Some progress, at least

October has been, on the whole, very dull. The weather has been mostly grey and wet, I have recovered disappointingly slowly from last month's major health setback, and in general very little worthy of note occurred. I didn't sew at all the first two weeks of the month as I really didn't feel well enough to do anything that wasn't lurk miserably under a blanket most of the day. However, the second half of the month was MUCH better and I was much more able to do things.

I decided that in order to get back into a sewing routine I would pick out all the least taxing projects from my autumn/winter queue, in terms of physical and mental effort required. While this approach was very successful from getting-back-into-sewing point of view, I have to admit that it makes for very dull blogging. Honestly, most of my 2017 sewing output so far has been deathly boring even to me -- I'm hoping the end of the year improves a bit!

Top row: StyleArc Estelle cardigan in green ponte, Butterick 5704 PJs in checked shirting. Bottom row: Burda 01-2017-124 PJs (simplified) in hideous red fabric and my t-shirt sloper in green.

Briefly, then: the four things I made this month were:

1. Another StyleArc Estelle cardigan, in dark green;
2. A green three-quarter sleeve t-shirt using my basic t-shirt sloper;
3. A pair of my TNT long PJ trousers, Butterick 5704, in a blue checked shirting fabric,
4. A simplified version of the wide-legged PJ trousers I made at the start of the year (Burda 01-2017-124), without the piping or separate cuff pieces. I described these on Instagram as hideously ugly and seriously UGLY! Yet, I love this pattern and the fabric is silky and delightful to wear, so I don't really even care that the colour is a revolting tomato-y red, weirdly tie-dyed and overall fug. :D

I think I am going to retire the StyleArc Estelle pattern for now as I've made it six times. I've loved the ones I've made and they've all been in constant rotation. One of them, in plain black, I wore out in under a year and it has already gone in the recycling. Two of the others are likely to follow shortly as the fabric is starting to look shabby. As much as I like my remaining Estelles and the pattern in general, though, I think I'd like to make a different pattern now.

The only other thing I have to say about making these four things is that I briefly came to loathe my recently purchased overlocker while sewing the knits. I was having SO MANY problems with it. It kept missing stitches and the thread kept breaking, so I was having to rethread the loopers every few minutes. You know how it is when you're ill and tired and not at your best overall; little annoyances seem a thousand times more dramatic and difficult than they really are. Well, I was so much in that state of mind that I was literally crying over the stupid overlocker because it just wouldn't WORK. I felt like I had tried EVERYTHING -- different thread, different tension settings, completely rethreading the machine a million times, checking all the settings, etc etc etc. Then, paging through the instruction manual "Troubleshooting" section, I realized I hadn't tried one of the most obvious things of all: changing the needles. Two minutes of effort to do that, and hey presto, everything worked perfectly again. I felt like such an idiot! /o\ The only positive is that I got a LOT of threading practice and could now probably thread that machine in my sleep!

Overlocker-related dramatics aside, now that I am back on track a bit I have been making plans for November. First up, I want to make some more knit tunics to go with leggings for lounging around the house. I've got four new-to-me patterns all picked out and ready to start tracing, fabric and notions lined up and ready, and I'm keen to get on with those garments. I also picked up both my cross-stiching and knitting. And, over the course of several of the recent lurking-feebly-on-my-sofa days, I did a little more fine-tuning of my wardrobe plans and spreadsheets, which I will probably write about a bit more soon. One of these days I might even post my years-in-draft post about my colour choices!

Finshing up August

After my fit of the dismals in my last two posts, I am finally more cheerful! So here is a roundup of August and some thoughts on what I want to sew next.

This month I made up a couple of TNTs (PJ shorts, a t-shirt) and that had the usual pleasing outcome.  I also made a white and green raglan woven top, and I've enjoyed wearing that although I don't think I'll make that pattern again. One good thing is that the top I thought was a disaster at the time (the one I made using a Silhouette pattern) has surprisingly turned out to be pretty wearable overall, so that has been cheering.

Just under the wire for the end of the month I also finished up one more TNT knit top. I squeezed it on to a little remnant piece of fabric I bought recently. It's not very exciting, I know, but I really wanted a striped black and white top for this autumn, and I liked this weird barcode like knit a lot from the moment I saw it.

TNT t-shirt with three quarter sleeves in a "barcode" striped knit

Overall, though, I guess August wasn't what you might call a super productive month. Also, I bought a whole pile of fabric so I'm not even going to TOUCH the question of how I did against either my budget or my planned stash reduction except to say: dismally! On the other hand the pile of fabric I bought mostly has very specific Autumn plans assigned to it, so I refuse to angst over it.

Earlier this year, I decided I needed to do a really ruthless edit of my patterns, magazines and books and also catalogue it all more thoroughly. I got started on that in the last week or so. (I have to be in the mood to be ruthless, and it's taken until now to get to the point where I feel like I want to cull my sewing possessions like this!) I've ended up putting a bunch of stuff up on eBay that I've decided just isn't anything I need. A lot of what I'm selling is envelope patterns I bought in the early phases of my sewing career before I really figured out what I wanted to sew. I feel like I bought a lot of "everyone else loves this" patterns but a lot of them really weren't me at all, stylistically speaking, so I've cut my losses with those.

One mini-success I can report is that I also decided at the beginning of the year to only add envelope patterns (which are very expensive here in the UK) to my collection when they offer something unique or that appeals to me very strongly. So far I've done a pretty good job of that! I've only bought four envelope patterns overall to date this year. I've also bought about dozen PDF patterns, but a lot of those are Lekala and at £1.35 a pop I am not too bothered by that. My major pattern supply of course comes from having three magazine subs (Burda, Knipmode and Ottobre) so I am not exactly starving for pattern stimulation!

That said, the most recent Big4 collections have included some really interesting patterns. I have five envelopes in total on my wishlist:

Butterick 6388; McCall's 7433; New Look 6481; Burda 6578 and Vogue 8805

Of these four are from the most recent collections, and one is old, old, old (Vogue 8805) and has been lurking on my wishlist a long time. I want the New Look 6481 pattern only for that blazer, especially after seeing the gorgeous version Ms. SewCraftyChemist made already. The Butterick 6388 I want just because of that neckline -- definitely an interesting knit top variation. It's really weird for me to want an Archive Collection or vintage style pattern but that McCall's 7433 shirtdress has some really pretty and unique details. The Burda 6578 pattern is in essence an ordinary buttoned shirt but I'm in love with that pleating detail on the pink version on the cover and think it would be fun to sew.

