Sewing for your body shape & 2 FO's!

I have been feeling inspired by all the 'Me Made May' posts so have been looking at my wardrobe to see where the 'gaps' are. It is definitely trousers and non jersey tops so I bought these two Vogue patterns to fill the gap.

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I got to work immediately on the trousers using some stash material. I cut a 14, graded to a 16 at the waist, they went together smoothly, instructions for the fly were brilliant, but when I tried them on they looked awful...

I couldn't even bear to take a photo with them on...!

After a little (lot) of sulking I got on the computer to do a bit more investigations on how to dress your body shape, I keep going wrong when sewing for myself and a fed up!

I know roughly what suits my shape but have never really felt that I fitted in to one of the shape categories. The crazy thing is that when buying clothes I am picky about the shape but when sewing I tend to just sew what looks nice in the pictures and what looks good on other bloggers!

During my investigations I came across this fantastic web site which was a revelation! I realised that I am not an 'apple' and you don't have to be skinny to be a 'rectangle', which, it turn out, I am (although this site calls the shapes by letters so I am an H on this site). And if you need proof...

I also discovered I have a short waist (the gap between my rib cage and hips is about 2 inches) no wonder I have no waist there is no room for one, my ribcage takes up all the space! I didn't realise how little I knew about my body shape and have been making clothes that are entirely the wrong shape!

I have never felt comfy with things tucked in and one of the rules for rectangles is not to tuck in as it makes you look short and dumpy, well if you need proof here is some..

Oooh it pains me to look at this... I was 9lb heaver than I am now but how short and dumpy do I look?!!

And another... at least I am a bit slimmer :) This was only taken to show the skirt, I would never wear it like this!

Anyway, I looked out another Vogue trouser pattern that was narrower than the ones I had made and remade the trousers.

They are now perfectly reasonable summer trousers that don't add extra volume to my non existent waist!

Feeling spurred on by the trousers I decided to scrap the blouse pattern I had bought as it draws too much attention to the waist and make a top from my Sew Serendipity book. I made a tunic before but, having shrunk, it is now too big so an almost exact but slightly shorter replica was made.

Not the most flattering photo but I was distracted by the hens pecking at my feet!!

I am really pleased with it, it has an empire line so attention is not drawn to my waist and is long enough to hit on my thigh as it narrows. I am now in search for patterns to flatter and I think ebay will be swamped with my not so flattering patterns!


Anyone else got an odd body shape that is hard to dress??

Linking to some of these fab linky parties!