PatternReview.com to the rescue!

I posted my problem with the NL6735 on one of the Pattern Review.com message boards and got a great suggestion: this Burda Style magazine dress (01-2009-106):

I like the semi-flounced sleeve - some fullness, but not overwhelmingly so.  It looks like it has three two pieces, but one of the reviewers who made it did a version with four pieces, which is what I think I'm going to try. I think it's a perfect solution to my problem of not having enough fabric.

Now if I only had enough *time* to draft & sew the sleeve!

Most super-cozy pants EVAH*

I've been cleaning the house most of the day (it has been seriously neglected of late), and I unearthed a couple pairs of yoga pants I bought for my daughter last year on sale at Old Navy.  At the time, they were a couple inches too long and wouldn't stay up around her waist (even though I could feel there was elastic in the foldover waistband. I had her give them another try this morning, and the waists were still pretty loose, but the length was just about right. 

So I hacked off neatly trimmed away the waistband - it was pretty wide, and I didn't want to spend all day removing the overlock stitching with my seam ripper - on the first pair of dark gray pants.  Next, I unpicked the stitching holding the elastic in place, snipped off about 3" of the elastic, then sewed it back along the ridge that was left where the elastic had originally been sewn using my edgestitching foot.  (I moved it over a bit because I lost 1/4" when I cut the waistband off, and I figured I was likely to use up another 1/4" in the seam when I put it back on).

Once the elastic was secured with a second row of stitching along the other edge, I folded the wrong sides of the waistband together, marked the CB/CF and sides of it with pins, then matched those pins to the CB/CF and side seams (on little kids' pants, you don't have to be too picky about dividing the elastic into perfect quarters; it was plenty close enough).  I sewed a row of stitching about 3/16" from the cut edges, then went around again zigzagging over the little bit of seam allowance.

She's wearing them now, under this outfit:

(Sorry I don't have a photo of her wearing them; she was "too busy with her projects" to let me take pictures, and frankly, they're not terribly exciting to look at under the dress.)  In the above photo, she's wearing a cotton sweater dress I picked up for her at the Gymboree outlet, over a long sleeve knit shirt from Land's End (one of several items that arrived from Grandma yesterday).  Just a few minutes ago, she came in to the sewing room to tell me that they were the most super-cozy pants EVAH (oh, and, BTW, could I help her find a Netflix Watch Instantly movie on the computer?).

*Yes, she was sucking up in order to get me to do something for her, but it was still nice to sew something that didn't get completely screwed up.

Jeans - Part I

So, I started working on a pair of jeans awhile back.  Apparently, it was a LONG while ago, because the McCalls pattern I am using, 5142, is OOP.  I couldn't even find a review of the pattern on PR.

Since I'm trying to replace the dreaded "Mom jeans" in my wardrobe (actually, I chucked the pants a couple months ago, and now have NO jeans at all), I chose the slightly low-rise View C (altered to a boot cut leg), and cut a size 14 out of some stretch denim I had on hand. Things were going along quite nicely; I had assembled the front pockets and fly, and attached the back yoke to the pant legs and meticulously placed the pockets and topstitched them in place. But I ran into trouble with the side seams - since I was using stretch denim, the pants were very loose when I basted the 5/8" seam allowances.  I pinched out the excess, turned the pants inside out, and marked new stitching lines along the pins.

When I tried them on again, something was definitely not right.  The back seemed too wide, with the seam along the outside leg off center.  So I ripped out the stitching and proceeded to pin and baste and try on another five or six times (no, I am not kidding) until I had something I thought was pretty decent.

Then I took some pictures using my camera's self-timer:

Gah!  They were nice and smooth in front, and the outside seam appeared to be centered and perpendicular to the floor, but the butt...I was back in MomJeansville.  Sigh...

I've been reading some back issues of Threads and remembered Kenneth King's "net gain/net loss" adjustment process, so I reached around and grabbed what felt like excess fabric and started pinning it out.

