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Interfacing Musings

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Have you read what Kathleen Fasanella has to say about interfacing? It reminds me of what I heard Peggy Sager say about it at the Sewing Expo once and both confirm my own opinion: All the expensive interfacings that are hawked by various people who *sell* the expensive interfacings are not necessary for everyday sewing. And, having 14 different types of interfacings hanging around your sewing room is a waste of space and money.

Perhaps if I used $50/yard fabric, I'd be willing to put in $10/yard interfacing. But not for most of my stuff, and only if it made a *huge* difference, which I seriously doubt.

I like to get both black and white So-sheer, or Fusi-knit if I can't get So-sheer, and use it for everything. When I first get home with my 5 or 10 yards, I cut a yard or two into 2-inch strips along the lengthwise grain. Be sure you don't cut them crossgrain and stretchy--that defeats their purpose in most cases. The strips remain rolled, ready when I need them.

The strips are useful in many ways:

1. Hems. I nearly always use a strip of interfacing along the hem of any garment I sew. Sandra B has you put it on the wrong side, starting along the hem's foldline and going upward. This gives you a layer in which to anchor your hem stitches. (Remember to put it in before you finish or sew the seam.)
2. Along the area of the garment that will support a zipper--I might cut the strip in half lengthwise in this case. Might.
3. On the back side of a fly facing, or extension--trim the strip to fit the rounded part.
4. Waistbands--most of the time 2 inches is wide enough. Standardize.
5. Pocket openings
6. Any straight place that needs a little support. You'll know it when you see it!

Painting over the clouds

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

The Sprout helped out with the work on the room last Friday. Here she's removing outlet covers. After that, we spackled all the holes we could find, then sanded, trying to smooth all the edges of the clouds. You can see that there were plenty:

We got a coat of primer over all before we stopped on Friday. Since you could still see the clouds, I'm getting more primer up as time permits before I start on the painting proper.

If your child asks for sky blue walls with puffy clouds, just say "No."

It's OK.

Finished Loden Slacks

Monday, November 28, 2005

Title: Loden Tapered Slacks
Fabric: Polyester-rayon gabardine
Button: From stash
Interfacing: So-sheer in black

Never let it be said that I don't show you the good, the bad, and the ugly of my projects! Suffice it to say that I did not try these on in time to realize the ease (or lack of) issues, and I'm not taking them apart now.

I'm wearing them as I type, and I can tell you that letting them out to accommodate the fluff would not be worth the effort. These are standing up pants. Once I shed the Thanksgiving fluff, I might wear them again, but not for work where I sit most of the time!

To sit, you need roomy pants. There's definitely not enough Crotch Extension (CE) in these. Lengthening the Crotch Depth (CD) to suit coach made for a nice looking muslin, but ultimately the truth is in the sitting!

The front is about 1/2" too long, too, and pulls when I walk.

This was a test. I knew that, but I always think that this time the pants will be perfect--the same way that I used to think a new pattern was the trick. Truth be told, it is the alterations that are the trick! I do like the fact that I did not have to scoop the back at all when I sewed, so that's a good thing.

Next time I'm definitely making some adjustments, keeping most of the length but adding CE. I'll have to give it some thought to decide exactly how much and whether to add to front or back, though.

• Garment Type= Pants
• Style= Slacks
• Waistline=Waistband
• Darts= Darts
• Front Waist Dart= 1
• Back Waist Dart= 2
• Closure=Front Zipper
• Leg Style= Tapered
• Front Crotch Curve=Round
• Back Crotch Curve=Round
• Inseam Length=30
• Hem Circumference=18
• Waistband Width=1.25
• Knee Width=0
• Front Dart Length=3.5

• Back Dart Length=5
• Front Dart Position=3.5
• Back Dart Position=3.5
• Sideseam Movement=0
• Center Front Waist Drop=0
• Center Back Waist Drop=0
• Sideseam Waist Drop=0.25
• Front Crotch Extension=0
• Back Crotch Extension=0
• Front Crotch Break=0
• Back Crotch Break=0
• Hip Shape=0
• Low Waist Circumference=27.5
• Waist Ease= 0.5
• Hip Ease= 2
• Crotch Ease=.25

I added the front pockets from a commercial pattern, since I despise the ones that PMB drafts. They aren't shaped right and have corners on them. This method works fine. I just shaped the side seams to match the PMB pants, and away I go.

