Weather Report

I was awakened out of a deep sleep at 1:30 this morning by what sounded like a big branch hitting the roof of the house. I got up and went to see what was going on and discovered that we were getting strong northeast winds coming down off the mountains.

Had a back door cold front been in the forecast? No, it had not. No warnings, nothing. I guess I’ll wait a few hours until the actual weather forecasters get to work, look out the window, and decide to issue an accurate forecast. 🙄

This is why no one in Montana pays attention to winter storm warnings anymore. So much crying wolf, and then when something actually does happen, not a peep.

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In other news, I spent yesterday afternoon making another muslin of the raglan top and I think I’ve mostly got it dialed in, at least enough to break out the “good” fabric. I moved the bust darts up and now they sit where they should. This is an odd pattern, though, in that I need a larger size for the back than for the front. I had to go down almost two sizes for the front, but the back hangs beautifully now that I have taken out the back shaping. The side seams are nicely vertical. One of the reviewers on the Sewing Pattern Review website noted that she also thought the back was too narrow.

The Avid Seamstress has this darted raglan dress pattern, which I really like:

Fitting is hard, mostly because you make something, put it on, then stand in front of the mirror trying to read the wrinkles to determine what to fix and how to fix it. At the same time, you’re attempting to quiet the voice in your head that is telling you something is wrong with your body. Books and YouTube videos are only so helpful; I found one page in my Sarah Veblen fitting book addressing darted raglans, and it didn’t have the answer I needed. I make a lot of changes intuitively—which for me is basically the same as “trial and error”—and if something works, I file that piece of information away for future use.

Everyone says, “Wrinkles point to the problem.” Well, yes, they do, but that doesn’t mean they tell you how to eliminate them. Kenneth D. King says that every fitting problem comes down to adding fabric, taking away fabric, or moving fabric. Simplistic as that sounds, it’s actually really good advice and I try to look at my fitting issues that way.

For what it’s worth, I am not attracted to tissue fitting AT ALL. That’s the Palmer-Pletsch method where you fit the tissue paper pattern to your body and cut, fold, and tape as needed, then use the pattern that has been adjusted to fit you. I know it works for some people, because the method has a lot of proponents, but it’s hard to tissue fit without a helper, and I just don’t “see” the pattern as well that way. And a muslin is still required. If I am going to make a muslin, then I’ll use that to see where I need to make changes.

My favorite patterns all seem to be mashups, and indeed, I am going to get out the Remy Raglan today to compare it to the Simplicity pattern. I think I may be able to combine the two to make the perfect raglan top pattern.

Machine mastery for tomorrow has been cancelled—no students—although I do have serger mastery on Wednesday. We only offer that class once a quarter, so I don’t like to cancel it. But I have a bonus day of sewing tomorrow that I wasn’t expecting. I am going to try to get this pattern finalized and then start working through the pile of fabric for summer tops.