Still a Keeper

Happy Valentine's Day!



I wish I could take credit for making these beautiful cupcakes, but nope, wasn't me. DS#2's girlfriend made them and brought them over for all of us. And at midnight, there's even still some left! I wouldn't let anyone eat one until I snapped a photo. They were just so pretty.


* * * * *

So, I have actually been sewing a bit, still working on Butterick 5300. I cut and sewed a muslin and decided I was good to go on the bodice. The wrinkle you see below is a bad pin job - look at the bottom edge of the blouse!



The sleeves were still an unknown until the muslin. The finished bicep width is printed on the sleeve pattern pieces. My pattern armholes were size 1x but my actual bicep width plus ease falls between the 1x and 2x measurements. I also had made that tuck across the bodice mentioned last post and so I scooped the bottom of the armhole to compensate and cut the size 2x sleeve to give it a try.

In the pic below, the sleeve on your right is the 2x with no adjustment. Way too much cap ease. That's a big pleat at the top making it stand up.



The sleeve on the left is the 2x but I didn't force all the ease into the cap and instead let about 1/2" of each underarm seam fall into the seam allowance. In other words, what I ended up with was this morphed sleeve below. I also shortened it considerably because I hate those "long" short sleeves that scream frumpy to me.



While I was taking pics of pattern pieces, I also snapped this one to show the difference between the A/B/C cup piece (left) and the D/DD cup piece (right). Oh, and those are Dani's nose and toes at the top of the pic. ;-)




I still haven't found the fabric I really want so I pulled a second choice from the stash. Here's where I am as of tonight.



When tracing the pattern, I overcompensated at the hips so it's flaring out too much. I already sewed the front waist darts all the way to the hem and I'll sew deeper sideseam allowances. I think I'm also going to purposely lose the vents at the bottom. I don't need them. I also still need to sew the back waist darts.

I made the view with the back yoke since it was different, and added piping because after sewing the yoke on the first time, it got lost and what's the point of a yoke if it can't be seen. But I think on the next version, I'm going to lengthen it. It looks a little short and out of proportion, don't you think? But that's a style choice and an easy fix, so I won't blame the pattern for this one. Much.



I also decided to pipe the collar. You can't really see it in the full-length pic above, but it does actually show up in real life.



I'm going to finish this tomorrow. There's no more football to distract me. (Sob!) Both sons will be with their girlfriends I'm sure, and DH is out of town. It will just be me and the dogs, and the sewing machines.