My DIY wardrobe

I really badly need some new work clothes. I've lost a substantial amount of weight the past couple years, and add that to the fact that I really haven't bought much new stuff since I started losing that weight, I haven't really liked much of the styles that have come out lately, and all petite-sized clothing is made for fat, 50something women. Right now I'm down to a turtleneck and a skirt.

I decided that I would give the malls the finger and make my own. For Christmas I got a sewing machine and the week after that Dressew had a massive 50% off sale and I went a little crazy and everything's just been sitting around since then, pretty much, but finally I have some time to work on it all.

There was a time when I would have steered clear from Burda patterns because they had no seam allowances, that section of the pattern that covers the area between the seam and the edge of the fabric where you cut. You see, they're designed by Germans, and Germans are so amazingly intelligent and perfect that they don't need seam allowances. Their innate German-ness enables them to just figure it out.

But eventually they figured out that we here in North America are just too stupid to be able to add in our own seam allowances. No, we'll just cut on the dotted line and then wonder why the damn thing doesn't fit. Nowadays, they've fixed that so I can buy them again.

There's something else that I've noticed though, and it only came to mind when I started trying to piece a skirt together.

They have no darts.

Now, I don't mean darts in the correct sense, I mean those stickey-inney or stickey-outey bits on the edges of sewing patterns that help you figure out which pieces go together. It's kind of like a puzzle. You match the double triangle to the other double triangle, and the square thing with the other square and then yay, you haven't screwed up yet!

So I'm sitting here with a bunch of fabric pieces and I'm having the hardest time figuring out where they're all supposed to be stuck together. Grargh! Something tells me that leaving them out in the middle of the floor for a week or two will make it better.



It's herringbone tweed!!!! It's mildly itchy!!!! You have no idea how much it amuses me!!! I'm going to turn it into a blazer with leather elbow patches!!!