18 April 2011

Size Matters

Sorry, couldn't resist. I finished my KnipMode skirt and it is too big.

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I learned a lot making this skirt: it was my first try at tracing a magazine pattern and that went smoothly. I'm not afraid to trace anymore. I even got by on the Dutch instructions, although I had a bit of trouble with the prepositions--is that stitch on the seam or stitch to the seam? I had a good time topstitching it on my old Singer 15-91.

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But I messed up the topstitching by switching from one width for the horizontal stitching to another for the vertical due to complicated thought processes best not reproduced, but I can see that the various pieces come together as they should and would look pretty swell if the topstitching matched.

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But it's huge. This is particularly ironic because I stopped in the middle of making this skirt to whip up another Vogue 8151 top, a size larger than the last one and in a stretchier jersey, but still too small.

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I have concluded, in part from looking at myself in MMM'11 pix, that I should wear more fitted clothing, but I can't very well make them as long as I'm so totally delusional about the size of my body! Oh, well, live and learn.

6 comments:

  1. Oh dear! I hope you can resize these lovely garments to fit! They look great, I love the colours.

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  2. I find that KnipMode has pretty generous ease allowances, more than BWOF for instance. Their patterns are nicely drafted, however, so you just have to sort of adjust for the sizing. The skirt looks really nice (uh, hanging there midair) so hopefully you can do something again a little smaller (which is always a nice feeling no matter how frustrating it was to waste the time, right? I mean, needing a SMALLER size isn't all bad, regardless.)

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  3. If you have fabric left, you could try inserting a triangular gusset, either on the sides or even in the middle of the front and back of that pretty jersey top. It would look like a design feature.

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  4. @Wearingbeads,
    Oddly enough, the top is too small in the shoulders and upper bust. (I cut a larger size over my ample tum.) This is odd because when I made the other view of this pattern (separate pieces) the shoulders hung to my elbows--hence the overcorrection. I resewed this one with minimum seam allowances and I wait hopefully for Nutrisystem to do the rest.

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  5. That's a great skirt, and it looks as if you did a beautiful job making it. I know this is a real "aaargh" moment, but it isn't easy to figure out how to fit oneself, especially when you're brave enough to tackle patterns from several different companies. Stick with it, though, and you'll figure it out.

    I've suffered from a life-long delusion that I'm a 6 foot tall Swede. Somehow I can't shake this, even though I'm really a 5 ft 2 in Pole. This has negative implications for my sewing, as you can imagine.

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  6. You could probably just send that skirt right over to me!

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