Enough

Most of you know I have an uneasy relationship with my mother.

Lately, I don’t have a relationship with her at all. The last time I saw her was at Christmas, and only then because she was invited to the family meal by my father’s side of the family. We barely spoke, and she left early without saying goodbye to me, a supposed punishment. There are two emails from her in my inbox that I don’t intend to reply to. I have no intention of reinstating contact in the near future. Maybe one day, I won’t rule it out. Certainly not this year. I feel as though I should feel ashamed of this decision, but I don’t. I don’t feel proud, either. I don’t feel anything but resolved.

This mother’s day was easier than the last, or the one before it. Far less emotional on my part, and I found social media easier to bear. As I hurt less, other’s joy hurts less. It’s never a good feeling to be standing on the outside of a happy group, scowling in. Among the joy, which this year I could appreciate and allow to warm my heart, was plenty of acknowledgement that mothers and motherhood are complicated, from both sides. That among the people rejoicing and loving each other there are people nursing hurts and injury and loss. That even people with good relationships with their mothers rarely have simple ones. That age and time create cracks in everything. Sometimes these cracks and bumps add to the story and the joy of the thing. Sometimes they break it.

When my mother was the age I am now, she had a two year old – me. When I look at photos of her, she seems achingly young. She was living in a caravan on an 18 acre property in the Adelaide Hills that was mostly scrub and falling down buildings. She was helping to build a house, and sharing a desk job in the city with my father. She was grieving for her brother, who had died a handful of years before in a motorcycle accident when a car cut a corner on a hilly road. She had a troubled relationship with her own mother, who did all the things to her that she would do to me, but magnified by many factors.

Two years before my uncle’s death there had been an argument, during which my grandmother had slapped him, and he said he wouldn’t see them again until an apology was made. The apology never came. Christmas gifts were sent back unopened. And two years later there was no time left for apologies.

As every year for me passes, I see shadowy reflections of that woman in the choices that I make. We are similar, we always have been. And our stories are similar, they carry the same themes, hit some of the same notes. I can see, from here, how many advantages I have had that she didn’t. Advantages of time and place, of being born when I was and having extra choices. But also the advantages of the choices that I have made, and the work that I have done to teach myself better ways of being. I am finding ways to give myself credit for the things I did right while still being infinitely thankful that I had the freedom and ability to do those things. Through sheer dumb luck.

I understand my mother – or at least I understand that woman that was. As I come to know myself, I come to know her, too. I feel the echoes of her. I feel her hurts and her anger. I do not accept them as my own, but I can grieve for her. For the shitty hand that she got dealt. I come from a long line of hobbled, confined women. Women with strong, quick minds and tempers who had no choice but to put them aside and pretend to be meek, to be less than themselves and pretend a joy in sacrifice. Women who dealt with poverty and death and other traumas, and who passed them on like a legacy.

Praise be to modernity, while my grandmother was one of 14 children who survived to adulthood, my mother was one of four, three still walking the earth, and I am one of two, both of us still here. Each generation had more food, more clothes, more medical care. More love. I can’t pretend to think that 100 years ago I would be anything but bitter and hurtful, along with those women. That is my legacy.

I am happy to leave that legacy behind. To turn the coldness back on itself and freeze it off of me. Enough.

Enough.

Sometimes I feel the distance between who my mother was and who I am becoming shifting, as though I were slipping back and forth between realities. I catch myself standing like her, laughing like her. I catch a scared and angry reaction to a stressful situation and I know in that moment how she felt when she was at her most hurtful. I stop while sewing children’s clothes for friends to reflect on all the nights I saw her sewing, creating, clothing others.

I see my child-self from the other side, and I see my mother from where she stood, and I am sad for how much and how little promise we had as a family. For how much hurt was behind her hurtfulness, how what I saw as her power came from powerlessness. How similar we are and how that closeness keeps us apart. And in those slippery times I feel more confidence in the choices I am making. The choice not to be a mother, and not to have a mother either.

I don’t have a mother. I do not have a woman who mothers me, who provides love and comfort and who tells me stories of myself with fondness. I don’t, and I can’t have that. And that’s ok. I’m not angry about it anymore. But neither am I willing to maintain a relationship with a person – any person – who refuses to treat me with kindness and respect. Who refuses to understand that I exist outside of her wants and needs, and have my own. Who consistently acts thoughtlessly and hurtfully.

