Friday 13 February 2015

Sorbetto Tank Top

Funny story, I got excited on Wednesday that work was done for this week and I have a week off, Yes!! A week to sew every day and catch up on house projects (as well as boring house work) but hey! I realised, I had a total of 12 hours while the children were in school before they go on half term for 11 days!! Halt the ideas and dreams of peaceful sewing!

So as I type this I have 1 hour until the children come home and I am not prepared at all for this time off. I seem to have lost some time to everyone in the house being poorly, including myself - even though I gloated that I very rarely pick colds/sore throats/headhaches this is starting to sound like the flu... anyway... I  must have been run down a little to have caught it from everyone... I feel like I'm still trying to catch up on sleep, I slept allll day yesterday - well all day being 4 hours because of the school runs.

So I'm catching up on this before it becomes another time gap between posts! I mentioned in my last post that my next project is the Sorbetto tank top.

When I first looked at the measurements on the pattern to see which size I was going to need to cut out, I was a little confused to say the least. In US size, my bust and hip measurements were less than size 0 and my waist measurement varied between 8 and 12! This made me hold back quite a bit but I bit the bullet and started the project anyway.

I was being rather impatient waiting for the ink to come for the printer so I went ahead and took my measurements and attempted making a pattern myself. How hard could it be?

I didn't even take a photo of the first pattern that came out. The shoulders were not correct and well lets just say measurements to paper went a little off and even the paper version was no where near going to fit my dress form!!





Now I use standard baking paper to make patterns on and a lady on youtube made it so very simple for me to make the pattern itself. Here is that link for you to look at.








I was happy with my pattern, but I didn't want to cut my lovely fabric just yet. So I used an old table cloth... One that I had turned an odd colour in the wash. Very rare, I promise.





I pinned the pattern in place and cut around it with fabric scissors. I then decided to loose stitch it together on the sewing machine in red thread. I chose to loose stitch it (I think this is called baste stitch). I found clarification with this video. It's a stitch that can easily come out but keep things in place. This was so that I could make adjustments to the flat pattern and try again if necessary. Also the red thread was so that I could see where the thread was and easily take it out.



     



Now I feel a bit silly as it is such a simple top to make but I have very odd measurements and I want to make something I'm going to enjoy wearing.

It is a common conception that women have an hourglass figure... this is especially with bought dress forms, hence why I made my own. This is the reason I could not buy one. However, I have curves which can be seen, however my stomach can vary a lot with bloating, which means my measurements on paper make me look square. Finding clothes to fit has come to an end now that I'm learning to make my own clothes. I'm hoping to make this top fit but cover up the bloating tummy. Do you have this issue with clothes? What do you do about it?

Anyway, so this is as far as I have got with this project. I finally got the ink for the printer and decided to print out the pattern and just test to see if it was far off my own version. It was not bad at all. Apart from a curve here and there. I still need to adjust the top a little though, because getting it on and off my dress form has been a little tricky, I may have to use a zip, or maybe make it a little bigger.

Now that I have the basic pattern of my own and the Sorbetto pattern to compare,
I can see the extra bits that I haven't done that I think make designing clothes crucial.
The slight curve is going to be needed, otherwise it'll have trouble sitting on my hips and my shoulder straps are literally sitting on the edge of my shoulders, so I need to shift those over quite a bit. Lots of little details that are not thought of, well unless you are like me and practice from scratch and make the mistakes, then you think of them as you do it. Then again, if you think about it patterns are rarely given with detail such as
' the shoulder strap is an inch from the edge of the shoulder because otherwise the strap will fall down (a lot) '. Ok, so it might just be common sense, but sometimes it's not so obvious!

I already have my next scrap of fabric ready to try the new altered pattern, so I look forward to updating with that and then hopefully, I will bite the bullet and cut into the lovely fabric that I have chosen. I must remember to wash it first! so I've read.

So 11 days of madness, I was thinking of making the boys a large road town on the floor out of masking tape. We have done this before and they thoroughly enjoyed it. However I stuck the masking tape to the carpet. All good. I'm a little apprehensive of doing it on the laminate flooring, icky glue patches are not welcome with little doggies in the house and I don't quite fancy scrubbing it off the floor. I will have to test patch it.
Oh and we shall be going to the library because the youngest has a country project to make. We might even make a trip to the fabric store. The eldest wants to make a t-shirt from SCRATCH with a DRAGON on it. hmmmmm. i wonder if letting him watch sewing bee with me was a good idea.... I think that'll be the next project that I post up after this one!

x Lily x

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