I'll wait to buy all of these when they're on sale in the UK because I am cheap I am not in any special hurry to make any of them. I hope I can pick up the Butterick knit pattern sooner rather than later though as I love it and want to make it up before winter if I can.

As for September, well, my list of things to do this month looks something like this:

1. Outerwear! Outerwear! Outerwear!
2. Semi-intense fitting session to improve woven shirt fit (especially that sleeve twist I keep getting and tightness through the upper back) and then making a couple.
3. Stuff to wear in autumn to laze around the house.
4. Finish the sweater I'm knitting.
5. No, really: Outerwear! Outerwear! Outerwear!

All that said, before I embark on any of these exciting plans I have two WIPs to finish up: another quick TNT knit top, and the pair of Jalie 2908 bootcut jeans I have cut out waiting for me to summon the mental strength to work on a fly front. For sure I'll get the top finished by the end of the weekend. Who can say whether I'll feel up to sewing the fly front in the next few days!

Little repeats for the end of summer

My sewing time for the last week or so has been dedicated to tidying up the loose ends of my summer sewing queue. A few things never made it out of the planning stage, but it was actually a pretty successful season of sewing for me overall. I did have three little easy projects that I wanted to finish up before I officially called time on summer sewing for 2016.

Very easy repeats: Liberty print PJ shorts and a white tee

The first two are multiple repeats and very dull. I made a pair of Liberty cotton print PJ shorts using my TNT (tried 'n true) pattern Ottobre 05-2011-02. Using Liberty cotton for PJs probably seems decadent, but I actually bought the fabric for £5/m at the factory shop in Lancaster.

I also had already cut out a plain white tee (using my basic tee pattern based on New Look 6150) but I was being lazy about re-threading my overlocker & coverstitch machines. Since I happened to have re-threaded for the white blouse I made last week, I got my t-shirt pieces out and ran it up quickly. I don't know why I always act like re-threading my machines is this terrible onerous chore that takes hours of my sewing time. I've timed myself before and it rarely takes more than five minutes.

Some pins from my Pinterest board that inspired my last project

The last thing on my list is one of those "inspired by my Pinterest board" projects. I like to scroll through some of my boards sometimes and see if I can spot any trends or patterns in what I'm pinning. I noticed I'd pinned a lot of lightweight woven or woven/knit mix raglan tops with patterned or textured body pieces and plain sleeves (or occasionally vice versa). It struck me that it would be useful to figure out a nice TNT pattern for that kind of top because it could potentially be a good way to use a small piece of fabric and/or tone down a really dramatic print.

I picked out a plain white and a white/green patterned viscose from my fabric stash to try this out and then I went pattern hunting in my stash. Can I just say again how much I love my magazine collection? If I'm looking for a straightforward pattern I'll always find one somewhere in my magazines.

Burda Plus S/S 2013 #433 Raglan sleeve tunic -- images from Burdastyle.de

As it turned out, I had actually totally forgotten about this pattern, from Burda Plus S/S 2013, that I tried out once waaaaay back at the beginning of my garment sewing adventures. I think it might have been the first thing I ever actually finished from Burda. At the time I did all sorts of wacky adjustments, about which the less said the better, and I think I only wore the top about twice.

Burda Plus S/S 2013 433 in green and white viscose with white viscose sleeves

On this occasion I made more or less a straight size 44, as is my current wont with tops in Burda. It's a long top as written -- 76cm at the centre back. I cut the length much shorter and also drew in a shirt-tail hem, very slightly longer at the back than the front, which I stole from a shirt pattern I made some ago, the Pauline Alice Carme. I almost never tuck any of my tops in so my hems are always visible. I've taken to using shaped hem patterns or drawing my own in almost every time because I think it looks more interesting (and probably more flattering) than a straight horizontal hem. I'm pleased with my fabric combination and I do think the top as a whole is quite pretty.

However, overall I don't think the shape of the neckline is particularly flattering to my shoulders -- too wide and shallow -- and I don't especially like how the fabric drapes around my bust. A lot of the alternative woven raglans in my stash have a ton of gathering and are very voluminous, in the peasant-blouse style, and I liked that this particular pattern is more streamlined. However, I've found a sort of middle ground pattern that I might try next, Burda 10-2014-135. The neckline is more of a scoop and has a couple of small pleats at centre front. I really like the way the sample blouses (there are a couple of variations in the magazine) drape at the bust on the models, and while I do know that relying on the modelled images is a fool's game, I think I might give it a go anyway.

If I do, I'll be making my top long-sleeved, as I am now going to embark on my autumn sewing. My sewing queue for this autumn is heavy on outerwear because I still don't have much and I am determined to fill that gap with sewing rather than RTW. I'll also be going back to work on trousers imminently, this time armed with the world's largest supply of gingham fabric and hopefully some new ideas on how to approach my fitting problems.

Seemed like a good idea at the time (Burda 08-2015-132 cardigan/jacket)

As much as I like to talk about my "sewing plan", I can't honestly say my sewing proceeds in an orderly fashion. I tend to change my plans about fifty eight times before I actually do anything, and quite often end up making things in quite a different order than originally intended, in a different fabric, and with different details. I figure I spend about five times as much time "planning" as I do sewing, but I'm OK with that since that's about par for my course in life in general. It's therefore quite unusual for me to buy a new fabric, find a pattern and start (and finish) a garment in the space of a week.

The story begins last Friday when, as an antidote to feeling very miserable, I decided to peruse fabric online, which led, inevitably, to buying some of said fabric. (I know, I know, this is a slippery slope to hideous levels of stash accumulation. It's still better for me as stress relief than some of the alternatives!) One of the fabrics I bought was at the more unusual end of my purchasing spectrum, being a pink and white boucle poly/viscose blend. Boucle is something I am generally ambivalent about, so the fabric type at least is a definite departure.

Pink and white boucle fabric (with pattern pieces)

As even a cursory glance at my collected sewing output shows (and my 2015 completed garments page shows this off perfectly) I tend to wear a pretty limited colour palette. I like black and white and a little bit of grey, lots of blue, green and turquoise, and for variety I'll throw in some red and brown (though the latter never for my upper body). My RTW wardrobe is basically more of the same with one notable colour addition that, somehow, I've never previously had occasion to sew -- hot pink or fuchsia. Actually, the reason I haven't ever sewn it is that I never have much of it, usually just one or two pieces and a couple of accessories. However, it is something I own and wear, so while this looks kind of random as a wardrobe addition, it's not really quite as odd as it seems.