The fact that one of those people is the person to whom I feel closest in my most personal self, is the person who did a very good job of parenting me up until the point where my needs became too inconvenient, that is irrelevant. If it ever counted for anything, it has been worn down to nothing by years of hurt.

I choose not to allow myself to continue in a relationship that means emotional servitude to someone else. I choose to protect myself from that. To mother myself. To refrain from mothering her. The relationship we could have – have had – where I parent her and tend to her emotional needs, is no relationship at all. Nor is the one where I manage her, and spend every minute of contact policing my own boundaries. I have no patience left for that. I am tired. 30 years is enough.

In some ways this leaves me bereft, missing something. But I have come to a place where I am so accustomed to not having that thing that there is simply no place in my life for it. I don’t feel alone or abandoned anymore. I have many communities of amazing women (and some men), who provide me with friendship and support, who are mothers and sisters and aunts and friends of the heart. I don’t have a mother. But I have enough.

Maybe one day I will be up to the task of building some kind of relationship with the woman who is my mother. I would like to hope so, because I would like to hope that one day I will be the person with the strength and wisdom that will take. Right now I am not. And that’s ok.

One day I will be more. But for now, I am enough.

Me Made May

Last year I had a very unofficial goal to sew enough that I could participate in Me Made May this year. And would you look at that? It’s MAY. How the heck did that happen?

I don’t know how we’ll go, I have not magically become a prolific sewer recently. But I do have a lot of skirts. And I do also wear skirts almost every day, anyway. It’s getting cooler but I’ve just been adding tights in. So…

 ’I, Kate of Craftastrophies , sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear one handmade item each day for the duration of May 2013′.

I can already identify some gaps in my wardrobe. Dresses. I only have two handmade ones and frankly, I don’t wear them that much. I DO wear dresses a fair bit, and there are a couple I’ll miss in my wardrobe rotation. Oh well, I’ll be pleased to see them again in April, or maybe I can sneak them in with a knitted jumper. Perfect transitional weather for a bit of this and that from the wardrobe.

Jumpers are my other gap! I have a fair few but about half are op shopped or knitted by my grandma – usually for herself and then she doesn’t like it and someone else gets it. Of my own hand knits, the only ones I wear regularly are my cinnabar, which is looking the worse for wear, and Cobblestone, although I haven’t been reaching for that much, either. I must get on dying that so it’s not blah brown. I’ve been wearing featherweight a bit but it’s awkward under a jacket, and not enough by itself. So, I think there might have to be some frantic knitting and some repair of older knits, like my rogue which I need to either frog and start again or attempt to fix without frogging.

If only I knitted socks. I could get away with a lot, then. Do me-altered or mended items count?

So I forgot to sign up for this until today, but I am wearing a me-made item. I sewed this skirt a while ago, but the red ran and it looked blah. But I found a leftover packet of dye-run saver stuff over the weekend, and so there we have it!

Expect not many, or poor quality pics, since it’s dark when I leave and dark when I get home. But it’d be nice to get an overview of how I actually dress myself for real life.

Knitting

I’ve been knitting this cardigan, Ravelry tells me, since December 2011. It got swallowed by my knitting slump.

In my mind I had ages to go of knitting the body. I picked it up after craft camp and started knitting, and then tried it on and it was just about perfect. The sleeves went pretty quick and even though it felt like the front band took forever, it was pretty fast too.

It’s 5ply, but on reasonably large needles – 4mm – so it does knit pretty quick. It also only took a ball and a half of Bendigo yarn, so about 1200m. I was going to knit the sleeves longer but they looked good short when I tried it on. Besides, this is intended to be my office jumper, for just chucking on on top of stuff. So shorter sleeves are good. I was worried they were a bit tight – I know the pattern was adjusted to make them smaller, since people had found them too big. I guess they didn’t account for those of us with bingo wings. They did ease out with blocking, but you can still see the lumps in them from my tshirt and all of that. I should have picked up just a few extra stitches under the arm. In fact, I did pick them up, to avoid holes, but then decreased to have the number required by the pattern.

I really like it, and I was thinking about knitting another one in another colour but I don’t think I need more than one open-front cardi. Or if I do I’d like it to come closer to being closed, rather than hanging open. Because I have more… landscape… out the front than many, there’s more left exposed. But I couldn’t make the front much bigger or else the collar at the back would have stuck up too far. It’s totally fine, it doesn’t bother me at all, but I don’t need another like it. It’s perfect for indoors only, or a night time cardi for summer or spring, but I wouldn’t wear it TO work in winter. Only AT work.

