Dress decision made

I wound up going in a different direction from either of the dress possibilities that I posted a few weeks ago. I've been so ridiculously busy that I decided that it was probably safer for me to go with something that would be easier to fit/sew.

I'm now nearly finished with Dress 413 from the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Burda Plus. It's a fairly simple dress with a chiffon-type fashion fabric and a lining. Between the outer dress and the lining, the dress has twelve darts (!) total. I felt like I was sewing darts for forever on this one. The rest of the construction was pretty easy--it only has 6 different pieces, total, including the lining. Other than the darts, everything else was pretty much just sewing seams and a little bit of hemming. I managed to use my serger for just about all of the construction, other than the darts and the hem.

I'm not sure that I'm liking the fit on me. I started with the smallest size available--46--and did a moderate FBA, but I'm feeling like I should've graded down probably by about two sizes and done a much larger FBA (although that probably would've meant getting into dart rotation and such-- something that I'm not real confident with). I think I need to take it in a bit in the waist or something-- it still feels a bit "big" all over. Depending on if that works or not, I still have enough fabric left over (I think) to make a tie belt--that could help, although I don't generally like how I look with belts.

I'm also second-guessing my decision to lower the bust dart by about 1/2". I definitely needed it in the tissue fit, and I know that darts drop in fabric and accommodated for that, but in looking at the dress on me, the darts seem a tad low. I'll be playing around with pinching things to see if I can figure out a way to raise the dart up a tad. It's definitely not a full-blow wadder, but I don't know if it's something that I'll feel "pretty" enough in to wear to a friend's wedding. I'll post pics when I've got the dress completely finished.

Tagged for 7 random things!

I've been tagged by fellow seamstress keely to post 7 random things about myself on my blog. :)

Here are the tagging rules:

The rules:

* Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
* Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
* Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
* Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So...my 7 random things:

7. Even though it's over ten years old, Ben Affleck is now a punchline, and I've seen the movie a bazillion times, I still cry every time I watch "Good Will Hunting".

6. One of our cats is named after a "Sopranos" character.

5. I make an awesome penne arrabbiata that's based off of a recipe that I got in Rome and is way yummier than you'll find in most Italian restaurants in the US.

4. When I lived in the Bay Area, I volunteered weekly for the Marine Mammal Center, an awesome marine mammal rescue organization.

3. In a side-by-side blind tasting, I can distinguish red wine that's been aged in American oak vs. French oak.

2. The guy who I grew up next door to now plays major league baseball for a team in the American League.

1. I really, really want a dog. I grew up with dogs, and I so miss having a dog. I have the cats trained to greet me at the door when I come home, but you can't take a cat to a cafe or to a dog park or to the beach. Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, we'll be living in my 900 square foot condo, and we already have three cats, so a dog is probably out of the question for a while...

I'm tagging the following bloggers/seamstresses/creative people:

• Shell Mitchell
• Leora
• Pretty Cheap Jewelry
• Sarah
• Sherril
• Melody
• Laura

A whole new world

Bad Disney references aside (although, keep in mind that it's not a coincidence that I have a cat named "Jasmine"), I recently had the opportunity to take a sewing workshop that for me, I can see being a life-changing experience. The workshop? Anne St. Clair, owner of Needle Nook Fabrics visited San Diego a few weeks ago to give a bra making workshop for the local ASG chapter. I hadn't been a member of the ASG, but I joined specifically for this workshop.

Wow.

This workshop was so educational and so much fun! Anne, her daughter Monica, and her colleague (who I've embarrassingly forgotten the name of) helped fit over 60 women individually for the correct bra size during a Friday lecture session where we went over common fit issues and other bra-related things. On Sunday, I attended the "hands-on" workshop where I actually constructed my custom-fitted bra. Like the rest of the 20-or-so women in my workshop, I left class on that day with the best-fitting, most comfortable bra in my lingerie drawer. Like many of the women in the class, Anne moved me up a couple of cup sizes from what I'd been wearing (I had actually been sized into my RTW bras at Nordstrom a little while back)--now I'm no longer seeing cup "spillover" or feeling like my breasts are being smashed into my chest. You can really see a difference in my "before" and after photos:

Before (my previously most comfortable, best-fitting bra):


After: (the same t-shirt... wearing my workshop bra)


Luckily, with the handbook that we used in the class and the well-drafted pattern, constructing a bra isn't *that* difficult, although it probably helps to be very detail-oriented. I've already made two more bras at home (it went much faster the second time), and now I own my first "pretty" bra in years.

