So where did summer go?

The fact that this post is called that should tell you all you need to know about my current level of organization.

Suddenly I looked out the window at Nova Scotia today and guess what? It was snowing. Big, wet flakes of the stuff we had everywhere around here this time last year. Great weather for tea drinking, internet surfing, and sewing - inside. The kind of weather that makes you want to call work and say "I will see you in four months". The kind of weather that no one but the dog wants to go out into, and which leads to long discussions about whose turn it is to walk the dog.

Last time I looked it was August.

So what happened?

Well we had a wedding at the end of September, and for those of us who teach, an October spent catching up for the fact that our minds were not on job-related planning all September, and then pants fitting, and now it's mid November. Practically Christmas and another one that I will not do all the wonderful things I resolved last December 26th to get done this year. Make a beautiful, meaningful gift a month all year for example.

And I feel like sewing. However I have things to do in the next month, and major sewing projects will not be one of them. So here's what's up:

1. Three pull on elastic waist skirts for my mother from black, grey and purple rayon/poly crepe. When I visited her in Winnipeg last spring I made my mom three simple skirts like this from cotton. Like most other 80 year olds she is finding it impossible to buy clothes that are comfortable and not made of 100% polyester. In a sewer's world there is nothing easier to make that a two-piece elastic waist skirt and I felt terrible when I realized how thrilled she was with them. Worse still when she called me (we talk every day so I heard this a lot) that all her friends and the ladies in church wanted to know where she got those great skirts. So those are my mom's present this year.

2. Alterations. I know this is the dreaded sewer's "A" word and most of us would rather make a fully lined winter coat than say sew on a button or, worst of all,replace the zipper in jeans but, facing the fact that the next few weeks are just going to be too busy to start anything major, I realize that there are so many items in my closet that really could be moved from gathering-dust-on-the-hanger to wearable status if I just got moving and used my skills to update/alter/refurbish. I am thinking of great blouses that I should add darts or tucks to, to give them shape, skirt waists that need taking in, long sleeves that should be 3/4-ed. 

I think I will start the list. And the best thing about all of this, is once it is done I won't have to do it again. The holiday dishes will be done and I can get back to real sewing.

What I really learned about fitting pants

I have often noticed that what I learn about sewing also turns out to be something I learn about life. So this afternoon as I ponder why it took me so long to make pants that fit I realize that there was a distinct turning point.

This occurred when I let go of previous assumptions about my "fitting problems" and stopped trying to apply what I thought the solutions should be - specifically the moment when I realized that my grandmother had steered me wrong when she implanted in my head the idea that because I was tall I had a long crotch length and therefore had to begin from the starting point that I had to add length to every part of every pattern.

I am thinking now that we do the same things in many areas of our lives when we continue to proceed with trying to fix, or feel bad about, fitting problems in our lives.

Next month is my Dad's birthday; he died now over 14 years ago. He was a terrific guy, funny, smart, and most of all compassionate and generous. He was raised to inherit a family business. Then when I was in grade two he quit, went back to school and became a high school teacher, where he excelled and had an enormous affect on many lives. Basically he walked away to be with his family, something he never would have had if he had lived his own father's life with 18 hours a day away at the business. My dad was an amazing father and set us up in life as people who enjoyed other people and were always able to deal with challenges with humour. 

Thing is I know that my dad sometimes felt like a failure. He made the right choices in his life but did so against a background of peers who went on to be CEOs and professionals and parents who valued material success. No matter what he did achieve I know that in the back of his mind there was some sense that he had not measured up. I wish that in his lifetime he would have understood how many people thought he was the bravest and most successful person they knew.

Those things, often unfortunately, get said at funerals when it is too late.

In my own life I have had to deal with getting out from under my own set of expectations. 

I married young and at 45 became a single mother with three children. My husband then for lack of another way to say it, had a wandering eye. There was no way I could have understood this when I married him, and I realize now not anything I could have done about it. The impact of this was of course that my wonderful, happy children had to go through a divorce and it pains me every day in some way that there was nothing I knew how to do to give them the complete family they deserved.

