Tag: Patrones

My OOP Scarlett O’Hara green velvet dress pattern (Butterick 4051) came in the mail last week. This ‘advanced’ pattern calls for a whopping 15 3/4 yards of fabric for the dress, hat and bag. Yet, I squealed like Bobby Hill when I saw the hat is included! How fabulous would it be? I only have two costumes in my pattern collection. The second is Marilyn Monroe (OOP Simplicity 8393).

I see I’ve been a little slow with the sewing and posting. I’ve, uh, been busy.

My three skirts are all still mid construction. But, I made a jump on my Patrones Chloe skirt (pictured above). I’m not super happy with it right now. First, I do not care for working with slippery silk. Sigh. I also tried to underline the skirt to beef it up and add some modesty — but not in the smartest way.

I have a RTW silk dress that is underlined, but the hem hangs freely. So, I’m attempting the same thing with this one.

When I get home tonight, I need to let out the side seam a bit, hem the batiste/underlining and put the side seam back together. Truly, a make it work proposition. I can’t just hem it up to the underlining because then it will be too short. Bleh. Haste my friends, makes waste.

I also used a fusible knit interfacing on the waistband and it’s a gross bubbly hot mess. With God as my witness I will NEVER use Joann’s interfacing again. Which leads me to the waistband facing, I want to interface that too for strength, but I need to sort out what I’m going to interface with.

And finally, here’s how I’m spending my weekend:

It’s so disorganized in here right now I can’t think straight!

Just so you know, my background music today is ‘Learn Spanish in Your Car’. I’m going back to Panama in August and the Patrones have put me in a Spanish speaking state of mind!

I never cease to be amazed by the kindness and generosity of others in the online sewing community. I must give a huge thanks to Claire who saw that those were buttons, not studs on the side of the skirt. And, really, I Y Lisette and Paco who told me that the ‘presillas lado’ that I didn’t recognize or find in the dictionary were in fact button loops.

Lisette even went so far as to translate the directions for me when I emailed her to double check the waistband construction order. Huge help. It putzed around with this for HOURS yesterday trying to get it to work. Funky looking, right? Turns out I traced the pieces wrong.

Ahhh. The good thing is re-cutting gave me the idea to change the grain direction for interest and add a few cm since the first one was a tad small.

But, I’m back on track this morning. Except. I just need to add 2 cm, so smaller seam allowances on each side. So, smaller seam allowances. Why is it small? Because I thought it was more economical to buy two 5 pound bags of Gummi Peaches and Gummi Cherries last week. I have to get these out of my house.

Something to note about Patrones that is different than BWOF. First, they just give you the general pattern outline in their layout. Second, they don’t always lay out the pattern pieces in a way to show where each connects. Third, in the layout / line drawing they DO NOT NOTE seam points like A, B, C, D (or 1, 2, 3, 4 in BWOF). Which means you must me super vigilante on checking the pattern for markings because you can’t double check it against the magazine drawing to see if you missed any points. Ask me how I know.

The pink line is my grading up to 42

I also find myself laying out the entire pattern before sewing to make sense of it.
In between all this, I helped my friend Jon finish his wife’s 2007 birthday gift. You may recall he came over last September to start it.

He’s so proud of himself.

Last week I went in to south Baltimore to try out one of the taco trucks I heard about in an NPR story. I went with Anna from my office and ordered for both of us in Spanish. Seeing how she speaks four languages and I’m still working on my birth-given English, I was very proud of myself. I even understood his questions on condiments. What I was really proud of is that it turned out the guy spoke perfectly good English. But, my Survival Spanish was good enough that he didn’t bother switching over. Or, he enjoyed hearing me butcher his mother tongue.

Now, that being said, Patrones is even more of a challenge! Does anyone actually translate the whole directions? Luckily, this week Paco Peralta posted about the most extensive sewing Spanish glossary I’ve come across. It’s like he *knew* this was my Patrones weekend!

Today I’m working on the #52 Vero Moda skirt from the June 2007 Patrones. This gem of a magazine was a gift from Caroline G who I officially met at West PR Weekend (What’s that? You thought after two months I was done talking about WCPR?? Silly Sewist!!). I really love the three piece waistband.

Because this waist is more fitted than the Roberto Musso skirt I made yesterday, I’m doing a muslin — mainly for my swayback and because I am still sorting out the Patrones fit.

There is one part of the directions I don’t get though. If you speak Spanish or the language of Patrones, maybe you can help me out?

It says I need to cut four for my ‘ presillas lados‘. They are strips that are 6cm by 3 cm. I don’t think they are the trim at the bottom since that needs three strips. I *think* this is something I’m sewing along the side of the skirt? I skimmed and found ‘lados‘ used in the following way “con las piezas lados segun senales C-D e hilvanar los pliegues segun patrones; cerrar lados falda” Which I think means sew the ‘lados’ to or along points C & D? Then baste it closed (the little pleat at the hem of the skirt. Que?

Meh. I’ll trace out the pattern and see if I can figure out how it assembles.