The back single welt pockets are there to keep me in practice for DH's pants. I now understand the "math" behind these, so I don't anticipate problems when I decide to work on some for DH again.

Finally, I used the fly from the Reader's Digest sewing book. It works out fairly well, although my seam allowance, at 3/8 inch was too skimpy.

Day after sewing

Friday, November 25, 2005

For Thanksgiving, I celebrated twice! First at a family reunion that has been going on since the 1950s, where I was able to hand-deliver the top I had made for Mom. Thankfully it fit great, and she liked it a lot. I got some ideas for the next one, and am all set to go.

After the reunion, we traveled to DMIL's house to have Thanksgiving dinner there. Not that we needed another bite, but you know how feasting goes! Happily, it was not turkey but a delicious beef tenderloin that my BIL offered us. He apparently loves to cook, as he often brings in some unusual bit that we were not expecting.

Today I'm hoping to spend a few minutes on my loden pants, which, as you may recall, are based on my latest PMB pants sloper. As of the October update, PMB's coach wants your crotch length (CL) measurement and will suggest a crotch depth (CD).

You measure the crotch length from your waistline in front, between the legs and up to the waistline in back. If you measure your pattern, and the seamline along this area isn't as long as your crotch length, you've gotta fix it or you'll get a distinct wedgie on the finished pants.

But how best to fix it? I've been using a combination of increasing the crotch extensions on the inner pants leg pieces, and scooping the back crotch seam. Both of these make the pattern's crotch length longer, but not necessarily the crotch depth.

To measure the crotch depth, you have the fit-ee sit on a hard surface with her waistline marked with a string or elastic. Then, you measure up from the hard surface to the waistline and record that measurement. As you can imagine, this is not a particularly helpful measurement as any fluff that you might have sort of squishes into invisibility.

I can assure you that your fluff will magically reappear when you stand up, and your pants will have to cover the fluff.

Coach somehow uses the CL to predict (pretty accurately it seems) a CD measurement plus fluff. Plenty of ladies on the PMB forum have said that they are now getting much better pants with this new update. Coach suggested that I increase my own CD measurement about an inch, and my last fitting test was surprisingly good.

I'll let you know how the new pants turn out.

When I'm not playing with my new pants, I'll be working on painting the bedroom formerly know as the Sprout's. We last painted it when she was 13. Presently, it is sky blue with puffy white cottonball clouds all over the walls and ceiling. Before long (or after long), it will be Jekyll Island Clubhouse Yellow with a white ceiling.

Sound like fun????

Gobble, gobble!

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's a decoration that I remember making as a child, except that we drew around our hand to make the turkey's tail. http://www.creativekidsathome.com/activities/activity_11.shtml.

Knitting Talk

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

I saw a cute signature on someone's MD list email a day or two ago: "Life's too short to knit with ugly yarn." Truer words have ne'er been spoken.

Generally I equate "ugly yarn" with "Wal*M@rt yarn". Generally.

The scratchy, plastic stuff is just murder on your hands. When I made my first multidirectional scarf, the scratchy plastic yarn sliding across my "tensioning" finger nearly wore a groove there. Texture and hand is one kind of ugly and usually the kind of ugly that drives me away.

Visually, though, the cheap acrylic yarns are often quite pretty. A case in point, the Sprout loved the finished MD scarf and wears it a lot. At the ASG chapter meeting, I spied this shawl on the back of a friend and she very kindly posed for photos:

This shawl, I learned, was made from Red Heart yarn. Wow. It felt nice and looked very pretty. This shawl is from Myrna Stahman's Stahman's Shawls and Scarves and looks like entrelac from a distance, although it is simply a block of knit followed by a block of purl.

The book is on its way via interlibrary loan. I may even peruse the Red Heart rack at the Wal*M@rt.

Bathrobe Chic(k) Cardigan

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Title: Bathrobe Chic(k) Cardigan
Fabric: Charcoal Sweaterknit fleece from Ressy's co-op
Buttons: Stash

My second garment of the weekend was this Bathrobe- or Kimono-style cardigan. It's the warmest, yummiest thing!

