol. I knew that many people made much more complicated alterations to get a good pants fit, and I figured it had to do with age and general body shape changes.

About 10 years ago I made several pairs of no-side-seam pants using a Burda World of Fashion pattern. They fit very well with no changes at all except lengthening the leg length. I no longer have that pattern, so last year I traced a new BWOF pattern and also traced a Burda yoga pant pattern. I chose the size by my hip measurement. The BWOF magazine pattern fits better than the envelope pattern, even though they are very close to the same style. I also sewed a pair of pants with a KWIK SEW pattern. All three of these were sewn with Siltex 100% cotton fleece. I’ve lost about 10 lbs since last fall and the back of all these pants just keeps getting baggier and baggier…

So I’m inspired to go back to my old method of starting with a smaller size and adding the extra space I need to the side seams.

I’m also going to try the inseam changes suggested in the PR thread linked above for making shorts that don’t work their way north as I walk. I’d nearly given up wearing shorts because they generally aren’t flattering on my wide, short thighs and I hate tugging on the bottoms of the legs every time I move around.

Dyeing trials

The weather forecast for today was wonderful - warm (82 degrees F), low humidity, mostly sunny, very little wind - a rare combo here. I pulled out my new Setacolor transparent dyes and did some initial testing of colors on white cotton jersey and on natural colored silk noil.

On the white cotton jersey tshirt:

Primary Setacolors on the white cotton jersey:

Primary Setacolors on the natural colored silk noil:

On the silk noil:

I was surprised how bright the colors are on the side where they are applied. There’s not a lot of color on the back though, so to me this seems more like paint than dye. The colors I applied to these samples were straight from the bottle, in some cases diluted quite a lot.

How gutsy am I? Here’s the Lauren dress I wore Saturday night and could wear to the wedding this Saturday. The colors are generally flattering, but I think the overall effect is boring:

Wonder what would happen if I were to paint some of this red ochre on the edges of the collar???

Something to wear to that wedding, part 2

Paula reminded me to keep some perspective as I work on this outfit! So yesterday I dug out a Ralph Lauren dress I got at a yard sale last summer (it fits better now that I’ve lost 10 lbs or so) and wore it to a graduation open house as a test run toward wearing it for the wedding this Saturday. The dress is also a silk georgette, fully lined, and actually pretty well constructed.

On the negative side, it has a sort of ditzy print that really isn’t to scale with my body at all. There also doesn’t really seem to be any focus to the dress except maybe the fully buttoned front. Some of the buttonholes need to be shortened a bit as the buttons came unbuttoned whenever I moved very much. It is also shorter than I prefer, showing about 10 inches of my legs above my (not so) lovely shoes. I think the focus part could be remedied with some jewelry or an appropriate colored scarf or the addition of some ribbons or something around the collar and lapels of the dress. And the undergarments necessary aren’t really very comfortable for extended periods of time due to health issues I’ve had the last few years. So…I COULD wear this dress, but I’d prefer to make something new.

I wore a navy long flared and gored washed linen skirt this morning with a natural linen colored camp-shirt-shaped blouse and a colorful scoop necked tshirt underneath. It was SO much more comfortable than the dress mentioned above and so much more in the style I’ve developed over the years. However, even I know that washed linen is really too casual for this evening wedding in the city that’s coming up in 6 days. I figure I’ve got about 2.5 days to get the skirt and top? done; 15 minute increments each hour at the maximum. Wish me luck!

An off-topic post about my FIL

I promised an excerpt from a letter we received last week from a man who is now the parent of teens. I’m going to add/substitute a few words [within brackets] to make the whole thing clearer to those of you who don’t know the cast of characters:

“It was the summer of 1972 or 1973. [Our local church-sponsored camp] needed the skills and abilities of [my DH and his brother]. This left quite a dilemma for Allan who of course needed his sons for the farm. But, Allan released his sons to work at camp and in return he got a replacement farm hand [incidentally, son of that camp's director.] In place of his two strong, knowledgeable and hard working boys, he got a skinny, wiry, weak, inexperienced, unskilled, unmotivated, often distracted lazy 16 year old kid. You don’t really have to think at all to realize who got the poor end of that deal!”

