Well, yeah. It fits.

I am trying to accept that age and genetics are catching up with me and giving me the same body shape as my Mom's Mom and Sisters.  As this is a body shape that I, as a 12 year old who thought she was funny, mocked, and that Mom, who I loved and respected and who was also a Very Fit Aerobics Instructor at the time, also mocked--and the entire Troll fad of the early 1990s which I despised pretty much had the same body shape, too--it may take me a while to accept this.  (Enough of  'a while' to finally do something about it, after gaining 20 pounds in 2017 after being sick at the end of 2016?  Ah...knowing me...probably not.)

I also technically understand that clothes that are tailored to fit will always be more flattering than clothes that are too tight or too baggy, no matter what shape the body being tailored to is.  'course, the first step to creating properly tailored clothes is that whole 'accepting the body I really have' part...but...might I be able to accept it more readily if I have clothes that fit correctly?

Soooo...is that a vicious circle or a catch 22...

My shirt pattern size has not changed as drastically as my skirt size, so my stash of size 10-16 patterns isn't a problem there, but I do have a distinct lack of the size 20-22 that my measurements say a skirt would need.  Now, I could have waited for a pattern sale and bought something, but...um...listen, we all know how impatient I am.  So I scrutinized every pattern I had in the even vaguely correct size range and finally settled on a thrifted 1978 McCall's pattern with a blazer, slacks, and a skirt in two lengths.  "Yes!" I thought, "I can look past the dated fabrics in the illustration and see a good basic-but-somewhat-structured skirt here!  This will be great!"  And then I took out the tissue and discovered that all that was left of the skirt pattern was the length cut off of the long view to make the short view.

I put the pattern back into the file cabinet until I had the thought that, maybe, I could make a more basic skirt by using the top parts of the included pants pattern, then tracing another pattern to get an A-line skirt shape.  (At this point I did start wondering if it would be easier to just finally learn how to draft patterns.)  And I did that, then remembered that I want to make all skirts from now until eternity be skirts with pockets, so I borrowed the pocket bits from good ol' KwikSew 2544.

And how did that go?

Skirt...just...skirt

I have body image issues, and they've kept me from trying to make things that fit properly.  I'm trying, though.  I used some cloth that was in one of the thrift fabric grab bags (which apparently are things I absolutely cannot resist, so I really should start using the cloth from them...) and a thrifted New Look pattern...which I haven't taken a picture of?  Huh.  It's New Look 6843, and it doesn't quite go large enough, so I added extra width, mainly by cutting the back on the fold but leaving the seam allowance in.  The zipper got moved to the side, but, if I do this again, I'll probably leave the zipper in a back seam and add pockets.  Pockets are nice.

I made it a month ago and apparently was so disillusioned with the size that this was the only picture I took.  It has a nice vintage metal zipper, jeans gold topstitching, ribbon faced waistband, and some edelweiss print bias tape facing the hem.

Whether or not it fits seems to depend on if I've recently eaten or not--I'd've thought that making it a bit too large like that would've made me feel better, but...nope.  Ah, well, at least I finally remembered to blog it.

I was going to make another skirt today, using a thrifted pattern from 1978 in the measurements-say-correct size, buuuut, when I took everything out of the envelope, oh, hey, the only parts of the skirt pattern there were the bits cut off of the longer length.  So that killed my enthusiasm, at least for a while.  I'm going to look through my patterns again...oh, and I need to get the cloth the kiddo picked out of the dryer, so I can get one step closer to making that stuff, too...

Where's the Fire?

Certainly not here, because it took...ah...a month...before I finally fixed the uneven leg lengths on this pair of Obnoxious Shorts™

Obnoxious Shorts™

The last days of school were approaching, with Field Day being a big event for the kiddo, and he'd suddenly decided he was A-OK with the idea of wearing shorts.

He's also quite keen on the idea of loud prints.

Well.