Scattered

I'm all over the place at the moment, or at least I feel that way. There's a ton of stuff going on in my non-sewing, non-internet life, none of it very interesting but still having the effect of scattering my focus among many different projects.

First, a quick update on my work on the top block. I am kind of disheartened, if I'm honest. I did identify some fitting issues in addition to the inevitable gigantic FBA, which was a given -- the boobs of doom are impossible to overlook. I also apparently have a broad upper back (not really a surprise), a moderately square shoulder, minor sway back (I think) and so on. The sloper ends up being really REALLY tapered at the waist and hip compared to the upper body. I have always gone back and forth on whether I have more of an inverted triangle or rectangle body shape. On this evidence I'd have to say inverted triangle all the way. Plus, I was looking at photos of myself at lower weights and when I look at them with an eye to discerning body shape, wow, yes, the lower my weight, the more obvious an inverted triangle I am.

The problem I was finding though is that it's really, really hard to get a good fit when you're tailoring around the boobs of doom. The darts on my sloper are HUGE -- 14cm take up at the bust -- which makes for ugly, pointy darts. However, the bigger problem is how hard it is to fit below the bust so you're not wearing a tent and not introducing drag lines across the back either. I can't say I've been wholly successful at any of it yet, and after 4 muslins already I'm feeling a bit glum about ever getting to something satisfactory. I feel like a lot of my remaining problems are about my back and it's incredibly hard to fit your own back. Anyway, version 5 is up next, and I will, somehow, carry on going with it until I have something useful. One good thing is that I feel increasingly confident about the FFRP FBA method, to the point where I just whizzed through one in another project without any trouble at all. So that's a definitely win.

That other project was an attempt to apply what I'd learned so far to a Colette Sorbetto top. Alas, not successfully! I fundamentally misunderstood what I was doing transferring from the block to a commercial pattern and ended up making a top four sizes too big. I was so disappointed when I went to try the top on. I immediately trashed the first altered pattern and tried again. I haven't made it up yet though because I feel like the dart placement is weird. One good thing though is that while trying on the terrible non-fitting top I realized that (a) I hate the pleat detail; and (b) I need to make sure I make this in a drapey fabric. My muslin was in a very soft old cotton sheet and even it was a little too inclined to stand on its own away from my body for my taste. So possibly I think that overall it was a moderately helpful experience, even if I didn't end up with a working muslin.

Other than that, though, I've been consumed with thinking about four different future projects, most of them MONTHS into the future. I want two maxi skirts for the summer, and I have my fabrics all picked out. I want to make a 3/4 circle skirt for next autumn (why am I even VAGUELY thinking about next autumn right now?!) and again, I have a fabric in mind. And I've been thinking (still, again) about my outfit for a wedding. I think I may have come up with something, except, probably not really. And more imminently, I decided I DO want to make the woven raglan top from the latest issue of Burda Plus and I traced it this evening. It looks easy enough, except then I lost an hour reading about doing an FBA on that style.

And now it's 2:15am and I should be in bed.