You can see (even in my off-center stance) that the left side where I pinned it looks much smoother than the right side.  And it looks even better from the side:

After pinning and photographing and examining things, I knew there was fabric that needed to be removed, but I had no idea how to go about it.  After spending a few minutes searching online at PR, I had my answer:  I needed to rotate out the fisheye dart I had pinned back there.  Unfortunately, the process required that I remove the excess fabric from the back of the leg and add it back by raising the waist at the side seam and extending the back crotch point.  (Translation:  I needed to re-draft/re-cut my pants.) You can see the effect that pinning had on the center back:

The center back is clearly too short now (I had MEGA plumber's crack when I tried to sit down in these); I think the fisheye adjustment will solve that problem.  I didn't have any more of the stretch denim on hand (did I mention I cut these out a LONG time ago?), so this effectively shut down my jeans production for the weekend.

The good news:  I think I have a solution, and I expect the next go-round to result in ACTUAL WEARABLE PANTS.  The bad news:  I am now noticing this issue elsewhere in my wardrobe.  (I've been a little preoccupied dealing with FBAs until now to pay much attention to the rear view.)  I was getting dressed this morning and pulled on my favorite pair of pants, and I noticed the same problem with them.  Guess I need to add "sew a pair of pants that REALLY fit" to my list of sewing goals...

New Look 6952

I'm getting ready to cut out my Unique Patterns custom-drafted New Look pattern, #6952 for the first time.  The only alteration I've made to it is to add 1 3/4" at the hem. 

(It feels so weird not to be endlessly hacking up my pattern before laying it out on the fabric...)

Self-drafted skirt finished

I made this skirt (photo will be posted soon, I promise!) from a piece of crappy solid olive green cotton or cotton/poly (? - it wasn't marked on the bolt) bottomweight Jo-Ann's fabric. It was the only thing I could find that coordinated with a pink/orange/goldenrod/olive long sleeve t-shirt that I have. I'd been wearing that shirt mostly with jeans, because it doesn't really go with much else in my closet.

Speaking of the shirt, it's a RTW one that I bought at Port Boutique in Portland, ME. I love the shop, and buy almost all my RTW pants there. I even have pretty good luck finding tops and dresses there that fit reasonably well. This one needed a little help, though - I took it in on the side and sleeve seams, serging off about 3/4" of the seam allowance from wrist to hip. Now the sleeves don't droop down (as much - the cotton knit tends to relax as the day goes on) when I push them up to wear as 3/4 length sleeves.

I used Elizabeth Allemong's instructions in European Cut to draft the skirt.  I took all my own measurements, even though she advises against it, because it was late at night and my husband was asleep.  (And I think I probably did at least as good a job as he would have.)  It took me two muslins to get a finished basic skirt pattern that I can use from now on.  I need to increase the CF/CB and side seam allowances as this skirt has only 1/4" allowances (I had to make very narrow seam to get enough wearing ease in the skirt) and I could stand to lower the front waistline about 3/4", but otherwise the fit is pretty darn good.

The only downside to the whole project is that I couldn't find a zipper to match.  I ended up using a light greenish yellow zipper from JAF.  Since then, however, I stumbled across Dawn's blog post about ZipperStop and I've ordered their color card (which has a ginormous assortment of YKK zipper tape colors to choose from).  The zippers are very reasonably priced (provided you order several at a time to reduce the shipping cost per zipper), and I'm looking forward to going through my stash to identify the upcoming sewing projects that will need zippers so I can place an order.

I have some great hot pink sandals that go with the outfit, but at the moment they clash someting fierce with my bright red toenails, so I just wear a pair of brown slip-on casual shoes for work or running errands.

I'm thinking of making a coordinating (not *matching*) headband with some of the leftover skirt fabric. (I am also considering making a matching "Mini-Me" skirt for my daughter - pretty soon she will be too old to be caught dead wearing what Mom is wearing). Actually, I've made the headband, but I need to figure out how to embellish it so it doesn't *look* like a matching headband. Maybe I'll add some knitted flowers or fabric rosettes to the headband.