Category Archives: aw crap

Workin’ On It: Iris Shorts

April 13, 2012 By in aw crap, Colette Patterns Tags: , , , 30 Comments

Hi, friends!  I hope you’re all well!  I’ve been having so much fun reading your comments on the Colette giveaway post (and I can’t wait to draw a winner!)!

So cute... but so tiny. 😦

Guys.  The Iris shorts have been soooo fun to put together!  I’ve been working on a muslin in every spare moment after work, and they were really looking cute!  I attached the waistband last night and… they’re way too tight to close around my waist!!  Waaaayyyy too tight.  I started muttering about the pattern drafting and stomping around the house until, just for fun, I decided to measure my waist AND… turns out I’ve added about 1 1/2″ inches to my waistline since I last measured myself.  NOOOOOOOOOO!  I guess it’s a relief that the error is on my end and not the pattern’s, but… I guess I will have to quit eating so many bagels!  So sad (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed a tear or two last night…).

So yeah.  I’ll be cutting out a new muslin in a larger size (just to make sure it fits!).  And word to the wise, gals– bust out that tape measure every time you start a new project!

What are you guys working on?  Any fun weekend plans?  I’ll be frantically writing tonight for my last class tomorrow, then revising like crazy for my showcase Sunday evening, so I won’t have too much time to work on the shorts.  But I should have lots more free time after this weekend!

Muslin Woes

April 4, 2012 By in aw crap Tags: , 41 Comments

OK, “woes” might be overstating it a bit.  But what’s going on with this muslin?  This is the super popular Burda 2/2011 dress with gathered rectangle skirt and cap sleeves.  I’ve been dying to make this for a while– I’ve been tempted by all the really cute versions of it floating on the internets by such cool doods as Marie, Reana Louise, Oona, and most recently, Suzanne.

Ignore my face (and the acres of exposed skin!!), please! Sometimes this face happens when it's after midnight and the photographer is mocking you and you're willing him with your mind to TAKE. THE. D@#$. PICTURE.

This is a straight size… hmm, I have no idea what size it is.  It’s the smallest size, whatever that is.  I printed out and assembled the pattern last summer, and looking at it now, there don’t seem to be any markings indicating what size each cutting line denotes.  Sigh… BurdaStyle, sometimes I wonder why I don’t make more of your patterns, and then I remember…

As you can see, there are some weird horizontal wrinkles under the bust (I get those a lot– any idea what causes that?).  You can see my typically awful darts in action… ugh!

Let’s take a closer look at this atrocity:

From this perspective you can see that the neckline is gaping a bit, but the biggest issue seems to be the weird extra fabric running from the shoulder to the bust.  I wasn’t sure how to remove this.

The back looks OK-ish.  I think I can live with it.  I might do the tiniest swayback alteration, as it looks like there might be a little bit of extra material back there.  Hard to tell.

Any thoughts/suggestions?  I have to say, I’m a little daunted by the alterations that need to be made here.  I just don’t feel confident that I can fix them properly, and I’m really unsure about how to do the full lining (the Burda instructions are super hard to understand).  But I love everyone’s versions of this dress so much that I really want to tough it out and finish this dress!