Things that tick me off Thursday

Thursdays are so therapeutic, you know? For example, today I’ve got a peeve that has been bugging me for several years, but I finally had the perfect example to use to explain what ticks me off and why.

You see, it really irritates me when someone asks for an opinion they don’t really want. We’ve all had this happen right? Someone asks for an opinion, you assume they legitimately want one, so you carefully construct a written/verbal response that may not agree with what they said/did/want, but tactfully–so as not to hurt their feelings.

A prime example of this? The other day my mother calls to ask about buying a computer. I’ve bought a couple of them in my time and have done some research, so I figured she legitimately wanted an opinion on what specs she needed/wanted for what she planned to do with the computer (which is not much besides email and occasional web surfing). I asked her what she planned to use it for, (just to be sure) and gave her some specs to consider. That’s when she mentioned that she’s already set on a computer that’s expensive and over powered, and she’s unwilling to consider anything else. Which is fine, it’s her money, but if all she wanted was reaffirmation that she’s right, why didn’t she just ask for that to start with?

So in closing, don’t ask for an opinion if you don’t really want it. Just save everyone the trouble and be honest and say you want everyone to tell you that you are right/awesome/etc. Now, wasn’t that just so much easier for everyone?

Never have I EVER

Wanted to look like trailer trash…unfortunately, there’s something* about this shirt that really just makes me feel like I should have 6 kids running around the trailer while I smoke a cigarette and shout obscenities [to the kids] and am barefoot and pregnant.

*And as it so happens, I think my husband has figured it out! He says it’s because the “straps” are too narrow–it looks like a wife-beater–and so it needs some sort of sleeves. Unfortunately, I’m fresh out of enough scraps to make a pair of sleeves.

Even if I could make sleeves though, I still wouldn’t wear it. It’s WAY too tight across the bust, and there’s a bit of poor pattern placement–on me, those red stripes look like they’re “cupping” my bewbs. Not really my best look. Let’s have a look at this catastrophe, shall we?

I will say that I’m not upset about this “fail” at all, it was supposed to be a muslin to test out the pattern for some better (non ugly/remnant) fabric. The fabric wasn’t even close to my taste, so unless it had surprised me by coming out amazingly awesome, it wasn’t going to get worn anyway. So no sympathy needed, it’s going to be fantastic as super soft undergarments. And, I learned that I will like this shirt quite a bit once I figure out how to add in an FBA.

In other news, I have to give some serious kudos to the ladies at JoAnn’s. I’ve done my share of bashing JoAnn’s, and they’ve deserved it, but the gals the other day really came through for me. I needed some fabric to match some that I had bought at least a year ago to finish off that skort I’d talked about the other day. They happened to have a couple yards of it left on clearance, and they shipped it to me! Yay! And they shipped it fast too! I ordered that fabric either Tuesday or Wednesday, and it was on my porch yesterday. And since I washed it and hung it on the line today, it’s ready to rock as soon as I am.

Have a fantastic weekend!

 

A winner! And other updates

Sorry for kind of falling off of the face of the Earth there for a while, it’s just been kind of crazy around here lately (totally in a good way though!) and I haven’t been all that productive in a “seamly” way.

So, anyway, there is a winner in the Pattern Pyramid, and it’s Seraphinalina!! So Sera, just drop me an email with your addy in it and I’ll get it on it’s way! I think you’ve got my email, but let me know in the comments if you can’t find it and I’ll send it to you. Congratulations!

In other news, since I’ve been mostly offline I’ve managed to celebrate yet another year of my marriage to the most amazing man, turned another year older (and it snowed!! On my birthday!?!), had a mini vacation, won a blog award* from the adorable Ms. Thimble and Cork (check her out! She’s a darling!), messed up an exposed zip insertion**, played some golf, did some garage sale-ing, and also just had normal life thrown in for good measure. It doesn’t sound like much typed out, but it felt like a busy time.

*I’ll refer you to this post, since I haven’t had the time to brainstorm up new answers. I am, however, grateful that ya’ll appreciate my blog.

