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Tuesday 19 November 2013

Fitting buddies for a day

A few weeks ago I was celebrating my birthday. For me the best thing about birthdays is having the kids around. And they brought the best of gifts!


A Kenneth D King inspired ruler, a gift card from my youngest daughters favorite fabric store in her hometown Enschede, flowers and a big chunk of beeswax. Sewing related presents and flowers, those girls and their boyfriends know me so well!

One of my daughters could stay for another day and she wanted some help on sewing a Sewaholic Pendrell blouse. Since she wants to make all three views of the pattern we decided to make a muslin, tweak that to perfection and then make all necessary adjustments to the flat pattern.

sewaholic.net




She's just over 1.80 m tall so I was hoping to check if the waistline hit her at the right spot. Boo! No waistline mark! So we eyeballed one on pattern and muslin and checked the fit. Not too bad. We took the princess seams in, adjusted the shoulder seam and then it was time to make those corrections to the pattern.


                           

Things are obviously progressing well in Amsterdam cause she sent me this picture recently:

Look, mom! Matching seams!

Since I don't have sewing buddies around on a regular basis I asked her to check the fit of my jeans, aka Garment of the Month October (blush). Together we reached a surprising conclusion. As I was grumbling about the extra fabric at the back of my upper legs my daughter pointed out my original jeans had the same issue. Nooooo! Really?? Well, it turned out I DID succesfully copy my favorite jeans after all.
That's good, because I proved the method worked and in theory I know how to copy anything in my wardrobe now. But. My favorite jeans has its flaws.
Flaws I won't accept in my bespoke jeans pattern. So we pinned out the extra fabric and I'm in for some quality time with my seamripper. It will be fixed!

In the meantime I prewashed my fabric for the bow neck blouse that will be Garment of the Month November, I've traced the pattern and will be making a muslin. Since I'm not sure which of the sleevetypes I prefer the muslin will get one of each. I'm also opting for a bigger bow so it's playtime in the sewing room!




4 comments:

  1. Pendrell-making-daughter aka fitting buddy22 November 2013 at 11:57

    Haha, can't believe you put my matching seams picture up there!
    I hope to finish my pendrell this weekend.
    Thanks again for your fitting help. I couldn't have done I without you, mom!

    As for my fitting advice; I studied jeans fit 'in the wild' while I was at work and noticed many people have extra fabric/creases around their legs.

    Makes me wonder if:
    a) the general public wears ill fitting jeans
    b) we were too critical/over fitting.

    Still I think your finished jeans will become even better fitting than the original pair!

    Did you see cloth habits result using the same method?
    http://clothhabit.com/2013/11/blue-jeans-baby/

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    1. Thanks for the vote of confidence! Perhaps you're right and I'm too picky. I guess I would be satisfied with the outcome for just a pair of jeans, but as I want to make this my TNT pattern for future makings it's worth to go the extra mile. Thanks for helping, and for the field research! And yep, answers a and b are both correct ;) Now go sew that stunning Pendrell of yours!

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  2. Looks like your daughter is the BEST sewing buddy for you! What a special time together. And Yes! her seams look terrific! She should be proud of that! Funny about your jeans! :) Good luck!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Lisa. It was so much fun to be sewing together!

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