No Sisters, No Daughters

I live in a boy world. Always have. I have two brothers and two sons. The only close female relative that I have is the one required by nature -- a mom. I always thought of myself as a bit of a tomboy, so I was surprised when a friend mentioned that I was such a "girly-girl" in spite of my male surroundings. Her comment made me start to notice. Somewhere between being determined not to let my older brothers get the better of me and raising my sons into fine young men, I've adopted all the trappings of femininity. It's not that I mind, it's just that I didn't notice it happen.

I hate T-shits. I won't wear them if I can avoid them. I hate two things about them: the choking necklines and the boy sleeves.

Starting with a standard T-shirt, I lowered the neckline and made girl sleeves. I didn't have a pattern to follow, so I just hacked the sleeves off. I cut the T-shirt body along the curve of my body to make an armscye. Then I just cut the sleeve to look like a fitted sleeve. I left the underarm seam and hem and basted the sleeve into the armscye in the round. I needed to be more daring, so I unbasted and took off some more fabric, making a more pronounced curve between the sleeve cap and underarm seam.

The picture makes the sleeves look crooked, but I ran upstairs and tried the T-shirt on in a panic, and it's just the picture, not the shirt. I'd take another picture, but I'd rather sew, so I'll leave it at that.

For the neckline, I removed the trim by unpicking the seam, cut the rib in half longways, then sewed two of the short ends together. I measured how much I'd need, cut it, and sewed the other two short ends together. I folded it in half longways, pressed, and sewed it to the new, lowered neckline. Then I top stitched it to the seam allowance. The rib trim is now half the width of the original, but lowering the neckline created the need for a longer length, which I got by cutting it in half.

Ha! No one around here ever borrows my clothes. My dastardly plan is working!

Oops!

I accidentally made a pair of dress pants. If you don't know how someone could accidentally sew something, imagine you are at a party, don't plan to eat dessert, but someone places some cheesecake right in front of you. A little later, you notice it's gone. You've accidentally eaten it.

Sewing is just as tempting.

Although I started my first post by saying that I was on an exercise clothes sewing jag, I was interrupted by the need to figure out how to start a blog, use my camera, store and upload pictures, etc. In the meantime, I needed some sewing to do to relax between learning new things. Before I knew it, I'd made pair of pants, sans photos of process. I'm a good sewer, bad blogger.

I won't go into detail on this pair. They are made from a modification of a pants pattern whose original identity is long gone. The pattern had an elastic waist. I took out the gather room with curved seams and darts and added a back zipper for this pair. They have multiple fitting problems under the blouse. I'll be making more in the fall and I'll give more info then as I modify the pattern.

I used a rayon/poly blend from Joann's, but they feel awfully hot, more than the poly content led me to anticipate back when I remembered what it was. Oh well, as a wearable muslin of my new adaptation of this pattern, they are OK. I'd wear them to work if I was in a bad mood.

5K Update and Goals

Since I decided to run in a 5K, I have done physical activity every day for eight straight days. That's exactly what I was hoping the commitment would motivated me to do.

I am working out at the YMCA on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Right now I do a seven minute warm up on the rowing machine, 25 minutes on the elliptical machine, and use the FitLinxx machines to do weight training. Today I had my first Women's Free Weight Training class. It went well. There are three more classes, so my goal next week is to try each of the exercises that I was taught at least once before the next class.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I will try an "active lifestyle" activity. For instance, this past Thursday I did 25 minutes of skipping in my back yard pool, since it was hot and humid. I started out water walking, but found skipping more fun and challenging. I might walk the dog, go for a bike ride, or take a short run.

On Saturdays and Sundays I will walk and/or run around the four mile block near my house as fast as I can. I found out last weekend that I can walk it in one hour and sixteen minutes. I'd like to work up to running part of it, then slowly running more and walking less. I don't really have any concrete goals on that right now, since I really don't know what's realistic. I'll just have to keep moving and see what I discover.

When school starts, this will all change. I teach, so my kids and I are home for the summer. Once we all go back to school, we'll adapt. I work part time, so I can be done at 3 PM. When DS #1 has to work, I'll pick up both boys, take one to work, and walk in the neighborhood. On non-DS#1 work days, I'll pick up both boys and go right to the YMCA. We'll all work out and then go home.

