The Shape of Me

I was inspired by Polka Dot Overload to make my own digital croquis. A croquis (I'm not sure if it rhymes with "hockey" or "hokey") is basically the drawing of a figure on which fashion designers draw their designs. BurdaStyle recently had a post about making your own hand-drawn one, and I also found this tutorial, to make the classic fashion 9-head-high croquis, the proportions of which are quite different than that of an actual human (most humans, including me, are approximately 7.5 heads high). I made a 9-head croquis and then drew an outfit to put on it.



You can only tell the drawing is supposed to be me because it has glasses on. The croquis, like the size zero model, is not a reliable way to tell how a given piece of clothing will look on my particular proportions.

Here's what I did to make my croquis useful: I got my boyfriend (to whom I shall refer hereafter as Shawn) to take a picture of me in my underwear. Then I put on my robe and imported the photo to a drawing program (I use Inkscape, which was free, but would love to be given Illustrator) and traced my outline using the straight line/bezier curve tool. I added my underwear, for modesty, and drew some squiggles in the approximate locations of my facial features. I put in some blurred and slightly transparent lines for my cleavage, knees, belly button and elbow pits (is there a better word for the inside of one's elbow?). I colored the whole thing in. I had to move around some layers, too, and then, ta-dah! Realistic croquis:



I wanted to draw things onto the croquis in the drawing program, but a) it's not very easy to draw precisely with a mouse and b) Inkscape is Linux-based, and I've got the Mac OS running on a PC (Shawn's a computer guy; he does stuff like that), and it's all too much work for my poor little Dell. Everything started going slow, so I had to put it to sleep so it could cool down for a while. I ended up printing a copy of the drawing (which only partially printed for some reason) and used my tracing paper to draw a couple of outfits on top it.




So far I have learned from my croquis experiments that I probably shouldn't wear loose-fitting pants that end just below my knee. It's croquis magic!

(I just discovered, while getting all the links for this post, that Mikhaela, the doyenne of Polka Dot Overload is working on a digital croquis tutorial for Burdastyle, according to her BurdaStyle status. OMG, my croquis is going to be so rad after that tutorial is done!)

Finished! The Stripey Blue Shirtdress

At last! I finally completed the McCall's 4769 shirtdress. Is it unwearable? I think so. I actually have it on as I type this, and it's quite comfortable, mostly because it's crazy big for me. It's also kind of wonky in several places. I fudged the collar a bit, the hem is all crooked, the bottom button is just a little too high, and I haven't done a final pressing. I think I stopped really caring at the end because I knew the dress wasn't going to leave the house. It's my new housedress, suitable for doing the laundry in. My boyfriend thinks it looks sort of diner waitressy ("Maybe you could just turn it into a skirt," he suggests) and I see what he's saying. The blue stripes and the stiffness of the material are definitely uniformesque.

It also feels a little Depression era, like a battered hand-me-down, or a dress that used to fit in my richer, fatter days that I can't be bothered to alter. It reminds me somehow of that one Dorothea Lange photo, though I guess that woman's dress actually does fit her.

However, even if it doesn't fit, I learned a lot from making this dress. I put on sleeves, I made a lapel collar, I did buttonholes (which were the easiest thing ever on my one-step buttonholing sewing machine). I learned that I will have to work much harder to make clothes fit well. I think I can do it. Onward I go, to not bigger, but better things!

