Pantsy: Some Blatant Advertising

OK.  So I don't think it will surprise any of you to hear that I'm not really all about the advertising.  I don't like it.  I don't promote it.  I don't partake of it on other blogs.  ADVERTIZING IS EVIL!

Er…

However, I will forgo this dogmatic attitude towards advertising to provide (what I hope is) useful information.

Now just a little back-story: around 2006-2007 everyone was going all bajiggity on Pattern Review about pants fitting.  There was a mad slash-and-burn attitude in the air towards pattern adjusting and it seemed like everyone, just everyone, was doing all sort of tortuous and complicated adjustments in the search for The Perfectly Fitted Pair of Pants.

Enter the very first ETA Dallas Expo (circa 2007).  This was started by Peggy Sagers of Silhouette Patterns.  She had a pants fitting course.

I don't even make pants.  But when the pants-fitting course came up it was on a day I could get away from work, I had never had an opportunity to meet other garment sewists in person, the workshop was an hour's drive from my house and I thought to myself, "Self, maybe you don't make pants because they're so hard to fit."  Right, like I'm passing up that combo.

People.  Eye-opening.  After reading and observing all this Pants Trauma online, Ms. Sagers' instruction was... astonishing.  So simple.  So logical.  So... achievable.

Because of my solitary excursion into the periphery of ETA five years ago, I still get newsletter emails from Silhouette Patterns.  Peggy has started an online video series (to promote her DVD series, as far as I can tell).  I'll state right up front that I haven't watched them yet and they seem to have obligatory ads, but last week she did a pants fitting demonstration.

If you learn a quarter of what she taught in her ETA workshop, it would be worth watching.

This week's upcoming demo is going to be T-shirts.  I believe the one before the pants fitting was
blouses.

I learned a lot at that workshop.  Mostly, I learned that "hard to fit" is not why I don't make pants.  Not at all.  The truth is, I don't make pants because I don’t like making pants.  That's a valuable lesson.  I hope my sharing this link helps you learn something valuable too.

 

(I was joking about the advertizing thing.  In case you plan on sending me hate mail about how wonderful your advertizing is and how very very wrong I am to denegrate it in this way.)

A Year In Review, Part Two: Resolved.

2010

Resolution: Lose 46 pounds
Result: Lost 36 pounds
Conclusion: Sufficient

Resolution: Stop Buying Fabric
Result: Bought A Small Amount of Fabric, Used Most Fabric Purchased
Conclusion: Sufficient

2011

Resolution: Lose 25 pounds
Result: pending
Conclusion: pending

Resolution: Organize and Reduce Possessions/Make Living Space More Visually Appealing
Result: pending
Conclusion: pending

Inspirational Motifs:

A Year In Review, Part One: Revolutionary Heroine or Disturbed Trouble-maker?

Interesting non-conformist or irritating agitator? Charming individualist or borderline sociopath?

Hmmmm....

Last weekend was a five-day vacation for me: five days of sweet, sweet freedom from the hellish nightmare of endless toil and sufferin-- er.  I was off from work.  And I knew that at least some of that time I would spend sewing.  Or I hoped so.  I had two pairs of jammies, a shirt-dress and a blouse all half-sewn on the table.  I also had two knitted skirts, completed up to about row 8 and two knitted earwarmers,completed up to about... row 8.  (Row 8 seems to be pivotal for me in some way.)  These were all, of course, supposed to be Christmas gifts.

By December 24 at 4:00 pm I had completed one earwarmer. 

I did, however, complete the jammies and the shirt-dress by my last evening off.  And once again, I went whizzing around on the "Why do I stress myself out about a leisure pursuit?" merry-go-round.  I know, I know, we all take a spin on that particular ride now and then.  Usually my little trips are pretty uninformative.  (I do have an amazing ability to combine deep introspective thought with a pathological refusal to acknowledge or alter my self-destructive behaviors. I'm special like that.)

This time, however, I actually came to some conclusions. It's amazing how cogent you become when you've actually had some sleep for three or four days in a row.

Conclusion #1: I think everyone should wear unique and interesting clothes. Or at least my kids should.

Conclusion #2: I actually do have to make TLo's clothing. And in that case I should really make at least some of The Big One's too or she'll get a complex.

Conclusion #3: Artistically speaking, I am a colorist. I always have been. Apparently in garment-making, this translates into wanting to make simply-styled clothes with lots of funky, bright fabric combinations and not highly-detailed, complicated designs with muted, subtle fabrics.

Conclusion #4: I feel compelled, in the interest of keeping myself interested, to make clothes that are either challenging to design or challenging to construct.

Conclusion #5: Conclusions number 1-4 do not combine well with making uniform-appropriate clothes.

Conclusion #6: I really really really hate the school uniform policy.

Hmmph. I don't like my conclusions.

But of course in typical fashion, I did not decide (as perhaps a more mentally sound person would) to just stop making clothes I don't want to make.  No, instead I resolved to even further attempts at twisting and torturing completely inappropriate patterns into something that I could at least nominally call School Appropriate.  Regardless of their actual appropriateness.  I told you I was special.

Which is all to say, I had an idea and I'm not sure it works.

So what do you think? Can a surplice knit dress have a collar arbitrarily added to it and look... Not Crazy?   Because The Big One has some serious surplice love since way back and I thought I might try to use her favorite pattern to make a school dress. 

Please vote.

 

edit: Thanks to everyone who commented and voted so far (and everyone else, please keep voting!)

Uniform Policy Refresher Course:

GARMENT	RULE
shirts/blouses/dresses:	collar, sleeves
	solid color (any)
jumpers/pants/skirts:	navy, brown, black, khaki
indoor jackets/sweaters:	solid color (any)
socks/tights:	solid color (any)

A New Series In Our On-going Program

Today we begin a new little series I like to call “Things I Have Learned (But Wish I Hadn't)”.

When the United States Federal Government and/or the United States Army Corps of Engineers are required to perform an activity, there is an infinite band of time stretched out before them to complete said task.  Regardless of their own self-imposed deadlines.

When someone else is required to perform an activity for the United States Federal Government and/or the United States Army Corps of Engineers, those entities believe such an activity should be performed within a time-frame that defies the laws of physics.  Unless you happen to own an army of robots or perhaps some sort of time machine.  They are not interested in the details. The things they ordered today?  They want them delivered. Yesterday.

And no, pointing out to the United States Federal Government and/or the United States Army Corps of Engineers that they failed to meet their own deadlines three times and therefore all other deadlines are now off kilter will not cause any sort of impression on them.  At all.

The United States Federal Government and/or the United States Army Corps of Engineers are quite possibly the largest crack-smoking entities I have ever encountered in my life.

Thus concludes today's episode.  Next time on Things I Have Learned (But Wish I Hadn't): "Human Beings Do Not Come With Two Left Legs -- No Matter How Much You Try To Tell Yourself They Do After You Cut Out That Pair Of Pants.  And No, A Six-Year-Old Will Not Wear Them Anyway".