Polka Dot Ombré Dress Overload (McCall's 6070)

True dress love: black & white polka dots of all sizes in a quick and easy surplice-bodice knit dress.

So do you ever pick up a pattern, grab some fabric from your stash, and just get cutting and sewing—without any detailed planning, sketching, agonizing, muslining, pattern matching or bust-adjustmenting?

Because I like, NEVER do that. Except, with this dress I did—and it totally worked.

Inspiration: When Lee offered up a copy of McCall's 6070 at a recent Brooklyn BurdaStyle Sewing Club get-together, a giant lightbulb of happiness materialized over my head... because with its wide gathered shoulders, surplice neckline and midriff band it was almost a dead ringer for my favorite RTW dress, the "Marisa" dress by Karina, shown here in December:

Now, Karina dresses are AWESOME: they're stretchy, comfy, sexy, well-made available in a wide variety of awesome styles and patterns—AND best of all, made by seamstresses sewing for a living wage in Brooklyn! So they're definitely well worth the $160 price tag... BUT I couldn't pass up the chance to make my own version with some stash fabric I had on hand.

The pattern: Easy McCall's 6070 (now out-of-print).

Source: mccallpattern.mccall.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

Pattern Description: Simple knit dress with gathers at shoulders and under the bust, surplice front and back bodice, back ties, midriff waistband and gathered dirndl-style skirt.

Pattern Sizing: You know, the usual. Since I was using a stretchy poly knit, I made the back bodice in a size 10... and tried to cheat my way out of a full bust adjustment by cutting the front bodice as a size 14 (except for the shoulders—I cut those in a 10).

This mostly worked, except the front wrap edges are gapping like no-body's business despite my best clear elastic application efforts—because I need extra length over the girls, but not over the breastbone.

I didn't use the midriff pattern or the skirt pattern—I just cut some 4" wide rectangles for the midriff, and drafted a half-circle skirt using Patty the Snug Bug's handy calculator.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Sure-ish.

Were the instructions easy to follow? Easy enough. But I didn't bother with putting elastic in the waistband (due to the high recovery power of my knit) or hemming the bottom edge.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? It's such a flattering style—it really emphasizes the waist (and bust?)!

Fabric: 2 yards of very soft mystery polyester ombré-effect jersey from the stash, purchased at Sew-Fisticated Discount Fabrics in Boston for $3/yard.

The really awesome thing about this fabric was the ombré pattern—tiny dots in the middle growing to giant dots at the edge. I cut the skirt from the tiny dots bit, and the bodice from the bigger dots, and the waistband from some medium dots.

But as much as I would like to pat myself on the back for thrifty sewing from the stash... half-way through the making of this dress I did some serious reading and research about textiles and the global fashion industry and the environment and human rights and toxic waste and... well, more on that later, but I'm generally pretty bummed out about cheap polyester (and conventional cotton, and... a lot of other stuff... sigh... I'm even wearing organic lipstick made out of hemp and beeswax in this photo).

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: See sizing notes above. The main thing was I drafted my own half-circle skirt, as I was worried the gathered skirt would add too much bulk to the waist area.

Construction notes: I should have done most of this on my serger, but it's currently a bit hard to get to... so I did it all with a zigzag stitch with mixed results. Especially since I sewed it in a series of late evenings a few weeks ago while not quite awake, and had to repeatedly pick out miles of zig-zagged mistakes.

The worst bit is the narrow-hemming on the front and back bodice crossovers—it's just a total ripply mess, despite the clear elastic I stuck in there. Luckily the dots are a major visual distraction. I MAY unpick the waist seam and tighten up the front crossover edges... especially since the gapping/rippling got a lot worse after pulling the overlaps aside to nurse the toddler.

Successes:

• A quick, lovely, versatile knit dress that fits me just perfectly.
• And it's NOT a costume!
• Playing with patterns without tons of planning.
• I want to wear it all the time.
• BLACK AND WHITE POLKA DOTS.