I hit purchase on two metres of this fabric (among other things) without really looking for a pattern. My first stop to rectify that was my Burda collection which, can I just say, is easily the best investment of my sewing life. You can always find something that works if you have a few years of Burda in your pattern stash! By the time the fabric arrived in the mail mid-week, I'd more or less fixed on the idea of making an easy unlined jacket from Burda Easy A/W 2015, and had even gone so far as to cut the pattern out (Burda Easy provides pattern sheets rather than a "road map" to trace). I was a little frustrated however, because I'd turned up what I thought was better pattern but it needed 2.3m of fabric. Then I had the happy surprise when the fabric arrived on Wednesday that the vendor sent me 2.65m not 2m! I have no idea why. I can only assume it was the end of the roll or something and they decided to send the whole piece rather than have 0.65m hanging about. Anyway, with 2.65m I went back to the pattern I liked better, Burda 08-2015-132, a Plus, open, unlined coat pattern designed to use the fringed selvedge of the fabric on the shawl collar, which is what I really liked about it.

Burda 08-2015-132 Open boucle coat (images from Burdastyle.com)

I traced out the pattern in a straight size 44 on Wednesday -- only my usual minor Burda corrections of a very small square shoulder adjustmnt and lowering the bust dart by 2.5cm required -- and started work on it on Thursday. Here it is pinned together on Thursday evening, and then on Flossie with the side seams done and the sleeves attached on Friday morning this week:

Pink boucle coat at the original length

When I took the photo on the left on Thursday I didn't precisely dislike the coat at this length, but eh, I really didn't love it either. I persevered for a while but once I got to the point of construction on the right by Friday lunchtime, I was starting to feel like it looked a bit like a giant pink boucle blanket and I wasn't really into it. On a whim, I tried pinning up some of the length to see if it looked better shorter, and then, after a break to think about it and eat lunch, that is what I decided to do. I chopped 22cm off the length in total.

Finished boucle jacket on Flossie

This is how the jacket ended up. I left off the pockets because although I cut them down to fit the new length of the garment, I didn't like the proportions of large patch pockets on this length of jacket.

Back of pink boucle jacket

The pattern calls for you to tape over the seams with 3cm wide twill tape. A quick search for this revealed that 3cm wide pink cotton twill tape in the amount required for this jacket was going to cost me far more than the fabric (which was, to be fair, pretty cheap), so I wasn't thrilled with that idea. Two summers ago though I went through a phase of making bias tape from random bits of fabric from my bag stash, including one in white with little pink flowers. I had 11m of it and I figured this would be enough to tape at least the visible seams and hem on the jacket.

Inside construction

As you can see from this photo, I did indeed manage to tape the majority of the seams -- the front band, hems, shoulder and armscye seams. I did the shoulders and armscye because I felt like they would benefit the most from the extra structure of the bias tape. I didn't have enough for the side seams or the insides of the sleeves, so I just overlocked those seams. It looks fine, if not quite as pretty as the taped seams, and being at the sides is much less likely to be on show as the hem and front band seams.

Close up of taping and how the fringed selvedge of the fabric is used

Of course, bias taping every seam seems like a good idea at two points in time: before you start, and after you finish. At every point in between you realize that it is a TERRIBLE idea, as you go over the same seam for the third time, fighting with what feels like four miles of recalcitrant bias tape as you sew. I mean, it looks great now it's done, but oh my god, the swearing I was doing while I sewed this.

One of the big draws of this pattern was the way it used the fringed selvedge. You can see it in the photo above on the right. It's a really great detail on the pattern and I am really pleased with how the shawl collar looks with the fringed edge.

Pink cardigan as modelled by me

Overall, though, I think I like this jacket better on Flossie and on a hanger than I like it on me. I took a hasty photo flung over my normal Saturday morning attire, so, you know, not necessarily how I'd wear it in real life. On the fit front, there's not much to worry about with such a loosely fitting style. I have been making a lot of Burda size 44s lately and I am not convinced I am entirely right to be doing so. Yes, the fit through the bust is great without an FBA, but I think I really need a 42 at the shoulder. (Not that this was an option on this pattern, since it is a Plus pattern and only starts at a 44.) In this particular case, one size smaller at the shoulder wouldn't have helped me I don't think: the garment is designed with big dropped shoulders. That never looks good on me and I hate how the low hang of the shoulder makes the upper arms twist.

I don't know, I am just not crazy about the outcome. I am definitely second guessing my decision on length, even though this length (75cm at the centre back) is one I normally like a lot in a jacket.

Maybe it will grow on me. Or something.

Striped t-shirt made using my basic tee pattern (based on New Look 6150). I added a sleeve band this time for some interest

While I am waiting for that to happen, here is my very last t-shirt for this summer. As I mentioned in my previous t-shirt roundup post I had temporarily mislaid this piece of fabric when I was making the others but a more thorough search turned it up eventually. This is just my basic t-shirt pattern, iteration number 9. I do like sewing with stripes, if only because little details like cutting the neckband in the other direction and adding a little contrast stripe sleeve band are so easily done and look really cool.

A very green t-shirt

Last time I posted it was all doom and woe. I can't say I've really had a much better week this week -- the lingering effects of this head cold are proving hard to shake and there was all kinds of bad news delivered from many different sources -- but despite that I don't feel quite so fed up. I have spent an inordinate amount of my leisure time this week thinking about sewing and suddenly feel very enthusiastic about it again. In fact, my attitude today could best be summed up as I want to make all of the things! ALL OF THEM! I have a big list of plans and ideas about what I want to sew over the next few months and I'm not done thinking of things yet. :D

In the meantime this week I also nibbled away at a small project just to get going with some actual sewing again. Normally I can make a knit top in one sewing session, but I spread this one out over several days. This was mainly because I didn't feel very well most of the week and couldn't really spend hours on anything, but also because I wanted to just ease myself gently back into the habit of working on something every day. The outcome of this effort is this very bright green t-shirt:

Three quarter sleeved NL6150 tee with Ottobre 02-2007-05 'Rose Tee' neckline

I started with my (extremely boring by this point) New Look 6150-based t-shirt pattern with elbow length sleeves, but decided to experiment with a new neck line. I do like the scoop I usually use, but I had a yen for a V-neck. I therefore grafted the neckline from a popular Ottobre pattern, 02-2007-05, known as the Rose Tee, on to my basic tee pattern.

