Month: February 2011

Men’s shirt: second (and wearable) muslin!

This is the second muslin with pattern adjustment as described in the previous post. My husband doesn’t like to wear plaid fabric, so there are no plaid patterns in his wardrobe, all solid colors with occasional stripes. I always think that he would look good in plaids though. So I used this opportunity to make him wear them by making a muslin shirt from madras fabric. I’m very sneaky. The madras fabric was only 2 meters, just enough for a short sleeves shirt with no pocket. Making shirt in plaids is also an exercise for me in matching lines. I […]

Men’s shirt: adjusting the muslin

Maybe you still remember the muslin shirt for my husband, it has been sitting beside my sewing machine the whole time begging me to do something about it. After Peter published his last post for the Men’s shirt sew-along several days ago, I finally picked up the muslin shirt and continue from that point. In the first fitting, I thought the crease and folds problem were caused by the neckline being too high. However, Peter suggested here that the problem was that the shoulders need to be lowered. He was right! There are two pattern drafting books in my bookshelves, they are for […]

High-waisted pants

The fabric may look like denim, but in fact it is quite lightweight. It’s cheap polyester, initially bought to make a muslin for my husband’s shirt when I changed my mind and used it for my pants instead. I’m sorry! I rarely wear nor make pants for myself, but I ‘d been wanting to try this 1958 McCall’s 4822 pattern. The cheap fabric is perfect for this, just to see how it would look on me. If it turned out horrible, I can pretend that it’s a muslin…. I made view A, the long pants but without the pockets because I didn’t […]

Men’s shirt: first muslin

I started late for the Men’s shirt sew-along because I couldn’t find any cheap fabric for the muslin. That was a lie. It’s just that I always have trouble working with deadlines or going along with the others. This sew-along is not only a sewing challenge, but also a challenge to this tendency of mine. After kicking myself off the couch, I biked for ten minutes to the nearest fabric store and bought this cheap fabric. The store was not a regular fabric store, it was small, filled tightly with bolt and cut fabrics, old buttons, and dusty knick-knacks that […]

Spring dress

I’ve finished tracing the pattern pieces for the MPB Men’s Shirt sew along and washed the fashion fabric. But before moving on to the next day, I still need to find some cheap fabric for the muslin. In the meantime, I finished my dress! It’s the floral printed cotton that I bought in Nippori, made with this 1967 pattern, McCall’s 8746. Inspired by the sew-along, I also did the pattern tracing so the original pattern stay intact.  I made no significant alteration other than shortening the bodice and the hem, rather aggressively for the latter. Apparently I’m that short (-_-) I read […]