The Case of the Missing Blogger

Hello Chickadees!

First of all, a big welcome to all of those stopping by from Jessica's blog, Chronically Vintage. I went on vacation to Penticton a while back and had a chance to meet up with her and do a little photo shoot while I was there. She even lovelier in person! If you haven't had a chance to see it yet, you can check it out HERE.

Second, I apologize for my lack of posts recently. There has been a lot of sewing, but my camera went on a little vacation, and I'm not entirely happy with the way that Iphone photos look. It is safely back in my possession, and I plan on having a marathon photo shoot this weekend. Stay tuned! If you really can't wait till then, follow me on Instagram to keep up to date on all the fun sewing things.

In the meantime, here's a slightly blurry picture of me making friends with some alpacas. They are seriously adorable, and someday I hope to own an alpaca farm. Until I can convince my husband, photos in front of alpacas in the barn will have to do.

Love,
Rachael

The Pants Project Part I

Hello Chickadees!

Until recently, sewing pants frightened me. There are so many more fitting issues to worry about!

 As soon as I saw Gertie's pants pattern, Butterick 5895, I fell in love. It was the exact style that I was looking for. High waisted. Fitted. Front pockets. Perfect. So pretty much all of my pants have been versions of this pattern.

My first pair of real pants (not pyjama pants. Nobody cares about fitting issues with pyjama pants) were made using a black ponte knit. I used it as sort of a wearable muslin, although I don't find them that flattering. I made them straight out of the envelope using a size 12.

The next pair were a pair of jeans. I made a couple alterations to the leg length and height at the waist, but otherwise didn't attempt any real fitting issues, because I had no idea how to tackle them at the time.

Then there were 2 unfortunate pairs of fitting disasters. They were so bad that I didn't even get a photo of them. I was kind of just hacking away at them without a clue of what actually needed to be fixed.

Now I've had a chance to sit down and actually do some reading about how pants work and fit.

Here are some of the changes I've made
-Graded from a 12 to a 10 at the waist
-Added width to the hips
-Reduced the crotch depth
-Increased the crotch length
-Added width to the thighs
-Lengthened to ankle length

Whoo. That is a lot of pattern adjustments. Let's see if this actually works out!

Do you have any projects or garment types that you consider "scary sewing"?

Rachael