Fitting a Dress Pattern

I signed up for a private lesson with Ryliss Bod at the Sewing and Design School for the next time I am in Seattle. Ryliss is an amazing teacher—I interviewed her on the podcast about a year ago—and we’re going to spend a few hours fitting a dress pattern to me. I don’t have the patience to do it through trial and error. I chose Simplicity 1586, with Ryliss’s approval, although she said she also has some patterns that might work:

A good sheath dress is a wardrobe staple. My problem is that if I can find one that fits in the bust, the hips are too big and if it fits in the hips, the bust is too tight. This pattern includes cup sizes, so I’m hopeful that I can come out of this session with something wearable and a pattern that can be extrapolated to other garments, like the Cashmerette Upton Dress. Or Vogue 1983, which I love (the view on the right) but have nowhere to wear. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don’t care. I can make garments even if I’ll never wear them, just for the experience and pleasure of making them.

My wool herringbone fabric has been dry cleaned. That coat pattern will be next up, I think, after the Chloe Coat. The 50" separating zipper arrived, too, so I can finish the Bella Quilt Coat.

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One of our community members passed away last weekend. He was principal of the local elementary school when my kids were there and also taught DD#1’s driver’s ed class. He said to me one time that he thought it was important to teach kids how to put their cars into a ditch on icy roads because it was almost inevitable that it would happen and they needed to know how to do it safely. (I knew what he meant.) When DD#2 was in kindergarten, he personally escorted her class to the field across the road from the school to watch a bald eagle feeding on some road kill. He used to come to our church when his wife was out of town and gave the sermon on at least one occasion. Their house was a regular stop on our Christmas caroling route. Even after he retired, he would ask about the girls whenever I ran into him in town. I have never met a gentler, kinder man, and I am sure his funeral service will be well attended this weekend.

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I spent yesterday binding potholders. It seemed like a good project for another cold, rainy day. I didn’t get all of them done, but I made a dent in the pile.