Full Busted Onion

(I just love the name of these patterns and playing with them in my blog entry titles.)

I'm in the process of sewing up my Onion. I'm foregoing a muslin and forging ahead with the good stuff. Mostly because, truly, I have lots of good stuff and if this somehow doesn't cut it, it won't be the end of the world or even a small dent in the stash. But also because a comparison of my final pattern pieces against my TNT Ottobre tee pattern is purty darn close so I'm purty darn confident it's going to work fine.

The promised non-earth shattering FBA pics and narrative follow. Or would, if Blogger would cooperate. Grrrr. I'll come back later and update this.

* * * * *

OK, Blogger is still hiccuping, but I managed to get the pics uploaded.

This is the Onion upper bust pattern, unaltered (obviously!).




I traced that and made an FBA, resulting in the dart highlighted in yellow, below.



I then slashed from the shoulder down to the bust and rotated the horizontal dart to the shoulder, which resulted in the new dart opening highlighted in yellow, below. The new dart opening on the pattern is filled in with tissue and will be sewn as gathers onto the back shoulder seam.



Next, I added the extra width needed at the sideseam to make this piece match up to the width of my Ottobre tee, and then I laid the puzzle piece of a pattern on top of a new sheet of tracing paper and traced it, adding seam allowances too. Voila! Done. The new extra length of this upper piece will be eased into the sideseam at bust level.



You'll need to click this photo so you can see the detail in the larger version. This shows my Ottobre back pattern piece under the Onion tracing. You can see (I hope) the original Onion width, and the 2" I added. The original Onion shaping is very similar to the Ottobre, with just the overall width being different. Which is to be expected since I'm wider than the largest Onion size. ;-) (The Onion XL size in inches is 42-35-46.)



If you're going to do a similar FBA for this pattern, be sure that your results for the top bodice measure 1/2" narrower than the bottom piece at the empire seam (circled in red, below). The neckband makes up for this difference.



For the sleeve, I eyeballed it using my Ottobre sleeve pattern width as a guide. It's a knit, it's forgiving, and I was too lazy to do a "proper" sleeve adjustment. This will work fine so I'm not worried about the Alterations Police hunting me down. ;-)



When I was getting ready to write the entry earlier, this is where I had stopped. You can see that my altered upper bust pieces do hit at the proper empire area, i.e., below my (Zillie's) bust. Since Blogger wasn't cooperating, I went back upstairs and continued sewing so I'm a lot further along now. I expect to finish it tonight and post a photo or two tomorrow.



Since my Ottobre tee pattern pieces were handy, after I cut out the Onion pattern, I cut out another Ottobre tee too. I'm planning to bind the neckline with the fabric in the upper left corner but it's nowhere near as bright orange as it appears here. It's more of a duller pumpkin orange. I really wanted to bind it with brown, but I think every top I've made lately has been bound with brown, including the Onion in the works, which might be verging on Too Much. Or not, since I do love them all.



And the best news is that while I've been sewing, DH has been in the garage building me a new cutting table base, with SHELVES!! Woo hoo! I don't think it will make it into the sewing room before next weekend since it will need to be painted, but it's close and I'll just have to be a little more patient.

Tracing an Onion

I'm about to leave for the weekly Friday football pre-game meal duties, but I did manage to squeeze some tracing time in this morning.

I like the lines of this top and bought the pattern, even though I could probably copy it pretty well by just morphing a TNT tee. There's nothing like the call of a new pattern, eh? Although I'm pretty sure I have learned my lesson for pants patterns!

I laid my TNT Ottobre pattern pieces over the Onion pattern sheet and could see immediately that things weren't too far off. Yes, I'd need to add width since my Otto tee is plus-sized and the Onion isn't, but it would be a straight 2" per side seam (according to my eyes and the Onion pattern measurements), so nothing too hard there. Everything else seemed to line up very well. Except the bust area for the front empire piece of the Onion. But I knew that would be the case, so I was expecting to need an FBA.

That's where I'm leaving the pattern for the moment. I've already slashed/spread for the FBA. Now I just need to rotate the resulting dart up to the shoulder seam where there are already gathers. I'll do that between meal and game time when I get home later and I'll share pics (although it's nothing complicated so it won't be earth shattering) probably later tonight or tomorrow. After the alterations, I'll sew an ungly knit muslin to test out the altered pattern.

Now it's off to the races …

Errands and Odd Jobs

I spent a lot of time in the sewing room yesterday but I have nothing to show for it. At least nothing wearable. As planned, I did trace my TNT pants pattern onto STP (Swedish Tracing Paper) and also made pieces for the modifications I've been wanting to do. Things like different pocket opening shapes, a back yoke for jeans, and tracing off different hem widths so I can mix-n-match without dragging out the pattern tissue. I didn't hang the pattern tracings as I was initially thinking; instead I rolled them and put them into the empty bottom drawer of my pattern cabinet. My TNT Ottobre tees tracings are also rolled and I'll store them in the same place after I've made a few more over the next couple of weeks. For now, they're sitting on top of the cabinet, gently calling to me. (Soon, my pretties, very soon.)