All in all, I’m very pleased! Rav link here with all the deets.

I also spent pretty much one whole day of the Easter long weekend sorting through my stash and putting it up on Ravelry. Which was a bit of a shock, to be honest. I mean, obviously I knew how much yarn I had in terms of where it was stored but I didn’t realise, somehow, HOW MUCH YARN I have. And a lot of it is either single skeins of sock or lace weight, which I don’t knit much of, or it’s bendigo yarn which is ok but it’s nothing special. And a lot of it is exactly the same colour that I knit this featherweight in. Due to an ordering mishap (they sent the wrong weight and said just to keep it since it wasn’t worth posting back) I have a jumper’s worth of 8ply and another jumper’s worth of 5ply. Which is fine because it’s obviously My Colour but I don’t need all the jumpers out of it.

So I’m going to try to knit through some of my stash. I did chuck some of the older, crappier stash, and I’m posting some stuff off to a raveller tomorrow, which has freed up a WHOLE DRAWER. I also sorted out my queue so that everything on the first page is something I’m dying to knit and to own. There was a lot of stuff on there that I’d enjoy knitting but is not my style, so I got realistic about it. I need more plain knits with a little bit of interest, since that is what I like wearing. And what I like knitting, thankfully. I like me a good swathe of stocking stitch.

I’ve already cast on and Essential Cardigan with the leftovers from my Emily. I’m not going to have enough, just from the leftovers, so I’ve decided to frog Emily. I feel sad about that but realistically, I’m not going to wear that jumper. I like the neckline a lot, but the sleeves are not really my style, and the fix in the body is too obvious. So, it goes. I have a couple of other knits that I need to either fix (my Rogue, significantly, which has too-short sleeves and body) or just get rid of altogether. There’s no point having them taking up space when I never wear them, and I’m a much better knitter than I was when I made a lot of them, so I feel confident in being able to either fix them or at least evaluate what is wrong about them and chalk them up to learning. So those are my vague knitting goals for this year – knit from stash and fix my knits.

Tiramisu

So, on Craft Camp I made a Tiramisu dress.

Technically it was/is a muslin. I bought the fabric from the Alannah Hill outlet in Melbourne, but then I wasn’t sure I liked it because it’s sort of a bit muddy. But in the process of making this dress, and taken as a whole in a garment rather than as a fabric, I have come around to the colour. But come to hate the actual fabric, which is pretty thin and doesn’t have much recovery, which made the making process a bit fraught.

I cut a straight side 40D, with no adjustments at all. But then when I went to make it, the midriff section was huge. I don’t know if this was a cutting error or not, I was doing some funky mistakes with the cutting all weekend. Anyway I basically just hacked it back to an approximate size. Then when I went to cut the skirt, I tried to adjust that. I should have just cut it as was and gathered it more. Instead I cut it a bit smaller and it ended up basically the same size as the midriff, which is fine but I do get these kinda saddlebag things where the sideseams are, since it lays flat everywhere else but the bias is different at the edges (I think that’s why). It’s not noticeable to anyone who’s not me, I think.

You can see what I mean in the side view, though, how it folds in.

When I got home I tried to reset the bodice seam, since it was lying all ripply and puckering. Again you can’t see it so much in these photos because I’m reaching up with the camera, but with my arms flat it was more noticeable. However, the thinness and lack of recovery in the fabric meant it started to stretch out, and I basically just made it worse. I ended up just sewing it back up again and it’s wearable but also looks like a Frankenstien’s Monster scar.

(Sorry for the nipples)

The resetting also meant I lost a bit of coverage in the front. I don’t mind the cleavage as such, although I prefer the amount of coverage I got before I mucked with it, but it does show my bra a bit. It really is a wearable muslin – I’ll wear it around the house, which is fine cos it’s super comfortable and I could do with a ;chuck it on and don’t worry about it’ dress for hot days. But it won’t be leaving the house. It’s not hemmed or top stitched now (I ran out of the right thread, from all the ripping) and I probably won’t bother.

I will definitely be making it again, in a more stable fabric. I apologise for calling it a Bastard Dress. Turns out, it was a Bastard Fabric.

I also inherited a Tira from Sue, who made a lovely one from a ponti knit, but which didn’t fit her. She did a FBA and probably didn’t need to.

