Hello from Marina

Hi there, party people. In case you don't know me, I'm Marina. I won this giveaway, and then I answered a few questions about myself. I am super psyched to guest-blog for Presserfoot. Kelli & Rian have created something pretty cool, and I am honestly in awe of their very detailed (and very well photographed!) process posts. I am also dying to try that jeans fitting tutorial that Rian posted.

I hope that I'll be able to contribute to this sew along experience of ours. As I explained to Kelli & Rian, I am definitely still an advanced beginner at best when it comes to garment sewing, but hey, maybe some of you are too. I'm going to be using a lot of new-to-me techniques, so probably there's some frustration in my future, but hopefully I'll be able to write about figuring things out rather than how frustrated I am. That would be so boring, right? I'm really hoping that I will figure out some good tips and tricks for my fellow beginners, and probably I will be asking for tips from those of you who know what you're doing.

Ideally this is where I would include a photo of the pattern & fabric in its pristine condition when I received it. That is unfortunately impossible, as when I saw that package sitting on my coffee table, I tore into it and immediately unfolded the fabric and opened the pattern envelope and started planning. Well, okay, first there was a bit of panic (so many pattern pieces in that bodice!) but then there was planning. I'm going to need to do at least two pattern alterations (full bust alteration for sure, and I may need to add an inch or so to the waist region), but two things make this totally not scary. One, I actually bought muslin to use to make a, um, muslin. Normally I either wing it or use an old bed sheet, but this fabric is too nice for winging it, and I'm out of bed sheets. Well, bed sheets that I want to cut up. I have a couple amazing floral ones that will someday be quilt backings. But, I digress! (Um, possibly you should get used to that? I'll work on it.) The point here is that I will be making a muslin so that I do not risk making a mistake in measurements with my pretty, pretty fabric.

And the second reason that I'm confident I'll end up with a proper fit? I bought a dress form! I've been thinking about buying one for awhile, and when I was at Hancock buying notions, I asked about ordering one. Normally you have to special order them and wait about two weeks for delivery, but they happened to have one in my size. How could I resist? One of my favorite things about sewing might be all of the sweet gadgets/trims/notions/etc that you get to buy. I mean, I own a dress form! How cool is that? And useful, of course.I am pretty confident that I can handle the alterations I'm going to need to do, but they will just be so much easier on a dress form. Pin fitting patterns on an actual person seems like something that was most likely much easier when patterns were printed on thicker tissue; the one time I tried it with a skirt pattern, I was too worried about tearing something to properly assess the fit. I think it'll be much more feasible on a dress form.

Okay, I should wrap this up! Next time, I will talk about my [lovely, lovely!] fabric and the lining & notions I bought, and probably also I will have made some progress on the pin fitting and muslin sewing. [Just realized I did not buy a zipper for my muslin; is that bad, experienced sewers? probably I'll need that if I want to really get an idea about how it's fitting, right?] The last thing I will mention, since I'm talking about fit, is a little tip I picked up when trying to determine my size. If you have more than 2" difference between your bust and high bust measurement, use your high bust measurement when determining your pattern size. The exact number seems to vary between companies, but basically, if you're going to have to do a FBA, you should use your high bust measurement to get a better idea of whether the pattern will fit you.