I couldn't be happier with my results from this workshop. I purchased a few more kits from Anne at the workshop (the black and toile bras were made from her kits), and still have two more kits to make up (these will result in black lacy bras--woo-hoo!). As someone who hasn't been able to shop at Victoria's Secret in over 10 years and who is limited to boring beige bras in department stores (if I can even find any that come anywhere close to fitting), being able to actually sew my own bras really opens up a ton of possibilities for me. And that makes me happy.

Fitting (class) frustrations

I apologize in advance that this blog entry will be more of a rant than anything else, but I need to vent.

I'm currently taking an advanced beginner/intermediate level sewing class through the San Diego Community College Continuing Education program. On one hand, this is a free class, so I feel like I shouldn't complain. On the other hand, I've been getting increasingly frustrated over the past few weeks. This is a continuation of the class that I took last fall (where we concentrated on basic fitting for a skirt and a blouse or unlined jacket), so a lot of what we're covering is review to me. I'm fine with the idea of that--I could certainly use some reinforcement on some of these concepts. However, it's become increasingly clear that there are two very distinct skill levels in the class--those of us who are continuing from last semester and those who (like I was a few months ago) are completely new to fitting. You'd think that this would be okay in a sewing class, but it isn't.

The format for the class is that each student puts her name up on the board to get in "line" for help. Keep in mind that there are around 20 students in the class. The class is about 3 hours long with a 30-45-minute-ish lecture that breaks things up in the middle of the class. We're doing tissue fitting...so, a typical class meeting would have each of us "sign up" for help, and during that "help" session, we're told an adjustment to make to the pattern for our individual bodies. For example, a few weeks ago, I tried on the tissue of my dress bodice, and was told to make a 1/2" broad back adjustment. So...I went back to my seat, made my adjustment in about 10 minutes...and then had to "get back in line" to have her look at the fit of the bust of my dress to determine how much of an FBA I'd need. With 20 students all vying for the teacher's attention, needless to say, I had to wait a week for the next session to get "help" again.

For the class project, I'm working on the HotPatterns Plain and Simple shirtdress. I love that it's a bit fitted, which I'd have thought of as being a plus for a fitting class, and that it's such a classic style that once I get the damn tissue fit, I can make it up in a bunch of different fabrics for different looks. Unfortunately, we've been working on fitting this for FOUR weeks, and I still don't even have the bodice fitted. With the "line" system, I've been told to make an adjustment, wait for the next week, and then am told that the adjustment was too much, take it in a little...and then I have to wait another week.

Given the ridiculous hours that my company has me working, I'm starting to feel like this class is becoming a waste of my time. 3 hours in class to get told to make one tiny little adjustment...and then wait for the next class??? How is this an efficient use of my (limited) free time? I know that at least one other student has asked if the more experienced students could break into a small group and become "fitting buddies" for each other, but our instructor didn't care for that idea. Sigh.

I just want to get this dress tissue fitted. I realize that with my ginormous full bust that I'm going to have more pattern alterations to make than most people, but I've also *done* most of these alterations before. I don't need to be hand-held or personally walked through a simple, darted, full bust adjustment at this stage. (One great thing for the less experienced students is that our teacher *will* hand-hold them through any alteration that they need help with.)

I don't want to drop the class, but on the other hand, it is free...and the thought of actually having those three hours back to do something productive is starting to get awfully tempting...

What to sew next?

I'm a little torn as far as what I want my next "big" sewing project to be. I did promise David that I'd make a pair of pajamas for him, and I do want to sew a couple of bras using the pattern/manual that I obtained in a recent bra-making workshop (more on that in another post). However, in early April, one of my best friends from college is getting married, and I'd love to sew up a new dress for her wedding.

The dress that I'm leaning towards at the moment is the Wong Singh Jones wrap dress from HotPatterns (at right). I'm fairly new to HotPatterns, but I've had fairly good luck with them so far. Their drafting seems to be pretty friendly to the curvy figure--I'm not running into the large back/ shoulders/ upper chest-but-made-for-only-a-B-cup issues that I've had with other patterns. And given that this is made for a knit, I could probably get away with a fairly small full bust adjustment with this dress or even just go up a size and sew it straight out of the envelope. I've had fairly good luck with wrap styles that I've sewn, so I think that this would be a fairly safe choice for me.