I was debating resetting the bodice seam, and had decided not to, but this photo is making me rethink that:

Side boob pooch. Do I care enough? Probably not. It passes the modesty test, either way:

Bewbs.

I am also considering doing a teeny FBA in my next version, since the D is pretty good but I suspect some of the pulling and bagging in my muslin (before I stretched it) is from the shape being just slightly off without it. I’m a DDD or an E depending on the bra, so it seems likely to be appropriate. It’s hard to tell with the difference in fabrics, though, so we’ll see how I feel when I get to that, I guess!

I highly recommend this pattern, despite the swearing I did while making it, mostly due to user error and fabric choice. It’s well written, does a lot of the adjustment thinking for you, and the finished dress is flattering and so, so comfortable. I can’t wait to get my grubby paws on the Pavlova pattern, either!

Sewjourn

I wrote the draft for this right after I got back from camp. I didn’t publish it because I needed to hem and photograph some stuff. Obviously it took me until the Easter long weekend to get around to that. Whoops. So please excuse the jumping back and forth between then and now, if I try to make it more consistent I’ll procrastinate and then it’s never going to get published. Please also excuse angry face. I just cannot work the self timer AND manage a facial expression at the same time.

Like a bee on a cactus flower

I got back from another craft camp on Monday evening. It’s Thursday morning and it already feels so far away, like a dream. I think it was my favourite camp yet. Not the most exciting or thrilling but the one that I have most constantly, solidly enjoyed. And probably my most productive. Not the one with the biggest highs from that feeling where you make a new friend or cross some border of intimacy. But more comfortable and sweet in that way where you don’t have to think about it because spending time with these people is just so easy and as effort-free as being in a space with other people will ever be, for an introvert. And the food, oh my lord.

I don’t know that I have much to say about it. It was just really really lovely. I continue to be so grateful for these people and these pauses in my year. Chances to reflect and take time and really get into the making. Such a refreshing thing. This weekend I flew in on Monday and out on Friday so I had most of those days as well as the whole day on Saturday and Sunday, and it was just blissful. I need to figure out ways to make my normal life just a little bit more like camp.

It was also the camp where I went through the most thread. I think I sewed almost every seam in every garment twice, and I came home with a couple of things unhemmed because I was out of matching thread.

I flew in with a suitcase that was 100g over the weight limit. Then I bought stuff at the op shop. With some rearranging of my carry-on I managed to fly home with a suitcase that was only 200g over. Phew.

Here are the things that I made:

A Tiramisu dress, which will get its own post shortly.

I also half-made a blank canvas tee out of this same fabric.

I will discuss the fabric in further detail when I post about my Tira, but basically, it’s a bastard. It’s super stretchy with not much recovery. So the shirt is fine, if a bit… fine (read: nipply) but the binding was droopy. I was going to redo it but I ended up just folding it under and zig zag stitching it. I think this will just be an around the house shirt, sadly, and I won’t bother hemming it. But as a wearable muslin I’d call it very successful.

Another one of those Ottobre skirts that I like to churn out. This one in camel coloured sateen from Spotters. Crinkly stuff, curse it. I did back pockets on this one which turned out a bit dodgy but oh well. I neglected this one in my photoshoot so this is the only photo of it. If I can find some camel-coloured drill I might remake it in that, but all the brownish stuff I could find was muddyish colours which I didn’t like.

A red Kasia.I wear my blue Kasia all the time because it’s comfy and simple but not boring and also it has pockets.

The spots in the pockets are a Robert Kauffman quilting cotton that I bought ages ago for a project that I now cannot remember anything about. You need so little of the contrast fabric for this, it’s great. The main fabric is stretch drill from Spotters.

The last time I made Kasia I graded it up and then ended up taking out all the extra width. This time I just cut out the biggest size, which was then too small so I spent ages taking it apart and putting side panels in, and then it was too big. So I took the panels out and sewed it with just a 1cm seam allowance and it’s perfect. It was initially a teeny bit tight on the hips but it’s stretched out enough that it’s just spot on. I omitted the front fly shenanigans, and put in a back zip, as well as borrowing a pattern piece from a Lisette pattern that Sue had brought, and making a little kick pleat at the back.

It sticks out some, but oh well. It makes the skirt much more functional. Another time I would make the whole pleat from a thinner fabric, which would also give it a seam to fold along. I hemmed the red one a bit shorter at the pleat than the rest of the skirt, and it sits flatter vertically, because of that. As in, the pleat doesn’t stick out the bottom of the hem, although it does stick out horizontally still.