Ottobre Rose Tee drawing and picture

Alas, I did a completely rubbish job attaching the neck band and mine turned very oval and not pointy or V-neck shaped AT ALL, IN ANY WAY. In fact, I had no end of problems attaching the neckline and getting the fabric to behave, to the point that I wondered if I was going to have to give up on the top altogether at one point. I feel like the finished product passes muster from a safe 1m distance (and in the photo )but up close it is very clearly not the best top I have ever produced.

This is the fourth top I have made with this kind of double-layered shaped neckline (previously I've made up another Ottobre pattern , as well as the HotPatterns Weekender Sunshine which I made twice which have similar neckline treatements), and my conclusion after these four attempts is that I just don't LIKE this type of neckline. I don't like sewing them for sure, but I also don't really like them just in general. I find the shaped pieces add bulk through the neck and shoulder seams, and there's a rigidity to the neckline that I dislike. I don't like to say "never again!" but I'll probably give any future patterns with similar necklines a miss.

I don't hate my new green tee or anything, but it's definitely not my favourite. I've found an alternative pattern that I'll use next time I want a V-neck, which will hopefully be more to my taste and also, an actual V!

Up next on my sewing table: some easy StyleArc trousers in ponte knit. I'll probably cut out the fabric today but I can't get started sewing because I'm waiting for (a) some waistband elastic and (b) new blades for my overlocker to arrive in the post. One of my (many) problems with the green tee was that my overlocker was chewing most unhappily through the fabric at times. I think new blades might help.

Simple (successful!) sewing and some thoughts on longer term projects

I decided at the start of the week I needed to do some certain-to-be successful sewing to make up for the weekend's failtastic efforts and to reassure myself that it is worth keeping on sewing through the disappointments. I've therefore made two very quick repeats of easy knit patterns: one black t-shirt in my super reliable scoop-neck TNT pattern with three quarter sleeves, and a pair of dark purple yoga pants using Burda 11-2005-127. I've worn/laundered the other two pairs I made about a year ago with the latter pattern to the point where fabric destruction is pretty imminent but happily, construction destruction is not. Always good when your sewing outlasts your fabric! I'll probably find a new and different yoga pants pattern when I come to replace the original two pairs later this year but I was quite happy to use this one a third time.

There's absolutely nothing interesting about these garments except that I made them successfully, so all I really have to say about them in conclusion is: \o/

I'm posting these photos not because the garments are in any way interesting, but just to prove to myself that I did make something!

Both of these easy garments were in my sewing queue and in my wardrobe gap fill list, but I have to admit I changed up the order of my queue in order to sew them immediately. The rest of my queue is a mix of: knit patterns I am using for the first time and that therefore could potentially go wrong; woven tops and shirts that are more time consuming and fiddly; and outerwear. None of those were really good for basic confidence boosting sewing, so they got shoved down the list temporarily.

My queue, overall, is actually pretty short at the moment, mainly because of my wardrobe planning efforts. I am not really trying to have a minimalist wardrobe by any stretch of the imagination, but after spending all this time really thinking about what I wear every day, what kind of activities I do and what I want to sew vs. buy I've ended up with a pretty short list of things to add to my wardrobe in the immediate future. In some ways, the realization that I just don't need too many more garments is quite aggravating, because I do love sewing and pattern browsing (and pattern buying) and putting  limits on how many clothes I make/own is obviously in direct conflict with my frequent desire to Sew All The Things and own all the patterns and also my intention to sew up a lot of my fabric stash.

However, I've decided to view the shortness of my queue as an opportunity to develop some of my plans into longer and more complex projects. For example, I mentioned I have some woven shirts in my queue, at least one of which is going to be a casual button-front shirt. I had been vaguely thinking I would just pull out the Ottobre 05-2012-07 pattern I've used before. I like my two shirts from that pattern a lot and I'd probably end up with a perfectly serviceable shirt. However, I think I might get a better result if I start completely fresh with a new base size. Previously, I've made a size 44 with adjustments. More recently, however, I've been experimenting with starting from a size 40 in Ottobre patterns and finding it to be a much better fit through the shoulders at least, though requiring much more adjustment lower down the bodice. As I've become more confident in my FBAs recently, though, I feel like I am happy to do more pattern work and not just fudge it by starting with a larger size. It does mean though that rather than jump straight to cutting out, I'm going to have to start again from scratch with tracing out a new size, adjusting it and making a muslin etc.

I also bought (despite my general aversion to Craftsy) the all-access Craftsy pass for October. I'm planning to blitz my way through some of the pattern-making and construction courses, particularly the sloper classes by Suzy Furrer that seem to get good reviews everywhere. In the past, I've kind of shied away from those sorts of projects because it's a lot of effort without a specific result, but I feel like now is a good time to give it a try. So, I might be reporting more of a mix of my efforts in those directions and finished garments for a while (and since I was encouraged by a couple of comments, probably more detail about my wardrobe planning stuff as well).

Stripes

Although I have never quite got the hang of fashion, I apparently absorbed one particular fashion "rule" like it was divine law. At some point in my life, I became convinced that horizontal stripes were a privilege accorded only to the few whose figures were most suited to wearing of them, of whom I was not one. I could actually say a lot about the underlying rhetoric of "stripes make you look fat!", not least about how annoyed I am by any suggestion that every woman's goal when dressing should at all times be to take up as little visual space as possible. However, I will refrain, mainly because you've heard all my ranting on the subject before. I will say, however, that even as I blindly and unthinkingly obeyed the No Stripes, Because Fatness! rule for lo, these many years, I regretted the necessity of doing so. I LIKE stripes. I am a big fan of geometrics in general, actually, and it's always a major disappointment to me that there are relatively few interesting geometric prints in the world in amidst an endless sea of florals and animal prints.

All of which is a (inevitably long-winded) way of saying that when I found myself wistfully examining stripy fabric the other day, I had a sudden epiphany. I decided that damn it, I really like stripes and moreover it really ISN'T my job in life to carefully calibrate everything I wear to make sure I look as small as possible at all times. And thus, I bought some stripes, and I will doubtless buy and make up some more stripy garments in the future, and overall, yes: let there be stripy goodness all round.

Navy striped NL 6150 - I swear to you that the sleeves are actually the same length in person!!

