The weekend saw only one muslin completed.  Sunday the sofa kept calling my name and I couldn’t work up the energy to trace the Jalie pants.

When I saw this I was certainly glad I didn’t go straight from the tissue fit to fabric.  Now I can alter!

So here’s what I think about the fit of this muslin:

1. The sleeves are too long.   Weird.  That never happens!
2. The back panels must be widened below the waist to allow the jacket to hang smoothly over my back side.  Even now it’s not slit high enough to allow it to fit where it should.  I need a teensy bit  more fabric over the tum, too.
3. The shoulders are too long, and I need to take out about 1/2″–especially on my left shoulder.  I was amazed how pinning some excess out eliminated many of my  back wrinkles.  I might try a thin shoulder pad on my right shoulder to see if I can eliminate a few more.
4. The waist is still about 1/4″ too low.  I don’t know if I’ll shorten it any more or not.

I wish I could stand behind myself and adjust…

Everything I read says to shorten the shoulder seam at the shoulder princess seamline.  It makes sense from the standpoint of keeping that vertical seam in the center of your shoulder.  OTOH, it seems as it if would act like a dart.  I guess that’s why I made a muslin–so I can try it on an old bed sheet.

Tags: McCall's, McCall's M6041

Like almost every other blogger I follow who has access to patterns for 99¢, I got myself a copy of McCall’s 6041 a few weeks ago. It’s a little Chanel-style jacket that’s just begging me to sew up some of my jacket fabrics.

Now a collarless jacket is not something I normally wear, but the thing is just cute!!  Though it’s missing my preferred lapel, it does have a number of things I like in a jacket, like lining, two piece sleeve, and shoulder princess seams.  There’s even a separate pattern piece for the back lining.  The other pieces have a “cut here for lining” indication.

The thing that almost made me not buy the pattern, however, was that A/B, C, and D cup sizing.  I’m never sure which size to use on those, because *blush* I hadn’t read the instructions.

This time I read the instructions.

They say to measure your high bust, then your full bust.  OK.  That would be 34 1/2″ and 37 1/2″.  Choose by high bust (size 12) and with a 3-inch difference, use the C-cup front.  Easy enough.  You’ve just got to read the directions…  <<sigh>>

When tracing, I forgot to swing out to the 14 below the waist, so I had to go back (after these photos) and add width at the side seams.  I also shortened the back waist 1/2″.  Something told me not to go straight to fabric, so I’m working on a muslin now.

There’s another pattern I’d like to get traced and “muslined” this weekend, and that’s Jalie #2909, Women’s Classic Trousers (classic? snort).  I’ll let you know how that goes.

Tags: McCall's, McCall's M6041

Pattern Review is doing it.  I’m gonna do it.  I cannot call the Burda pattern magazine “Burda Style.”  I just can’t.  It’s too confusing, what with the site of the same name offering the downloadable patterns.  (I’ve also seen it called other names less flattering, but this is a family-safe blog… )

I’ll just call it Burda Magazine.

So that’s settled.

I’d been needing a zip-front jacket to wear to, where else?, CURVES.  It seems like many of my wardrobe additions these days are meant to make my visits to CURVES more expedient.

… But I digress.

January’s Burda Magazine offered a knit jacket that fit the bill perfectly.  It had the nice shoulder princess seams that work so well for me, plus a collar that could be zipped up to cover my neck as I hurry from the car to the gym door.  Here’s a link to it on the French language archive:

http://www.burdafashion.com/fr/Magazines/Archives_des_magazines/105_A_Sweater/1270777-1463237-1760794-1760976-1760984.html

I’ve made it twice now.  The first time I used my normal 38-42-40 blend of sizes, and it was a bit too large–even in Sophia.  This piece of Sophia was a Fabrics and Notions Dungeon sale leftover.   The light color really shows the sags and drags.

But it’s a throw-on knit jacket, so I’m not complaining.

I had a big problem getting the hemline even on this.  I don’t know if I was tracing with one hand behind my back or what, but the bottoms of all the pieces came out curved, and not in a good way.  I had to cut off quite a bit of my hem to get it even all round.

Since I can’t let well enough alone, and I needed *2* of these (I really did!), I altered the pattern and made it again.  This time my pattern was more of a 38/40 blend and I aligned my pattern pieces on my gridded cutting mat and straightened the bottoms before I began.  The fabric is a Juicy Couture bit from a recent Fabrics and Notions coop.  It’s a stretch terry–I don’t remember what Ressy called it.

The fit is a lot better, but the fabric is much less snappy and it still looks too big on the shoulders.  It may have stretched out when I set in the sleeves.  It’s been through the wash, so I’m hoping that the shoulders will be better when I wear it next.

Tags: Burda Magazine 1/10 #105, Burda Pattern Magazine

Six projects this month! Yay! I’ve done a few more small things:  adult bibs,  hemming an altar cloth, and I finally got around to replacing the flounces on my Ottobre Roll neck top with cuffs.  For this month I’m hoping to work on an outfit to wear to a Greek Festival/Dinner on February 13–don’t know what that will be exactly.  I’m thinking a sheath and some sort of jacket, but we’ll see.  If I don’t get to do it, I’m sure I’ll find something in my closet that’ll work.  At any rate, here are my six for January:

Ottobre Jazz Pants: This was the pair I made on January 1st. I’ve worn each of these to Curves at least once a week this month. It helps me to get in the mood to exercise when I have the right stuff to wear.

Two warm caps

Burda Pajamas from the 11/2009 issue: Love these!

McCall’s 6046 bag.

Burda Magazine 1/10 #105 Knit jacket #1. You haven’t see this or the next one yet. They were so quick that I didn’t have a chance to blog about them before the month ran out. I’ll tell you more about them tomorrow or the next day.

Burda Magazine 1/10 #105 Knit jacket #2

No tag for this post.

All finished! I think it turned out quite nicely.

The only issue I had with it was the little covers that hid the joining of the handle to the bag.  The pattern pieces were too small for my faux leather.  In the end, I re-cut them to about 2.75″ x 2.5″ to make them to large enough to accomplish their purpose.  Also,  the pattern directs you to turn and finger press the top and bottom edges of the covers.

That might work in a nice cooperative cotton, but not on this synthetic leather.

I used Fabri-Tac to glue them down and clothespins to encourage them while the glue took hold.

That worked.

And I added my usual key clip on the left side next to the cell phone pocket.  I’m certain that my habit of clipping my keys there every time I remove them from the car ignition saves me countless hours of hunting my car keys, not to mention the indignity of locking them in my car.  (I’m also in the habit of never locking my car unless I use the remote–clipped in my purse first!)

Now I must tell you the bag is large–much larger than my wonderful Carol’s Purse(s).  When the envelope stated that the bag was 9×11″, they failed to note that it’s about 5 inches across the bottom and bulges out to about 8″ at its widest point.  Even so, I’m carrying it comfortably.  I can even get a few things of the Mr’s in there if I need to.

I’ve put up a review of the pattern, which may or may not have more information… 

Tags: Bags, McCall's, McCall's 6046