I wish I’d remembered to take out the pouchy bit at the back, though – the pocket panels are mirrored on the back and it’s puffy in the thick drill. I should have made the facings out of a lighter fabric, too, cos it’s bulky. But it’s perfectly wearable and I love it. I brought it home unhemmed because I ran out of thread. I also wish I’d done an invisible zip – it is actually an invisible zip, but I don’t have an invisible zip foot at camp so I just set it in like a normal zip. Oh, well.

Another Kasia, in black stretch drill, also from spotlight. Back zip for this one too and no pockets, I couldn’t be bothered mucking around and I just need something real simple to be a wardrobe standard. I just laid the pocket pattern pieces on top and cut it out like one piece, nothing complicated. I used a scrap from Jenny’s intimidating pile to make a sneaky kick pleat, though. (Which sticks out, too. Sigh.)

I might need another black pencil skirt with more interesting pockets. This one probably took me 2 hours ish, without hemming. When I did hem it this weekend I just sewed with a straight stitch because clearly I wasn’t getting around to the blind hem that I had intended, and I couldn’t find my blind hem foot anyways, or figure out how to deal with the kick pleat when blind hemming. So that took me all of ten minutes, plus I had to re-top-stitch the yoke because the poplin I’d lined it with isn’t as stretchy as the drill and it had gotten all wonky when I sewed it the first time, and I had puckers.

And I finished my blanket! Which has been to several craft camps now. I blogged the finished product here.

Such a lovely time. Thank you all for your company, and your food, and your stories.

Sunbreak

I finished Sunbreak.

Ravelry tells me that I started it on July 19, 2011. I remember starting it at a Craft Camp. I used one of Kate‘s stitch markers for the centre and ended up taking it home with me. I returned it on the next camp, don’t worry. I think I finished the centre bit that camp, because I remember frantically making up little bobbins to do the rays, as everyone was packing up to leave.

For a while after that it looked like this

I couldn’t really knit it on public transport, so I watched a lot of Qi and That Mitchell and Webb Look while knitting this part of it. This part was sometimes hair-pullingly complex, but I can genuinely say (at this remove) that it was fun. I would do it again, no matter how lacking in calm wisdom I sound in this other post.

The reason it was so tangly was that I didn’t want a lot of floats behind the rays. Because the yarn is crepe ply, not wooly, they showed through and it was hard to keep them neat. So I basically did intarsia. Each little section of colour was its own bobbin. I remember getting very frustrated at how lumpy and imperfect it was looking, but I decided that a bit of bumpiness was ok. Eventually I got to the end of the short rays and it did get a lot easier then.

And then you knit each corner to square off the shape. It’s been long enough that I can’t remember the details of this, but I remember thinking that it was very elegantly designed. I remember a few head scratching moments of confusion, but I trusted in the pattern and it worked out lovely.

Then you block the middle bit like lace. It’s knit on fairly large needles, so it spreads out a lot. I didn’t get exactly the recommended size, so I just blocked it till it was even, and a nice proportion.

The centre is 76cm x 110cm. Flickr tells me that I blocked it in early February 2012. I started knitting the border, although after a whole blanket I wasn’t super excited about that. I decided to knit the longest sides first.

Then, on March 30, disaster struck. I know it was then because that’s the date of the email from me to the Clean Person at the hairpin, saying ‘HALP! I have ink on my knitting!’ A pen leaked on my bag and there was a splodge of ink, right at the beginning of the longest border edge that I’d almost finished. Clean Person Jolie was very helpful but although the ink was reduced, it was still present and I knew it would always bother me. So I ripped it out.

Then I didn’t knit anything at all for almost a year. I picked it up again in January this year. Because a summer of repeated 40 degree heatwaves is clearly the best time to knit. But also, I started it when I found out that my best friend was pregnant. It’s not for her kid, it’s for her. But he’s about to turn one and I thought it would be nice to have it for her by then. Not to mention that I intended to knit something for her 30th which was in February but obviously I am working on a year’s delay here.

So anyway. I turned up to craft camp this time with the blanket, two long edges, and half of a short edge. I finished the first short edge that first Friday there, and sewed on everything I had, so I only had one short edge to go. I was DETERMINED to finish it.

On the Sunday night I had the edge about five rows from completion when I gave up and went to bed. On Monday morning I steam blocked it and sewed it on. And then we had a little photoshoot.

