Make it work! (with apologies to Tim Gunn)

Along with a heavy coat for winter, another piece I shopped for last month was a light jacket, which I will probably be able to wear all the way to Thanksgiving, given our temperate climate. I wanted something casual but stylish that would suit sweaters and khakis. And I found it at LL Bean: I liked the epaulets and the turn-back collar, and the button tabs on the side to give the jacket some shape. Since the customer ratings said it ran large and I'm between sizes, I ordered the smaller size at first, which fit in the hips and chest but was too tight in the shoulders for comfortable driving and such. So I swapped it for the larger size, and the fit is very comfortable. But it was a little boxy. What to do? I tried cinching in the waist using the button tabs but that made a lump of fabric at the sides which wasn't comfortable.

While examining the construction I thought about the inset waistband. Perhaps a little elastic? But did I want to disassemble the jacket to put elastic in the waist? The solution came to me: hand sew a lightweight cotton casing on the inside of the waistband to hold the elastic only in the back between the side seams. It took just a few minutes before I had completed the casing and inserted the elastic. Just enough to nip in the waist:Believe me, it looks better on the body than on the closet door. That bit of elastic made all the difference in the world in the fit of the jacket and didn't hide the fact that I have a waistline. Perfect!

Regarding the Tim Gunn reference: I have become a great fan of "Project Runway", and Mr. Gunn is one of the major reasons why. His gentlemanly manner is a relief among the catty contestants and snobby judges. He's a class act.

I watch the program weekly with the sort of morbid attention you give train wrecks. It's really quite spellbinding, not the least because of the appalling garments they produce. Granted, they are under time and monetary restraints, but really, some of these get-ups look like third graders made them. And can ANYONE fit a pair of pants anymore? It is hard to watch this stuff when you have made clothing since you were in grade school yourself and know tailoring and how clothing should fit, regardless of the compromises I make in my own clothes because I buy instead of custom make the stuff now and altering is a PAIN. The thing that really gets me about the styling of the dresses is the length. There's mini, and there's MINI, as in about a handsbreath below your underwear. We're into seriously tacky here. Unless the girl is going to wear bike shorts underneath everything, I'm at a loss how she will walk and sit without a public indecency charge. The winning dress last week was a good example. Oh, it's probably just me being a 50-something. I was here the first time minis came around but that time, four inches about the knee scandalized the nation.

Of sewing, sizing and "what size am I, anyway?"

I know what my measurements were in high school, because they were announced for the whole Home Ec class to hear. This moment is fixed in my memory.

Freshman home economics always taught sewing in the spring semester. We were going to make a simple A-line shift dress. It was the mid 60's, and that was what girls wore. The most daring thing about our attire was how high you could get the hemline before you earned the baleful glare of the principal as you walked through the front door of the high school. Heck, we couldn't even wear pants to school.

On the first day back after Christmas vacation, the Home Ec teacher announced that today we would measure each other and determine what size pattern we needed. Oh, boy, here it came. Back in my teen years, I wore a misses' size 14, or very occasionally a 12 if we bought anything from Cox's Department Store. The first year in college, I bought a dress at Gidding Jenny, a rather tony place for me to shop except during sales, and it was a size 10. I was giddy, but realized it was the case of a fancy store using "vanity sizing" (the more expensive the clothes, the smaller the size) and I shouldn't take it seriously. Even back then, at a size 14, I was officially a "pudgy girl". Remember "Size 5-7-9 Shop" at your local mall? "The small size specialist", as their jingle proclaimed. If you were fashionable and thin, you shopped there, like all the majorettes and cheerleaders (with the exception of Jane, God bless her) who were mere wisps, with the requisite long blond hair, Pappagallo flats, monogrammed sweaters and Etienne Aigner purses. That was not me. Mom and I made 95% of my clothes and the trendiest thing in my closet was a pair of Bass Weeguns, which were the second shoe of choice.

The Home Ec teacher paired us up and passed out tape measures. I briefly thought of telling her I already knew what size I was, for heaven's sake, because I had made the dress I was standing in at that moment. I even remember it. A gold paisley short sleeved shift with a v-shaped front yoke and covered buttons. I sewed it myself, and I had been making my own clothes for several years before I ended up in compulsory Home Economics class. I could already cook, so fall semester had been pretty boring, but this semester promised to be excruciating.

The girl who was my partner passed the tape measure around me and wrote down the numbers. 36-27-37 1/2. Butterick patterns size 14. Duh. I could have told her that. But then, the teacher called over to us and asked for the measurements so she could fill in the order form for the pattern. Before I could just tell her the size, the other girl piped up and rattled off the numbers.

I could have died.

