Thursday, July 17, 2014

Mini-Wardrobe Part 2: What do I have?

It's raining and it's the type of day I don't want to drive into Dallas.  So, what do I have on hand?

While figuring out, I took some measurements to help the process.
Bust 36
Band 31
Upper chest 33
waist 30 
hips 36.5

So basically, I'm a square! (See, I already made you feel better about yourself! ;-)  ) Most major pattern companies make their patterns for a B-cup measurement.  If you are larger than a B, it helps to use the upper chest measurement, instead of the bust measurement, then do (the sometimes dreaded...) FBA.  (full bust adjustment) For a long time I really never thought this applied to me (my chest is honestly not that big!) but it turns out, numbers tell the story, so if there is more than 2" difference between your band and chest measurement you might want to consider it.

I have some knits in the stash, perhaps these will work for pieces?  I also have a piece of black knit, which didn't photograph well, I'll try to get a better pic later.





You can see that third fabric I obviously had margaritas before shopping!  But I do love bright pink.  Maybe a top?  These are all 60" wide (about) and I have
  •  1 2/3 yard of the grey/blue/black
  • 1 yard of the "shopping juice" fabric (pink print)
  • 1 yard of the (darker than the photo) grey
  • 1 3/5 yard of the black knit.
So, maybe enough for two tops, a skirt, and a pants? Can I make pants with only 1 3/5 yards?  Hmmmm..... might need to cut out the patterns and do a layout.  Since they are knits, I have to have everything in the right stretchy direction (grain)... no fudging.  But then again, I have hobbit legs, so it might work.

Pulling New Look 6977  a size 10 matches my upper chest, a size 16 matches my waist (ugh!), and a size 12 most closely matches my hips.  So for the top, I might start with a 10, but curve out at the waist.  Top A (this view):

Please excuse my lame photoshopping....but you get the idea. Also note that this might be tricky with fabric placement, as illustrated on left side chest.



Also the pants, view E, take only 1 1/2 yards of fabric... so that's doable.  Also the skirt on the pattern NEW LOOK 6977 view D says 7/8 yard, so maybe that out of the grey fabric.  There's enough blue/black to make the NEW LOOK 6735 top I've been wanting to make, so that would give me FOUR pieces, without even making a run to the fabric store.  Let's DO THIS!







MaryKay is slowly trying to dig herself out from under a mountain if fabric, one tutorial at a time.

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