The Marcy Pants

Howard is working six days a week for the rest of the summer while the other supervisors are on holidays. That means I'm spending most of the weekends alone which is good for studio time and not so great for husband time. Things will change in the fall. Until then - ideally - I'll get lots of stuff accomplished starting with...

... the Marcy pants. These are Vogue 8712 redrafted to ankle length. Normally with pants I shorten the crotch depth by an inch to adjust for my petite frame however, based on the reviews, I didn't do that and the results were fine. I did taper out one inch from the side seam to center front to adjust for my tipped waist and eliminated the zipper and added two inches in length.

These shoes were bought - and worn only once - a year ago for my son's high school graduation. They're glittery gold and so is the fabric. Seemed like a good combo.

Here's the back view that most people would see since we are typically people in motion. I've noticed on a few of the blogs that I read regularly that we never see the standing stock still for fitting images so my impression of the fit of those blogger's clothing is fabulous - whether it is or not. Perhaps I should be a person in motion from now on only....

... fit fascinates me and I'm always intrigued with ways to make the fit of my garments even better. Along with pressing and well executed technique, I think that fit is one of the key ingredients that makes our garments custom-made as opposed to Becky-Homecky. Until I saw the image above, I thought the crotch curve was pretty darn good and now see that it could have been scooped a bit more.

In this photo, the pants were inside out so I could pin out the excess more easily. Since I don't have one hip higher, this trick works well for me only it might have been a good idea to actually look at this blurry photo - that my son took earlier - that I ignored until writing this posting - because if I had I would have known that the crotch needed more work. I didn't and now the seam is stitched, trimmed, and stabilized. The fabric has a percentage of Lycra so it'll relax somewhat and I'm a person in motion so good and enough for now.

This is the first time I've sewn a pair of pants with a French seam. They reminded me of the workshop I took with Sandra Betzina a few years ago. I was complaining about my forward thighs and flat derriere and protruding calves and the resulting wrinkles and how hard my figure was to fit in pants and Sandra told me to consider patterns with seams like OOP V2948 to which I replied that I wanted them to fit without seams. She told me to get over it. LOL - yes.

I was going to say that I sold another purse on the weekend but that would be incorrect. I've been making purses for years and no one has asked to buy one before and now they're walking out the door before I can even get a good picture. This is obviously a God thing so it'd be more correct to say that GOD sold another purse on the weekend bringing my savings to 50% of next year's workshop. I'm intrigued to see how He provides the rest. I'll let you know.

I have no desire to revert to being a workaholic nor to having a house full of unsold pieces AND... were I to focus solely on purses and not on clothes... I'd be n-k-d in no time so my plan is to alternate things for sale with things for me. On Friday, when I finished the purses, I should have started on a garment except that I had a friend coming to sew that evening and I'm not yet comfortable enough with draping to have someone in the studio while I'm trying to figure out a garment so I pulled out the next pile of remnants to be pursed and cut out five shapes complete with sides and handles where applicable and then I packaged them into the purses in waiting basket and now it's my turn.

I've started to restructure the t-shirt Millicent's been wearing for the past few weeks and once that is done I'll finish the skirt I started at the workshop and then - depending on how long that takes - I may or may not sew a top to go with.

Lorrie wrote - Are you cooking gluten-free stuff for everyone, or just for yourself? What do you eat when you make lasagna and rhubarb crisp for your family?

Acupuncture has made a huge difference. It hasn't cured my sensitivities but it has made them more tolerable in small doses. Because I knew what was for dinner, I ate non-sensitive foods for the rest of the day. The lasagna was made with rice noodles. There were no issues with the tomato sauce. I used cottage cheese and skim mozzarella because these are on the more tolerable end of dairy products. The crisp was made with a butter substitute and half brown rice and amaranth flours and half wheat flour. While I'm not feeling as good as I was eating a totally devoid of sensitive foods diet, it's much easier to exist with limited amounts of the "bad" stuff so I'm settling for slightly off and hoping exercise, acupuncture, and time will take care of the rest. I can hardly wait for the end of menopause to see if it's also the end of these allergies. Thanks for asking.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - another purse sold