Now, here's the thing. I just looked up the Butterick patterns size chart, as well as the one from JCPenney, which is pretty representative of mass merchandising. 36-27-37 1/2 translates to between a size 12 and 14 pattern still, but a size 8 at Penney's. When I was those dimensions, I couldn't have fit half of me into a size 8. Methinks there's something going on here.

Just about the time I was in high school, the major pattern companies reworked their sizing to be more in line with mass marketed clothing, and there was pretty much agreement in sizing. You bought the pattern size you bought in the department store, and there weren't any surprises. Some time in the last 40 years, a major shift has occurred in clothes sizing, and it's interesting. Back then, samples were made in a size 6, and that was the size most models were. Remember Twiggy? She caused such a stir partly because she was even smaller than that. Size 6 was an x-small, itty bitty. It still is in patterns, which haven't changed. Look it up.

But now we even have size 0. (And in some specialty stores, size 00, like we're at a roulette table or something. As in "I'm so thin I'm nothing, I'm less than nothing." Today's size 0 is even bigger than size 6 back then. Talk about "vanity sizing".

It's true that people in general are larger than they were 40 years ago. And what would be more depressing for the clothes shopper than to have to steadily march up the size chart as time goes on. But now, you're still a size 14, but a size 14 is more like a size 18 when you were a teen. You could do a lot of lying to yourself with this system.

I got to thinking about sizes while reading an article in this month's Harper's Bazaar entitled "From A Size 14 To A Size 4", detailing the weight loss program of some socialite who was, gasp, not a size 0. Unheard-of. What caught my eye was that at 5'-8 1/2", she said she weighed 190 and wore a 14 before her diet. Pudgy, I'll give her, but huge? No. But to hear her say it, she was beyond the pale. Her picture in the society pages humiliated her. So she starved and exercised herself to be able to fit into all those designer duds.

Nowadays, anything above a size 8's a "fat girl". In her social circles being that large was truly painful for her. Today's size 8 is the equivalent of my measurements in high school, so I guess things don't change much. You know, I can relate to her "before" picture, and honestly, she didn't look that bad (I would have picked a different dress, though - really, nobody looks good in a shiny strapless number. Would you have hated yourself less in an elegant little black dress?). I've lost some weight in the past few months, and I'm still losing. If I got back to the size I was in high school, I would lie on the floor and cry with relief. But above all, I am a realist. Ain't gonna happen. I've been a big girl all my adult life, and even though I'm smaller now, I will never be small. But I'll take a size 14, today's version. Even if she doesn't want it.

Quilts are definitely easier

I think I've found the absolute worst clothing altering job you can do - removing the waistband from a pair of pants, fitting the waist and replacing it. I still say I would rather make something from scratch than alter it.

I've been losing weight recently due to the diabetes, my diet changes and my stepped-up exercise program. Right now I'm between two sizes, which is really aggravating. Eight or ten pounds or so I will be back in some clothes from 10 years ago but for now I'm buying a few things and making alterations as needed. Some of the things I had to alter were several pairs of Lands End and L.L. Bean khakis, which I live in most of the year.

Each had its own problem. The L.L. Bean pants were too tall in the rise. You know the situation, where you slip on the pants and the waistband is hovering slightly below your bra band? That doesn't seem to happen too often anymore, but these were "classic fit" in the world's worst "Mom jeans" fashion. So I removed the waistband completely, lowered the top line and refitted them with darts and taking in the side seams. Then, back on with the waistband and all the belt loops. It sounds so simple but let me tell you, picking out seams from factory-made clothing is a total pain. It took two hours to do one pair of pants. I spent the evening doing both pairs.

Then it was on to the Lands End pants, which have their own problem. I had bought the ones with elastic in the back waistband because pants that fit my tush are always too big in the waist, but these were a whole different category. I swear, you could get two people in the waist of those khakis! So I removed the front waistband, tailored and darted the front, and sewed them all back together this morning. It was definitely easier than last night's job, but not a picnic.

So at least I have a few pair of pants that mostly fit while the treadmill does its magic. I'm using the pants from 10 years ago as a measuring stick. First it was - ooh, can't even put them on. Then - well, they're on but not zipping. Then - I can zip them but I can't breathe! Right now, they're close, very close. Some people would even wear them as they are, but I can't see myself in tight pants. Not at my age!

Meanwhile, I'm working on some 3" blocks using the pattern from Bonnie Hunter's latest Quiltmaker "Addicted to Scraps" column and a charm pack of Moda's "Harvest Home". They are cute, if a little tedious.

Not even really sure how they will be arranged, but once I get all 72 made we'll hit the design wall and see what comes out.

