Another Lazy-boy shirt

You know this series is not about high fashion. In Style isn't presenting fleecey tops to wear when you do the laundry or sit at the serger on a cold morning as "on trend." This isn't the kind of outfit you wear and write "go me."

These are the kinds of tops you wear when you wake up and say "how many days to Florida" or "did you drink the rest of the coffee?"

And getting a top like this right requires some skill. 

Some additions to length and width for example. My worry with leggings are not that I am mutton dressed as lamb so much as looking like one of those college going away duffle bags where you have to have someone else help you hold it together so you can zip it up.

First the final product. Then the destructions so you can make one just like this for yourself.  Maybe this is a new uniform, something we can all wear when we clock off the shift of modern life. Me I'm styling mine with fake fur slippers.

Moving on and here we go:

Here is how we got here.

First off I used this Burda pattern for a T shirt and lengthened it to cover the parts that develop when you eat like an eighteen year old boy and you're not. 

Then I cut out the back and fronts as suggested on the fold, but only so far as around the neckline, across the shoulder and around the armhole.

I stopped cutting at the point the armhole joined the side seam, put in a pin where the lower armhole and side seam joined, removed all the pins everywhere else in the pattern, and pivoted the pattern out to make it as wide as I wanted (I think I added 1" to each side seam as measured at the bottom).

This is the brilliant Pivot and Slide method of pattern alteration that is my default particularly for adding simple length and width. I love this method for that because, unlike just measuring out extras and drawing your own lines, it maintains the original design lines of the garment. 

For instance one of my beefs with how they grade up patterns for plus sizes is that they increase everywhere - making the armhole bigger when there is width added to the sides for instance, which can give you baggy, bra showing armholes when all you really want is more to cover your middle.

The pivot and slide approach keeps the original armhole while giving you that extra across the body.

If you haven't tried this before, and if you are confused by my instructions (and who wouldn't be, I think I have confused even myself) you might want to look at this excellent little intro by the marvellous Nancy Zeiman:

Or you can see it all in more detail in Nancy's book:

Or for even more detail in this the original book on the method in which a very young and achingly beautiful Nancy is featured as a model:

The other detail on my own top is that I applied the cowl neck pattern from the Renfrew top to the Burda pattern, it fit perfectly without any adjustment. Of course I didn't check that out before I sat down at the serger, ever the optimist.

This cowl is amazing, very shaped so it hugs the neck and folds over nicely, no plain old rectangle. My only issue is that the construction directions are not as easy as they could be. Not as directed I sew two cylinders (seam the short end) and put them together, right sides together and just zipped around the top in a circle to join. And I do not top stitch the neckline seam down. This cowl stays put without that and when your cowl had gone in really nice why risk blowing everything on top-stitching?

At least that's how I look at it.

The pants all five of them

Well here, finally are my pictures of the P&S pants. A light and dark grey pair, a black and grey mini houndstooth, a navy and black pair, all from the same pattern.

 I realize now that I have been at this a while, a few months at least since I started this and 40 years (!) if you count back to my first pair of awful pants. I am pretty happy with these, not perfect, but if you scroll down to the versions that got me here, much improved. I also feel that I learned enough about my body and this method that I could apply this to other pants patterns. A more casual pair in twill with narrower legs, maybe bootcut would be another one I would like to try, and also something more trendy. Katherine has made some good pattern suggestions and I think I will follow up on that, next Vogue pattern sale.

So what have I learned:

1. Let go of your assumptions about your body. I realize that my grandmother who was also tall, 5' 9" was very tall in her day, told me when I was a teenager that I had "a long pelvis" like she did. So since then I have dutifully added and added to my crotch seams just like I added to my skirt lengths and bodices, being 5'9" myself. One thing I have found out by measuring myself and comparing those measurement to the pattern that in fact I don't have anything at all like a long crotch length, and am shorter in the front crotch than even the standard draft. Glad I cleared that up. Wonder how much money I have wasted on wadders over my lifetime of sewing. Sometimes you live by your own family myths.

2. And speaking of money rather than spending a fortune, as I have, in search of the elusive "good pattern" it makes sense to just deal with a basic pattern and compare your own measurements to the flat pattern and learn where the differences are. The Simplicity pattern I used for this experiment was nothing fancy or really stylish but it was an uncomplicated place to start applying this method.