The fabrics is what really makes this so fantastic. It's a sweaterknit fleece that I got sometime earlier from the Fabrics and Notions Co-op on Yahoo! Groups. I love it, and there's enough left to make something else. Yay!

The double-breasted style needed something to keep the front in place. I wanted to leave off the buttons, but it just bothered me too much hanging down in front.

I tried to add a tie belt, but that didn't suit either.

The cardigan is short and I am on the short-ish side of average with a short waist. Adding a round tie belt just didn't look right. Plus, I learned with my brown linen SWAP jacket that I cannot leave the ties alone. I always want to spin them when I walk down the hall, unless my hands are full of something else. Spinning the ends of your tie belt does not contribute to the dignified image that I would prefer to create at work!

Buttons had to be put on, despite the fact that I knew buttonholes would be difficult on this fabric. In the end, I used the stretch buttonhole on my Bernina, and no two are the same size. The fleece is so thick that the automatic buttonhole foot, which would have made 4 buttonholes of the same size, wouldn't feed the fabric. I had to "eyeball it" and I am not good at that. I can never see my markings well enough to get it lined up perfectly. Thread tracing might help. Perhaps I'll remember that *next time*.

My inspiration for this cardigan was a dolman sweater at Anthropologie that is no longer on their site. Mine doesn't look much like the original, but that doesn't matter to me.

I drafted the garment from PMB's Kimono draft. When I got ready to cut it, the fabric was not quite wide enough to lay the large pieces in the direction I had chosen without wasting a lot. I decided to cut off the sleeves and make a separate sleeve pattern piece. Although this puts what appears to be a shoulder seam halfway down my arm, I don't really mind it. I sewed that seam very carefully so that I didn't stretch it and cause ripples.

When it came time to cut the collar, I decided to turn the fleecy side out. So far I love the look. I hope it washes well. I also decided on a similar treatment for the sleeve hems. When I cut the separate sleeve, I lengthened it enough to roll the cuff back. The cuffs won't stay in place on their own, so I tacked them where I wanted them.

The garment hem was a chore. I tried a blind hem, but the fabric is so thick that the hemstitches would only catch the fleece and would pull right out. Next I tried a double needle stitch, but that method put too much of a horizontal line across my hip. If I had not been using fleece, I would have fused it, but this stuff melts and I was afraid the fusing wouldn't hold. Finally I just used a catch stitch hem. It shows, but I'm reserving judgement for a while.

• Garment Type= Jacket
• Style= Kimono Jacket
• Closure= Double Breasted
• Front Neckline= Shawl
• Back Neckline= Jewel
• Darts= Waist
• Upper Back Dart= No Darts
• Sideseam shape= Fitted
• Center Back Style= Straight
• Front Waist Darts=2
• Back Waist Darts=2
• Button Size=0.5
• Number of Buttons= 5
• Front Neckline Depth= 14
• Back Neckline Depth= 0.375
• Neckline Width= 0.5
• Neckline Point= 0
• Armhole Depth= 0.5
• Dart Override=0
• Side/Arm Point=-0.5
• Side/Hip Point=-0.5
• CF/Extension=0
• Cb/Extension=0
• Shoulder Pad=0
• Finished Length= 24
• Flare= 0

• Upper Back Dart Length=1
• Lower Front Dart Length=4.5
• Lower Back Dart Length=4.5
• Back Shoulder Dart Length=3
• Sleeve Style=Kimono
• Sleeve Cap Ease=0
• Sleeve Length=23.5
• Sleeve Hem Circumference=13
• Sleeve Cap Height= -0.75
• Back Armhole Shape Up=0.8 Clicks
• Collar Style= Shawl
• Collar Width=4
• Shawl Collar Type=Standard
• Shawl Notch Type=Straight
• Chest Ease= 4.5
• Waist Ease= 4.5
• Hip Ease= 5

• Rounded the underarm seam to a pleasing arc

Green Striped Shirt Finished

Monday, November 21, 2005

Title: Never Say Never Shirt
Fabric: Stretch cotton woven shirting

Finished and worn! I was a bit stumped on the buttons for this shirt. Plain white seemed wrong for such a snazzy shirt. As I was putting my button collection away, I found a whole card of 3/8" gray buttons. Perfect!

