continuing education

I've bought a good bit of knit fabric this year,

some for clothes for girls,

but even more for clothes for me.

The trouble is - I haven't wanted to waste my 'good' fabric making clothes for the size I am,

because, you know, as soon as I have a nice wardrobe, I'll suddenly lose weight

and I won't have nice clothes anymore.

I finally convinced myself that that's just foolishness.

In the unlikely event that my fears come true,

well, surely I can buy more great fabric...
And in the meantime, I can wear nice, flattering clothes.

I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday 

designing a dress, drawing up the pattern, and sewing a muslin.

I started with a jammie top that fits well (in some places)

and a dress that has a flattering gathered bit under the bust

and sort of combined the two.

In the event that it actually fit properly

(as I was certain it would ~ it's that darn overconfidence thing, which is so silly, because when does anything fit me the first time?)

I took the time to make it properly, as well. 

Needless to say, it didn't fit well

and now I'm stuck not quite knowing what to do next.

Basically,

I've been doing what my kids do - charging ahead without the really having the knowledge necessary

 to ensure a successful outcome.

(speaking of - Josiah just came in asking if he could make the recipe he just made up..)

Granted, there is value to learning by failure,

but there is also value in taking advantage of other people's knowledge.

I have laid out for myself a course of study.

And while my nature is to want to buy all of these books at once,

I am going to limit myself to one at a time,

learning from each

before moving on to the next on the list.

(with the exception of the fitting book, which I once borrowed from the library and decided it was worth owning,

and can be using in conjunction with the other books in my 'class')

I probably should to try to get them on inter library loan,

but the whole not knowing when/if I'll even get a particular book

coupled with not being able to keep ILL books very long

has me leaning towards just buying them.

 I'm going to start with

then move onto

.

This is the fitting book that will used throughout the course,

It's great because it shows pictures of fit problems and explains how to fix them.

Although, ultimately, what I want to do is be able to address these issues during the pattern making stage,

so I don't even have fit problems.

Pipe dream?
Maybe.

The following books are more textbooky and focus on actually making your patterns.

(which the Cal Patch book above does also, but her clothing doesn't seem to be as fitted as I prefer. Being less textbookish, though, I figured it'd be a better place to begin as I am rather slow in learning new things...)

They are both highly recommended by sweet Florence who is an impeccable seamstress, and a bit of a perfectionist, too.

I may also buy this DVD, and if I'm still having fit issues after all of the above, maybe this book, 

which I've seen mentioned several times on various sewing blogs.

If I need to take things up a notch, 

as on optional addition to my class, I'll add

.

And of course, I still need to learn how to take better pictures, too....