3. One step at a time. Pants fitting I have decided is a lot like learning to how the tension on your serger works. I have seen sewers who had tension issues and just gave each tension dial a little twist to see if that helped. It doesn't. Much better to make a fine tune to each dial at a time, because one adjustment affects another.

3. There may in fact be something to this buying a pattern two sizes smaller thing. These were fairly wide legged pants to start with but I added, mainly to the hips and waist and only slightly to the upper thigh to a size 12 pattern. If you look at the pictures and imagine if I worked from a size 16, and working from the pattern envelope measurements I would probably have cut out a multi-sized pattern somewhere between the 16 and 18 imagine how these same pants would look. I am looking forward to trying this method again on some really different pants to see how it goes.

4. Sometimes it pays to just focus. I haven't let myself work on anything but pants for at least two months now and I really have learned at lot. My previous approach would have been to make one terrible wadder, give up, then buy another pattern eight months later and repeat that same process. It feels great to finally have something that fits, I almost feel as if I have the basis for jumping into a SWAP.

5. I am pretty impressed with the old Pivot and Slide. I should have read this book when I first bought it 20 years ago.

Now time to settle down and plan my Christmas sewing.

My Pivot and slide pants

Really only another sewer would not think this whole process is crazy. Uploading unflattering pictures of my body in pants that are in varying degrees not that successful - but as nuts as this seems I am finding this very interesting. My apologies for the quality of the photos, yet another technical hurdle but hopefully some other sewer somewhere will find this interesting or at least useful. 

I am going to make another pair in a lighter fabric this week for possibly more useful pictures, taken in the daylight.

As you can plainly see I am one ordinary sewer just trying to find a way to make some comfortable pants.

These three pictures here are of my P&S experiment, and I have to say I am pretty surprised and pleased with the results. This whole thing about starting from a pattern two sizes too small and adding on seems to have worked for me. As you can see it has given me the fabric where I need it (these are very comfortable pants) but has moved me away from the baggy back and baggy legs of earlier experiments.  I think the legs are a whole lot more flattering and the wrinkles are surprisingly few, and essentially there were no post-first edition changes or additions to this pattern after I had done the initial on the fabric, cutting, and adjusting manipulating the pattern at the layout stage. This is actually pretty impressive I think and if a sewer got really comfortable with this method and her own body I can see getting to a stage where you could work with many out of the envelope patterns and get a pretty good fit by just pivoting and sliding as you cut. This pair is made out of a navy rayon blend and since I had run through this once with my test pair, I reckon it took me only about 15 minutes longer to do this pivot and cutting than if I had cut out this pattern unaltered.

I am definitely going to do a brown paper pattern edition of this pattern and try this approach again in another more fashionable pattern and have a good look at how to do this method on bodice fitting.

Since I graded the last method I should do that for pivot and slide.

Ease of use: first time I would say about a -B, once you get used to how to measure the pattern about an A.

Results without further fiddling about an A too, for a body like mine with straight sides, not really heavy legs but weight in the middle, the "menopad" my friends call it. 

I would like to hear how other sewers with different figures manage with this method.

Big news on the pivot and slide front

I got off work a couple of hours early on Friday and after tossing my candy into a big bowl by the door and moving my pumpkin out (we get an enormous number of kids every year) I started to stitch up my P&S pant test. 

This is an extremely odd way of approaching pattern alteration but because it was so strange, pretty interesting. There was also a quick and easy aspect to cutting the alterations into the fabric as you go that appealed to a time-challenged sewer like myself, although of course if this works I will be doing this on paper.

The concept of using a pattern 2 sizes smaller was also interesting, and I am not sure exactly how when you really have to add so much, this works, but the idea of working off the actual pattern by pattern direct measurements is interesting. There is a potential to respond on a case by case basis to patterns rather than trying to implement the same alterations to very different patterns, or pattern lines, that appeals to me, and of course this might, if it works, open up the possibility of making a wide range of patterns  work.

OK back to the test. When I made them up and was standing at the door when the spouse came home, they actually fit really quite well. "Darts look good," said my husband who was pleased with his ability to make a relevant comment. I was pretty thrilled so left him to deal with making dinner, trick or treaters, and a fox terrier tied up the fridge door as we could not explain to him why all these strange people were at the door, while I ran down to Fabricville to pick up some "good" fabric.

