Turkey Pants, Revisited

Tonight was DS#2's football banquet, signaling the official end of the high school football season for us. His team did make it to the playoffs, but lost in the first round. We blame the weather. It was incredibly cold, even by northern standards. Around 45 degrees with a strong wind. Wind Chill Factor is not usually a term heard in Central Florida, but OMG ... we were miserable, and sorely underdressed. Thankfully, we were able to borrow an extra blanket from people we knew and were slightly more comfortable. The boys on the field had no such luxuries and it showed. The final score was 14-7, so it was close and a nail-biter the whole time.

Anyway, DS got his Varsity letter tonight and Santa is bringing the letterman jacket to go with it. I wore my Turkey Pants to the banquet and actually thought to snap a pic when we got home. The jacket is the one from Burda WOF that I blogged about last year and the blouse is the re-drafted Ottobre Woman "vintage blouse" I made for my (now unneeded) office wardrobe. Sorry, I'm too lazy to link to the older posts. I still love this jacket and I was even glad it was cold enough to wear it tonight.

Wrestling season is up next.

TNT, or is it?

Today, TNT means not Tried-N-True, but Tried-N-Trash. I'm glad I used an unloved fabric for a muslin before committing to it.

The drawing of View C (tie front) looks cute, doesn't it? I thought so. But I didn't read the fine print mentioning that the neck edge was unfinished. With Views A and B, you can always add a binding for a finished edge. Not so easy with View C. Yes, it can be done if I round the corners of the ties and then bind everything all the way around, but I don't know if I want to be bothered. I'm just not feeling the love for this top right now. I'll let it sit on Zillie for a couple of days before I make a final decision.

It came out incredibly long. Like 8 inches or so. Easily fixed if I do decide to try it again.



Here's a close-up of the neckline. I didn't do the topstitching around the raw edges per the pattern, but it wouldn't make any difference. Raw edge is still raw edge.



Here's the neckline with the "ties" hanging. They aren't really ties though. Instead, the tails are slipped through a loop (also raw-edged) that's sewn into the yoke seam and just pulled into a tie-like shape.



Here's the top on me. The fit needs a little adjustment. The sleeves are too tight and I would prefer a little bit more ease throughout. But overall, not bad. Especially since I did not make any adjustments besides to blend between sizes. That's right. No FBA. The darts are even in the right place.

I also eliminated the CB seam for both speed and style. If possible (and it was with this), I prefer tees to be cut on the fold in the back.



I could fix this one into a PJ top if I rip the sideseams and overarm seams and sew them at 1/4" instead of 5/8" in the places that need more ease. I'm not sure if I'm going to be bothered though. But I might ... I don't have very many long-sleeved PJ tops and the temps are going to drop again at the end of the week. (Uh oh. It's the next morning and I'm already mellowing.)

Oh, one more thing I don't like about this pattern — it takes 2.5 yards of 60" fabric. The top front piece has the sleeve front attached and has to be laid out in such a way that it sucks up way too much fabric. The short-sleeve version would be much more economic.