You may recall that this draft was exactly the same as my white shirt, except that I didn't do as much work in PE. In fact, I re-used all the parts of the white shirt except the torso.

Of course I had to cut the yoke off and do those parts again, but that wasn't any big deal. Mainly it involved placing the new draft over the old and marking where to cut it off then putting on seam allowance.

One of these days I want to learn to use varying seam allowances as discussed in the new Threads. It will require an index card taped above the 'puter and the sewing 'puter (as my Bernina refers to itself in the manual) to get me going with that, though. (Where'd I put those index cards???)

• Garment Type= Blouse
• Style= Classic Blouse
• Closure= Single Breasted
• Front Neckline= Jewel
• Back Neckline= Jewel
• Yoke= No Yoke
• Hemline Shape= Curved
• Darts= Side
• Upper Back Dart= Shoulder
• Sideseam shape= Fitted
• Front Waist Darts=2
• Back Waist Darts=2
• Front Neckline Depth= 0.5
• Back Neckline Depth= 0
• Neckline Width= 0.25
• Neckline Point= 0
• Armhole Depth= 0.5
• Dart Override=0
• Side/Arm Point=-0.5
• Side/Hip Point=-0.5

• Upper Back Dart Length=1
• Lower Front Dart Length=4.5
• Lower Back Dart Length=4.5
• Back Shoulder Dart Length=3
• Sleeve Style= Set In
• Sleeve Underarm Seam= Tapered
• Sleeve Hemline Shape=Pleated
• Sleeve Cap Ease=1.21
• Sleeve Length=22.5
• Sleeve Hem Circumference=8.5
• Sleeve Cap Height= -0.75
• Back Armhole Shape Up=0.8 Clicks
• Collar Style= Dress Shirt
• Collar Width=2
• Chest Ease= 3.5
• Waist Ease= 2.5
• Hip Ease= 4

I actually did all of this with the white shirt, I just repeated them here for future reference:

• Cut off 1.25" from the front shoulder and added it to the back.
• Cut off a yoke 4.5" from neckline at CB
• Rotated back shoulder dart to seamline
• Mirrored the collar and stand to create a "whole"
• Created the Express Collar from the regular collar pattern
• Smoothed the arc of the yoke piece

I love, love, love this shirt. Perhaps one day some nice non-stretch shirting will come my way and I can make it again.

Green Striped Shirt sans sleeves

Friday, November 18, 2005

Brunhilde is liking the new shirt a lot. I haven't actually tried it on myself, so I have to take her word for it. All that is left are sleeves, buttons, and buttonholes.

I've started using a popular method for putting the collars and stands on--the one espoused by Sandra B in her book Power Sewing Step-By-Step. Lots of people in the internet sewing community use that method, and I'm starting to like it.

This method seems a little less prone to mistakes than the method I was using from either David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking or the Singer Sewing Reference Library's Sewing for Style. That one has you cutting into the seam allowance just before you finish. Mary Ray said something at our ASG program last year that I won't forget. It was something like, "Until you cut, you can go back."

Very true.

I am able to get good results from the DPC method, though, and it is the method I've used for my shirts up until I made the first collared Vee shirt. I don't think I'll go back, but it's nice to know that I have two usable collar and stand methods in my repertoire. I wonder how the shirt manufacturers do it?

Green Striped Shirt

Thursday, November 17, 2005

I've decided to call the new green striped shirt my "Never Say Never" shirt. Why? Every time I own a garment made from a lycra blend fabric I say "never again!" Here I sit, sewing with another stretch shirting.

Not that the sewing is bad, they sew up fine and look nice. Shrinkage is the problem. I've heard plenty of "experts" say that it shouldn't be a problem with lycra blends--they imply that it is cheap fabric and that their stretch fabric won't shrink more than any other quality fabric. I keep hoping they'll be right on the next garment.

So far, no. It may be a particular problem with cotton lycra blends--which is mostly what I've tried, but all have had the same problem. (Yes, I do pre-wash and dry, usually twice.)

