Vogue 1261 : revisited

Can you stand it?


I am doing this a lot these days, do a pattern once, figure it out and do it again to see if I can improve it. I have realized that most of the time this entails going back and making a FBA so I guess the message is that I should do that in version one.  I really don't enjoy the FBA process and love, love those cup multi-sized patterns that do it for me. 


And some times I go back and add to the waist, too.


What's with the waistline? It's not something I am doing, I can tell you, apart from not starving myself which I am dispositionally unable to do anyway. Sometimes I feel like my middle is sort of like one of those tubes of Pillsbury dough once you cut the cardboard - you know how it sort of expands before your eyes.


O.K. let's move on to things that are more interesting to the general public.


I had another round of 1261 with a FBA (my easy method cut from shoulder and split down through the bust point) and construction wise I serged in the sleeves, nothing exposed, cover-hemmed the collar and ran a row of cover-stitching around the hemline but left it raw from there down. I figure this was sort of the hem look the original probably had.


Here is version 2:

The hem looks sort of raggedy but that's one of those modern things you have to get used to, just like you have to get used to not everything matching as in white pants, turquoise shoes, white and turquoise patterned top, turquoise earrings and necklace, white purse with turquoise trim. Go out of the house like that and your daughter will just say "Mooooom" at you and suggest you just skip to the chase and have the year you were born tatooed across your forehead which you can't really do because you aren't that cool.


The point of the cut hem of course is that it really allows the knit to hang very nicely. I am sure that the points of this top would get too pointy if I had cover-hemmed them too. Better to save that machine for a structured shape.


Here are some detail shots:

The hem of this top, if it gets too raveled I can still just hem it

In and outside of the collar

I really like this top now I have done like this and am torn if I should use up two more pieces of sweater knit on it, or wait and see what else the pattern gods bring me. It is always a real dilemma. Do you keep making something you like and use up good fabric, but then get bored with wearing the exact same thing in the same but only different colour fabric, or wait.

What would you do?

On another note I want to share with you something I did for my anniversary a few days ago. We went out for a very nice meal of course, and I found a great pop-out card, but frankly getting a man an anniversary present is not an easy thing. 

The silk pajamas last time were not such a hit, he said they made him nervous, and stuck with his Tennessee Vols shirt and the red plaid pants with the Golden Retrievers on them that he bought when I wasn't there to protect him from himself. 

So this year I got one of those roll on letter things and put this on the bulkhead over the stove where he spends most of his spare time:

I figured it was appropriate and he loved it. Of course I had to tell him to look up. A friend of mine had her husband's name tatooed on her ankle and it took him two months to notice, which kind of killed the romance. 

The part I don't get is how she contained herself for two months.

Off for dinner and tomorrow on to the next project.