“Early on Allan must have been frustrated with the poor help he had, but he never revealed that to me in any form. He continually encouraged me and extended much grace and mercy. Over the summers, and later during three years of full time employment, I learned so many things. I learned how to work hard. I learned to be optimistic in tough situations. I learned that if others say it can’t be done, it probably can be done. I learned that if someone built it, we can modify it and make it better. I learned that chaos or disaster are just preconditions to creativity. I learned that improvising often makes the impossible possible. I learned that honoring God comes first. I learned that others are important. I learned about extravagant giving. I witnessed characteristics of Jesus being lived out. I learned that honoring the Sabbath did not put you behind or diminish your harvest. The list goes on and on. I am certain that my being mentored by Allan was part of God’s intentional plan for my life.”

The writer went on to say that thankfully he was able to share the above with my FIL a few years ago while his mind was still alert and “he thanked me for sharing [the above] with him, and presented me with that famous smile and twinkle in his eye that said “I approve”.”

As I said last week, I’ve only known Allan for the 20 years since I married his son and many of those years were affected by his various medical problems, so this gives me some insight into what he was like before I joined the family. Wouldn’t it be neat if there were people who could say similar things about each of us as they look back at past or present positive influences on their lives?

Something to wear to that wedding…

Finally today I was able to sew four seams on the georgette mentioned here.

That was more than enough for my back to tolerate, so I’ve been giving it a rest since then while I consider how to finish the top of the skirt. Skirt? Oh, you’re right. I forgot to tell you that somewhere in the last few weeks I decided to go with a tried and true solution for me: a long gathered skirt.

I now have the skirt draped over the silk that I plan to use for an ‘underskirt’ - I’d like to make it so it can be worn separately, rather than just as a lining or a slip. I have another silk fabric, wiry and fairly sheer, that coordinates with the under skirt fabric (but not so well with the georgette) that I may use for a jacket or something in the future.

The georgette snags and pulls and shows pin marks (even brand new Iris Silk pins) and is generally a pain to work with. On the other hand I’m very pleased with the stitches I’m getting from my ‘new-to me’ Bernina. I’m using a size 60 universal needle and Mettler Metrosene thread; I have a Gutermann thread that’s a bit closer match, but by just eyeballing it the Metrosene is finer/thinner and still a good color. One good thing about snags and pulls is that it is very easy to straighten the grain on this fabric by pulling on a crosswise thread!

If I want a fairly long 41″ skirt (floor length would be 44 inches from waist to floor with flat shoes and .5 inch seam allowances top and bottom and no hem allowance) I have barely enough fabric for four panels. When testing how much gathering was most flattering for the skirt I found I needed four full panels, so I left the selvedges on for the seam finishes so I could use the full width of each panel (I prewashed and machine dried the georgette before cutting and the selvedges did not shrink.)

I’ll be using a narrow turned machine-stitched hem, I think. The shiny parts of the fabric make the hem a bit stiff, but those areas aren’t large and I hope will disappear once the skirt is hanging. Does anyone have experience with this? I could actually make bias strips of the more firmly woven under skirt fabric and face the hem with that. It would give it a more substantial look which might be good. Hmmm. How wide would I make the strips? Unfortunately I have only one small scrap of georgette to do all testing on; it measures 8 inches wide and about 1.5 inches high.

Next I’ll double-check to be sure the hem line is straight and on grain. I’ll gather (or softly pleat) the skirt onto a strip of the underskirt silk and then either run a drawstring or elastic through that added casing. I always have to shorten the center back of any skirts so they’ll hang straight, so I’ll get to figure out how much to cut off before I add the casing. This could be tricky with this slithery fabric…

Tomorrow or Monday I’ll share an excerpt from a letter we received yesterday - a neat story about my FIL that really gave me a a better idea of what he was like as a younger man.

I married into a wonderful family

I guess the only bad part about that is when you lose your father-in-law it really hurts. He passed away peacefully last night; it had been a long slow many-year goodbye starting with polyarteritis nodosa about 10 years ago and eventually the dementia diagnosis and finally a stroke several weeks ago. Interestingly he kept his friendly demeanor and cheerful requests for peppermint candies and coffee even when he had a lot of trouble functioning in most other areas of life.

So I’m posting this Off-Topic post to let my online friends know that my brain isn’t firing on all it’s cylinders today due to lack of sleep and the need to prepare for some of the public stuff that will come in the next few days. I’m not willing to predict when I might next post. Maybe it’ll feel therapeutic to post; maybe not. I guess we’ll see…

Integrating Web Sales and this Blog - Why not?