** Yes, there was some crying, scream cussing, and frantic requests for assistance on the exposed zipper. It was quite dramatic…or maybe I should say traumatic? I’m hoping to find some more of that aqua Lisette twill to recut the pieces so that I can fix it, since I (of course) put in the pockets before messing with the zipper. (No, I don’t know why I’m going to so much trouble on a “wearable muslin”…I guess it’s because I really liked that twill?) Fortunately, it was just cool enough that wearing a skort would have been cold on the golf course, so it worked out that I didn’t have it finished.

So while I’m searching for some of that twill (it seems to be available, I’m just not sure why Joann’s won’t let me put it in my cart???) I started on Burda 02/2013/113, a draped shirt made for those who have a ginormously tall torso. I’ve taken about 4″ out of mine and I think it might still be more tunic length than anything, we’ll have to see. I’m using a very….ah…unique fabric for it, so it’ll either be amazing and awesome or terrible and terrifying. And I’m planning to leave off the sleeves, due to fabric restrictions, (it was a cheap remnant) hopefully that works out OK for me.

Anyway, I’d better get to checking out my blogroll, or I’ll be on here all day! Until next time, ciao!

I have issues

No, I’m not neurotic–or at least not yet diagnosed as such. It’s because there have been 3, yes 3!!! Projects that I have attempted to start and discovered an issue.

1. The first? Wrong pattern size for a skirt I wanted to make. Apparently my hips are just a *smidgen* too big for the size 12, so I need the 12-20 envelope. Who knew?
2. No problem says I, I’ll just start on View D of the McCall’s 6503 that’s been in my queue for the better part of forever….after all, I have the perfect fabrics in my stash–a semi sheer white dotted swiss for the bodice…..do you see where this is going? Of course you do. I have nothing to underline the bodice with, and I’m not young nor thin enough to pull off sheer blouses anymore. *sniff* It will be gorgeous though, as soon after my fabric.com order gets here as possible by God!
   

   And isn’t that red floral gorgeous? It will be the skirt.

3. And last but not least is the Kwik Sew skort that I found a perfect green stretch cotton for yesterday, but I’m just not sure if it will be the right weight on it’s own, so I also ordered some stretch cotton sateen to underline it with to give it some stability.
   

   This color is incredibly hard to photograph. It’s a very pretty spring-y green IRL.

So now one wonders what I could possibly decide to screw up start next. Actually, I’m contemplating a practice run of the skort, since I’ve never made one before, and I want to try adding a couple of small pieces of elastic to the waistband to help keep it snug (yet comfortably stretchy) so that I’m not pulling it up all the time on the golf course.

Oh, you didn’t know I played golf? Well, I do…just not very well. Hubby and I like to go when it’s close to our anniversary, which is coming up here in a couple of weeks. So, hopefully, I’ll have a skort finished in time for that (and I’m hoping it’s warm enough!!)

Anyone else have these issues, or is it just me?

STOP PRESS: PATTERN PYRAMID

That seems to be the default title for these posts, so who am I to argue? Anyway, I was the lucky winner of the pattern pyramid from the lovely Penny at dressesandme. They flew all the way from Auckland! I had a hard time deciding between the Burda peplum blouse from 5/2010 and the knockoff of the Duchess’ dress, but ultimately I chose the knockoff.

All right, Huggy*, show them what they (might’ve) won!

THE RULES
Anyone, anywhere can enter the giveaway by posting a comment below by midnight Central (Daylight) Time on Wednesday April 24.
You must have an active blog.
I will randomly select a winner.
The winner will pick one pattern to keep for themselves, then host their own giveaway. They will randomly select a winner and post the remaining patterns to that person.
You get the idea!

THE SMALL PRINT
This is pot luck! No way am I going through these patterns ensuring that every pattern piece is there.
If you’re a winner, Karen would love it if you could make a small contribution to The Brooke. This is a charity close to the heart of Catherine, who so generously provided the original patterns in this giveaway.
Obviously, I’m operating on a huge level of trust – but I totally trust my readers. All I ask of participants is to engage in a timely fashion, launching their own giveaways soon after receiving a parcel.
Be open to post patterns worldwide – we really want to spread the love! Karen is curious to see how long this takes until the final patterns find loving homes. So please contact her with details of your win and where you live.

Finally, if you’re taking part or just want to spread the love, please feel free to add the below button (found on Karen’s blog) to your blog’s sidebar.