I really wanted to put the newly traced/created yoked jeans pattern to work, but I don't have any decent denim. Really. I'm all out. Well, not all out, but the few pieces/colors I have aren't what I want to sew. So I ordered two cuts (one solid brown and the other dark denim blue) from Fashion Fabrics Club. Since I'm dealing with FFC, it will take a while before it gets here so I'll just have to be patient. I hope I love the brown because that's a color that is still going to figure prominently in my wardrobe as we move into Autumn, if not in temperature at least by calendar.

I've also decided that with or without DH (he'll be mostly out of town for the foreseeable future), I've *got* to do something about the lack of flat surfaces in my sewing room. The only places to put things that need a temporary resting area are on my cutting table and on the ironing board. I don't like things piled up on my cutting table, especially when I want it clear for cutting or tracing and it's a right pain to not have a clear ironing board when I need it, so I want to convert my sewing table to have shelves under the cutting surface, very much like Melody did. I'm really, really tired of moving my Stacks of Important Stuff from cutting table to ironing board to floor to table to board to table to floor … well, you get the picture. I long for two shelves under the cutting table. I dream of two shelves under the cutting table. I covet two shelves under the cutting table. I'd sell my firstborn for two shelves … OK, that's a little extreme, but I just can't stand it anymore. I have a $50 Home Depot birthday gift card in my wallet from my mom and I know how to use it! Now I have to come up with plans and a materials list and psych myself up to actually tear apart my sewing room even more while it gets done.

But before that, I need to clear out the mending jobs. First up will be the 4 throw pillows that belong on our family room sofas. Dani, sweet poochie that she is, has a puppy penchant for chewing zippers on throw pillows. Sigh. She's gotten all but one of them, so far. I'm going to take the easy way out and remove the remainder of those zippers and just sew the darn pillows permanently shut.

After that, I need to re-attach four beltloops to two pairs of DS' jeans. I'll have to sew in a reinforcement patch inside the jeans first since there's now only holes where the beltloops used to be. Don't ask.

And in about an hour, I'll be shuttling with DS to take his Jeep into the shop so his A/C can be worked on.

It's going to be a another busy day, so I'd better get moving.

Experiment Over. Back to Reality.

Why do I do it? I have a great pants pattern that I worked hard on to get to (near) perfection. Yet, I keep torturing myself by trying new patterns when it would be less time-consuming to just morph any style changes onto that TNT pattern. And let's face it — I don't even have that many style changes. I live in jeans and jeans-styled capris.

I guess you know where this is heading, and CAUTION … Objects In Mirror May Be Larger Than They Appear! ;-)

I traced both the Patrones and Ottobre patterns yesterday and I cut and sewed a muslin for the Patrones. The front view isn't too bad but those familiar back X-wrinkles greeted me in the mirror.



I actually contemplated altering the pattern for a while. And then I thumped myself upside the head, came to my senses and curled up with a few issues of some magazines that I've gotten behind on reading.

This is my TNT pattern. Simplicity 4068.



I've made it lots of times now. All of my alterations are actually on the pattern pieces (versus little notes to myself for later) so I can just mindlessly cut the good fabric and sew, no muslin needed. It doesn't have a back yoke like a true jeans pattern but by tomorrow, it will. My final pattern pieces are still in tissue form, sliced and diced, taped and re-taped. While I'm working on the yoke, I'm going to trace off a good "keeper" copy because this thing is GOLD and I don't want to keep fiddling with that icky tissue. I may even just hang this one so I never even have to press it flat before starting.

The Ottobre tracing is headed for the trashcan before I make myself insane. ;-) And I think I'll be listing my Patrones and a few other non-English pattern magazines on the PR Classifieds soon. There are so many other patterns on my list for which I can actually comprehend the little details that I really shouldn't frustrate myself with translating Spanish, German and Dutch sewing terms.

Which is a good thing, really, because now I can focus on some late-summer (Autumn to the rest of you) tops that have been calling to me. So that Ottobre magazine will still be getting a workout, just not in the pants sections. Oh, and there's a Onion pattern (5038) calling quite loudly too, although I may just morph the details of that onto a TNT tee pattern. I do eventually learn things from time to time. ;-)

Experiments

It was March when I first mentioned this Patrones jeans pattern, noting its seemingly perfect-for-me extra thigh and caboose room. It's now October and I've finally traced it.



I also traced a capris pattern from the 02/2007 issue of Ottobre Woman (the issue with all those great tee shirts!), but not the one I have circled in that pic from March. Instead, I've traced the pair at the bottom left of that line drawing sheet because it's more jeans-like and will be easier to morph if it works. Maybe by next summer, I'll get around to the other pair of Ottobre capris.

Looking back on that March post, I see that I didn't make up anywhere close to what I wanted to try, which is always the way. Too many patterns, too little time. But hey, I did make about half of them so that's pretty good. Of course by now my want-to-make list is even longer. Sigh. If I was filthy rich, I think I'd have a staff to trace, cut & sew along with me.

After dinner tonight, I'm going to cut and sew a muslin for each of these traced patterns and compare.

Oh, I forgot to mention … I think I hate the non-English pattern magazines. I don't need the construction information but I *do* need the info for things like waistbands to cut from measurements, or recommended fabrics, etc. I'll need to study the Spanish in the Patrones a little to see if I can figure out that waistband (in centimeters no less!). Otherwise, I'll just cut a length of muslin and wing it. A waistband isn't hard to figure out, but not being able to understand other little details makes me crazy.