I doubt that I'd have time, but I'd really love to be able to sew two dresses and wear whichever one turns out the best and/or is the most flattering on me. The other dress pattern that I've been eyeing is a dress from the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Burda Plus magazine. I really loved several of the dresses in this issue, but this one with the slightly empire waist and princess seams really caught my eye.

I love that the contrast band on this hits right at what is the thinnest part of my torso. I think that this could be really flattering on me.

On the other hand, my one experiment with a princess seam FBA didn't turn out so well. I did get a bit of feedback from my sewing teacher, so I think I know what went wrong there (and how to not make the same mistake again). This dress would be a bit more difficult for me to sew, but with my fabric choice for this (a stretch, stylized black-and-white floral sateen), I think it could potentially look pretty decent on me. I love that this dress is already drafted for a "petite" also. (Granted, I'll probably have to lengthen the bodice as part of the FBA, but in theory, I like the idea of the pattern already being petite.

So, this isn't as "safe" of a choice as the wrap dress, but I think the payoff (at least in how I feel about how I look at the wedding) could be greater. However, if I screw up, I'm sort of screwed. You'd think that it wouldn't be all that big of a deal to try to sew two not-overly-complex dresses in a little over one month's time, but given the everything-is-an-emergency mentality at my company, I can never count on having much time in the evenings to sew. And, as I mentioned before, I figure that the next week or so of sewing time will be taken up working on David's pajamas and trying to get another bra or two that fits decently into my lingerie drawer.

The line drawing gives you a little better idea of what the dress could look like. I love the flare out of the skirt, and when they *do* fit me, princess seams are usually flattering on me. On the other hand, this dress has double princess seams (or whatever that additional seam is called). With my fitting skills, I'd be tempted to avoid doing an FBA on this (too many moving parts with all those seams) and just going by my full bust when I pick my dress size...and hope that I don't have a ton of extra fabric or gaping issues in my upper chest area.

I already have fabric bought for both dresses. I guess I'll have to see how I feel and how much of an adventure I'm looking for when it comes time to trace a pattern for one of these.

After the fire...

I need to get better about this blog thing...

It's kind of strange looking back and seeing that the last post that I made here was on October 19th. That was a few days before one of the worst firestorms in California history broke out and tore through the neighborhood where I grew up. Several of my friends' parents lost their homes, and my own parents nearly lost theirs--the house that they've owned for 20 years and where I grew up. Our neighbors on either side of us lost their houses (from what we understand/saw, the fire tore through our backyard, but our house never entirely caught fire). The photo below shows my parents' side yard (and part of the house) next to what's left of our neighbor's yard.


In this picture, you can see the mini-blinds in my childhood bedroom...they're melted from the inside of the house:



And here, you can see the Red Cross relief supplies on my parents' lawn. This is certainly something that you never expect to see in a boring suburban neighborhood...


And finally, here's the view of what's left of our other neighbors' home from my window. The streaks in the glass aren't a result of my mediocre photography skills--the glass cracked from the heat of the fire. (Note all of the news crew vehicles...)


I haven't really wanted to blog about this since hundreds of families *did* lose their homes. On the other hand, it's hard not to talk about since it's been heavily on my mind for the past few months. For the first couple of months, the whole neighborhood looked like a war zone. It's depressing to see my old neighborhood look like this, even if some of the homes are starting to be rebuilt now. Sometimes, I tear up just driving through when I stop by to visit my parents, or if I see news footage on tv of a street or a house that's near them.

Hopefully, this will help me to get this out of my system (although this might not be my last post about this), and I can move on to blogging about important things like jewelry making or fashion again. ;)

Back Again

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted a new entry here. I knew that I hadn't posted in a while, but didn't realize that my last post was in July. Ouch! And when I set this blog up, I promised myself that I wouldn't be one of those people who sets up a blog and then only posts something once every three months...

So, what have I been up to? David and I took a vacation to see Tony Gwynn inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown back in late July. We then drove to Boston where we spent the next few days, including a visit to Fenway Park, where we saw the Orioles beat the Red Sox.

Other than that, I've been working my butt off for work, sewing when I actually have the time, and occasionally creating and listing a new piece of jewelry on Etsy. Work has been pretty crazy lately, with lots of late nights and weekend work.

I'm ready for a break.