Cloning from RTW

Lots of Plans, Not A Lot of Sewing

~ Michelle

I mailed my Mum’s cardigan to her early last week, and she got it by the end of the week. She said she loved it, that it was precious, that she wouldn’t need a spring jacket now, and that I’d done a beautiful job. That is always so wonderful to hear.

A little history, my Dad didn’t contribute very much at all to our family. My Mum was the one who provided for us, made sure we had the clothes and food we needed, and for me she sacrificed a lot and made sure I had music lessons too. Even though things were always a challenge, my Mum would take family in if anyone needed help. My Mum was a great example of a strong woman. So, for me, it’s a pleasure to be able to give back to her and please her. When my Mum said she wanted a black cardigan, I made it the next day.

This week, I have little to show on my blog – just a few projects I’m planning. My week seemed to be spent running around to appointments. I did have some fun on all those errands – with a couple of visits to the fabric store. I bought two beautiful prints and felt quite pleased I’d resisted a third print.

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I love both of these and think they both make adorable bra/panty sets.

As pleased as I was with these prints, that third print stayed on my mind for a day or so. I went back to the fabric store and found the print again – but on sale this time: buy one get one free. I did like that.

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This is a delightful black and beige polka dot Lycra. Can you see why I really couldn’t resist?

I feel very ready to start the Watson Sew-Along now with not one, but three beautiful new Lycras from which to choose. This week we were to gather our supplies, and look at Bra Fitting Alterations.

Happy creating!

Barb Pants With A Few Changes

~ Michelle

I’m going to start off by saying I love the Barb Pant pattern. There are only a few changes I’ve made and I’m really very impressed with it. When I tried them on for my hubby and son, I got ‘Wow.’ and ‘Sweet’, respectively.

There were a couple of changes I made though. There was an excess of material at the center back of the pants. I know that’s my shape causing that. So, one of my changes was to put a couple of darts in the back of the pant, below the waist. For my next pair, I will put the dart into the pattern and then have a nice smooth look to the back of the pant. They don’t look quite as flattering hanging backwards on Catherine.

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You can see the one dart on the back quite clearly. It has a twin on the other side, but it looks more like a fold of material in the photo. My bottom also fills them out more so the darts don’t pucker at the bottom like they do in the photo above.

This photo also shows the other change I made. After taking off the waistband (which I had sewn on and then overlocked to keep the edges from fraying), I decided I really didn’t like the waistband how it was. Being rather curvy, I needed to take in the elastic on the waistband which produced wrinkles. And it just wasn’t a look I loved. As I said last week, to me, it had a sweat pants look.

So what I did on these is I put the elastic in the back of the waistband only. You can see in the photo above I enclosed it even with a double row of stitching.

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Above you can see the elastic pinned on to the waistband. I didn’t measure, just made it the length of the waistband – which is a size smaller than the pant size I used. That was one of the other changes I made to the waistband.

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And now the elastic is all tucked in and secured. I saw this on a pair of RTW pants I own and decided to give it a try. And I really like this.

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See how much smoother the front of the pants are without the elastic? These are a Ponte and have some stretch, so this method will work for these, but a less giving material probably won’t allow these same changes.

There are a couple of puckers in the above photo at the waistband in the front that a couple of 1/4″ darts in the pattern would fix.

Pinned on Catherine

For comparison, here was the waistband before I took it off and made the changes. I really prefer the smoother front.

I’ve worn these pants a number of times, and they’re really comfortable. The Barb Pant will be on my list to sew again. And I’ll do my best to get a photo of me in them so you can see what they look like on.

Happy creating!

My First Barb Pants… Not Quite Finished

~ Michelle

When we were having our early Christmas, I was spending a little time with my son and he asked me if I could just do what I wanted, what would I do? I’d sew!  If only I had time to just sew…

Being a curvy girl means pants and I don’t always get along. Until a few years ago when they came out with curvy styles of pants, they were one of my most dreaded clothing pieces. I hated having to shop for new pants because they weren’t going to fit anyway. Any curvy girls out there who know that large gap at the back of the waistband? However, pants are fitting much better now that manufacturers have realized woman aren’t all straight up and down.

Hearing how difficult pants were, I’d stayed away from them. Even though I’d made maternity pants for myself ever so long ago. I just figured they were ‘hard’, and I didn’t want to even think about it.

However, I needed pants, so I went shopping for a new pair of pants. I wanted a casual dress pant. And I did find a pair. However, they were $60, thin and static-y. I started thinking back a few months ago and how if I signed up for the Style Arc newsletter, I’d get a free Barb pant pattern. I had signed up and had the pattern. So I bargained with my hubby. Instead of buying a pair of pants, how about you let me buy material to make a few pair. He thought it made sense.

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Here’s the Barb Pant. The photo is from Style Arc. Click here to take you to the free download.

This free pattern comes as a digital download. That’s not a problem. I’ve worked with digital patterns before. But this time, for some reason, I really didn’t like working from the paper pattern. It was so stiff. It’s possible that because it’s a lot longer than the apron pattern I’d done before, it was just a lot more cutting. For my next pair, I’ll trace the pattern off onto tissue paper for cutting.

Style Arc are also very generously in that they give you three sizes. I wasn’t quite sure, so I ordered what I thought would be closest to my size and then one up and one down from that. And the sizing is spot on.

I sewed up a first draft in some Ponte I have. It was one of those purchases that I wondered about afterwards. I don’t love the color and don’t even know if I’ll ever wear that color. So why did I buy it? Well, I bought it because they didn’t have the color I wanted. However, it was perfect for a muslin of the pants.

Before I got to sewing, I took out my favorite pants and drew off a quick clone of them to compare to the pattern. That helped me right away to know how much to shorten the pants.

I must say, as a first draft, they fit quite well. I did take in the waist elastic as that was too big. But that’s quite normal for me. Another alteration that is still in the works is to take out a little extra fabric at the back, just below the waistband. But other than that, the fit is really good.

Pinned on Catherine

Here are the pants pinned to Catherine – just to show how they’re coming along. This was also before I took the waist in. I’d read Anne of Clothing Engineer had to do the same. You can read about that here. Another alteration I made was to shorten the height of the waistband. The pattern calls for 2-inch elastic, and I know I don’t have that much room. I’m curvy and short.

So, in the photo, my band has some wrinkles before I fixed the elastic, and after taking two inches out, it has more. When the pants are not on, they have a sweat pant look to me. I’m not in love with the waistband as it is. So, I’ve removed it and will re-do that this week.

on Catherine with top

And again on Catherine, this time with the top untucked – like I wear most things. I can’t see that waistband. Even though I will likely wear the pants untucked most of the time, I still wanted a cleaner look on the waistband. So I will make the band 1 size smaller, and the elastic 2 sizes smaller and it should look better.

These still need to be hemmed; next week when they’re done, I’ll put on some Spanx and show them to you on me.

I do have a pair of pants that I don’t use. Again, one of those ‘I don’t like the material’. But I did love the style. It was the waistband that sold me on them. It has a crisscross front. I love little details like that. So out came my seam ripper this week and after I’d removed the Barb pants waistband, I removed the other waistband.

There is still a little more work to be done on these, but they’re coming along a lot better than I had thought.

Happy creating.