Now my life has turned out. I have since married a wonderful man and the kids are amazing, good people. But coming to terms with the feeling that I let them down has been difficult, and of course I know they have had their own pain to work through.

But in making these pants, all these pants, it occurred to me that holding on to the idea that perfect children had to have a perfect life has been holding me back, just like my dad's view of success from his old neighbourhood, and just like the wrong idea of my non-negotiable ways to alter my patterns was.

Sometimes you have to let go of the things you know to be true to make something turn out.

And they say sewing is just a hobby.

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.

Oh dear

My great pant sewing experiment has run into a bit of a snag. The last of my P&S pants will be hemmed tonight, and if my husband and I can coordinate picture taking and daylight (which falls earlier every night now) we can get some good photos taken outside on the front steps. I have discovered that photos of dark pants taken inside just don't show up at all. So hopefully tomorrow.

I have made five pairs in the last week from this pattern and they are just fine, at least by my standards. I am more or less thrilled and feel pretty comfortable that I can make other pants fit fairly well with this method.

Now what do I do next? My original plan was to go on next to Wild Ginger and try that as a comparison but do I really want to make more pants I do not urgently need, now one month before Christmas? I did not plan in any way being satisfied with an early experiment.

I would probably go on to Wild Ginger after a bit of rest pants-wise for other styles, casual pants and something more fitted and conventional in a woven, like a twill and I would like to try Joyce Murphy's method because it has rave reviews. 

But to be honest right now I have a pattern that I am happy with already and may take a pause from pant production until I do that.

This is always the line I find hard to draw in sewing, the should-dos from the want-to-dos.

Which brings me to another one of my sewing dilemmas.

It's about the SWAP and group sewing and how fashionable am I comfortable being.

When you hit 55 it's time to get serious about maintaining your style. 

I have had a couple of weeks now of public places, meetings, doctor's offices, out in the stores and am quite distressed to see the number of women my age in jeans and sneakers in venues that I feel require lipstick. Sarah Palin even voted in jeans for goodness sakes, although I am sure that was deliberate and playing to the base.

There is no reason that comfortable has to equate with tired and bland, so I am going to try to keep an effort of some kind up. There are lots of stylish ways to be comfortable even at home, Loes Hinse patterns are as comfortable as sweats really as an example if you like her look, but I also have to negotiate the fact that I am more at home in classic clothes and simple shapes than anything too trendy.

So this is my compromise. I am going to work on the basic patterns that I can make over and over and to increase my style quotient I am going to try to make one item a month from Burda World of Fashion.

So back to the pant dilemma.

The thing I need to do now is compile my basic list and figure out what I need to develop. Feel free to contribute:

1. Pants - at least one version - Check

2. Straight skirt - a Wild Ginger version to revise - half Check

3. Twin set - need to develop

4. Basic blouse - see above

5. T shirt - I have a princess seamed Vogue with potential

6. Tank - can I devise from the above?

7. Comfortable dress that I can multi vary. What does this look like? I have a great fitting Wild Ginger straight sheath but I need something that is a little easier to wear to teach/walk to work.

8. A lounger. OK you know what I mean, not unwrappy like a housecoat, something that I can wear when I have family to talk to after my bath/book routine at night. Seriously schlepping. I am definitely getting old. Stop me before I hit the quilted brunch coat,

9. Lots of other things I will think of later.

Seems to me that while I focus on Christmas and other projects that I might do some work on a Wild Ginger blouse since the fit was so good in the dress, although I am likely to divert into pants too.

Lot on the go at the moment, renting out our house at the beach since we don't get down there much, and many calls from son-in-London who may have a new job in Washington D.C. Yeah! That's some place I can drive to when I miss him, not the same with the Atlantic ocean in between.

Now off to hem the last of those pants.

