Work to Do

I am home again after spending my birthday and Thanksgiving in Seattle, followed by a few days in Port Angeles at DD#1 and DSIL’s new house. Travel was uneventful, although I timed the drive on both ends to avoid traffic and bad weather (and thus, bad drivers).

My birthday gift to myself was a four-hour session with Ryliss Bod at the Sewing and Design School in Tacoma. Ryliss helped me to fit a dress pattern with princess seams, which is one style I like but did not want to try to fit myself. We used Simplicity 1586, part of their Amazing Fit line. That pattern came in cup sizes as well as Slim, Standard, and Curvy fit. Ryliss measured me and we determined that I needed the Slim fit in my size with the DD cup pattern pieces. We also shortened the torso from neck to waist by 1-1/2" and lengthened the lower half of the dress by 3".

[Yes, I typically lengthen bodices on my patterns, but I was not surprised that we had to raise the waistline on this one. I am short from my neck to my waist, but long from my waist to my crotch. I also have high hip curves. The combination of all these changes was why I needed help fitting this style of dress.]

I made up a muslin. Ryliss made some fitting refinements to the test garment—the back had to be taken in about an inch—that we then transferred to the pattern. The front fit well with no changes. I came home with a muslin that fits me properly and the pattern to make an actual dress. Spending time with Ryliss is always so much fun, and I learned more about pattern fitting in those four hours than I could have learned in a week reading a book or watching YouTube videos.

I feel like a whole new world of pattern ideas has opened up. I am eager to go through my pattern library to see what tops and dresses I can make now that I have a princess seam pattern that fits.

I also made a stop at Pacific Fabrics and bought four yards of the Hugo Boss deadstock fabric that I looked at last month. I used my birthday coupon. The photo doesn’t do it justice—it is more vibrant in person:

This will become a coat, I think.

I also picked up two fat quarter bundles of the Tim Holtz Multi line, which is the last monthly release in his year-long Palette collection.

But now I am home and have work to do. The first order of business is to scale the mountain of paperwork on my desk. After that, I have to corral Christmas music before it attacks me—both Advent prelude music and music for the Christmas Eve service. Once all of that is handled, I can finish the Bella Quilt Coat sample for the shop and my Chloe Coat wearable muslin.

I’ll have more to share tomorrow.