My skirt fixation...version 1

I guess the best way to begin is to start posting my skirts - all of them! I've seen on various blogs - especially Handmade by Carolyn - about taking one thing that you've made and styling it six ways. Wow, what a great idea, I thought! But really, Cindy, could you pull that off?! Nope. But I can make a skirt six times, and show it in all the different fabrics and how very different it looks in six different fabrics! Hahaha! So, here I'll begin.

This is the skirt - Butterick 5466 - It's a straight skirt with nothing difficult about it. And it was the first skirt that I successfully made. Successfully is the operative word here. God it was a struggle! Am I that bizarrely shaped I asked myself many many times?! But, no, not as weird as I thought. Louise taught me (us, there were three of us) how to make a muslin that fit and how to finish the skirt with many couture features. I LOVED LOVED LOVED it!! The skirt AND the hand sewing! And I immediately got some more fabric (ok, it was in my stash all along...) that I really loved and made another.

Ok, the first - it's a SILK/COTTON in a gold and deep purple. At least that's the colour I see. Anyway I got it, and all the fabrics for this project, from Fabricland, surprisingly, since they rarely have any fabric that I would consider actually wearing. Snob, snob!! It was rather sheer so I underlined (my first time!) it in an equally sheer gold silk/cotton, and then lined it in a deep purpley Bemberg lining. Phew! Lotsa layers there! But look at the result! I'm so very very pleased with my first well fitted skirt. I really do not like a waistband on my very thick middle but I wanted to learn how to do it anyway. I must admit the waistband fit very well and I didn't hate it after all.

As for fitting, the skirt required only a modest amount of tweaking, mostly adding to the waist and cutting off the bottom, for my vertically-challenged body. The skirt had some hand sewing in it - a la
couture style - including the interfacing in the waistband (no fusible interfacing for MOI!), the hem, and the lining. We didn't learn how to make a vent or slit because Louise said that was a whole other ball game, but I didn't think it would have been such a big deal. But I actually didn't end up doing one till my third version - baby steps here!

Sewing is not for sissies...

This is a blog for me. I have been trying to learn to sew for the last three years. I'm late to the game and that's perhaps why it's been so difficult. Oh ya, and I'm also an incredible perfectionist! Too much so. I can't let little things go. It's interesting though. Being a knitter for over 30 years (ouch! How OLD am I?!!) I could just take out the offending stitches and redo them. You create your fabric in knitting. In sewing, you cut out your fabric and once it's cut, there's no going back! And I guess that's the worst part. If it's too small, then it automatically is given away. All that work for naught. So it's hard for me to cut some of my favourite fabrics and then discover that it won't fit - ever! Well, I guess if I lost a zillion pounds, maybe. So, my gorgeous fabrics, sought out and found all over the world, have remained uncut. And the stash is growing.

So, I guess when I started to sew, after the obligatory tote bag and PJ pants, I sewed my first skirt. Ya, that was a mess. I took a class, and it didn't fit. I took another and it didn't fit. Then we finally found Louise. She was a godsend. Louise was in our knitting group. There were three of us taking sewing classes together and failing rather miserably. She felt sorry for the three of us struggling in these classes and offered to teach us to sew a skirt that fit! Wow, what a teacher! She put her whole body and soul into teaching us. She taught the three of us couture methods, which I loved so unbelievably! And, lo and behold, we all got skirts that fit! Then I made another, and another. And soon I was confident and happy. Tracing out and cutting top patterns and anything else that struck my fancy from Burda magazines.

But these things weren't fitting right. Too baggy for my tastes, shoulders too sloppy. I needed a better fit. I struggled by myself, took a "making a sheath dress" class and it just got worse! I found another teacher who helped "fix" that one, but one thing was wrong. It just didn't look right. I was starting to understand my fitting issues. But it hadn't coalesced yet.

That was followed by an "unlined jacket" class. The shoulders were still no good. What was wrong
with me? I struggled some more, making a second jacket that I loved, as long as I ignored the shoulders. But I was afraid to change the pattern, though I researched it endlessly!

Then, after further research I decided on a new tact - I had to be honest about my measurements. They were not "so bad".  I guess I had just never seen myself as "pear" shaped. Things happen over time and my middle thickened and gravity to a hold on my butt! My friends and I took each other's measurements. And we decreed that what goes on in the Measuring Room, stays in the Measuring Room! It was actually very freeing. Now with my new measurements in hand (and a good bra fitting and new bras!!) I could admit that my bust was much smaller than I had previously thought, especially in comparison to my waist and hips. But what to do.

The "Aha" moment came sometime over the past year. I started making muslins of everything. I kept telling myself that I didn't HAVE to then make it up in my fashion fabric. It was very freeing. But the real discovery came with understanding that my shoulders are very narrow. I think to look at me they don't seem so narrow, but certainly according to the Big 4 pattern companies they certainly are. And after reading soooo many blogs of incredibly helpful and talented women out there, many more experienced than me, some making the same mistakes as me, and particularly one who casually mentioned that she makes a SMALLER SIZE on the back pattern piece of Big 4 patterns to account for her narrow back, I have come to another learning point. There have been many, but THIS one has been tremendous. So, I've now made muslins of tops with a smaller size on back and they've FIT! Wow! So exciting! And now I'm making adjustments to tops by doing a smaller shoulder size and then increasing it all the way down to my hips. When I was struggling with the "fit" issue and started to think, oh I'll just accept that this is the way it is and that's what I'll wear, my sister made a comment that has really stuck with me. She said, "Cindy, if you want an ill-fitting top, you can just to a store to get one! Why go to the trouble to make one?" And she was oh so right! I keep that in mind when I find myself thinking about just accepting a garment that doesn't fit "quite right".