Quills and Needles

Internets, let me tell you a sad story. A story of woe. A story of despair. A story without a happy ending. It's also kinda long.

Once upon a time, I decided to make a pair of pants. They were going to be very nice pants (or trousers, if you prefer.) I bought some lovely dark blue linen/rayon that had a nice hand, didn't wrinkle too much, very comfortable-feeling. Did all my prep work: prewashed the fabric, made a muslin.



Oh, that was really where it started. The Muslin Disaster. Now Simplicity provided some measurements so that one could choose which fit they might fit best—provided with the options of "slim", "average", and "curvy". As someone with a long torso, most of it between my waist and hip, my measurements (I think they asked for crotch length and depth, measured from the waist) were not anywhere on their chart. I chalked this up to the aforementioned proportions and chose the "average" fit, and sewed up a muslin. I had my handy "Pants for Real People" to guide me through the fitting process.

Oh, there were tears then. The muslin fit horribly. Awfully. It was too tight in some places and far too loose in others. It ws completely wrong. I made changes. Many, many changes... and I cursed my book and Simplicity and myself and the muslin for not working. I was never, ever going to have pants that fit me. That was a dark moment, the first of many. Actually it was many moments... I had to take long breaks in between alterations, because of the despair of them NEVER WORKING.

In frustration I emailed Simplicity, because apparently you can do that when you have problems with their patterns. The person I spoke to asked me for some measurements and helpfully suggested I try the "curvy" fit. I have never considered myself "curvy" (pear-shaped, yes; curvy, no) but I was willing to try anything. So I cut another muslin. It was a miracle. It fit almost perfectly. I made a few adjustments to the inseam. I started cutting my fabric. It was going to be brilliant.

I started assembling. Knowing I wanted these pants to be awesome, I had practiced putting in a fly on my first muslin. (I used the HotPatterns fly front tutorial, and I recommend it.) Zipper went in fine. My next mistake was to trim the top of the zipper, and not sew in some stops. It wasn't an issue until...

I somehow snipped a hole in the right front, right near the crotch. Time to panic. Time to completely freak out. I went to the internet; maybe I could fix it somehow. I bought fabric glue. I tested it. I glued a patch behind the hole. It was really, really obvious. I had some extra fabric—I'd been hoping to get a pair of shorts out of the yardage, but I cut a new right front instead. Managed to pick out the ruined right front and put in the new one, even with the fly already sewn in.

Then I pulled the zipper tab off. I was beginning to wonder if these pants wanted me to develop a drinking problem.

After several choice words and some tricky finagling, I got the zipper tab back on, and immediately sewed on stops at the end of the tapes. It would be okay. I could still pull this off. I continued construction.

I made pockets that failed. They were too small, placed badly. The pattern does not include pockets, by the way. I gave up on pockets. There's only so much you can fight a damn pair of pants.

I thought about including the belt carriers I was originally going to leave off. I need somewhere to put my hands, whether it's pockets or belt loops. I stalled. Then I got a job and didn't have time to sew for almost a month. I decided that the pants were not worth stalling forever. I decided to move forward without the belt loops. Might as well finish the pants and move on.

I started to sew on the waistband and realized some of the seams hadn't been finished. Linen can be really fray-ey so I wanted to overlock them. One outseam, fine. One inseam, fine. And then I realized I'd accidentally sewn some of the seam allowance to some of the main fabric. Guess where? Yep, the right front crotch. I didn't think it was a problem... until I picked it out.

Two neatly-cut lines. And as I'd already discovered, impossible to fix. No more fabric.

( Cut for sad, sad photos. )

And that, as they say, was that. There was nothing else to be done. The pants won.

I'm kinda sad, I admit. I liked the fabric, I liked the (eventual) fit, they were going to be comfy and roomy and stylish. But you can't fight these things forever. If I had my heart forever set on these, I'm sure the fabric shop has more. But for now I'm just going to leave them be. I don't need to tempt fate anymore.

I thought people were exaggerating when they said sewing pants was difficult, but damn.

It's truly lazy summer again. I love summer. It means that I haven't been blogging, though—that would be the "lazy" part. Oi.

Stuff I've been working on:
job applications (sigh)
sewing pants
knitting a giant semi-secret project
organizing and cleaning my apartment (sigh)
sleeping.

I did go to Yellowstone last week, which turned out to be a very successful wildlife-watching trip! I saw four wolves, several bears (grizzlies and black bears), frillions of bison, lots of pronghorn and elk, and some interesting birds. And babies! So many babies.



Elk babies!

( More pictures within... )

Mostly, recently, I've been working on pants. Which is not very exciting, I must admit. There's a lot of fit shenanigans. I started with the tissue-fit method detailed in Pants for Real People (I really truly almost wrote "Pains for Real People") and have now moved on to a muslin. The book says with their method you don't need a muslin, but for my first pair of Real Pants I'm going to anyway, not least so I can practice putting in a fly front.

Speaking of which...

