I'm in love ....

... with Ottobre Woman magazine.

I've had very good results with the infamous T (2/2007) - great fit straight "out of the box". This spurred me to try one of their pants patterns (#15, 2/2007 a jeans style capri). I actually measured between size 44 and size 46 and opted to trace and sew the larger size, figuring it would be easier to size down. In hindsight, I could have just sewn the smaller size.

The "test" garment was sewn in a beautiful aqua stretch drill (lovely to sew and soooo comfy to wear). The fit, was almost perfect straight off the original pattern, yes I did need to downsize. There was some excess fabric just under the butt (this happens to me in RTW too) ... could this be a flat butt??? Now there's a first! Mind you, these are still perfectly wearable, and have been given quite a run. Pinching out approx 3cm at the CB and tapering to 0cm at the side seam eliminated this problem. Onto mark II with the above alteration, this time in a soft denim ... perfecto!!

Ok, so now I've entered the Wardrobe Contest on Pattern review http://sewing.patternreview.com/. Nine garments and one accessory in three months. Yikes! I need to get a wriggle on.

Forget about doing anymore testing, let's just take the plunge. I'm making a Dressy Wardrobe to cover all those pre-Christmas, pre-wedding, dinner occassions, which my current wardrobe lacks. One of the items on my list is a pair of dress pants in some satin-backed shantung that has been aged nicely in the stash.

Various forays into the stores, revealed that more formal pants had no pockets and an invisible side zip. OK, I can handle this. Armed with Ottobre Woman 2/2006, I figured I could make # 13 work for me. I traced the size 46 again (this time I needed the larger size), made the "tuck" alteration in the back, eliminated the pockets and fly front and cut the fabric!

Woo! Hoo! Yippee! The invisible zip went in perfectly in the side seam and the fit is wonderful. It's so great knowing this pattern range, for me anyway, requires minimal pattern alterations. I'm totally wrapt.

Wardrobe Gaps

Ok, so Christmas and New Year have both come and gone without a new post. What can I say?

Anyway, one thing became very evident during the holiday period ... that my wardrobe is severly lacking in certain areas. Yes, I have a couple of lovely, comfortable, dressy outfits (shoes and handbag to match), but definitely "wedding" outfits. Casual outfits, same thing, but do I have anything for dinner, lunch or a party???? The answer is sadly ... NO!

With this in mind, (and mindful that I'm on a fabric diet) I decided to enter the Wardrobe Contest on Pattern Review http://sewing.patternreview.com/. I've scoured the stash and managed to find several suitable fabrics including some red silk (purchased in HK in 1991), some black shantung (5m! What the..! 2002) 5m of cool wool (I guess I had a fixation with buying 5m lengths), more black silk (bought at the same time as the red) which I'll use as lining, oh, and some rayon/viscose lycra (this is the baby, just aquired this one last year). This should give several outfits to fill the void. Embarassingly, I don't even need to purchase a single notion or thread.

Now, it's just on with the sewing.