I am SO pleased with it. I love it. The border gives it a nice heft, and it’s as snuggly as you could not-want in the heat we’ve been having. I am so pleased to finally be finished, and I’m really pleased with it as a piece of work, and proud of my own skill.

With the border it is 93cm x 120cm. I lost track of the amount of yarn I used, because of the shenanigans with the bobbins, but it weighs just over 900g, so I’d say I used 4 and a bit balls of blue (Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic in Tasman), and maybe a quarter of a ball of the yellow, which is an unknown yellow in Classic that I bought at their mill. Which is a shame because it’s a lovely colour, unlike all the standard yellows they offer which are palid and sad.

I’ll be giving it to its owner this evening and I hope she likes it.

Ravelry link.

On the weekend

I made some things.

I saw the idea for a fabric sensory play box here. My bff’s kid is really into everything but still not mobile, so he’s easily frustrated. Plus, like any kid and also Eeyore, he likes trashing things taking things out of things and putting them back in.

I bought a cheapo gift box (this was the only one without flowers) and cut a hole in the top with a stanley knife, on my self-healing mat. I was going to stick the lid on with double-sided tape but it didn’t work very well so I used some electric tape I had lying around, which worked excellently. Then I went through my scraps and stash and cut out reasonable sizes of fabric. I tried for a range of colours but obviously, since they were scraps, they’re stuff I tend to buy. Lots of different textures, though, from satin to velvet to drill to flannel.

Almost all of this is scraps and leftovers. A couple of the whispy things are deep stash that I cut a corner off of. I tried to keep them about the same size, but wasn’t too fussy. I cut most of them with a rotary cutter because it’s easier, and then I edged them with a rolled hem, on my overlocker. I would have pinked them if I had pinking shears, but I was working with what I had.

And then I unceremoniously shoved them in there. Took me about an hour, all up, I think. It would be quicker with pinking shears.

And it’s a hit!

I also made this cake from Posy Gets Cosy, because Bek said the icing was great, and I wanted to try it.

I didn’t double layer it because I was too impatient to get it out of the pan and one of the layers crumbled. So I stuck it back together and that one’s mine, and I took this one to my friend’s house while I hijacked her baby and took him to the park for a couple hours so she could have a break.

It is as delicious as advertised. Not too sickly sweet, and a lovely texture, both cake and icing. Yum!

Mobster’s wife

I could call this a Minnie Mouse dress (note to self: make big bow for head), but I prefer ‘Mobster’s wife dress’ because that’s what I think I look like in the first photo I took.

Terrifying. I look like I’m about to take someone out with a frying pan. I was trying out the timer on my camera and apparently I have time to smile or to pose, not both. I had another go at the end of the day and had some better luck with my face.

This is a frankenpattern of Butterick 4443 and a self drafted bodice. The bust point on this pattern was so high that I knew it wouldn’t work for me, but at that stage an FBA seemed terrifying. But my bodice block was old and a size and a bit too small. So I sort of smooshed them together. I started sewing it basically this time last year, but I had to make so many mods to get it to fit right that it was a bit of a disaster. So I took it to craft camp to work on.

At craft camp, I cut the bodice up and used it as a pattern. I got it almost right but it still wasn’t there so it waited until the last month or so to get finished. It’s still far from perfect but I’ve done enough futzing for now and I’m calling it a wearable muslin, emphasis on the wearable. I would certainly be thrilled to find a dress that fit this well in the store, so I’m trying not to be too nitpicky.

I lined the bodice but didn’t bother lining the skirt. I will another time but by the end I knew I was done for now but it would need work in the future, so I didn’t bother, just sewed the bodice lining down at the waist. I also lined it before I remembered I wanted sleeves, so they’re sewn on top of the lining – the inside of this thing is pretty dodgy. It was nice sleeveless but I’m more likely to wear a dress with sleeves.

Here are the problems. The princess seams don’t go over the bust point, not quite. I think the centre front bodice needs to be smaller, and the side a bit bigger, although not by much. The last round of tweaks I did basically involved reverse engineering a FBA, so I think what I need to do is knock two centimetres or so off the centre panel, and then do an FBA, to get the shape right.

The back is droopy – I need a swayback adjustment. And the top back is too high and wide. You can see both of these issues below.

Too much fabric in the back.

Dunno what this pose is about but you can see the height and extra fabric in the back.

Obviously I didn’t even bother matching the pattern. I got bigger issues!

