#setnet makes

[setnet]

today is a cave day. long (good! satisfying! productive! but Long!) week so sunday I listen to audiobooks and alternate small craft tasks and lying on bed.

I cannot emphasising enough how Not My Colour this baby blue is (I default to Classic Autumn colours), but it was half price and is Very Soft and I wanted to test the pattern. It is mame in new york from subversive femme.

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I've been doing some spinning 🧶

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more hand spinning. or wheel spinning rather. it is romney wool.

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Plenty of people have reflected that sewing patterns are designed for an average that doesn't really fit anyone. It especially doesn't fit me. Ramblings below the cut on how I've been approaching sewing/adjusting clothes to my own proportions.

I have a narrow back paired with a large and forward-projecting bust. There are two, two and a half brands (freya, fantasie, sometimes panache) that make bras of the right shape and size to fit me & be comfortable without fucking up my back. I can buy ready to wear knit tops that fit me pretty decently, or oversized shirts, but tailored garments are generally designed with a B or at most a C cup in mind, not a G cup.

So by trial and error over the past 4+ years I have been approaching a top basic block that fits, which I can then adjust as needed for garments which actually fit. (following guidance from people like the closet historian). My current attempt is pretty close - I think I need a little more room in the back shoulder and a bit of a dart to keep the back armscye from gaping. Feeling pretty positive there.

Then on the bottom, the unusual body shape strikes again. My high hips are the same width or wider than my low hip, and my butt is low and small. In making (or adjusting) trousers I generally need to take up to an inch of length out of the back rise and up to 3/4'' out of the side height. But I've got a fairly long torso and waist to crotch measurement (and a bit of a belly) so need to keep (or sometimes add) height to the front rise.

This works fine for wide leg trousers, flared skirts, etc. But for fitted garments I'm increasingly turning to the age old approach of just adding padding. After all most of fashion design is about silhouette & it's a time-honoured tradition to add padding in order to get the silhouette you're aiming for.

Here I've found there are a lot of tutorials on Nigerian fashion youtube where it's just a normal thing to do. I hadn't been getting much joy out of trying to make a sloper that both a) fitted my lower body and b) achieved the shape I wanted. I'm thinking I may just make a petticoat with the padding attached that I can swap out under garments as needed. It's pretty freeing actually.

[setnet]

as part of my new year's* resolution to wear more of my earrings, here is a pair I made in an evening class in 2020. textured silver and silver wire.

*23 may

[setnet]

sewing is a lot about geometry (unfortunately)

[setnet]

sewed me some blue jeans using the helene jeans pattern (would recommend - very easy to follow - suggest top down centre out fitting and doubling the height of the pocket bag so you can actually fit a phone into it without stabbing yourself when you try to sit down).

I started them a couple months ago but didn't manage to finish it until my knee had healed up enough from the surgery to try them on again and use the sewing machine comfortably.

Did a couple of fit fixes. I needed a bit of extra room (about 1.5' total) at the high hip and waist, which I took out of the side seam allowance. TBH I maybe could have left this and let the denim stretch, but I decided to go for comfort up front. I also needed a little less height in the sides and back (about half a cm at the hips shading to 1cm at the back - yes, my brain picks whether I use metric or imperial while sewing essentially at random), which I managed when attaching the waistband.

I messed around with the pocket opening a bit and i'm not 100% happy with how that turned out so will skip that when I make the next pair. I made the straight leg this time and next time I'm going make the wide leg. I also have a denim off-cut I got for half price so I might make another pair of shorts.