Real Progress

Well, I made myself do the reinforcing, at last, which, obviously, was quite easy, but then came the horror of the set-in sleeves. Oh, man, those are not easy. I think if I had some person here to show me exactly how to do it, it would have been a lot easier. I didn't realize quite how difficult it was. And how slowly you have to go. I was okay at getting the sleeve pinned in and mostly the basting went well enough, but then, when I did my permanent stitching, I sort of sewed a fold of sleeve into the seam. It took me about an hour and a half to unpick the tiny tiny stitches. I didn't do anything with the dress again for a few days, and thought about making one of the skirts from Sew U with some fabric I got from fabric.com, but that would have required a trip to sewing store for interfacing and a zipper and I didn't really have the time (There's lots of sewing stores nearby, chains and independents, but I don't drive so going anywhere farther than a mile or so takes hours.) I thought about practicing with muslin, which would have been really great but I didn't want to waste my frustration on something unwearable. Finally, I got a day off yesterday and put My So-Called Life on the tv and just did it. Slowly, carefully, imperfectly, but not so imperfectly that I couldn't move on to the next challenge. This tutorial from the Sew, Mama, Sew blog was the most helpful thing I found to explain the process. There are some videos on YouTube that were kind of useful, too, but I don't have time just now to find the links. Since I took the picture, I have also sewn on the front bands. The next thing was the collar, but it was late, so it's going to wait until the next time. Then there are buttonholes. I'm definitely going to practice those before I sew them onto this dress.

One problem with the dress (I mean, beside my shoddy workmanship): It's way too big! I cut an 18, having an 18-sized bust, but the shoulders and waist are so much wider than they should be. I was trying it on over jeans and a t-shirt and my boyfriend looked at it and said, "That makes you look huge." I told him he's the worst boyfriend ever, then went and took off the jeans and belted the dress together to see if it was any better. It was, but not much. So, I probably won't be wearing it too often, once I actually finish it. Now I know for sure that I have to learn how to do an FBA. That's to worry about for the next project.

My first muslin

I have one less tooth than I did when I wrote my last post and one more muslin. I made it, and it seems all right, I guess. The bust seems to be in more or less the right place, and it doesn't seem to be unwearably large or small. I don't actually really know what exactly I'm supposed to be looking at. The most useful thing about making the muslin is that I've had practice making darts, and I needed some. Also, I somehow managed to sew one of the side seams inside out. That's a good mistake to have gotten out of the way. I think it would be nice if the part between the waist and the bust were a little more fitted, but that's beyond my skill level.

I saw my friend Victoria at work today, and she told me that she was sewing a dress for some theatrical production of Beauty and the Beast, so I told her all the above. She told me to check the back waist measurement and she also pointed out that I have rounded forward shoulders and that my left shoulder was higher than my right one. I felt kind of like Quasimodo. But she said she would help me out some. So now I have a sewing coach. Hooray! Victoria was surprised that I was starting with a dress with a collar and set in sleeves and darts and buttonholes. "You're just going to learn everything right off!" she said. I was feeling a little frustrated when I was having a little trouble with the darts and everything, but now that I have someone around to ask questions, I feel a little better about the whole project.

Decision made

Sew U arrived. I really like it. Lots of great ideas, clear information, realistic about being a new seamster with a limited budget for fancy equipment, fun tone, comes with 3 patterns for basic skirt, pants and buttoned shirt. The only problem is that my enormous bosom won't fit into the largest shirt size the pattern comes in (which is called a 12). I was worried about this, having read several reviews that complained about the issue. I'm not terribly big. My measurements: bust 40" waist 30 1/2" hips 41 1/2". I'm a touch over 5'6". I'm not tiny or anything, but based on most of what I've read lately about the size of the American Woman, I'm maybe smaller than average (for American women), so it is a little irritating to be told I'm larger than large (especially by an American woman; I'm not trying to make clothes from Mrs. Stylebook), but no big deal I suppose. Poor me. I'm an hourglass instead of a pear.

I read a web tutorial on doing a Full Bust Adjustment which says to use your high bust measurement rather than the full bust to pick a size, and that number is firmly in the large category. It seems like a pretty complicated operation, however, requiring skills I'm not sure I have yet. So, I'm just going to make my stripey McCall's dress and see how that goes (and see if I really need an FBA) and get some material for a shirt for my boyfriend and maybe something for one of the skirts in Sew U. I am in line at the library to get Fit for Real People, which I've read is great for, well, the fitting problems of real people. I'm a real person. My problems are real. I can't wait to solve them.