Room for improvement?:

• MIND THE GAPPING front and back overlaps.
• It's made out of cheap polyester (which I've just read is generally produced with a toxic, carcinogenic heavy metal called antimony...)

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I definitely highly recommend, though it may be a while before I sew another myself. BUT I most definitely plan to use the half-circle skirt pattern by itself again soon—maybe in a seriously crunchy organic hemp version or something.

Wear for: Work, date with husband, parties and twirling toddlers around in circles:

Oh... and I have a lot of various ideas and projects cooking that I'll be sharing soon, some of which you may have heard about elsewhere. But for now, I just had to share that I sewed something that wasn't a costume.

So: do you ever seek out fabrics with environmental considerations in mind? (I never have before—but that's about to change!)

Polka Dot Blog Crush: My Secret Sewing Doubles (and Yours)

What could be better than a magic wire dress form that exactly duplicates your shape?

How about some fabulous and prolific sewing bloggers solving your fitting challenges for you?

I follow a ridiculous number of sewing blogs, and I learn so much from fabulous sewists of all shapes and sizes... Still, I will admit to get especially excited by alterations-related posts by fellow sewing bloggers who are also struggling to fit:

• large busts with narrow frames (30F and 32G girls, raise your hands--and be careful your RTW shirt buttons don't pop off in the process!)
• bonus points for super narrow shoulders
• extra super duper bonus points for extreme nursing-related cup-size fluctuations

Which brings me to this week's...

Polka Dot Blog Crushes: My Secret Sewing Doubles

In no particular order:

• Lladybird. This badass seamstress is all over sewing (and knitting, and embroidering) fitted, girly, fabulous vintage-inspired hourglass awesome of all kinds, with an awesome pottymouthed, nose-ringed flair. AND she wears the same bra size as me (32DD/E), so I was SO excited to see her recent rundown of Bombshell muslin alterations:
  

  Source: lladybird.wordpress.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

• Kadiddlehopper. Katie is both a pediatrician and a doctor of fabulous large-busted sewing (a title which I have just made up). She makes an out-of-control number of perfectly-fitted tops and jackets and dresses, and I'm currently using her full-bust-adjustment (FBA) tips for my Jalie scarf top. From what I can gather, we wear approximately the same standard pattern sizes (12 up top, 14 below) AND she's also a nursing mama. Score!
• E Made This. Elizabeth and I were pregnant around the same time in 2010*, and I just adore following all her lovely sewing adventures -- everything she makes is stylish, beautifully made and well-fitted, and she even knows how to make perfect jeans! She is all over FBAs and narrow shoulder adjustments, too.
• K-Line. Kristin's sewing obsessions, experiments and ruminations are a delight to follow, and she is currently busting her butt to perfectly fit Gertie's Starlet Suit Jacket. She is also a purveyor of manifestos on bust size and bra fitting, which I whole-heartedly endorse. (I'm not sure of the origin of her blog title--Kristin, can you fill me in?)

*Back when I was pregnant, I used to similarly obsess over bloggers tackling maternity alterations. None of those bloggers are currently pregnant, but Megan Nielsen's DIY maternity blog is a great resource, Inder-ific is sewing for her bump and even Peter has been getting in on the preggo sewing action.

By the way, I hope you all know that women with cup size of C or more should usually choose patterns by HIGH bust measurement, not full bust, in order to properly fit the upper chest and shoulders? That is why, even when I had a 42" bust at my most pregnant, I got the best bodice fit in patterns with a bust size of 34 (with huge full bust adjustments and pregnant tummy adjustments required) -- and would have been lost in ill-fitting misery had I chosen a size 22 pattern instead of the size 14.

So, readers, I ask:

• What's your main fitting issue, and who are YOUR secret sewing doubles? (For example: Cidell of Miss Celie's Pants mentioned recently that she has the exact same lower shape as Trena of the Slapdash Sewist).
• Are there any other prolific narrow-framed FBA-ers out there I should be tracking? (Full disclosure--I have a high bust of 33-34", and a full bust of 38," wear a 30F or 32E bra... and current measurements are 38", 28", 38".)

