Stash Exploration

Playing with fabric is a very messy occupation. When I'm planning a project, I drag out every bit of fabric I think I might want to use, then winnow my choices down to about seven. I fold the rest and put it in a bag to be returned to the basement, where it stays in a bag awaiting the day of the next sorting. Sometimes the entire bag gets tossed into a box. There are many partial boxes, relics of previous sorting expeditions.

I do not have a neat system of storage that tells me where each item is. Nope. Fabrics are in copy paper boxes and bankers storage boxes. Patterns are in plastic crates. I happily go through the patterns , sometime sorting them by date. I can get lost in the graphics on pattern fronts.

There are too many zippers to fit in a single shoebox, so they went into a used plastic grocery bag. Periodically the bag disappears. Recently the bag disintegrated and was replaced. I have not bought new zippers in years. I suspect they propagate. What else could explain the preponderance of 7-inch zippers in colors I cannot stand?

Needles are in a plastic shoeboxes, supposedly visible. Buttons are everywhere. Some are in a shoebox, some in plastic candy jars. Odd loose metal buttons are in the plastic crate with bead supplies. Tiny doll sized buttons and buckles are in another shoebox in a cardboard drawer. All of this would be really nice if I were in the same room as my supplies, but they are in the basement. I shop the basement before each project, dragging out way too many things before making a final decision.

Lace is unruly. I only use a few inches at a time for dolls, but yards for humans. It was neatly sorted and pinned until  the basement flooded 4 years ago, and I ended up washing everything. Now 1/4 inch wide polyester lace mingles with poly/cotton eyelet, wide laces, vintage machine lace. Most of it is shades of off-white. Picture a ball of stuff the size of boxes that hold sneakers for teenage boys. Picture three of those balls. I am a little behind in my untangling.

There are years of stalled pants projects. One is obviously too small. but another needs minor tweaking and it will fit! Amazing. And I still have the fabric that will allow me to finish the project. Ah. Being a fabric hoarder is not entirely terrible.

Other pants news: the elastic-waist pants pattern produced by the PatternMaster book does almost fit without major alteration. I lowered the front waist by an inch and added an inseam pocket on the left, but otherwise sewed the pants unchanged. Their instructions for elastic waists leaves me with a too-large waist, even after 2 reductions. The book also has a pair of tailored pants. I should at least print out the pattern.

I also came across another way to copy patterns from existing clothing: cover the clothing seam to seam in masking tape, lift off the piece and put it on freezer paper, then add seams.

None of this gets me any closer to having a dress to wear to a wedding, but that is months away, and my battles were pants patterns have gone on  thirty years or more.

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One Size Fits Few

This just in: I am not a complete idiot, nor am I malformed. The problems that plague me when I try to sew pants from many commercial patterns (Simplicity, Butterick, McCall) are not unique. I am not completely inept. I learned this with a trip to Fashion Incubator, a site for those who design for manufacturers.* What a relief!

Kathleen Fasanella discusses common industry problems, researches why they occur, and tells designers what they can do to avoid them. She bought a pair of manufactured pants for her husband, showed that they did not fit, sewed a gusset to make them fit better, and told us why no real human could have worn those pants to begin with. As I understand it, the mistake that makes many pant patterns fit poorly creeps in during the grading, when they enlarge the pattern for different sizes. If the additions are made in the wrong place, a whole set of fit problems can occur. I sort of knew that.

I love knowing what makes clothing work and why. There is even an answer for why the waistbands of pants seem to get smaller at a different rate than the rest of the pants. It's in the cut. If you cut the waistband alongside the pant leg, it shrinks at a different rate than if you cut it across the width of the fabric. It gets smaller faster. It's not my imagination. Henceforth and forever more, I will cut my waistbands across the fabric, even if I have to piece them.

Fitting a pair of pants is indeed almost as complex as, say, rocket science. Weight gain is not evenly distributed. Allowing for weight gain  requires knowing where you store it. If, unlike Lyndon Johnson, you store fat above the waist, you've got it made. Folks who store fat in their thighs have one problem. Those who get big middles have another. Each fat storage zone has its own shape, and sometimes the best you can do is to disguise it.

In other words: everything I was ever taught about fitting pants is only partially true. The rules that worked when I was severely underweight don't work now that I am normal and then some. I have curves. They are pleasant, but they are still curves, and pants patterns are designed to fit a median. No, let me correct that. Pants patterns are designed to go on  a variety of shapes. They only actually fit one shape well, and the rest of us must learn to put up with what we get, or change brands. 

Off I go to fiddle with  my stalled pants project. I've also dug out former college level sewing instructor Terry Jones' instructions for making pants. She very kindly posted them years ago during one of my prior rants about pants patterns. Terry Jones can make just about anything seem simple. Her instructions are calm, matter of fact, step by step, and I should have followed them long long ago instead of getting distracted by moving 3 times in 3 years and having sewing machine and fabric out of reach for 18 months.

*Anyone can read Fashion Incubator, but only those who have bought her book may comment on the site. This ensures that she only has to deal with informed commenters. I am grateful and happy to be allowed access to all this inside information.