First up was this navy and white striped top, my 6th rendition of a much-revised version of New Look 6150 View D. I am now thoroughly sick of making this pattern, but I do like the shape and fit of it that I've achieved through these multiple versions. There is nothing much interesting to say about this except that the stripe matching on this wobbly 4-way stretch fabric was rather a pain and I am a couple of mm out on the side seams (which I cunningly forgot to photograph, and since my shirt is now in the wash, cannot show you. Feel free to imagine it being utterly perfect!). As far as I can tell this is due to the way my overlocker feeds, as no matter how carefully I pinned and basted I couldn't keep it lining up once I started sewing. The only thing I didn't try was glue (suggested by a helpful commenter recently, thank you) because when I tested my glue on this particular fabric it didn't seem to want to come out again in the wash. D: Overall, it's not a very exciting top, but I love it because I love the fabric/stripes.

Here is a terrible bedroom mirror selfie of me wearing my navy top

Since I am utterly fed-up of NL6150 now, I have decreed that my next few knit tops should all be, as far as possible within the constraints of what I need/want in my wardrobe, more interesting than the very basic tees I've been turning out.

Line drawing, Ottobre 05-2012-11"Stormy Grey"

My second stripy top therefore used a new-to-me pattern: Ottobre 05-2012-11 "Stormy Grey", with the minor change that I attached short rather than long sleeves to it. I previously made up the minor variation (Ottobre 05-2012-13, which is gathered horizontally at the centre front of the necline) and it was an epic disaster (mainly because I made it about 3 sizes too big, I now realize). This time I picked my size using my knit sloper and ended up with something like a 40 through the shoulder, 44-ish through the bust, 42-ish through the waist and hips.

I didn't change much in the pattern. Short sleeves, obviously. Also, for reasons, I used a small piece of black cotton to cover my gathering (the pattern calls for you to use a self fabric strip). I am in two minds about how this looks. I was originally intent on putting a couple of little buttons on this placket, but I haven't decided yet whether to do so. Other than that I did my standard adjustment for square shoulders and made sure it was the right length on me.

Ottobre 05-2012-11 made up in black and white stripes

The main feature of the top is the gathered section at centre front. Once I started sewing, I realized I had to extend this lower down the top than suggested in the instructions because I have a low bust and it looked completely ridiculous to have the gathering perched on the upper slopes of my boobs. I don't like gathering ordinarily, but this was, for me, a rather good gathering outcome. However, because I gathered rather extensively and for a longer section than the pattern called for: (a) I ended up with a kind of stripe vortex over my bust, like a Boob Optical Illusion. (If we are all sucked into a black hole as a result of this vortex, I will take full responsibility, I promise); and (b) more pragmatically, it yanked up the hem at centre front. Since part of the reason I love stripes is the possibility of manipulating them in interesting ways, I find I very much like the Boob Optical Illusion effect. I can live with the hem problem it produced on this version. However, if I were making this top again I'd have to fix it.

The side view -- on the plus side, only look at my beee-yoo-ti-ful stripe matching at the side seam! On the minus side, yikes, the centre front!

Overall, I quite like this top and it IS a tiny bit different to the interminable parade of scoop neck tees I've been making, so I'm glad I tried this pattern out.

As modelled by yours truly. Observe my horrible neckline sunburn, which is what happens when someone as pasty white and pale as me remembers to put sunscreen everywhere EXCEPT  in the scoop neckline of her new stripy navy and white top and sits outside for 30 minutes.

For the next few days I will very tediously be sewing blinds for my hallway. I don't dislike the idea of home dec sewing, but in practice it's not very interesting to sew giant rectangles. Still, I've been living here almost a year and still have no blinds for my hall and landing so something must be done!

PS. I am sorry I am such a terrible replier-to-comments this week. I very much appreciated everyone's helpful suggestions for how to fix my New Look 6407 blouse and have formulated a Plan to try it again some time soon :D

One last quick repeat for March, plans and progress

Red and white tee based on New Look 6150

I made one last super quick garment to finish up the month, another simple t-shirt based on New Look 6150 (like the navy one I made earlier in the month). This is version number 5 of this pattern, though I did make a couple of tiny changes this time -- shorter sleeves (kind of middlingly short-sleeved length rather than the elbow length tops I've been making up to now) and I also decided that the basic pattern I've been using is just a smidgeon too long, so I lopped about 2cm off the hem.

For this version, I used the remaining 1m-ish piece of a fabric I first used almost exactly 2 years ago to make up favourite Ottobre tee pattern. It was not one of my more successful 2013 creations -- the binding on the armholes dug in horribly and the neckband was dreadful, so I didn't really wear it all that often. The original tee was thus long since demoted to the pile of old tees I wear as PJs, so I felt it was safe to make another despite the rather wild and distinctive print. In the eventuality that we get some warm weather this summer I thought it would look nice with white trousers or white shorts.

Speaking of summer, or the possibility of it at least, I have just one more month of spring sewing left before my sewing queue has me scheduled to burst into full Summer Sewing Mode. I have quite a variety of things left on my spring list though, and I imagine I won't get to all of them before the weather moves me on to other things.

I am carrying one WIP into April -- the faux suede/faux leather bag I am in the middle of making. I have hit a fairly major snag in construction and don't quite know what to do to fix it, but hopefully some thought over the next few days will get me underway again. I am also going to cast on a new knitting project later this week (I decided to take knitting break after I finished my Groovy scarf), and I have some little embroidery plans/projects in motion as well.

As far as garment sewing is concerned, near the top of my list is to play with the HotPatterns Weekender Sunshine tee pattern. This is one of those patterns I have earmarked for use over and over for YEARS and yet never got around to making. I bought it way back when, long before I'd ever "spoken" to her on blogs/PR, I saw Michelle recommend this pattern as being great & particularly flattering if you have a larger bust. It's the only HP pattern I've ever bought (although like everyone else in the sewing world, I have about 20 of their free e-patterns) and I think it's about time I try it out.

Based on my wardrobe plan, I also know I could do with making a white buttoned long-sleeved shirt or blouse -- I'm still deliberating the details of this as I'd like to make something with pintucks but I'm being indecisive between a couple of different patterns.

KS3334

The bigger projects for April, though, are that I'd like to at least get started on one or both of a simple ponte knit jacket (I have more or less settled on Kwik Sew 3334, an unlined jacket with shoulder princess seams and a simple shawl collar) and some kind of rain jacket.

The ponte jacket is exercising my mind because I feel like I need to do a bit of digging to research how best to actually sew an unlined ponte jacket. Do I just overlock seams like I would any other ponte garment? Or should I be sewing them on my regular machine and then overlocking? Plus, I will need to do some fitting work with the princess seams, I am sure. The fabric I've earmarked for this project is really nice, so I'm hoping I can do a decent job with the pattern.