UPDATED TO ADD: According to this fascinating article from the the Guardian UK:"Why are British Women's Breasts Getting Bigger? "in recent years the average bra size has expanded from 34B to 36D"--and there are more and more women with narrow band and large cup sizes. Theories as to why range from hormones in the environment to better nutrition. Another interesting quote:

"There's been a huge growth in the small back, larger cup lady, particularly among young girls," says Julia Mercer, head of fit and technology at M&S's underwear department. "The younger girls just seem to have bigger breasts now."

Which means I probably have more doubles than I even realized!

Mad Men Muslin #1: Giving Up on the "Wearable Muslin"?

Good: bodice not terribly ill-fitting. Bad: shoulders like, two inches too wide. Ugly: serious gapping problems, remedied here with carefully placed pins.

So here's my Joan Blue Bow Dress (previous posts here) bodice muslin for the Mad Men Challenge, with one sleeve. I made it up in a rayon/poly/lycra blend doubleknit I bought ages ago for $3.99 or something from Fabric.com--the fabric has almost identical stretch and recovery to my blue wool doubleknit (at least, I THINK/HOPE it does).

So, oh fitting Oracles--what sayeth these wrinkles? Will I be in business with a few simple alterations, or am I really in for it?

Here's my sketch again, if you're not completely sick of it by now:

Muslin back view:

Is that all that annoying wrinkling just swayback, or also because I'm shorter-waisted than the pattern? Or is it because the waist is too tight? Hmm....

Side view--what the heck is going on with these diagonal wrinkles? (Also, yes: I have NO BUTT. It is completely 2-dimensional back there.)

The shoulder and sleeve have issues (other issue: accidentally put sleeve seams on outside):

Gapping isn't so bad now that I've pinned up a bit of the bottom:

I really hate this part of sewing. I always doubt my ability to read the wrinkles, and I'm afraid I'll over or underfit, and sometimes I just get really, really confused as to what the actual fitting issues are and what are, say, poor posture issues or weird photo issues. That said, I adore a well-fitted garment (isn't that why I'm sewing, after all?), and I know this effort will be worth it.

So, the good:

• It's not way too small. I cut two-inch (I know!) seam allowances out of unfounded fear. The pattern is in a bust 34" (my high bust measurement), and my full bust is 38", but there was plenty of ease built in. Though I'm surprised the waist is even close to fitting--the pattern measures less than 26" in the waist, and my waist is a good 2 inches bigger than that. Hurrah for knits!
• The bust darts even seem to generally be in the right places. Shocking! Though perhaps they are a smidge to close to the "bust apex."
• This v-neck bodice is totally flattering, no?

The bad, and my tentative plan of alteration attack.

• The shoulders are ridiculously wide on me. I always have this problem with set-in-sleeve styles--I have super narrow shoulders.
  • The fix: a narrow shoulder adjustment. At least 1 inch...
• The waist is too long. It's at least an inch below my natural waist.
  • The fix: shortening the bodice by a bit.
• The sleeve is too loose. Probably as a result of being made up in a knit, albeit a stable one.
  • The fix: take in the sleeve at the underseam.
• The waist might be a smidge tight? There seems to be some pulling/wrinkles at the front overlap.
  • The fix: unbaste side seams and pin to fit?
• Something really awful and bunchy and wrinkly is going on at the back waist.
  • The fix: I don't know! Maybe this will go away when I shorten the bodice... but it might also be too tight? And I KNOW I have swayback, as all my RTW things bunch like this, so I probably need a swayback adjustment, too. Not that I've ever done one. Err...
• There are some weird diagonal wrinkles on the side.
  • The fix: ???
• Bust darts end too close to "apex"?
  • The fix: End a bit farther from "apex?"