The best sewing book I have

Great day yesterday and in between many errands serge finished, partially seamed, and installed invisible zippers in four pairs of P&S pants. Should have no problem finishing them today and posting pictures.

One of the things I will be 

doing is adding the waistbands and closures. This has never been a detail I have been happy with. Hooks and eyes, either conventional or the traditional skirt hooks and eyes, are too bulky, and personally I find doing a nice buttonhole through all those layers (if you own a sewing machine that does great, consistent buttonholes please let me know) and in that small space very challenging.

So I was thrilled to discover a new method in my favourite sewing reference book Professional Sewing Made Easy by Helen Metrakos 

I love this book. I have never learned so much from any sewing book, most of the techniques are new to me. This is really interesting because I find that most sewing books I look a

t these days have information in them that I already know. Not, I should emphasize, because I am so skilled (this blog should make it clear that this is not the case) but because I have read so many books and articles over the years.

I met Helen a few years ago at the Creative Needlework show in Toronto. Helen is from Montreal and has that great polished chic that the rest of us can only aspire to. S

he was also very modest and down-to-earth and has a really great couture-industrial method approach to sewing that I find really fresh. 

That is all expressed in her book which describes fine-sewing methods that are also smart, sort of the way the best clothes are made by high end manufacturers rather than the hand sewing intensive methods that other writers like Claire Shaeffer espouse, and that I don't have the time to pursue.

Her method for closing a skirt, the one I now exclusively use for my waistbands, is one example. Here are pictures of how it is done, but please look at her book for more complete instructions:

1. Attach a waistband (I like mine narrow) to the top of the garment. I stayed the waist because there was some stretch in my fabric.

2. Press the seam allowance up into the waistband and both end seam allowances right into the waistband so the finished ends are flush with the zipper.

3. Make a loop of covered round elastic and machine stitch this to the inside of the waistband, so the loop is facing out.

4. Fold down and ditch stitch the waistband in place. Note that the ends of the waistband are not stitched closed.

5. From the right side top stitch the ends of the waistband, and attach the button.

I love this treatment. It is easy, flat and  with the little bit of stretch comfortable and durable. Thank you Helen.

Back to sewing

It has been a busy week and most of my sewing until last night has been in my head. A trial yoga class one night (it's been over 25 years since I took yoga and turning 55 has put taking care of myself back on the agenda - my husband, ever alert for an opportunity to bring more equipment into this house helpfully bought me a Nintendo Wii fit on ebay which is also fun, although my stomach muscles took a really beating trying to break my 9 year old niece's record on the hula hoop), dinner with a 35ish former assistant who is now a friend, we do a nice restaurant once a month and gossip, my evening class to teach, and of course the US election.

Like the rest of Canada I was elated by Obama's election - he impresses me so much as an intelligent, measured and thoughtful man but of course it was a nerve wracking night at the beginning. At one point my nerves couldn't take it over Virginia and I had to go into the other room and have my spouse shout out the news. We all need a trustworthy leader in America. My 80 year old mother reported that she and her church guild were booked to make their annual mince meat fundraiser, but when the ladies, all around her age, realized that it was the US election night, and such an important one, they rushed the job, threw together 125 containers down at the church kitchen in less than half and hour, and rushed home to watch the TV. My mom even got out of bed again at 4:00 a.m. to catch late results. And she is an elderly Canadian woman on the Prairies, imagine how it must have felt like in so many parts of the US.

So that was another non sewing night.

However my mind was racing all week with sewing thoughts and with a long weekend ahead of me, I will try to get some of them down.

And I will be sewing. I did yesterday what I always try to do with what I think might be a successful pattern and wore my new P&S pants to work yesterday to see how they held up over a whole day. I have found that wearing and comfort are the real tests of any garment, not just your first impression in the mirror, and that this is the best way to identify the tweaks.

These pants passed all tests and so last night after supper I cut out another four pairs which I intend to sew and photograph, decently this time in the daylight, over the next day or two.

Any more thoughts later.

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.