Me Making Me-Made-May

Back when I signed up for Me-Made-May I thought it couldn't be too hard because I was wearing me-made clothing most days of the week anyway. Of course, what I was actually wearing was the same three knit dresses, all made from V8575, over and over again, punctuated with the occasional long-sleeved top when the weather turned chilly. But that wardrobe won't get me through me-made-May, first because the warmer weather has pushed the long-sleeved tops out of the rotation, and second, because I'm not interested in posting pictures of myself in the same three dresses all month in the MMM'12 Flickr group. So I've been sewing.

First up was V8499, the Marcy Tilton pants that I started here.
They were finished long enough to wear them on MMM Day 2,



but I have to go back to take them in a bit and re-engineer the elastic waistband. The waistband instructions are pretty simple, but they rely on more accurate cutting than I seem to be capable of. The elastic is only in the back, in a casing made by folding over the top of the back pieces (there's a separate pattern piece for the front waistband, but not the back). Which means when the pants are put together there should be extra fabric at the top back. Which, somehow, there wasn't. So I stitched some more fabric onto the back and tried to improvise a waistband using Melissa Fehr's helpful tutorial on elastic waistbands. Which, it turns out, I didn't really understand. So I cut that off and tried sewing on a regular-old tube of fabric to run elastic through. But somehow that turned out to be way taller than the front it had to meet up with. So I set them aside to let them cool.

Two things I learned from this effort: 1. Everyone on the internet has a great method for how to rip out serging easily. None of them work; and 2. I should learn how to do something well the ordinary way before I try to adopt brilliant shortcuts and alternative methods developed by you nimble-fingered experts.

Next up, I made my first Sorbetto in the same fabric as the pajama pants I made for Karen's Pyjama Party..



Now, to be honest, I could fulfill my MMM pledge by never getting out of my pajamas for the rest of the month, as my semester is over, Commencement has commenced, and my job now is to grade, grade, grade. Which I can do in my jammies. As long as someone else goes out to buy food now and then. Or delivers. But, again, there are those pesky pictures. So I decided to take on Shams'sGarment-Formerly-Known-As-The-Tablecloth-Skirt.



Which turned out remarkably well. It's shorter than I'd like because, in following Shams's instructions, I compensated for my lesser height but not my greater girth. But I like it.
Believe it or not, there's more sewing to report, including my first successful foray into Burda Land, but I know how tired you are.