OK, those are my goals. If I stick with this, I'll need all new clothes, clothes to work out in, clothes for the race, clothes to wear to work cause I'll be thinner, clothes to wear around since I'm thinner. Woo Hoo!

My First Post

Right now I’m on a fitness clothes sewing jag. I’ve decided to run in a 5K race next summer. It’s next summer, not this summer, because I need a whole year to get in shape!

My goal is to be in the race and cross the finish line. I might walk all or part of it, but I’ll do it with one full year’s worth of training to be my own personal best. Whatever that creates for me, I’ll celebrate it after I cross the finish line. I hope to lose a few pounds in the process, but it would only take 20 pounds for me to be extremely happy. I’m really not that motivated to be thin, just thinner. I don’t want to stay disproportionally "hippy." My disproportionate hips interfere with my sewing happiness.

This is me in my favorite green exercise pants, which I bought.

When my family joined the YMCA, I bought three pairs of work-out pants. I ended up hating two of them. One pair shrunk, and I just couldn’t get used to the short length. I tried to think "capris, capris," but it just didn’t work for me. The other pair was heavy fleece, and I found myself always pulling out the green pair and passing up the fleece pair. I hate to be hot, and the green pair is made of a thinner cotton interlock.

When I decided to get in shape for the 5K, I knew I needed work out clothes. I needed to eliminate one more excuse not to work out, and not having a clean set of work out clothes that I like is a great excuse! Works every time. Rather than get frustrated with purchased pants again, I decided to copy my green pants. It worked well. I did not take pictures as I went along, since I was only just beginning to think about a sewing blog, but I will on future projects.

















Here I am in my first pair of black yoga pants.


I used a poly/cotton blend from Joann’s. I copied the pattern by putting the green pants on my cutting/ironing table.















It’s a buffet table that I made an ironing board cover for. I only use it to iron large cuts of fabric before I cut out. For ironing everything else, I use my regular ironing board. I poked pins through the fabric along the seam lines. Then I took off the ironing board cover and placed the tracing paper on the table. I drew lines along the pin holes, then added very generous seam allowances. The legs looked very crooked. I was stumped, as the green pants looked straight and I poked my holes very carefully, but I trusted my instincts and straightened up the legs to look like all those pants tissues I’ve used. Turned out to be a good gut instinct. The legs on the finished pants are very straight.

The first pair were a bit big. Since I have a history of sadly growing out of my favorite clothes, I tend to over compensate and make things too big. I’d still rather end up with something too big than too small. The casing was also way too big for my ¾ inch elastic. On the pattern, I took in about four inches and measured the casing and bought 1 ¼ inch elastic for the next pair.

I originally planned two white stripes for the second pair, but after I sewed on the first stripe, I was worried that the second stripe would show any slight crookedness and that I should leave well enough alone. Then I realized that I think I have enough black fabric and trim left over to make a third black pair. We’ll see.




















I used a stiff interfacing inside the hem before I used a ball point 4 mm double needle. One the second pair I forgot to use the interfacing. It looked so much worse that I removed the stitching and redid it with the interfacing. So far both have washed nicely and maintained a neat look.

They have one fitting problem. The center crease rolls in when I sit down. This is a problem with all my pants I make. I’m not sure what to do about this, but I am continuing my exploration of pants making, and I will be dealing with this more aggressively in the future.

The photo looks grey, but they are black. I couldn't figure out how to make the photo come out black!




Then I went out and bought the brown poly/cotton interlock. The brown fabric has been washed and dried twice. I bought 2 5/8 yards each time and they all shrunk to 2 3/8 yards. The brown is waiting to be cut out. This time I bought the matching rib knit trim and two inch elastic. I’ll need to modify the pattern a bit.

For the brown pair I’ve realized that I need to add a loop to hold my YMCA locker key. I use a large safety pin to pin my locker key to my pants while I work out. The first day at the gym in my new pants, I panicked as I realized that I had a sharp point pin for knit pants. I paused in horror as only a sewer with multiple sets of clearly labeled pins would do.



I quickly envisioned a loop sewn into the waistband seam in the next pair, jammed the pin in the fabric, and thought, "Guess I’ll have to make some new ones."