Sunday, October 23, 2011

In search of my mojo

This was supposed to be Halloween costume day, but my enthusiasm for the project has been dwindling for a while now (I think I chose the wrong concept – it was hilarious for a little while, but no longer thrills me.   I was going to be corny – an ear of corn!  (I love visual puns) so odds are good I will recycle one of my older ones – there are standards to maintain.)   Then a few days ago, my mojo was sapped completely when my doctor decided I needed a CT to check for ‘masses’ in my head, had a funny look on her face and wouldn’t elaborate.   Anyhow, after a little less than 48 hours of controlled terror (personally, I was thinking holy crap, brain tumors) they found lots and lots of mucus.  I am officially a really snotty person.   (After having spent my life cursing mucus, I was never so happy to have so much)   Anyhow, its left me feeling a little less than whimsical, and as the weather has dropped, I got to work on my coat.   The hilarious thing (to me) is that the stage two muslin actually looks better than the stage three – now, having seen it in person, I happen to know a lot of that is due to off grain fabric and wiggly basting, but it is irritating.   After getting it to lay just about perfectly smooth post stage-two, I added and hood and the sleeve, and BAM!  The whole thing is being pulled diagonally up – but I have a plan.   (also -- it will be knee length, but for fitting, I only bothered to the hips)
stage 2 muslin
stage three muslin, with fancy patchy bits (looks worse than it is)

Random fitting remarks:   If you look at the stage-two back, you will see diagonal lines going up my back.   It turns out I have a rounded back (I can’t think of any good hunchback jokes) and inserting a triangles, fat side to my back and pointy side to my armpit did the trick.   The rest of the piece had to be reshaped a little, but it wasn’t a major undertaking.

I also tried to move the narrowest point on the back a little lower to reflect the actual shape of my body, however, that seems to have been lost in some other sizing modifications I made.
Also, as one should always fit a garment wearing the appropriate undergarments, I’ve been doing this while wearing one of my polar fleece jackets – I tried using the dummy, but it turns out a week on a hanger and then a week on the floor without adequate layers of tape has left it forever malformed and misshapen, so fitting continues to be a slow and painful.

The plan of attack is one final muslin out of new, on grain cloth, so I can be sure of its fit, and then I make it out of the real fabric.   Think happy thoughts.


lovely wool - blue on blue


3 comments:

  1. Awww! You're not having the best luck of it at the moment, but should mean that something fantastic is coming your way soon! Hope you're feeling more yourself and get your mojo back soon. The wool is very lovely...as you can see I have no idea what you should do about fitting...! Good Luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry that you've had a scary couple of days, but so glad that it is all explained & not serious. I know that I can rely on you to get the fit right, afterall haven't I said all along how well everything you make fits you? But bummer that your tape-dummy is letting you down. Could it become a punch bag?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, good luck!

    As to the head mucus thing... well, that's just weird. Although better than the alternatives. Is there a treatment?

    The jacket's looking good. I am totally jonesing to be making a jacket right now and it's just not in the cards...

    ReplyDelete

I love to hear from people :)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...