The rain jacket has me more perplexed. If I'm honest it is the thing I am mostly likely not to get around to, no matter how urgently required it is as I have no lightweight raincoat and live in one of the rainiest parts of England! I have the fabric -- a very nice red shower-proof treated cotton. It's allegedly ex-Burberry, but whether it really is or not I couldn't say. I even have a LOT of it (4m), so it's not like the problem is squeezing a coat out of too little fabric. What I don't have is really a single idea for what I want the finished garment to look like, which is unusual for me. I will probably post more about my pattern deliberations if I actually get to that point this month.

Finally, as we are now a whole quarter of the way through 2015, I thought I would (very briefly!) consider how I was doing on my overall goals for 2015. Alas, the answer is: quite badly! I am over budget on my spending, I actually have MORE fabric than I started the year with rather than less (although admittedly only 1.5m more, so it's not like I've added more than a tiny molehill to that particular mountain) and of my more specific sewing goals, only my quilt has been completed. On the other hand, I've done really well with my knitting goals and decreasing my yarn stash so far, so it's not all bad news. In fact, although my "Completed Projects 2015" page to date is rather thin and lacking in really anything one might call a challenging project, I am actually pleased the sewing I've done this first quarter, given the circumstances of how ill I've felt over the last three months and how much family drama has been going on behind the scenes here at Casa de Sewing Novice.

I'm not overly concerned about how far adrift I am from my goals as there's plenty of the year left. However, I'm definitely going to have be a bit more strict with myself about buying stuff generally and fabric in particular. I keep doing that "Oh, a couple of metres won't hurt!" thing, which is how you get to having bought 18m in three months without really even trying to buy fabric. /o\

Triskaidekaphobia

Farewell, former jacket

I am not, in fact, afraid of Friday 13th, I just like the word. If anything, I had my dose of bad luck (or more likely, bad judgement) last night as I ended up discarding a minor sewing project unfinished. About a million years ago (or: late 2013) I decided to deconstruct this leather jacket and make a bag with the leather. I took it all apart and then it lurked in a bag forever until I fished it out again to look at it last week. Yesterday I tried to construct a simple tote bag with the pieces, but I don't know, I was Sewing While Tired and I basically managed to wreck the only sizeable bits. That, combined with the fact that the leather situation (it was very badly discoloured, and not in a cool "this is vintage" sort of way) hadn't improved with storage, and I ended up deciding that I was unlikely to carry the bag, and tossed the whole thing. Ugh. Serves me right for keeping going when I knew I was too tired to be sewing, I guess. Luckily I have another bag project I am actively working on, so my minor hankering for a new bag will be fulfilled anyway.

I'm a nerd with a stopwatch

One of my other tasks this week was making a boring but necessary knit top, which I had been procrastinating on for aaaaaaages for the simple reason that my overlocker was threaded in the wrong colour. I can't think I'm the only sewer who acts like this is an Insurmountable Obstacle. I regularly delay sewing stuff because it would mean changing the thread, even though (and yes, I timed myself, because I'm a nerd) a leisurely paced re-thread PLUS test on a new fabric and setting adjustment takes me less than 5 minutes. I don't know why I continue to behave like rethreading is a labour of Hercules despite all the evidence to the contrary.

New Look 6150 (modified) top in Navy

Once I got over myself and actually changed out my thread, though, I was able to whip up a very simple navy knit top in no time at all. I used a heavily modified version of New Look 6150 View D, which is a pattern I spent some time working on around this time last year to develop a basic knit TNT. In fact, the three versions of this top I made in 2014 are still in constant rotation, particularly the original black and white version, which is kind of funny since at the time it was a total throwaway, wearable muslin type of project. My only change this time was to cut the back piece with a centre back seam, for reasons of fabric use efficiency. I was vaguely concerned that the lump of the seam down my spine might annoy me in wear, but in fact I don't notice it at all. I wouldn't do it with a printed fabric because matching an extra seam is a pain, but in a solid fabric it means I can get a good length, elbow sleeved top out of a single metre of fabric, which is great. Overall, I am pretty confident my boring but necessary navy top will also get plenty of wear.

I also cut into fabric for the classic woven shirt I am making, using Kwik Sew 3555. I suddenly remembered that the reason I have this pattern is that once upon a time I bought a Craftsy class about tailored shirts, and the pattern came with it. I have never watched the class all the way through and, alas, revisiting the class on Craftsy reminded me why. The teacher is a woman called Pam Howard, and she may be absolutely lovely in person and I am sure she really knows her stuff but dear god, she has the on-screen charisma of a log. I don't need people to be all non-stop smiling and faux-excitement, but she is so flat and monotonous that the videos are a bit like watching paint dry. Instead of following her instruction therefore, I shall continue to make my blouse using the techniques in Shirtmaking. The only issues I've had so far in making this first version is that my fabric has a pronounced vertical stripe and a sort of shadowy horizontal stripe, meaning I had to really faff about doing single layer cutting and trying to match seams. Not sure how successful I was -- I guess I'll find out today when I start sewing...

Burda 12-2013-108

In the meantime I'm also mid-trace of another pattern, Burda 12-2013-108, which I've been planning to make ever since the magazine came out. It was widely agreed on the PR thread at the time that it was a nice pattern, but alas, nobody much seems to have made it or the minor variant (109, with a tie neck). I'm a little concerned about the seam across the bust and where it's going to fall on my (low, large) bust. I'll have to see how it compares to other patterns once I have it fully traced.

Made: Two more New Look 6150 View D/knit sloper

Sewing apathy definitely dealt with! In the last two days I whipped up two more plain scoop necked tops with elbow length sleeves like the black and white top I made last month. It really doesn't take long at all to make these, although I wished, in retrospect, I'd spent longer on the hems of each. It seemed to take forever and I still feel I am getting a substandard result from it, though that could just be lack of experience with my coverstitcher still.

New Look 6150 View D tops, modified with my knit sloper for fit and a scoop neckline

The top on the right is made from the same fabric as my favourite iteration of Ottobre 02-2013-02, the little kimono sleeved tee I made a million of last year. I had something like 5.5m of the stuff, though I have only about a third of it left now. It was very cheap, just £2/m, and I actually made parts of this out of the remains of a failed attempt at another knit top pattern (also from Ottobre, unblogged because it was depressing).