I wish I had a good photo of this issue from the side. The back stops at my nape, but because I have a mini dowager’s hump that means it’s sort of creeping forward. It’s just way too high, it needs a good 3cm lopped off at the centre, tapering to the edges. I already knocked 2cm off so I dunno what the go was with the block I used!

You can’t see it here because I’m leaning away and it’s pulling it taught, but if I stand up straight there’s a little pyramid of fabric at the zip. You CAN see that it’s ripply, and you can see that the shape of the side front panel isn’t right.

The back neck is the one I find the most annoying, because it’s most obvious to a non-sewer. I’m irritated by the poofiness at the boobs, but that’s more obvious from my vantage point than other people’s, and I think will be less of an issue at shark week – it’s lowest boobage ebb right now. But to fix the back I’ll have to unpick the zip so… whatever. At some point I think I’ll undo the bodice and try again but for now, it works.

I think I probably need an extra centimetre in the back, from the shoulders down. I know I just said I have too much fabric there, but that’s past my shoulders. It fits ok but it’s a bit tight if I cross my arms. Fine, but not great. And I dropped the waist because I have a long waist but I’d take it back up a centimetre next time. Its at my true waist, from the side, but it actually hits the biggest part of my belly. It ends up hiking up a bit when I sit or slump, which I basically do most of the time, so. The arms are a bit weird too. I think the sleeve cap needs to be shorter but wider. They work, but if my arms aren’t straight down the fabric doesn’t sit nicely.

After that litany of failures, I’m actually pretty pleased with it. I know over time I’m going to get fed up with looking at it and seeing the flaws – I don’t think they’re small enough to fade in my mind. But it is very comfortable, especially on a 30+ day like today, and I feel good in it. I certainly learnt a lot from it, and am still learning, so I definitely can’t call it a failure. A wearable red polkadot dress could never be a failure!

Oh, and happy Beltane, from me and the chooks.

Sailing

I’ve been making up some Oliver+S sailboat pants/top sets. I am completely in love with the pattern and would like several sets in my own size. Since that’s unlikely to happen, I’ve been indulging in sewing for small people. It’s a good break to have in between wrestling with other things (fitting is hard). Sometimes I need to be convinced that I do actually know how to sew, so this is helpful, plus they take less than a metre of fabric each, and it’s a nice excuse to use adorable prints. All the fabrics are from spotlight, and I serged everything together as far as was practical.

This first set is for the 1 year old son of an internet friend. I could not resist the pirate monkeys. The buttons on the pants were bought for my Kasia skirt, and then I lost them. Then I found them, the day after I bought new buttons. But nevermind, I really needed six for Kasia and I only had four – perfect for these pants. The stripe fabric in the pocket is leftover from Kasia, too, although I bought the drill new. I also made velveteen pantaloons for this kid.

Because what kid doesn’t need velvet pantaloons? I know I need some. I used the tute from Cirque Du Bebe, which was where I saw the pattern in the first place, and the pantalooning was the reason I bought it. (That and it is too freaking adorable.) I think next time I’ll make the cuff thinner, and it would have been nice to have an actual leg to measure but oh well. The cuff is a bit dodgy since it was quite thick, and really small, fiddly place to sew, but it’s for a toddler so haute couture is not really necessary.  I’m pretty delighted with the buttons, though, also from my stash.

Perfect.

This set is in the smallest size, for my best friend’s baby who is just on 8 months.

I wish I’d been more thoughtful about the placement of the dinos in the pocket. This one turned out pretty nice, by accident.

I didn’t want to do buttons, partly because my sewing machine can be a bit temperamental about them but mostly because who wants to button up a super squirmy 8 month old? NO ONE. And this kid is squirmy as all get out. I had a bit of a hissy fit about not being able to find snaps anywhere, since spotlight only had silver and pearl ones, each sold in packs of 6 with an applicator tool. It’s an expensive way to buy them, and anyway I wanted coloured ones. I looked into snapsource and a few other places like that but postage was just stupid, so I ended up buying them from Mr Walrus on etsy. They were super quick and helpful, I am planning another order because snaps are GREAT. So many colours – and I might need some of these for my own garments. So much easier than buttonholes, especially since my sewing machine only likes to do reliable ones on thick fabric. It was ok on the pirate top because I only needed one buttonhole on each side so I could get away with them being unpredictable lengths and heights, but that’s not so great down the front of a garment. I’ve ordered special pliers for them but really, I enjoy the opportunity to hit things with a hammer.