The things I've made from cotton-lycra blends have shrunk and shrunk and shrunk and shrunk some more. Pants legs which started at my shoe heel will be 5 inches off the floor before I toss them.

Primarily my shrinkage problem has been contained in the lengthwise grain. That means that any pattern piece I cut on the lengthwise grain will shrink the most. So, my pants get shorter and my waistband gets shorter, too--yikes!

My last shirt cut from cotton-lycra--a blue stripe--started gaping at the bust--crosswise grain shrinkage. I didn't notice it shrinking lengthwise, but there was little length to worry about, since the sleeves were 3/4 length and the hem seemed about the same.

I'll just have to wait and see on this new shirt. It has a larger overlap at the center front, the sleeves are nice and long, and the hem shouldn't be a problem. Maybe my bases are covered. As soon as I'm done sewing, let the shrinking begin!

{{Shrug}}

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Threads "Quick to Make" had a little shrug in it a few months ago--it was the issue with the pincushion on it. There was a pattern with three variations, and I just turned the page.

Shrug, schmug. Those are for teenagers and 20-somethings. Don't want one.

Of course, whenever I summarily dismiss something it will come back to bite me. I saw the garment on a real woman in person over the weekend.

Cute cute cute and CUTE!

This was a short, thin lady who is probably in her late, late thirties, and the shrug looked like a million dollars! She said that she had lengthened the sleeves and shortened the width of the pattern. We all thought the garment was knitted until she explained.

Yes, explained. This was at our ASG chapter's annual meeting--one big show & tell plus socializing with other sewing women. You can walk up to anybody there and ask about their outfit without worrying that they will freeze you with an icy stare and stalk off. (These ladies are even a little apologetic if what you ask about is RTW.) I got more inspiration than I can write about in one day.

It was pretty close to heavenly!

Diamond Blossom Scarf

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Here's the knit du jour. It's the Diamond Blossom Scarf from Iris Schreier's Modular Knits. I'm still on the Artyarns Supermerino color #111. I had a big "hunk" left from the Zigzag scarf, so I bought 2 more skeins and started this.

I'm now working on the 3rd diamond. It's a nice pattern, easy, but complex enough to keep it interesting, like all the modular knitting projects that I've tried. Funny thing, though, my stuff always turns out short and fat, instead of long and skinny the way the projects look in the book. Perhaps it's the way they are blocked.

Super Vee Pullover

Monday, November 14, 2005

Title: Super Vee Pullover
Fabric: Fuschia anti-pill microfleece from stash
Embroidery: Dragonfly built into my Simplicity SE3 embroidery machine.

I'm calling this the Super Vee Pullover! It's for my super Mom. She wanted something warm to wear around the house this winter so that she could keep the heat turned down a bit. This fuschia microfleece just called out her name.

It took a bit longer than 30 minutes to make, but not much. When I was getting everything threaded up to sew, I decided it needed a little embroidery. I had first thought I'd put Mom's initial on it, but the one built into the machine was smaller than I wanted. Rather than go downstairs and write something on a card, I decided to put the little dragonfly that came on the machine.

She chose the v-neck and plans to wear a tank underneath. I'm afraid her neck will get cold... I may whip up a matching scarf or a cowl and send it along with the top.

To make this, I took my draft and gave it a bit more ease. I wanted to use a wide neckline binding of about 1.25" finished, so I backed all the neck widths away from the neck edge by that much.

• Garment Type= Blouse
• Style= Casual Blouse
• Closure= No Closure
• Front Neckline= V-Neck
• Back Neckline= Jewel
• Yoke= No Yoke
• Hemline Shape= Curved
• Darts= No Darts
• Upper Back Dart= No Darts
• Sideseam shape= Fitted
• Front Waist Darts=2
• Back Waist Darts=1
• Front Neckline Depth= 7
• Back Neckline Depth= 1.5
• Neckline Width= 2
• Neckline Point= 0
• Armhole Depth= 0
• Dart Override=0
• Side/Arm Point=-0.5
• Side/Hip Point=-0.5
• Finished Length= 24
• Flare= 0