At this point I think I'm going to give up on the wearable muslin concept. While I think I COULD easily alter this to fit, it would take up precious sewing time I don't have. Plus I think it'll be easier to adjust if I just give myself permission to draw all over this thing without fear. Most importantly, I have limited closet space, and a gray dress just isn't ME (or Joan, for that matter).

I think I'm also going to give up on altering the pattern to be more like the inspiration dress--I'm not sure that I want to invest time/energy in widening the V and drafting my own shawl collar here. I am going to make a bow belt instead of the plain belt, though. It is a bow dress after all! And I will lower the neckline on the dickey, too.

Bonus: my entire fancy muslin-wearing outfit (that's a RTW doubleknit pencil skirt from Target). Fairly certain Joan does NOT wear stripey wool knee socks with heels.

So what do you think? Is my assessment on-target? Any help with interpreting these photos is much appreciated.

P.S. One of the essential rules of fitting is wearing the same undergarments you plan to wear with the finished item. I don't normally do shapewear, but I know Joan always wears a long-line bra and girdle... so I tried to approximate that look with some weird Spanx thing that comes up to right below my bra. BUT I COULDN'T BREATHE. So half of these photos are with that thing, half are without. Oddly enough, the fit issues were mainly the same either way.

Trouser Triumph!

I wanted trousers, I made trousers, I wore trousers. TROUSERS!

These might look like ordinary trousers, but they contain a veritable universe of pain, suffering, hard-won sewing experience--and eventual triumph! Also: polka-dot pockets:

And a hidden elastic waistband:

They're the first proper pants I've made (not counting pajama pants, pull-on pants and baby pants) and I'm not embarrassed to say that I started these over a month ago, because they are now the most comfortable, best-fitting pair of pants I own, and I will wear them INTO THE GROUND.

I took my time, made a muslin, read lots of reference materials, did lots of basting, and ripped out and redid anything that wasn't quite right. And as I wore them today at work I had this nagging sensation that they were too good to be true, and that my magic pants would somehow turn into a pumpkin (or rip up the rear)... but no. They're real, and they're mine! Phew!

Inspiration: I had three main inspirations:

1. 1940s-style natural-waisted wide-legged trousers with creased legs...
2. Maternity pants and toddler pants with hidden elastic. So comfortable!
3. Burning hatred of all RTW pants. If they fit in my hips, they sag at my waist and rear. If they fit in the morning, somehow by the evening they are huge and sagging or super-tight. And they are always the first thing to stop fitting with even the slightest weight change. GRRRRR.

The sketch:

Photos:

Why is photographing clothes so HARD? I tried this morning, back when they were perfectly snug and pressed, but even super-lightened these pictures are a bust:

So I ended up snapping some cold and windy self-timer portraits in a park at lunchtime to get proper color, but by then they were a bit wrinkly:

The pattern: Out-of-print Vogue Elements 9745 from the stash, a slightly below-the waist wide-legged trouser with contour waistband, fly front (no shield) and center back seam, with optional cuffs and carriers (which I skipped--I don't do belts on below-waist pants).

Pattern Sizing: The original envelope included sizes 6-22. I cut a 14, which should have been SLIGHTLY too small in the waist (I have a 28.5" waist, 38" hips)... but I ended up taking in 2 inches on the hips and 1 inch on the waist, plus adding elastic to the whole waistband to pull it in another inch or more.

This was partly due to my fashion fabric, partly to me randomly losing a few pounds (my toddler has been nursing a LOT lately--growth spurt and all that). And although my pants fit perfectly in the a.m., they did start to sag and bag a little by the end of the workday.

Were the instructions easy to follow? There was just one sheet of simple-looking illustrated instructions, but since I had never made real trousers before, they might as well have been in alien cryptoglyphs. So I relied heavily on step-by-step photo instructions from the Easy Guide to Sewing Pants and Sandra Betzina's Power Sewing.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? Overall I love it, but I realized after assembling the fly front that it's backwards--it faces the same way as the fly fronts on traditional men's pants, but most women's pants have it the other way.