~Let the fun commence!~

* Clearly I’m watching way too much kid’s tv with my little guy…the reference is from a show called WordGirl who has a monkey sidekick named Captain Huggy Face or something equally absurd.

Things that tick me off Thursday

Reviews. I love them, and truth be known, probably rely a bit too heavily on them. So I really get annoyed whenever someone writes a review on a product that they’ve never even tried, whether it’s positive or negative. An example that I found recently? “Tony C’s” review here. Personally, I loved the comment left on the review where my new hero said

No one gives a rat’s behind what you think of a product that you haven’t bought or used.

My sentiments exactly “A Tool Guy”, my sentiments exactly. Why bother to do that? And do they really think that’s useful to someone who is looking to purchase something?

I mean, I could say that someone should definitely buy that low-end Janome, because I’ve used a low-end Bernina, and they both sew pieces of fabric together, so I’m totally qualified to give you a review on a machine I’ve never seen or operated….right?! Uh, no. Sure, it’s a bit different than the example above which is over a simple product with minimal ways to screw it up, but the basic idea carries over everything. If you haven’t used it (or even seen it in person), don’t review it!!

The other thing I hate about reviews…or maybe at this point I should be saying one of the many other things I hate about people is that thing where they mark reviews as ‘unhelpful’ and the only reason that they seem to do it is by virtue of the fact that the reviewer disagrees with them. I mean, you can’t see exactly who did it, but it usually seems to correspond fairly closely with the number of reviews that are the opposite of the one being voted down. Really, check that out sometime, it’s mindblowing. (Unless the review really is irrelevant, and then that doesn’t seem to apply.)

That’s all for this time. I’m sure I’ll be able to rustle up another thing that ticks me off soon, because I know you love it.

Bodice Block Test 1

I don’t actually know if I’ll test this again, but it never hurts to be prepared, right? I’m pretty pleased with how my block turned out, especially considering the doubts I had before when we were starting to plot it out, and even a bit after it was fully drawn up. I’m kind of scatterbrained today, so I’ll try to hit all the important bits, but I don’t promise any sort of coherent order.

As you might have noticed in the previous post, there was a huge dart in the front bodice shoulder that I wanted to take care of. Oh sure, I probably was supposed to test out the original version before making any changes, but I’ve never been known to do “what I’m supposed to do”…a rebel, I tell ya. Anyway, here’s the picture of the darts I created out of the single large one.

I put in a small armscye dart and also a fairly small french dart (which arguably may not be all that technically correct). I really felt like this gave me the front shaping that I need, though the extra work on every garment from here to eternity is going to be a bit of a drag. Oh, and if you are wondering, I used several tutorials to get the darts rotated, from RustyBobbin and Pattern~Scissors~Cloth. (Note there are two links for the PSC blog.)

Anyway, here’s the bodice on me… (Note: this thing might have fit just a smidgen better if some bonehead hadn’t forgotten to add the seam allowances. I used 1/4″ SA’s after I realized my mistake.)

Apparently adding length over the bust wasn’t included in the drafting…

2 things. 1) Armscye is too high, and a bit snug. 2) Maybe I should have made a bigger and/or lower french dart?

I’m pretty happy with how the back turned out, though the shoulder darts didn’t seem quite big enough to match perfectly with the front.

So I’m not sure what all I should change and what I should just let be. Obviously I feel like the bodice needs to be lower in the front (or else higher in the back–or a bit of both). I don’t know if this was an issue that came up during measuring or what.

I don’t know that I could get much better shaping around my chest–I’m very happy with how that turned out. I think the two darts are the way to go for me.

I don’t love the shoulders/armscye. The shoulders seem like they are too wide (remember there’s no seam allowances!), and the armscye–while not painful like some–just doesn’t feel like it’s quite scooped enough in the front and underarm I might leave it though. In fact, when I get the sleeve drafted, I’m not sure I’d even add seam allowances to the armscye at all, I’d just let the seam do the work for me. Do you know why that wouldn’t work?

I see some wrinkles on the thing, but I know that there are going to be a few because this kind of fabric can’t mould itself to my form perfectly and I’m OK with that. To be honest, for a first attempt, I’d say this didn’t turn out half bad–especially when my numbers were all over the map compared to the “size 10″ that was in the example!!