I cut a pair out yesterday and but lost the rest of that day to the new leaf-vacuum-mulcher my DH lovingly bought me as a present.

Today I will finish those up and post a picture for comment.

And then on to Wild Ginger.

The principles of the actual pivoting and sliding

Once all your notes-to-self are written on your fabric the next step is to lay this crazily annotated pattern on your fabric (or paper if you are sensible) and start cutting and adjusting as you go. To work the process of Cut-Pivot or slide-Cut has to be done in a strict order, with hemlines for example cut first to establish grainlines for the whole piece, and cutting proceeding up to very distinct pivot points that are always the key point before where the pattern must be pivoted to make a width change. This prescribed order is different for garment type, I will just do pants now but if this works might explore it further another time for bodices. Typical sewer, mind always on the project after the one at hand.

That order as best as I can explain it:

1. Pin your pattern to the fabric or paper. Correction because there is a lot of moving the pattern around the best thing to do is use weights which is what they actually do in the book I am using. In my case the weights are a can of smoked oysters (my husband makes a wicked smoked oyster sandwich, a favourite from his Nova Scotia Acadian childhood), sardines (have had that can for about 15 years, been that long since I had sardines, and do remember them being on the menu where I grew up in rural Manitoba) and a couple of cans of tuna. Looks very scientific and professional doesn't it?

2. OK pin the hem to the fabric and weight the rest. Step one, to maintain grainline is to cut out the hem line, if you need to lengthen or shorten  then slide your pattern up or down.

3. Measure and mark all the additions or subtractions (but really when you are working from a pattern that is already 2 sizes smaller I doubt that is going to be an issue) on the fabric. This means for example measuring out the requisite 5/8" at the hip and waistline  and putting a pin in the fabric as a mark in the fabric. When you are done this you will have pins parallel to the stitching line at hip, waist, thigh or wherever else you will need to make additions.

4. OK then it gets weird. After cutting the hem, the next step is to pivot the pattern out to make additions, with the pivoting occurring at the level one below the place that needs the addition.

5. In detail, I need to add to my thigh, so pivoting from the hem I put only one pin in the pattern at the hem and side seam seam allowance intersection and use this as the pivot point to rotate my whole pattern piece until the pattern at the side seam touches the pin I have placed 1/2" out at the thigh line. I then cut along the pattern all the way up to the crotch/thighline along the side seam. This adds to the outer thigh.

6. I then return the pattern to my starting point with the pattern even with the cut hem line.

7. I remove the pin at the outer hem/side seam allowance intersection and transfer it to the inseam/hem allowance intersection. Using this as a new pivot point I rotate my pattern piece to touch the marking pin that is 1/2" out from the thigh line at the inseam. I cut to this point.

8. Next I move the pin to the crotch line, side seam first, then inseam, one step and one cut at a time, pivot out to my 5/8" mark at the hip and cut to the hip line.

9. I then move the pivot pins to the side seam hip line and pivot and cut out to my 5/8" waistline mark, then do the same on the inseam line.

10. Finally I slide the pattern up a bit to make the small additions to the length at the top of the waist.

Done, cut and ready to sew, no paper alterations at all. Interesting.

Step two of Pivot and Slide

Sometimes there is a lot of life that stands between a girl and her sewing projects, nearly all good but busy. 

This week it's been my 55th birthday and a nice dinner out with my husband and daughter, the only available child in the vicinity this week, more mid terms and associated student angst at school and a weekend away for a party my daughter's new and wonderful mother-in-law gave for her at home on Cape Breton Island, complete with a famous fiddler and lots of incredible step dancing. Really a great weekend. My DD has traded in her very ethnic last name for her new husband's and as I watched her dance with the best of them her new father-in-law said to me "She's a Macdonald now." 

Yes I think she is and I am glad for her. In a world where it is harder and harder for young families to get all the family support they need I am so happy that she has joined a big strong supportive family that will be there for her just like we are. It helps too that they are as just as welcoming to us and these are people my husband and I will be visiting with in the future too for our own sakes.

So it has been great, but not sewing related, and I am anxious to get pivoting and sliding.

Now on to step two.

Before I go into the detail let me explain the conceptual approach behind this method.