Fabric:

• Trousers: Soft navy corduroy from the stash. I found it really tricky to cut in layers--it kept sticking to itself, so one leg came out longer than the other and I had to recut in single layers.
• Pockets and inner waistband: polka dot quilting scraps by Denyse Schmidt from the stash.

Notions: A 7" Coats & Clark zipper from Jo-Ann's (probably should have gone for something classier in retrospect), rayon seam binding, 1 1/2" wide elastic.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:

• I lengthened the legs by an inch or so, to a 32" inseam.
• Took the hips in by 2 inches, and the waist by 1 inch. I did this after basting the fashion fabric pants together, standing in front of a mirror and pinning out the excess at the side seams:
  
• Replaced the standard interfaced waistband with a hidden elastic waistband, following instructions from Power Sewing. The elastic is zig-zagged to the seam allowance of the waistband so it doesn't turn inside the casing. I didn't want them to LOOK like elastic-waist pants, so I kept the back darts. The elastic only pulls in the waistband slightly--maybe an inch or two all around--much as a belt would.
• Used rayon seam binding for the lower edge of the inner waistband, creating a little "curtain" as I've seen in most of my RTW pants/skirts:
  

Every part of the process was painful--I swear 90 percent of my time on these was spent poring over instructional photos, second-guessing myself, trying on the muslin and fashion fabric version repeatedly, squinting at the mirror, pinching the fabric here in there, sobbing, what have you... as opposed to actually sewing. It reminded me of the time I took a road trip around Southwest France, got lost every five minutes due to all the roundabouts, had to ask for directions in my rusty French--and eventually got there.

Because it all worked out and I have a feeling that my next pair of these will be smooth(er) sailing! Please don't tell me otherwise.

References Used:

• Sandra Betzina's Power Sewing
• The Easy Guide to Sewing Pants
• Pants for Real People
• David Page Coffin's Making Trousers for Men and Women

Successes:I MADE TROUSERS AND THEY ARE THE BEST MOST COMFORTABLE TROUSERS I OWN.

Room for improvement:

• Next time I may try a version in a lighter color with elastic only in the back (and petersham in the front), and some fun top-stitching.
• They should probably be a little snugger around the belly in the front.
• Maybe I'll try a wider contour waistband that goes all the way up to my natural waist.
• I'll use a better zipper, this one is a bit flimsy.
• But the main area I need to improve in is SPEED.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?

Yes and yes. After all this work, I'm hoping these will become a TNT pattern!

Wear to:Work. Weekend. Playground with my daughter. EVERYWHERE!

Conclusion: I made trousers and I am happy. And here they are at the end of the workday, a bit looser and saggier and wrinklier, but still AWESOME:

Good night all! May all your sewing projects go smoother than this one, but with just as happy results!

Stripes & Wales Trouser/Top Sketch + Measuring Misery

The lazy girl in me would totally wear this outfit every day if she could get away with it.

So I didn't even get to the muslin stage with my reckless wide-legged trousers last night. After little Z went to bed, I drew the above sketch, and broke out the Easy Guide to Sewing Pants, my Vogue trouser pattern and about a gazillion measuring tapes (including that fancy Myo-whatever one I read about on the Coletterie recently), rules and flexible curves.

Pants-measuring fun

The Easy Guide recommends getting a helper and doing a gazillion trillion measurements--waist, high hip, hip, crotch depth, crotch length, thigh, waist to knee, waist to floor (but not inseam? why, I wonder?) on yourself, and tying yourself up in so many pieces of elastic and masking tape you start to feel like a mummy. (My husband assisted with this process and found it highly amusing.)

Some of the measurements felt pretty careful and right on, but others relied on trying to use masking tape and elastic to visually guesstimate this that and the other, then sit on a table and hold the tape and do something or other.

By the end of it all I had some pretty reliable measurements (hip, high hip, waist), some questionable measurements (everything else), which I then tried to carefully compare to my pattern measurements. But since my pants pattern is a below-the-waist deal with a contour waistband, and the Easy Guide assumes you are making at-the-waist pants... my head started to hurt and I went to bed.