( Photos within... )

I've also been working on a swatch for a new sweater. (A Christmas sweater, if you must know.) My local yarn shop was having a sale, and I had a store credit, which meant I walked out of there with 5 skeins of Cascade sock yarn for $1.87. Score!

It was, in fact, done on time—finished before last Friday night, so I could wear it for graduation. (Honestly I'm not sure why I picked that event, since I was wearing my graduation robes/gown/thing most of the time.) I have now worn it twice and have Thoughts on its construction and ideas for future projects. I also finally have adequate photos.

( Many, many photos! )

And despite all the fitting issues, I'm already contemplating tackling pants. I may sew a few blouses before I get there, though...

For FO Friday I have only this: I am finally a college grad. Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies and Bachelor of Arts in Chinese. I feel relieved to be done, a little bit sad for what I'm leaving, a little bit anxious for the future. Mostly I want to sleep for a week and then deal with everything else.

The graduation dress got done as well and I have another project to share but I'll save those for next week. 

Yesterday was the last day of class of the semester—(and of my current college career, eeee! I'm feeling both excited and weird. Sleeping in this morning was nice though)—so I was a little distracted from posting. But I do have a new WIP this week! Technically I have two, but I didn't photograph the other one. It's not very visually exciting.

So! On the loom, FINALLY, is a warp for kitchen towels for my favorite mother. She likes white and red, and I just worked out an interesting goose-eye twill draft to go with that. Honestly the warp is not one of my favorites. It's got the most ends I've ever worked with in a single warp—395—and they liked to stick together, so threading the heddles was awful and irritating. (The yarn is 22/2 Cottolin.) I feel a lot better now that it's ready to weave, though. My ebil plan is to weave off one towel, pull it off the loom and use it as my "sample" (and keep it for myself, bwahaha), then fix the two threading errors I found, then weave off the next three for my mom. She'll never know!

(She might know that I'm weaving for her, though. My loom lives not at my apartment but in her basement. It has a very nice nook there, but it's not terribly helpful for keeping things like this a secret.)



I'm also knitting some worsted-weight socks for my grandma, who is coming out for my graduation next week, but like I said, they're not terribly visually interesting, at least not on the needles.

 Not much going on this week—it's getting close to finals and I've been writing a lot of papers, alas. I have less than a week of class remaining in my current college career and all I can think of is how tired I am. Blah.

Sewing: at the moment this is my main focus. I really want to get this dress done by graduation. I might have to put in a lot of hours during finals week, but I only have two exams, plus one paper, due then, so I should have time. (A couple of my classes end before finals week.) I'm presently working on catchstitching the seam allowances of all the seams. I'm hoping to get the zipper in and start working on the lining by the end of the weekend.



You can't see it too well, but that's the innards of my bodice. You can see the silk organza underlining (all written on!) and the catch-stitched seam allowances. I still have the skirt to do.

Okay, so, I have 2 weeks of classes left and then finals. First of all, lots of assignments due, therefore stress. Second of all, it's spring! So I want to be outside and stuff. Third, I'll be graduating soon, eep! And I'm so swamped by "I can't wait for this semester to be over" because of 1 and 2 that I can't appreciate that I'll be moving on to something else. I'm sure I'll probably freak out the day after graduation, or something. I did after high school graduation.

Stuff I have been working on! Other than school, of which there has been a lot. Mostly the graduation dress.

( Pictures )

Just truckin' along here. It's starting to be the End of the Semester, which means finals are approaching, which means my free time will decrease slowly and then increase rapidly (after finals are done.) This week, I have mainly been working on The Dress, with a little spinning thrown in. (I also knit the first four rows of Chart B on my Haruni before deciding it wasn't very good movie knitting, and set it aside for later.)

( Pictures within... )
I was hand-basting last night when I couldn't sleep, and got to thinking about magic stuff—in Tamora Pierce's books (I'm thinking of Circle of Magic, specifically, but also in the Tortall universe) the characters have special magics in their particular areas of interest. (I find it interesting that the magics correspond to what the characters love, but of course that may be a correlation = causation situation.) If I lived in that world, I'd like to have either textile or animal magic (so, either Sandry or Daine, basically.) But of course, I don't. I have to put in all the slogging hours hand basting this dress, and I can't just order the thread around or demand the organza stop slipping and lie flat. (Silk apparently likes Sandry, so I assume she wouldn't have this problem.) I'm still pondering the economic implications of that. And, you know, in worlds with craft magic, you might meet someone who doesn't have magic but who excels in their field, because they're exceptional. But never anyone else. "This is Sandry, who is awesome with textiles and has magic. And this is Sally, who is incredible—and she doesn't even have magic! How incredible! (Oh, and this is Carrie, who is sorta middling with textiles and doesn't have magic, and isn't worth mentioning, even if Sandry might have been sorta-middling without any magic.)" Doesn't happen.

"Not everyone who loves a thing has magic with it, you know," Rosethorn said. (Tris's Book, p. 49)

On the plus side, no one here has magic, so at least that's one even playing ground.

The twill scarves are done! The stripey socks are done! A sweater is done!

( Picspam anon... )