The top on the left is a sad story. This was a piece of fabric I bought at the Dublin Knitting and Stitching Show last November, from the MichaelH stand (a shop in Dublin city centre I despair of ever going to, since the opening hours are so peculiar and inconvenient).  I fell in love with the colour, which is actually 100% nicer even than in this photo, which suffers from poor lighting. It wasn't particularly expensive (€6 for a piece just a smidgeon over a metre, minus a large swatch cut from one corner) but I quickly ended up moving it into the "too good for the likes of me to sew!" box. However, in my most recent middle of the night sewing resolution ideas, I decided that no! That is RIDICULOUS. I need to just SEW. This was the first victim of that resolution and actually it all went really well, even the binding looks really great after I coverstitched it (which I feared because of my most recent binding disaster) and then the bottom hem went HORRIBLY wonky when I coverstitched that, and THEN, WORST OF WORST, I scorched it with my iron a little bit near the hem when I was trying to steam out the imperfections. I am the saddest sewist (and tragically, proved right that it was too good for me to sew!) :( :( :( :( I am not sure what to do. Neither dodgy hem nor scorchmark are visible from the all important metre away, and obviously not at all if I tuck my top in. On the other hand, I could make the hem shorter. The top is actually quite long on me so taking it up would not be a really big concern to me.

Either way, I am going to have to leave it and think about it when I come back from my travels, as I'm off tomorrow morning. I'm taking the accoutrements for more sock knitting and also, all my recent thoughts on dress patterns to go with my Great Dress Trying-On Experiment, and also my more recent evolved plans about woven tops, and I will probably report back from the field on one or more of these topics while I am away!

A shoulder revelation, or New Look 6150 View A, and why it has (temporarily?) defeated me

I shall subtitle this top: The Top Where I Attempted To See How Many Times I Could Re-Sew The Shoulders Before The Fabric Utterly Shredded.

At the weekend I made that black wrap cardi, and I mentioned when I posted about it that I had cut a second New Look pattern at the same time. Emboldened by my extreme level of success with using View D to try out my knit bodice sloper last week, I had decided to embark on View A, which is the ruched wrapped bodice with plain sleeves. This is the reason I bought this pattern -- it's a really pretty pattern and there have been loads of successful versions of it on PR, so I thought it would be easy. Ha. HAHAHA. Oh dear.

I JUST managed to squeeze this pattern out of the remainder of the black knit fabric, albeit with elbow length rather than three quarter length sleeves. When the time came to sew it up, though, I immediately had concerns because I really didn't enjoy sewing with this fabric for the previous Burda top. It was flimsy, didn't like being handled and stretched out horribly as I was sewing it. I might have been all right making a simple, limited-handling-required top, but this fabric with a pattern with loads of gathering and ruching and basting, ugh. Not a good match.

Moreover, I had MAJOR concerns about the shoulders of the pattern. According to the back of the envelope I am a size 14 at the upper bust and a size 16 more or less everywhere else in New Look. I planned to blend sizes accordingly. However, on the pattern sheet, size 16 and 14 aren't nested. I therefore traced a 16 and the overlaid it on the 14 pattern intending to fix the shoulder and discovered... it's the exact same size from the neck to armscye. All the difference in the pattern is in the width of the pattern below the armscye. That's useful to know, but unhelpful from a blending perspective and also unhelpful from a size perspective.

Also, because the shoulder is pleated and ruched, I couldn't get a sense of how wide it was really going to be when done, so a straight comparison with my knit bodice sloper was not as helpful as I hoped. I was left thinking that it was most probably going to end up too big at the shoulders and that the armholes were probably going to be a bad fit for me, at least compared with the previous, successful knit bodice sloper adaptation of View D. In particular, it was really clear to me that there was just going to be too much fabric across my upper chest, because the armscye/shoulder was so relatively wide compared to the sloper. Mistake #1: I carried on anyway, and cut a straight 16.

I actually think this top looks better on me than on Flossie, for once (although, why I left it draped at the hem in the shot on the left is anyone's guess. That's a proper straight hem, honest). When I wear it, the top pulls in below the bust so I get a pretty nice ruched look over the abdomen. I really love the way the ruched side of the wrap looks and actually love where my sleeves finish as well. It clearly has promise as a top! However, the shoulders and neckline are a total mess. I can live with this particular top as a casual, wearable muslin, but it's really not entirely satisfactory and I would have to do a lot more work on this pattern before I'd make it again.

Mistake #2 is that there's meant to be a pleat in the neckline, except for the life of me I couldn't make sense of what the instructions wanted me to do to make the pleat. I put something in and unpicked it like, four times, and in the end I had messed with it so much all I could do was sew it up as best I could because the fabric was starting to look like mice had been chewing it, sans pleat. The other issue was that the fabric, just like with the wrap top, stretched out when I was sewing, so I had to do crazy emergency surgery to try to get the fabric to fit together. (I also don't understand either how you are supposed to stop the top edge of wrap parts from flipping over -- which, since I left those edges raw because I was worried about stretching out the fabric horribly by sewing a narrow hem on the bias, is kind of ugly.)

And then there's the shoulder problem. OK, so first, a stupidity confession, which is that, Mistake #3, I sewed the shoulders up, said "That looks wide!" to myself... and then kept sewing. For ages. Until I was basically 99% done with the top. And then I tried it on. I mean, there's a reason why I did that (the way you construct it makes mid-construction fitting difficult) but still, why did I keep going like that when I could clearly see there was a problem? It was so dumb. When I eventually tried it on, I could immediately see there was a HUGE problem with the shoulder, namely that the shoulder seam was fully 5cm over the edge of my shoulder and down my biceps. UGLY. Plus the armhole was too low and completely the wrong shape for my actual body, so I ended up with bat wings that sagged out from above the bust to halfway down my bicep. I don't mind intentional batwings, but this just looked terrible. Part of the problem with the shoulder/neckline was the lack of pleat/stretching out issue, clearly, but partly, this shoulder width was just too wide!

This morning I spent my breaks in my work unpicking the sleeves, recutting the armholes, reshaping the side seams to be less batwing-y and sewing it all back up again. One side worked out well but even after copious steaming over a ham, I haven't been able to get a really nice seam on the back of the other shoulder.

This is all really frustrating, on the one hand, because I JUST had so much success with that knit sloper. I wore the top I made with it yesterday and I LOVED it (though I need to tweak my neckline to prevent bra strap showage). This top, and to a lesser extent the cardigan I made at the weekend felt like a big step backwards.