Busts and bellies I understand--I can do a full bust or belly adjustment like nobody's business. But crotch curves just confuse me. At least for now. I think I just need to muslin in a size 14 with lots of extra seam allowance and play around.

And a word on body image and taking measurements...

I'll also admit to finding the process of measuring myself for the first time after giving birth 18 months ago somewhat painful in other ways. I try really hard to cultivate a "I love my awesome body" attitude, and I know nothing feels more awesome than putting well-fitting comfortable clothes on your awesome body, whatever its awesome shape and awesome size. (Sometimes I accompany this inner mantra by reviewing photos of the lovely Christina Hendricks). And for that you need accurate numbers. Still, those numbers can hurt, which is why I only step on the scale at the doctor's office.

I actually found a comment I had left on Gertie's blog when I was still pregnant about how freeing it felt to not care about my waist size anymore, in which I noted that my pre-pregnant measurements were:

• bust: 38"
• high bust 33"
• waist: 28"
• hip: 38"

So I generally sewed a 12 or 14 in patterns and did a big FBA, depending on the style.

But now my new totally accurate no-sucking-it-in post-preggo measurements say:

• bust: 38.5" (still nursing, by the way, so this may change)
• high bust 34.5-35" (can't quite tell here for some reason)
• waist: 29"
• hip: 38.5"

Which I guess puts me at a 14 in most dresses and tops or maybe sometimes 16 or something in bottoms, depending? I'll have to try and see what works. Whatever, I'm totally cool and fine and it's really silly to look back at notes from my college sewing days and feel wistful (a 26" waist!? WHO CARES.)

P.S. I realize that to properly channel my 40s Sears-Catalog inspiration for my planned outfit, I need to tuck the top in. But I don't really like to do that, so whatever.

P.P.S. I made (a heavily modified version of) that Burda top already when I was pregnant, but not in stripes, so I can try that on to see what needs to be adjusted...

P.P.P.S. My husband reminds me that I have a ready-to-wear top a lot like the Burda one I want to make (shown below)... so maybe it WON'T be the next thing I sew after my trousers.

Anyway... boo to feeling bad about measurements. Numbers, schmumbers. Let's get sewing. Muslin tonight, hopefully.

How to Avert Pants-Sewing Disaster?

(Alternate headline: "Sewing Pants: Why the Frak Not?"

Trouser Love by m1khaela featuring tall pants

Readers, I feel like the powers of the sewing universe are sending me a message: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FIT PANTS.

The evidence? I recently came across blog posts by not one, but TWO amazing seamstresses who can sew anything from boned evening dresses to tailored jackets but who claim to hate making pants, or at the very least, find fitting pants weird. And when I picked up a book that ostensibly should HELP me sew pants, David Page Coffin's Making Trousers... I found myself advised that the only real way to get a properly fitting pants pattern is to pay a wise expert master tailor to draft one for me. In other words: MIKHAELA, DO NOT SEW PANTS THEY WILL MAKE YOU CRY.

I'm going to ignore that message. Because now that I've finished two super-easy toddler dresses that didn't require one whit of adjustment... I'm ready to make myself miserable with endless rounds of fitting and muslining again.

And what could be more painful than fitting pants? I hear pants alterations can make even the most advanced seamstresses/seamsters weep and/or fume. But I'm hoping that with careful planning and prep work--and a little pattern selection help from you all--I can turn out a pair of trousers pleasing to the eye and comfortable to the tush.

Please don't laugh. I find this delusion comforting.

Sewing Pants: A Retrospective in One Attempt

I remember well the first (and only) pair of pants I ever made. It was 1999, and I was 19. I picked up some "easy-to-sew" pull-on pants pattern at Jo-ann's, along with some checked poly-cotton mystery fabric. I couldn't believe how easy they were to sew--a few hours later, I was pulling them on, pockets and all. And I couldn't believe how comfortable they were.

