third time's a charm?

I'm joining Elizabeth's


 again

My sewing and reading this week have gone hand in hand.

Last Thursday, after not having visited Alabama Chanin's journal in months,

I decided to take a peek and saw this top.

picture from Alabama Chanin

I never wear white ~ but I love this!

So much so, that I ordered the book that contains the pattern.

It just so happened to arrive the very next day 

(I love it when Amazon gives me overnight shipping for free!)

right as I was heading in to lay Lexi down for a nap.

Perfect!

Just like I did with my first Alabama Chanin book, Studio Sewing + Design,

I read it cover to cover in one sitting.

~

Being genetically predisposed to not following patterns or recipes exactly,

(although, I did follow Kacy's moms' recipe for Gumbo for Kacy's birthday exactly exactly)

I had to change things up.

The neckline, I knew, would need to be raised about an inch.

and I knew I'd want the shirt a bit longer in front.

To trace the pattern and make adjustments, I used my lightbox

also known as, a window.

I knew changing the neckline, since it was comprised of 2 pattern pieces, would be tricky

(plus, I don't think, when they made the larger sizes, they did it correctly; 

the upper left portion of the piece I am tracing in the above photo 

should only be a 1/4 seam allowance on the side, with no seam allowance at the neck. 

This caused me an hour of consternation and mutterings and texting my sewing buddy)

so what I did, was leave those neck lines intact when I cut out the pattern, 

then overlapped the edges of the pattern pieces 1/4 inch, 

folding the seam allowances to the side and marked then cut the new neckline.

It worked perfectly!

~

Not wanting to take f o r e v e r  handstitching a muslin, I opted to use the machine.

I used a size L instead of XL, hoping it would fit snug enough that I can lose weight and it'll still look decent,

without being too tight, right now.

But the L was too snug, and I wanted it longer still (I'd added about 1 1/2 inches to the front)

so I taped pattern sheets to the window again

and started over.

The results were much better, but still too short.

And the fit at the armholes wasn't exactly perfect, 

and the neck ended up a tiny smidge too wide, and it doesn't lay just right

so it was back to the drawing board to alter the pattern again.

You would think all of this work would be frustrating to me,

but it really hasn't been.

(I actually wore muslin #2 all day yesterday; I tried it on to check the fit before finishing the neck and arms
and I just never took it off. It is soo comfortable)

I'm going for perfection here.

Attainable perfection, at least ;-)

So

today,

it's round three.

But hey, third time's a charm, right?

Yesterday, I pulled out and re-read Alabama Studio Sewing + Design again.

Then I ordered the second Alabama Chanin book (my third)

I just couldn't help myself.