P&S in step one asked me to do a series of basic measurements, hip, waist, stride, thigh and modified crotch depth.

Step two involves doing flat pattern measurements along the same spots, adding ease, and from that calculating the additions or subtracts that are required. Not too complicated.

The twist is that all the numbers, mine, the pattern's, and the changes required, are all written on the pattern itself.

The changes made to the pattern to accommodate individual needs are then made by either sliding the pattern up or down for length changes, or pivoting out or in for width changes.

In one approach the changes can be made directly on the fabric by literally pivoting and sliding the pattern as you cut, or by laying the pattern over paper and making the changes that way to produce a permanent pattern. First time out I am going to work directly on my test fabric and if I like this method do another paper pattern later with what I expect will be other and additional changes.

Here is what I have done so far in step two of P&S:

First off these are the suggested ease allowances for this method:

1. Hip at widest part = 2"

2. Waist at wearing waistline = 1"

3. Thigh = 2"

So working along the stitching line of the waist on my test pattern (which I note has a waistline 1" below the natural waist so I have remeasured for that) and being aware that I should not measure dart take-up this (interesting this pattern does not have front darts) is what I have:

1. The pattern (remember this is a size 12, bought 2 sizes smaller than my usual pattern size as suggested) measures 30.5 at the waistline, one inch below the waist which I find kind of interesting as the waist measurement of a size 12 is 28" I wouldn't have thought that 1" below would have increased that much. My own waist in the same place is 34". With the 1" ease allowance this means I need a waistline on this pattern of 35" and divided by the 8 seam (side seams, front and back crotch X 2) that means a difference of 4.5" divided by 8= .56 inches which so my brain can handle it I am rounding to 5/8". That is 5/8" to be added parallel to the waist at the top of all side seams and crotch seams.

I can do that and have written a note to this effect in red marker (my personal measurements are written in black - if I don't colour code I am going to blow this for sure.)

2. The pattern measures 37" at the hip line where the pattern had me draw it (I note that the finished hip according to the pattern is 38" I guess hip is calculated in a different place)  my own measurement is 39.5" and adding the 2" hip ease that means I need 41.5" at the hip or 4.5" extra divided again by 8 that gives me an addition of 5/8" (why am I not doing this metric? Canada is a metric country but my sewing education predates that change). Accountants and mathematicians or properly educated people should feel free to challenge and correct my rounding.

So I have written another add 5/8" at the hip line at all 8 seam points, sides and both crotches.

3. Again where the system tells me to measure the thigh, 1" below the crotch line the pattern measures, for one thigh, 23.5". My own thigh is 23" and 2" are needed for ease. That means an addition of 1.5" per thigh and divided by the 4 seam allowances involved in sewing up a pant leg that means an addition of 3/8" on each seam at the thigh level.

4. Length, easy one add 2".

5. Crotch length, always a worry this one. Well remeasuring 1" below the waist my crotch or stride measurement is only .5" more than the pattern piece measured along the stitching line, so I will add .25"at the top of each crotch seam on the waist. (Note if you are trying this yourself and have to made more significant additions or subtractions please let me know and I will post those specific instructions.)

6. Seat depth, measured along the side seam stitching line from the waist seam to the seat depth line marked on the pattern (see previous post) in my case 1/2" to be added.

Getting ready to Pivot and Slide

My Sew/Fit Pivot and Slide manual is pretty old. Copyright 1978, fourth printing 1985. It has taken me this long to read it. 

I've been pretty busy.

But as I said when I started this adventure. It's time.

I know there are new versions of this available from Hipline and that Nancy Zeiman who was the gorgeous (and tiny) model in my edition has reprised this in her Fitting with Confidence book but I figure that if any book has been waiting beside my bed for 23 years for me to read it, it's going to be the one I am going to work from.

This is a very clear step-by-step method and has the elegance of having all the calculations and measurements written directly on the paper pattern pieces and all your altering is done while you cut right on the fabric, no fussy paper pieces to add or redraw, which sounds pretty good. 

If the duct tape method had a sort of backyard mechanic feel to it, then this method has a sort of clever do-it-yourselfness from a time when sewers figured out their own way of doing things that is very different from a lot of the more academic approaches of most of my other sewing references.