I also couldn't believe how ridiculous they looked. The crotch was halfway to my knees, and the bunched up poofy fabric billowing out from the elastic waist was far from flattering.

I've been running from pants sewing ever since. I didn't make (and barely owned) a single pair while pregnant.

Why Pants--and Why Now:

But my former identity as a skirt girl has taken a hit. Nine months ago I made a very happy career change to the non-profit world, and my new office is so casual that most people wear jeans four days out of five.

As do I. Except there's no such thing as a pair of ready-to-wear denim trousers that fit me, so I'm always tugging/cursing at the few semi-acceptable pairs I own. Any pants that fit my waist sag and bag emphatically below the rear and they're never high-waisted enough (I despise a low rise.)

So how much worse could me-made pants be? (I'm serious!) If I could wind up with "failed" trousers like Liza Jane's... I'd be more than happy.

Going for Corduroy

For fabric, I don't have much in the stash with enough yardage. I could go with some proper trousery drapey pin-striped gray wool suiting, but I'm feeling some dark blue corduroy I picked up in high school:

BUT--HELP--WHICH PANTS PATTERN?!

So now that I'm in a mental pants-making space... WHICH PANTS? I'm strictly a trouser girl--I like semi-fitted hips and waist, and a wide leg. The kind of pants that are sometimes called slacks, and which Casey seems to sew a lot of beautiful versions of. Slim or skinny pants are out of the question.

I cut this been-in-my-stash-since-college Vogue Elements 9745 pattern out last night in a 16 (though might cut it down to 14 after flat measuring it, to prevent excess bagginess):

No reviews on Pattern Review, but lsaspacey tells me she made them before and they turned out great.

Still, I keep reading everywhere that somehow American patterns have bad crotch curves, whatever that means, and that somehow, European crotches are just superior. So alternatively, I could trace Burda Style magazine 2-2010 102B:

But are American crotches REALLY that crazy? Can't they be altered to fit like anything else? What am I missing here? I really like the style and shape of the Vogue pattern better. If I can get it to fit, it could make a great basic Mikhaela pants pattern for tweaking and playing with.

The Pants Planning Arsenal.

I'm not going into this endeavor randomly. In typical Mikhaela fashion, I own far more books dedicated to the making of pants than I do pairs of me-made pants--three more, to be precise. I've armed myself with:

• The Sewing Companion Library's The Easy Guide to Sewing Pants. I think I own every book in this series (on jackets, tops, linings, you name it)... this one is by far the longest, and is full of great advice and fitting tips.
• Palmer/Pletsch's Pants for Real People. Also full of wonderful fitting information, but I'll be making a muslin, thank you very much--I'm allergic to tissue fitting.
• The above-mentioned David Page Coffin's Making Trousers. Got this a while ago and reread it at lunch yesterday. It's full of wonderful tips about making beautifully constructed trousers... but it's probably the least helpful for my project, as it's all about the subtle details, not fit, style or fabric. In fact, as mentioned above, Coffin suggests that the only way to get properly fitting pants is to pay a master tailor to custom draft them for you from scratch. OK, then. But I do like his advice on using petersham ribbon for the waistbands--love that stuff.
• Sandra Betzina's Power Sewing has lots of good pants tips.
• This pants fitting tip on PatternReview seems pretty handy, I THINK--I'm still confused by the difference between crotch length, width, and depth...
• The Coletterie has pants fitting tips galore, of course.

So that's that. I'm going to do it, and nothing is going to scare me from the attempt. I'm going to measure myself and adjust that pattern tonight after toddler bedtime.

So tell me: do you just love making awesome-fitting pants? Are Burda pants really better?

Perfect Pattern Tracing Paper: A Love Story

It's a story as old as time itself: girl meets perfect pattern tracing material, girl loses perfect pattern tracing material, girl tries to find solace in arms of one substandard flimsy scratchy hard-to-write-on tracing material after another... girl finds perfect pattern tracing material and sews happily ever after!