Hand sewing day

I've got the second Christmas present quilt rolled up on my desk to expose the binding I'm sewing right now (third side - I've been at it for hours) and have music playing on my computer (The Wailing Jennys now, Vienna Teng later). My desk is a great place to do hand sewing. There's a nice bright light on an articulated arm so I can see, and a padded desk chair, and when I want to take a break I can look out the sliding door at the golden leaves on my neighbor's sweet gum tree. The wind is rhythmically moving its branches and the leaves occasionally detach and flutter down.

A nice quiet day for completing some of my binding work. As long as I have good music or interesting radio to listen to, I can stay here for hours. But maybe I need to get a pillow for my lower back first...

Out of practice sewing clothing

This is the coral pique jacket I bought last month. When I couldn't find a skirt at any store to match, I went to Hancock Fabrics and bought a piece of gauzy print that had the same coral in the design.

As I started sewing together the gored skirt, I kept thinking, "Boy, those seam allowances look awfully large! Am I reading the throat plate markings correctly on my new sewing machine?"

I was, of course. It's just that I have made so many quilts and so few clothes in the last 10 years, the standard 5/8" seam looked enormous!

New clothes

I decided to spiff up the wardrobe recently, inspired partly by my upcoming attendance at my brother-in-law's wedding. So joining all the quilting fabrics in the closet are some crepes and such for skirts (I hate straight skirts and like them a little long, so I end up making all of them by a simple six gore pattern) and new pants and two spring jackets in nice spring-y colors from that emporium of style, JCPenney. I'm not being snarky, I really do buy clothes there, because I never liked spending a ton of money on clothes and all I really needed were some solid color short sleeve shells to wear under jackets and some classic pleated pants.

Well, I found the pants, in a nice dressy lightweight fabric that had a little body to hang well, were washable (always a plus) and had small inserts of elastic in the sides of the waistband. Perfect. Until I tried them on. The hips fit but the waist is a good 3 inches too large, without even stretching the elastic. When did clothing manufacturers forget women have waists?

You would have to be shaped like a cylinder to fit into these pants. Honestly, I am on the plus size of things, and my hourglass figure has gained some time, so to speak, but my waist is still 10 inches smaller than my hips, and evidently that's rare nowadays. I found the same thing with skirts in the stores and my beloved LLBean khakis, which have been recut and don't fit like they used to. So, this morning I'm altering the pants.

I would rather be stood out in the rain naked than alter clothes. I would rather make the things completely from scratch. I would rather, gasp, make another Double Wedding Ring quilt than do this. It's a PAIN. Picking out that serger stitching will drive you crazy. And when all of it is disassembled, you have to deal with the threads and the fraying and trying to fit the darned things to your body. Makes a person wish for all elastic waistbands.

But I can't quit until these three pants are altered and three skirts are made. Then I can organize my closet and breathe a sigh of relief. I hadn't bought anything new since I retired 18 months ago, and just ran around in khakis, tees and fleece jackets. I looked kinda ratty, at least to myself. I was never a clotheshorse, but don't subscribe to Thoreau's quote "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes" either. Now, whatever activities come my way, I can meet them with sartorial splendor!

Miscellaneous sewing, and not a quilt in sight

After moving the fabric I had bought for a new sewing machine cover once too often, I decided that this was the afternoon I would finally make the darned thing. I only bought the fabric four months ago. Gee, I'm speedy. It's not much to look at, just a standard cover, although it is reversible. Since I have to put my sewing machine away between uses, the only reason I even decided to make one is to keep little cat feet out of the thread. The plastic one that came with it did the job just fine but was ripping at the seams. Then, for good measure, I looked up the dimensions for my new machine on order and made one for it too. Man, I hope that the website was accurate on the size!

I had a few scraps left over, so I decided that my itty-bitty pink Fuji camera needed a case so when I carried it the camera wouldn't get scratched up in my purse. Why did I think that bias binding was a good idea to finish this tiny thing? It took me forever. The only velcro in the house was self-adhesive dots, which were the right size for the flap closure, but a mess to sew on. Have you ever tried to put a needle through that gluey backing?

After all that, I was feeling inspired to try the purse pattern I bought. The outside was ready to go - pre-quilted fabric - but the insides needed constructing, with fusible interfacing and elastic edged pockets on both sides. I'll show and tell when it's done, but it's quite spiffy. The six pockets will catch all the small items that are rattling around in my purse -- keys, cell phone, sunglasses, camera, MP3 player, hand disinfectant bottle (I'm sold on the stuff - not one cold in more than a year). I'm wishing the shoulder strap was thinner, but that's my only criticism of the pattern. Easy-peasy to put together, just bulky seams with all that interfacing and padding. This is really a trial run before I try to make my Mom one for her birthday. Hers gets a zipper closure and double shoulder straps

I have to finish that purse tomorrow and mark up the pattern changes. I've got less than a month to find the fabric and get it done.