Under the weather

It is a rainy and miserable day here in Queensland today and I have to say I am feeling a bit under the weather too. The flu is doing its second round of our family and it has me well and truly in its grip. The sore throat, watery eyes and cough are bad enough but the fuzzy head is doing me in. I can not concentrate on anything and while I should be concentrating on end of semester assessments pieces and essays my head just doesn't want to go there. I have set it all aside for now, even though an essay is due in 7 days and I haven't even started it, as I was getting nowhere fast and getting a little frustrated.

I watched the 2nd part of the Hot Patterns sew along and thought as the machine was sitting on the table I may as well prep the back piece (do the gathering and sew the hem), the sleeve bands and the neck band, which I did. I then decided to pin it together at the shoulders and sides and test the fit. It is not easy putting on a garment full of pins but I didn't want to baste it together in case it needed adjusting again, I just don't have the energy for that.

The fit looked good so, instead of waiting for the next part of the sew along, I sewed the shoulder and side seams, finished the front hem, inserted the sleeves and added the sleeve bands, and added the neck band. This is basically my wearable muslin. I used a slub knit from the stash (the bright pink in a previous post) that I knew did not have the right amount of drape for the back and was a little heavy but it was good to test the fit of the front through the bust and shoulders. I have ordered some fabric that hopefully will be more suitable for the pattern and hope it arrives some time next week so I can get another one done during the sew along.

If you are intending to sew this pattern at some point I would recommend that you don't use the neck pattern piece as it is, it's just too long, I use the old measure round the neck and cut the band to about 3/4 that length (depending on stretch) and that works really well.