On the other hand it's really made me stop and think. One of my most certain statements about my body shape has always been: I have broad shoulders. Except, increasingly as I sew, I don't think I do have broad shoulders. I know from adjustments I have had to make before that I have slightly square shoulders. I have quite a strong shoulder line, in that my bone structure is such that my collar bone is visible and prominent. But I don't think my shoulders are actually WIDE. I think what I've been mistaking for a wide shoulder fitting issue is actually a large upper bicep fitting issue which makes my sleeves pull and be uncomfortable, and the always annoying large bust fitting issue, with maybe a smidgeon of a broad mid-back. If anything, it seems like my shoulders are at the narrower end of the range, and that is why I am continually struggling with wide necklines showing off my bra strap and/or falling off my shoulder.

This confirms to me that I REALLY need to start picking smaller sizes for the shoulder line and living with the fact that I'm going to have to blend/do a super-charged FBA to get anything to fit. I mean, I know that, but my nervousness about cutting a MUCH smaller size for the shoulder than the rest of me has been putting me off. One of the things I want to do next is look at woven tops again, though, and I really think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and try a much smaller neck/shoulder size than I have been and see how it works out. I don't know why it worries me so much to contemplate cutting a 40 or a 12 through the shoulder. It's not like I'm in denial that the rest of me is a 16/44!

On using my knit bodice sloper

This is a totally unplanned make from the New Look 6150 pattern.

I bought this top pattern when the recent PR Best Patterns of 2013 list came out. Most of the patterns I either have, don't want or are long-standing entries on my wish list (wishlisted: By Hand London Anna dress, which I have not bought so far because as much as I adore the versions I see around the net I'm not sure it would suit me, and the Grainline Archer shirt, which I might buy in March as I embark on a Month of Blouses). Only one of the others jumped out at me as something I instantly needed to acquire and that was New Look 6150.

Mainly, my interest is in view A, the faux wrap top with 3/4 sleeves, and I fully intend to make that later this week. However, in the meantime I had a sort of serendipitous moment and today I ended up making a version of view D, the basic boat-necked top.

I was tracing out some patterns and thinking about the success of the bodice portion of the Lady Skater Dress and how I might use it as a sloper. I've mentioned before that I'm a big wearer of layers, and one of the things on my "Find a TNT" list is a simple long-sleeved tee type of knit top, the kind I wear under a cardigan, jumper or blouse all the time in colder weather. I have historically bought them from Long Tall Sally (expensive, but look OK for a reasonable amount of time) or the Next Tall (cheap, don't last very long) range because it's the only way to get the body length I prefer -- most chain store tops are cut too short to start with and then shrink in their first wash to boot. However, then the sleeves are often too long and the armscye too low because even though I'm tall enough (5'8") most tall ranges are really sized for women at least 5'10". I figure it's not the most exciting garment to sew but it's the kind of every day basic that I am really keen to stop buying.

I'd been sort of thinking to myself that I'd trace something basic from Ottobre and adapt it but somehow, despite the fact there are tonnes of basic knit tops in my Ottobre back issues, I couldn't find anything specific that grabbed me. As I was thinking about it, my eye fell on the New Look 6150 envelope sitting on my pile of things I want to make soon and I thought, well, I don't like the wide boat neckline, but since I like the Lady Skater neckline that's an easy fix.

No really, what kind of animal print IS this?

When I laid the sloper out on the pattern it was pretty clear it wouldn't be too hard to adjust, so I traced out the New Look pattern, traced out the Lady Skater bodice/sloper over the top, cut out a hybrid paper pattern and then went looking in my stash for a little piece of fabric for a test. I came up with this rather peculiar animal print from Fabrix in Lancaster. It wasn't enough to make a long-sleeve tee, but I could make an elbow-length sleeve tee. I paid £4.37 (weird price) for this 1.25m piece on their remnant rack in May 2013. I was seduced into buying it by the gorgeous texture of the fabric, which is lovely and soft and stretchy, but realized when I got it home that the print was going to be ridiculous when actually worn and pattern placement was going to be a nightmare. So, no loss if it didn't work out, and a bonus if I managed to make something wearable from it.

There is no purpose to this photo except to show you that I CAN match my side seams sometimes.

I think I just about managed to avoid making it looking my boobs have eyes (In The New World Order, Breasts Will Look At YOU) but there was really no good way to cut this fabric around those giant circles in the fabric so that they entirely missed my bust. More importantly, though, the sloper approach totally worked, hurray! I'm really happy with the fit of this top. There are some little problems here and there, some of which are explained by things I decided to do, some of which I need to figure out from a sloper improvement perspective.

The hybrid pattern ended up being the Lady Skater bodice from shoulder to the bottom of the armscye of the front bodice. This was wider at the base of the armscye than a size 16 in the New Look pattern, so I blended to the size 16 through the bust, waist and hip on the front bodice piece. On the back bodice, again I used the sloper through the neck and shoulders to the base of the armscye, but this weirdly turned out to be closest to a size 14 at the underarm. I blended out to a 16 through the waist and hip. If I had wanted a skin tight top, it seems based on my sloper I should have cut a 14 through the waist and hip on the front bodice and a 12/14 on the back bodice, but I wanted a top with a comfortable looseness over the hip and abdomen so I cut a 16.

Naff selfie to show that it does actually fit! Obviously the one-arm-in-the-air-with-a-camera bit isn't too impressive

Since I was using such a wildly patterned fabric, I cut this particular version with the back on the fold. The real back bodice piece is actually shaped, though. I think that would eliminate a little of the pooling in the back that I got, but for this top, with this print, I really didn't want to mess with a centre back seam.

The big remaining problem I have with the sloper is with the armscye/sleeve fit. Some of the extra width under the arm is not quite in the right place, which leaves me with a bit of extra fabric there. I need to look at reshaping the area immediately at the bottom of the armscye to get better fit, but I need to think about how that will affect the sleeve as well. I feel like the sleeve is just the right size, but the armscye is not. I will have to put my spatial reasoning brain in to figure out how to keep the sleeve shape while eliminating that wedge of fabric under the arm.

Overall though, as an attempt to use the Lady Skater bodice as a sloper, this was pretty awesomely successful AND I have a slightly ridiculous new top to wear as a result. It didn't take too long to make this top -- a couple of hours, including everything, and really only that long because this was horribly curly fabric. It wanted to roll itself up in a tiny little tube when it was cut. The binding was an absolute pain in the ass as a result.