As today was a big cooking day for me for some reason, a massive borscht, hummus and baked fruit to have in the fridge over the next few days as husband and son come and go and do school work (DH is going his course work for a home inspection certification - sort of a pre-retirement idea he had) I am late in getting to this.

So what I have done tonight is take the six measurements required and prep the pattern for tomorrow's pivoting and sliding.

It's all been pretty interesting.

1. The basic premise of this technique for pants fitting is that commercial patterns are drafted too loose in the legs and thighs. The P&S method asks that you work from a pattern two sizes smaller than the pattern size that matches your measurements, according to the pattern envelope. With 39.5” hips I am closest to a size 16, drafted for a 40” hip. For the purposes of this test I am using and cutting out, unaltered, a size 12 pants pattern. Fine with me.

2. To be marked on the pattern:

a. The crotch line on the front pattern piece. My pattern, Simplicity 3539, has this. If yours doesn’t draw a line from the crotch point to the side seam, parallel to the hem.

b. The kneeline, fold the hem to the crotch point and crease the paper pattern. Unfold and draw a line at the crease, parallel to the hem.

c. Hip line. Parallel to the crotch line, 2.5” above it.

The six measurements to be taken for the P&S pant fitting method:

1. Waist. Bend side to side to identify waist and measure to the closest ½”. Write this number directly on the front and back paper pattern piece at the waistline seam allowance. My waistline is 32.5”.

2. Hip. Fullest part. Write this number on front and back pattern pieces at marked hipline.  Mine is 39.5"

3. Thigh. Fullest part. Write this number on front and back pattern pieces at crotch line. Mine is 23"

4. Seat depth. Now this one is really crazy and is very different from the traditional sit on a chair and measure from your waist to the chair. In P&S this measurement is taken from the base of the waistline, at the side seam, over the hip bone and forward 2” (so it catches the widest part of the thigh) and then to the table you are sitting on. Yes, that’s right, you are supposed to sit on a stool or table so your feet don’t touch the ground to spread the weight of your thigh. This is a measurement that puts the tape forward on a angle not straight down your side. Using this method my seat depth is 11”, if I had done the old straight down my side while sitting on a chair method this measurement would have been a 12.5” Write this measurement on the back pattern piece at the top of the side seam near the waist.

5. Waist to waist – straddle the tape front to back, write this on the front and back pattern pieces at front and back crotch seams. Mine is 26”.

6. Waist to hem. 42”. Write this above the hem allowance on the front and back pattern pieces.

The next step is obviously to measure the flat pattern and, adding ease, compare this to personal measurements.

Length can then be added by sliding the pattern pieces up or down. Width can be added to key areas by pivoting the pattern out, and width can be reduced by pivoting the pattern in.

These maneuvers can be done on paper (quaintly my early edition suggests using waxed paper) or directly on the fabric as you cut (of course what I am going to do because it sounds easier as well as more daring).

High hopes for pivot and slide

I put the back view of the black duct tape pants at the top because I am most disappointed in that view. I also see that somehow in this process I have acquired the bow legs of an old cow hand, a very old cow hand. Interesting. These pictures do not represent the 20 or so hours I have invested in this first experiment. Perhaps it was too much to expect a pair of pants made from a pattern from a pair of pants to look better or different than the original pair of pants, if you can follow that.

Oh well. 

They are elastic waist pants after all, actually I like my test pair better than the final. Test pair was woven fabric.

Anyway, next up this week in the middle of exams and the final US debate I am going to start work on pivot and slide. 

I am pretty interested in pivot and slide and I am going to try and get the instructions posted here this week. The basic premise is that most pants patterns are too big in the hips and leg so you buy a pattern two sized too small and add to the top if and where you need it, I will.

As I am currently going through a baggy leg crisis I am wondering if this will be IT, to start where you are skinnier and then work on up.

I am also beginning to wonder what will happen if I work my way through all these methods and end up with nothing but 15 pairs of weird pants all weird in different ways.

This is a possibility, a distinct possibility it seems tonight. What if I am actually incapable of fitting pants, what if I have to go and fly off to the States like some last ditch patient trying to find the specialist and my family has to send me off to the waiting room at the clinic of Joyce Murphy or someone or Karen at Wild Ginger and they will have to fit me.

Is that where this is going to end up?

Time for bed and bath I think.

And Pivot and Slide.