Monday, April 30, 2012

Pickin' up the pieces...so many pieces...


Current Mood : Pressurized.



Aarrrgh. Things started out today well enough – I finally put the new and newly-washed fabric in the way enough so that I got it put away, with the ‘rag’ pieces getting cut up and distributed and the good stuff getting a new home, mostly in the tin doll house  (which is getting pretty crammed). That done, I got the rest of the Arena area cleaned up, which made me wanna sew.


Since I have two redone patterns to test, I grabbed Gloom Beach Frankie, the doll of the day, and got to work. Poor thing. I’ve neglected her so badly, she still had her sunglasses on from the factory ! Got those removed and made the thrice reworked Pucchi Collective blouse stitched up from fabric I’m undecided about keeping. It’s the same stuff I made that ‘hospital dress’ from last year. Well, it fit, but the new version is much too tight, so I gotta redo it, and I’m definitely dumping the fabric. It’s just too thin and fragile to work with. At least I got the sleeves right.


From there, I redrew the ‘pants’ pattern to actually be pants instead of shorts, figuring that just lengthening the difficult part of the shape  would be easy-peasy. Stupid me. I know these pants have always had that weird kinda  ‘keyhole’ in the front, but I couldn’t figure out where the fit was off. Crotch curve too shallow ? Too deep ? Pulling at the front ? Pulling in the back ? I confess, I’m new and fumbling at pattern creation, so I have no idea how to fix issues – and frankly, I like my doll clothes to, you know, actually fit my doll. And look good, if possible. So where and how was I screwing this up ?


Lengthened the front a bit, and sewed more. The second go-round is what you see on Rochelle. That laid down some of the ‘crotch smile’ wrinkles from Frankie’s go-round, but the ‘keyhole’ remains. I am at a loss.


So I looked up ‘teen girl pants’ online, to see how ‘real’ pants fit people whose legs don’t rub together like a cricket concert. Again, stupid me. Evidently ‘real’ teenagers either don’t exist, or they only like to take photos of their butts. Nearly every photo that came up was either some digital avatar somewhere, or a butt shot, half the time in a bathroom mirror, always so charming. Even catalogs were much the same. But I did see enough ‘keyholing’ and ‘crotch smiling’ to think that’s just par for the course with pants. I still want mine to be better, but I’ve quit beating m’self up about it.


So I’m gonna take a break – just for a day or two – on my pattern, and work some of the ones I have from other authors. Maybe they’ll give me the insight I’m missing. One thing’s for sure, of the four patterns I have (including mine) for Monster High doll pants, not one of them looks at all  like the others. Even the lengths are different. So this should be fun !


Oh, and once I redo Frankie’s pants, you’ll get to see the outfit I made her. I had to redo one spot so many times, the fabric tore, so I wanna do them again before I submit photographic evidence of yet another fail !



Original Temporary Entry : 

 Catch this entry up tomorrow, I promise. Spent so much time futzing and sewing, I gotta major headache, and it’s raining. Until then, enjoy another pants fail with Rochelle ! This pair might look like the set I made for Cupid, but they’re entirely different, and completely merde.


How do I fix that weird buckle/shape thing at the crotch front…? 

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