These outfits were really quick and fun to make – the first one I made of each took me a while, but once I figured out what was going on I am averaging about an hour on each garment. The Oliver + S instructions are really clear and sensible, and their printable pattern was nicely laid out, with a minimum of taping and cutting to be done. I definitely recommend them.

Last night I cut out a bunch more so that I have something to sew when I just have a few minutes. There are plenty of small people in my life to sew for.

I’m trying to be more deliberate with making, because I know if I don’t make something every few days or so I start to get a bit twitchy. I haven’t been knitting much, since my hand is sporadically a bit sore from a bung shoulder and I’m just not really feeling the urge lately, so I’ve been sewing more. It’s much easier now that I’ve rearranged my sewing room and I’m more likely to be able to sit down and get sewing without having to move piles of stuff.

There’s a moral in that. Unfortunately it hasn’t seemed to have any affect on the rest of the house.

Black ottobre dress

I am pretty sure I used to come up with amusing titles for these posts. Or at least tried to. Oh, well, this is descriptive I guess.

I finally managed to get some photos of the black dress I mentioned in a previous post, where I showed you the skirt I had made with the skirt part of this pattern.The skirt is more full in the dress than as a skirt because it’s sitting higher up. I did add fabric on to the waist because I’m long waisted, but not as much as I am always tempted to do, so it sits much higher than I wear my skirts. Feels kind of weird to me but it looks good.

It’s from Ottobre Women 5/2011, and it’s the plain version of the pattern. The pattern comes with a couple of variations but I just sewed it straight up, with some variations. The pattern actually doesn’t go up big enough for me, so I sort of fudged it and added some width to the pattern pieces. Not the right way to do it, but it worked. Mostly. My notes say that I added a centimetre to each side seam, and two centimetres to the centre front seam, so six cm all up.

Bonus dorky hat edition. Those shoes and socks are my favourite matches-but-not-really combo. And the front yard weeds are out of control! At least it has tiny peaches in it.

To get the sleeves to fit the new armscye I added a centimetre to each edge, and then tapered it out to 3cm to fit my bingo wings in, since the first sleeves I cut were way too tight. Also, when I first set the sleeves in they were SO POOFY. I did a very dodgy mod and took some of the curve off, but I’m wearing it now and looking at my arms I can see quite a lot of poof still. It’s ok – I quite like it when my arms are down although when I move I’ve got a lot of extra fabric – but in future I’ll be following Jessica’s mod and taking the ease out of all my sleeve caps. It just makes me mad, so get rid of it!

Because I just added to the centre seam the neckline but it was way too wide, and too low as well, so I made some thick bias binding and used that to finish it off. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. Because it was still gapey, I bunged in a couple of dodgy darts. I don’t know if you can see them.

It works ok. Another time I might make the bust darts deeper instead but I had already sewn it all up and spent hours fussing over it, so this works well enough. I think what I really need to do is leave the pattern the size it is and do an FBA. It fits me well in the bust, but I can see it pulling in these photos so it could probably do with better shaping.

I could stand to lose some fabric out the back, so I think I can get away with the smaller size.

I left out the zip because the fabric is stretchy and it doesn’t need it – I might even be able to get away with doing this in a non-stretch.

I could have done with a swayback adjustment, too.

This fabric attract lint like WOAH.

I will definitely sew this pattern again, with those adjustments, since I like the line of it and it would be easy to modify to make different looks. It fits well without being tight anywhere, which was my aim. I can’t speak for the pattern instructions since I didn’t have them. I’m planning to buy this magazine as a back issue because I like it but I made this from a tracing from Su’s magazine. But I mean, there’s not that much too it. You just sew it together in the usual order, whatever that is for you.

I didn’t line it at all because the fabric is thick enough. The skirt sticks to my bikeshorts a bit but it’s not too bad.

Fabric: Three metres or so of some mystery cotton stretch from the stash
Pattern: Ottobre 5/2011
Notions: None!

And the insides?  Overlocked the seams together after baste fitting.
Time to complete: 6 hours? 8? With lots of faffing around in between.
First worn: To work last week
Wear again? Yep! It’s not perfect but it’s a nice simple black dress that’s comfy and neat, so it’s going to go in the standard work rotation.
Total price: How long does fabric have to be in your stash before it’s free? I doubt I would have paid more than $10 a metre for fabric at the time that I bought it, so let’s say $30 all up.