This is a third post in a series on my thoughts on integrating this blog with my web site.

There are some good reasons NOT to promote my web sales here on this blog. For one thing, I’ve never considered my readers to be likely buyers of the items I sell. Secondly, I’ve heard that WordPress doesn’t allow commercial sites; now I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it worries me some. I definitely would not be selling things on this blog, but where is the line drawn on promotion?

I’ve seen people mentioning their online classes. And links to books they’ve written. I’ve spent some time looking through a bunch of pages and help files for WordPress but haven’t found specific guidelines yet. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. Or what sort of promotions I’m likely to do.

My sister also sells on the goodworks1.com website under the gw4music.com URL. She’s one of the biggest fans of my sewing hobby, but she doesn’t do too much sewing beyond mending and making / designing costumes for her son. She does do very nice hand needlework - crewel and crazy quilting embellishment / embroidery.

I have sold a few used textile-related books on the goodworks1 site, but most of my books are listed elsewhere and I don’t really see any particular benefit of linking to those sites as the books are quite a hodge-podge of subjects and origins.

I could promote a few of the products that sell well on the site, like the beginner quilt kits, the scrubbies and dishcloths, precut quilt fabric squares, and the back issues of weaving magazines, etc. However, I guess I still wonder if that’s a good idea.

Some of the stories behind the development of the products might make interesting blog posts, though. Hmmm.

What do YOU think?

Integrating web sales and this blog? Thoughts

Yesterday I talked some about the ‘late’ textiles group at OTWA. Today I’m continuing the discussion of integrating a sales site and a blog based on some things I’ve read recently. I’m also thinking through a bit more about why I originally started this blog.

I’ve been reading at the PatternReview.com thread: Web site Talk - Building Blog Readership about some of the issues of combining blogging and online income production. I’m starting to think that there may be a legitimate place for a blog along side a store or other things like Kathleen’s book sales.

On the other hand, when I started this blog it was mostly because I needed to share my sewing and love of textiles in the worst way and didn’t have a good way to do that otherwise. I also figured that if I committed to posting about what I was working on I’d be more likely to work at it more consistently. I’ve never been very good at keeping a record of the stuff I design or make - I tend to keep the scraps and the notes I’ve taken and the other bits and pieces all in a box or something, but never really ‘recorded’ anywhere. Friends and family members keep showing up with stories of me making stuff for them that I can barely remember working on. In addition I figured I might keep some of my memory more accurate if I record things as they happen - Even in 4 months I can barely remember where I purchased some of the fabrics I’ve used or which pattern I used to make a specific garment. I spent a full afternoon last month fixing factual errors and inconsistencies in the few posts I’ve made since I started the blog. That was eye-opening!

But I didn’t start this blog to advertise. I have posted a link to the store, but that was so people who know me from years past can find where I’m currently spending time. I also maintain a couple other online sites that aren’t textile related at all - my used book sales and my dh’s site where he sells a few pieces of used farm equipment.

Literary Meme updated

I’ve updated my post here with some tags to other bloggers I read regularly with my Google Reader. Check them out!

Integrating web sales and this blog? Background

I’ve been wondering for several months how (or IF) to integrate my web sales with my blog. I finally decided to write about it here.

Some background: For about 8 years I co hosted a textiles forum at OTWA (Online Traders Web Alliance) until the site closed down about a year ago in July 2007. Mapledr and I hosted an online group for folks who loved textiles and also sold on eBay or on their own websites or on group collectibles sites like Ruby Lane.

In addition we helped many people track down IDs of their textile related items, helping date older fabrics, helping come up with good titles/search words for ebay auctions, etc. We didn’t project ourselves as experts, but there were enough of us with widely varying interests and backgrounds that we often were able to be a big help to folks looking for ID help, etc.

It was a lot of fun and I made many good friends. When the site closed with fairly short notice we didn’t quite know what to do with the group and the information we’d amassed and consequently didn’t pursue setting up another one somewhere else.

At OTWA it was assumed that everyone who participated either sold stuff online or was a buyer. Because of that we did some buying from each other and got some exposure to other online buyers without doing direct marketing there other than signature links on our forum posts.

Since OTWA closed I’ve noticed some big gaps. For instance, I’ve barely maintained my online store (and a move to a different host left me with degraded photos and loads of work to redo it all.) It feels as though I lost a lot of the connections and some friendly pushes to improve things in my online businesses, yes even some healthy competition.