Skip to main content

How Fitting

Ever since I read this post by Sue over at Sew Misunderstood, I knew I absolutely had to make my own fitting pattern. This would solve all of my problems and would end my getting discouraged about how nothing ever fits my chest. It was late at night so I hurriedly ordered the pattern on Amazon and anxiously awaited it's arrival. And then it sat in my pattern collection, untouched because I still felt that I was missing some key information that would make the fitting process go smoothly.



I should admit that at the time I bought the Butterick pattern B5628, I already owned at least 3 different books on fitting. Each time I purchased one of these books, I would devour the book. I read each one multiple times and then I would attempt to make a pattern. Let's just say that they did not go over too well. Then I would get discouraged and feel like I needed to avoid sewing until I could figure out what I was doing wrong.

Then I found two Craftsy classes that gave me hope again. The first one was Plus Size Pattern Fitting & Design by Barbara Deckert who is the author of Sewing For Plus Sizes. I love her class and I learned a lot about how to fit plus sizes and why patterns don't typically fit plus sizes. I even picked up her book from the library and read it to learn more. The second class is by Joi Mahon titled Fast Track Fitting. I just watched her entire class this evening. I learned tons of new things about how to fit sleeves, which I have been struggling with for quite awhile.

I had my husband help me remeasure myself using both Barbara Deckert's class materials as well as Joi Mahon's. I'm going to try Joi's method and see if I can get myself a pattern that fits. I hope to get something to try on before I have to go back to school on Tuesday. I really want to be able to make some new clothes for myself in the style that I want to wear.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dewey Decimal System

If there is one thing as a little girl that I wanted more than anything from a Disney movie was the library from the Beast's castle. The sight of all those books and the information that was just waiting for me to open the cover is still with me to this day. To put things into perspective here, I typically read a book a day... sometimes more if it is on the weekend. Even as a technophile, I still love my books and collect books for my hobbies. Maybe someday if I can have a table sized screen where I can do multiple tasks at once while working on a costume, I might change my mind. For now, I do research online but most still comes from books that I either purchase or get from the library. I wanted to share some of the books that I am using currently for historic costuming and general sewing references. As a friend recently pointed out to me, there are people who would like to take up sewing but don't know where to start. I'm lucky in that I was taught sewing at a young ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ottoman Empire Gomlek

I recently started joining the local Society for Creative Anarchism (SCA) group to meet up with like-minded individuals interested in historic costumes and research. There is an upcoming event with a middle eastern theme and I have nothing to wear! So of course that meant frantic research into what middle eastern costume I wanted to make, draft the patterns and begin work. I finally settled on Ottoman Empire (Turkish) costume consisting of shalwar, gomlek, entari and caftan. I did quick and dirty research and The documentation that I found the most helpful are the following: https://serenesabiha.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/aripattern.pdf http://baronyofatenveldt.org/uploads/library/Ottoman%20Coat%20Handout%202011.pdf http://www.katjaorlova.com/FemaleTurkishGarb.pdf Linen gomlek before the added neckline facing. The first link has a great measurement chart that is helpful for keeping documentation of your measurements. I used the gomlek (or women's shirt) pattern and fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Progress On The Handmade Smock

Making an entire garment by hand as a first project after I completed this last semester is definitely ambitious. I have the utmost respect for the men and women who made clothing by hand and those who still make a living making clothes for others. It takes lots of time and after a few hours there is not really a comfortable position to sit in and still do the work. As I stated in previous posts, I am learning new things by taking the time to do this by hand. I am learning how to work with linen which is a very slippery fabric! When I queried the Elizabethan Costuming group on Facebook, they quickly responded with many helpful suggestion for dealing with linen and keeping it still so that it could be cut straight. I am trying to work up to using the cut thread method. Something within me just cannot quite wrap my mind around cutting a thread in my fabric and drawing it out to make a straight line. I understand the process, I just need to practice it. I did end up pining the linen t...
Post a Comment
Read more