• Upper Front Dart Length=1
• Upper Back Dart Length=1
• Lower Front Dart Length=4.75
• Lower Back Dart Length=5.75
• Back Shoulder Dart Length=3
• Sleeve Style= Set In
• Sleeve Underarm Seam= Tapered
• Sleeve Hemline Shape=Straight
• Sleeve Cap Ease=0.62
• Sleeve Length=23.5
• Sleeve Hem Circumference=8.5
• Sleeve Cap Height=0
• Back Armhole Shape Up=0.8 Clicks
• Collar Style= Collarless
• Chest Ease= 3.5
• Waist Ease= 3.25
• Hip Ease= 4.5

• Curved the V-neck to a slight arc
• Drafted a "cuff" rectangle
• Drafted a binding piece 3 inches by about 15% shorter than neckline length
• Mom is taller than I am, so I lengthened this 1 inch above the waist and 1 inch below.

I used the instructions for sewing a wide v-neck ribbing from the Stretch & Sew Guide to Sewing Knits to attach the self-binding. This ends up looking like a scrub top, I believe--one side overlaps the other. Mom's arms are longer than mine too, (do you see a trend here?) so I drafted a sleeve binding that's about 1.25" finished, mimicking the neckline binding.

Green Striped Shirt

Friday, November 11, 2005

Here's my new shirt draft all ready for cutting. This fabric is a cotton lycra and feels very silky. I bought it last March at the Vogue Fabrics booth at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo. Coincidentally the fabric for the White Shirt and Scribbles came from the same place.

I'm expecting to like this just as much as those.

There appears to be two yards, and it is about 54 inches wide. There's plenty to cut a bias button band like this one at Nordstrom.com. ($125?? Please.)

The collar stand might want to be bias, too. And the cuffs. The loden fabric is draped over a chair waiting to be cut into some tapered pants. Looks like a fun weekend, doesn't it?

A little SWAP

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Considering the green striped shirting took me snooping through a lot of websites from department stores to pattern catalogs. I kept coming back to two things: styles are more fitted, and I *love* my white yoked shirt. (I even kind of like the yucky green one made from the same pattern.)

Finally I hit on the idea of changing the shirt slightly to make it a bit more fitted. I had rotated the bust dart into shoulder pleats and eliminated the waist darts for the white shirt. It would be a simple matter to take the original draft, shorten it, sew those darts and retain the back yoke. Good idea!

I have a Burda World of Fashion blouse that I made back in 2002 which is very much like this. In fact, I overlaid my traced pattern onto the new draft and was surprised at the similarities. The Burda WOF top appears to have part of the side bust dart rotated to the armhole, and the rest to the hemline--taken up by darts. My notes from when I sewed it said I didn't like the size of the front armhole.

Funny how before I got PMB that I did not understand that armholes were affected by where the bust dart was placed. I thought that different blouses had bad (large) armholes because the designers made bad design choices. I never knew that it was caused by a bust dart being rotated there and that the bust dart is somewhere, even if you don't see it or sew it.

Pants and green clothes

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

My blue corduroys are done and hanging in the closet! I think I'll be quite happy with them and will perhaps get a photo this weekend. It will have to be done outside to be able to see any details at all. Since it is dim when I leave in the morning and dark when I get home, there's no chance before Saturday.

An interesting thing about the blue corduroy is that while the pile is navy blue, the base thread is olive. It's pretty, but doesn't match anything I have. It gets me back to thinking about my green fabrics that I dug out at the beginning of October. There's a stretch striped shirting, a rayon crinkle, a medium weight rayon blend, a loden gabardine, an ottoman, and a gray sweaterknit fleece. These corduroy pants will work in a SWAP with those if I can find an appropriate print.

The loden gabardine wants to be pants. That will probably be my next project. I did some trying on in Macy's on Sunday afternoon to see what Liz C was doing with pants this season. Everything was too big for me in that line--I love it when a size 6 is too big. It amuses me knowing that if I walk around the corner to a different brand, a 10 might be too small.

Of course since I had no intentions of buying, I didn't need to find a size that fit. I was more interested in seeing the styles and was impressed by the finishing--most of which we home sew-ers can do. I especially liked one dark colored trouser whose waistband was finished with a bright pink brocade strip on the inside.

