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??

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DIY Mens Dress Shirt to Ladies Blouse

I have been hanging on to my husband's shirt he wore for our wedding for the last (almost) 10 years. It wasn't new when he wore it for our wedding (we were broke, my parents paid for the day and we didn't want to waste money on things that didn't need replacing) , in fact I think he may have worn it when we went to our school prom together... Anyway, after the wedding and another couple of formal outings its collar and cuffs were not longer presentable. He wanted to throw it out, I wouldn't let him, so it has sat in a suitcase under our bed since then....

Now I am drowning in a sea of fabric and old clothes and am desperately trying to deal with my stash so decided to have a go at refashioning it into a blouse for me.

I placed a blouse that fits me on top of the shirt and drew round it (not the sleeves though).

I then forgot to take pictures, but cut the shirt out, sewed up the new shoulder seams and put the blouse on my dress form and drew the new neckline. I then used another old shirt to make facings for the neck, sewed them on, then top stitched round the edge.

I put in bust darts and shaped the sides of the shirt.

I then cut the arms of the shirt roughly where they fitted then new size armholes. I attached the sleeves, gathering them slightly to fit, then cut the sleeves to the length I wanted. I finished them by putting two bands of fabric (that were just a wee bit bigger than my arm) round the bottom and gathered the bottom of the sleeve to fit.

Finally I have a blouse that fits!

Tucked. I cut my head of for your sake, it was a gruesome picture :~)

Untucked. It is bad when the best photo is one of you trying to get something out of your eye...

I made the skirt I am wearing in the pictures last November and used a vintage pattern.  I had to increase the size of to accommodate my large waist, forgetting that it maybe wasn't the best time of the month to be taking measurements and making skirts... So, before Christmas, the skirt fitted for one week a month and now I have lost some weight it doesn't fit at all. I am going to have to eventually take it apart and re size it but until I have reached my target weight it will remain cranked in at the waist with a belt looking totally unflattering!!

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