They (and by "they" I mean Carolyn in a recent blog post, but she sparked quite a discussion!) say that some seamstresses/seamsters are Cutters and some are Tracers.

Well, once upon a time I was a Cutter. I'd buy a pattern, cut a size 12 or 14, make any adjustments directly to the delicate tissue, and hope it worked out. Sometimes it did...

And sometimes it didn't, as with the New Look faux wrap dress that turned out four sizes too big. But alas! The pattern was cut and there was no going back to try a smaller size. If I wanted to try it again... I'd have to buy it again.

Living in NYC, nowhere near those $1.99 pattern sales, this was no small expense.

Then there's the magazine formerly known as Burda World of Fashion--tracing is NOT optional. So I was a subscriber from 2005 to 2007—and never MADE A SINGLE THING. And so, during my Knitting Years, I sold all my back issues on Ebay.

All due to an irrational fear of tracing.

I did flirt here and there with various materials, based on tips gleaned from the PatternReview message boards: regular wrapping tissue paper, newsprint, multipurpose printer paper, sketch paper, artist's tracing paper. I even ordered some mysterious "Pattern Tracing Material" from Nancy's Notions. But they were all either too flimsy or too thick, too opaque or too transparent, or the sheets were just too tiny to trace an entire pattern in one piece. It was a serious Goldilocks situation.

And then Everything Changed. I took a fabulous beginning serger class this January ("Sweating With Your Serger" at Sew Right) to learn how to use my grandmother's neglected Kenmore. And we were required to purchase and use some pattern tracing material. So along with my hideous (if highly educational) sweatshirt and my serger, I found my pregnant self lugging home a giant roll of 45" wide pattern tracing material on the hour-and-a-half subway/bus combo ride home to Brooklyn.

It was love at first trace. This stuff was perfect--easy and smooth to write on, just stiff enough, just soft enough, just see-through enough. Pretty soon I was tracing EVERYTHING--vintage patterns, BurdaStyle magazine patterns, Jalie and Kwik Sew patterns, baby patterns... I was a tracing maniac! And if I ever made a mistake or wanted to trace another size when I got back to my pre-pregnancy weight or wanted to use a pattern again for Cartoonist Baby as she grew... NO PROBLEM.

Now the idea of cutting directly into a precious pattern (or, horrors, tissue fitting!) gave me the cold sweats.

But let's get to the point--one day, my perfect pattern tracing material ran out, and I realized I had lost the label and had no idea what is was called — Cut-A-Pattern? Trace-A-Pattern? I couldn't make it back to the middle of Queens in my now more delicate condition and Sew Right couldn't ship it to me. I went back to using random bits of typing paper. I even ordered a big roll of "Do-Sew" from Nancy's Notions, but found it scratchy, flimsy and nearly impossibly to write on.

... so I asked on the PatternReview message boards and someone told me the stuff was called Bosal Create-A-Pattern and I ordered a 10-yard roll for $17.99 plus shipping from Vogue Fabrics (they call it Pattern Tracing Interfacing) and now my life is complete and this blog post is nearly over!

Of course, this is just what works for me. Others swear by sewer paper (sewer as in plumbing, not sewing). Gertie likes Swedish tracing paper. The Fit For Real People folks hawk something they call "Perfect Pattern Paper" and Kwik Sew sells "KwikTrace" gridded material. And I do have non-transparent paper with gridded lines on it for making patterns from scratch, though I never actually use it. But now that I've found my lost Pattern Tracing Material love again, I think we'll be in a long-term relationship... no wandering eyes for me!

P.S. Just in case it's not obvious, I am not in any way affiliated with this or any other sewing-related company! But in case you need to identify this stuff by sight, here's what it looks like (it also comes on interfacing-like bolts):

P.P.S. Are you afraid of tracing? Or do you have a tracing material love of your own? Or better yet--do you know anywhere I can buy this stuff in Manhattan or Brooklyn and avoid the shipping costs?