An Hour In The Morning

In an hour on Friday morning, I serged, turned, and stitched the hem on the Vogue 7937 skirt and then I tried on and fit the Vogue 2925 purple pants, now muslin, and then altered and re-traced the pattern ready to cut out. It felt very productive.

According to the date on the pattern, I last sewed these in November of 2009. I know they were slightly loose at one point and now fit smoothly. A few things are fitting smoothly; a few are fitting tight. It seems that I've put a few pounds back on but not so many that it's an issue - unless I gain a few more. Something to watch.

My clothes have stayed, relatively, the same size for almost a year and a half. That's excellent for wardrobe building. I wonder if I'll change size with moving around at work. Toned nicely would be great. So much smaller that it affects all my pants and skirts would not.




The pants are done. I'm not sure I can actually call them Vogue 2925 pants since I moved the zipper to the front and added a fly extension, drafted pockets for the side, and added a narrow waistband however, that's the pattern they started with. I sewed the black - 100% polyester - ones first. SO. NOT. FUN. The rayon-polyester-spandex blend of the grey pants was so much nicer to work with and to wear. They have lovely drape. I'm glad I did them second.




My friend Barb is from Victoria. She's an artist and part owner of the Coast Collective Gallery. We met five years ago when she was a student in one of my design classes. She has taken numerous classes from me since and we meet regularly for retreats - like this weekend. Since we both have a background in fashion sewing and textile art, it doesn't matter what we're working on individually, we're still working on it collectively. My weekend focused on fitting and sewing pants. Barb's focused on finishing UFOs started in previous workshops.

This leaf table runner above was from a City & Guilds applique module. Each block illustrates a different method. The piece below is from a workshop on making bark although Barb doesn't think it looks at all like bark. It will become the focal point of a larger piece. Since I took this picture, she has added embellishment and planned threadwork for the background that you can barely see. It's much larger.

Our retreat is three full days plus two half days on each end. She arrived Friday afternoon and leaves tomorrow at noon. There is still more time to play. This morning, I'm working on a muslin of the Vogue 8146 jacket. It's center right in the header above. I thought about sewing a top to go with the pants but decided I wanted to do something more "for fun" than "for work". Later today, hopefully, I'll get pictures of the pants to show you tomorrow.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - two pairs of pants, nicely fitted, perfect for work