August Friday Night Sew In

Tonight is the August Friday Night Sew In. The link tool isn't working in Blogger right now, so here you go:  http://handmadebyheidi.blogspot.com/2011/08/august-friday-night-sew-in-signup.html

Actually, I'm having a Friday-day sew in too. I want to wear this dress on Sunday! What will you be working on?

Fall Burda Patterns

Burda has made it so hard to keep up the enthusiasm since they got rid of the English version of their site. This is courtesy of my trip to Vogue. I was in the store yesterday and saw the catalog. Here are my picks:

7288 -- cowl necks get me every time.




7279 -- won't be attempting this anytime soon, but I want it for future use.


7283  -- love it short and love it long.



7278 -- Honorable mention. I'm not sure if this would work on me, but I like it.



7287 -- it's the separate turtle neck thingy I love.



7281 -- how cute is this?



7300 -- my kinda skirt!

McCall's 5893 Rewind

I live my life by consulting three pattern books (ranked in order) -- Fitting & Pattern Alteration, Pattern Fitting with Confidence/Fitting Finesse and Fit For Real People. The one thing I can't get a consensus on is the order of alterations.

• FPA (seam method) 
• Work from the bottom up 
• Even length changes 
• Uneven length changes
• Then, working from the top down
• Even width changes
• Uneven width changes 
• Nancy Zieman's Pattern Fitting with Confidence/Fitting Finesse (pivot & slide method)
• Hem
• Center (front or back)
• Neckline
• Shoulder
• Armhole/Back Width
• Bust
• Waist 
• Hip
• FFRP (slash method)
• Back
• Bust
• Width Around Middle
• High Round Back
• Waist Length
• Shoulders
• Skirt

Is there a unifying theme that I'm missing? Seriously. It's not obvious to me (y'all know I'm sewing special ed.) So, if I assume the order of alterations is based on what method you use, what if I want to use multiple methods to fix my pattern?  On the bodice, I need to do alts for square shoulders (pivot and slide method) and prominent bust (seam method). Which should I do first?

I decided to go with the square shoulder adjustment first. It's the easiest! I think it's a length adjustment, so it should come before the bust adjustment according to FPA and it should be first according to Nancy Zieman. (Don't you just lover her?) Two out of three ain't bad!

PFWC suggests that for square shoulders, you do 1/4" or 1/2". I couldn't decide, so I traced both yesterday! Think I'll move forward with the 1/2".

Gonna make some tea (gotta get my mind right) before attempting the prominent bust alt.