I considered a similar treatment for the inside of the blue corduroys, but left it as I didn't remember until I had already sewn, pressed and turned the top seam and ends of the contoured waistband. Next time.

Pants Testing

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Working on the blue corduroy pants has almost caused a fit, and not in a good way. I have worked and worked on them without achieving anything close to perfection--scooping and ripping and stitching. They are close to a jeans fit now, although the back thighs have a little too much fabric in them. They are still much better than any RTW jeans I've tried lately. Once a few days have passed, I'll design some patch pockets, put on them and I'll be happy.

I have not made a pants sloper in a long time. PMB has introduced a new crotch length (CL) measurement--measured waist to waist between the legs. This allows it to suggest a crotch depth. I've been skeptical of changing anything about my pants, since I've worked so hard to get them as good as they are.

Karen, on the PMB message board, the other day said "Increase the crotch depth until you get the needed crotch length. Trust me on this...Then sew a test pants."

OK

I took her at her word, adjusted my crotch depth (CD) as recommended by the measurement coach, set all the crotch adjustments to 0 and printed. A little slapdash sewing produced these!

Can you believe it???

Here's a comparison gif from a pair of tapered pants I drafted back in May (in pink) with the CD set to 10.25 and a whole bunch of adjustments.

And a little measurement comparison:

MaryElla

Monday, November 07, 2005

Beaded knitting is not like regular knitting--not much anyway. Not that it isn't the same old beloved knits and purls, but the motions and even the tools are different. While I worked on this MaryElla cuff for several days, the project did not aggravate my thumbs the way knitting usually does.

I suppose it is the action of slipping the beads across that keeps it from being repetitive and bothersome. The other thing saving my thumbs is that the knitting is rather boring. I wouldn't stick with it for more than a few minutes at a time, and my thumbs have thanked me for it!

Besides the knitting itself being boring, the needles are very small (size 0000) stainless steel double-points. Combine the slick shiny needles with perle cotton, and you get a slippery knitting experience. If you don't keep things under control, the whole mess will slide right off your needles and onto the floor.

And don't even let me get started about stringing all those beads, either. They came in a pill bottle style container, and you used a dental floss threader to get them onto the perle cotton. This process took quite some time, and I had to wear my reading glasses to do it. Fortunately I didn't need nearly as many as specified in the pattern, mostly because of my miniscule 5.5" wrists. I think I strung about 950, and didn't need quite all of those.

The finished object is a distinct pleasure, and once I make something to wear with it, will be fun to wear! The weight of it is nice in your hand, but not too heavy on your wrist. The pattern called for closing it with snaps, which to my way of thinking, is less than the bracelet deserves. As you can see, I closed mine with button loops and pearl, shank-style buttons.

Surprisingly, the buttons do not slip to the top when you wear the cuff. Despite my bracelet being a tiny bit loose, the buttons stay on the bottom. Though they look pretty enough to be a feature, I'm glad they stay where I intended for them to be.

Oh, and need you ask? I'm starting another one any day now!

Pattern: MaryElla by Adrienne Robson, from Knitty.com
Materials: DMC Perle 8, and 11/0 seed beads purchased in a kit from EarthFaire.com. This is the "periwinkle + amethyst-lined crystal AB bead" combo.

Making button loops is easy. With a sewing needle attach your thread at (or work over to) the desired location. Loop a single thread over to a location almost as wide as the button. Take a stitch. Loop another thread back to the starting point and secure that end. Do not cut. Make buttonhole stitches over the two threads all the way across. It won't take long and looks great!

Worst fit award

Friday, November 04, 2005

The boot cut pants are quite possibly the worst fitting draft I have heretofore achieved. Let me count the ways:

1. Huge jodphurs on each side
2. Two extra inches of excess fabric at center back
3. large vertical folds of fabric on each side of the lower front crotch curve

How can this be???

The root of the jodphurs may be the boot cut. You can see the the side seams of the boot cut take a sharp turn inward toward the knee, rather than the gentle curve of the slim cut. I'm not sharply curved at the hip or anywhere else (unless I bend my elbow).