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Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 4 Manly Meadurements

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…I have not been sleeping much….Our bed hovers over Chie’s sewing space. In that sewing space sits, what will forever be known as “The Machine”. It is a machine, an inanimate object, surely I know this….but still, I feel at times, it senses me, it knows I am there and it mocks me. Sometimes as I hear Chie sewing, I can, in not sew (hahahahaha still funny) audible words hear “The Machine” speak. It never speaks kind words mind you. It always says the same thing….”Andy, Andy, come on down, try and make me work….try and make me sew…..try and make a skirt, it won’t be so hard.” And then….it laughs that laugh! That mocking laugh. It is possessed and the only way to conquer “The Machine” is to beat it, to beat it at its own game.

So, we push forward. Onto chapter 2 “Using Patterns”. Apparently patterns are really important. Some chick named Coco used the same pattern a lot and now is pretty famous. Sounds like a lazy designer if you ask me. I watched Heidi Klum make people on Project Runway make dress for drag queens out of toilet paper and car parts…let’s see Mssssss. Coco do that!

Back to business, Tara St. James says “I like to play with patterns…” I like to play with video games, to each their own, I guess. Many patterns are based off of rectangles and squares, which are then manipulated into other shaps. That’s good. I can handle 4 sided objects. Allison, it seems hated patterns for a while and instead, for years,just wrapped fabric around herself like a mummy and sewed. Kind of ghetto, but I’m down with that. The patterns in this book seem pretty moron proof, they have “Front” and “Back” printed on them. We have been reduced to kindergartners, perhaps the main class is not sew (yup, still funny) far beyond me. I am a bit confused because it says that the book patterns include ‘style lines’ and ‘darts’. What the what now? Did I miss a page or a chapter somewhere.What the hell are either of those? SHHHHHHHH….Don’t tell I don’t know what those are, she will do one of the dances again. The sizing page looks very familiar to something else…what is it? Oh yeah,the periodic tables of elements. A-w-e-s-o-m-e! I failed chemistry. Why are Burda sizes different from U.S. sizes? And the bigger question is, why are both sizes different from actual measured sizes? I think sizing would be more fun if instead of numbers they used animal names. Instead of size 0 a.k.a 32, call it ‘mouse’. Or instead of 14/46 call it elephant! I think that would be more fun. Sorry, I’m getting distracted.

Measuring Yourself, is the next section. I came up during the FUBU hip hop era, I haven’t the slightest idea what actual clothing size my body should be wearing. This should be interesting. I should try this now and then after I do a weight cut for my next fight, might be interesting to see how many inches I lose off my body before a fight. It is telling me how to measure my bust…do I really need that? Hip and waist I can see, but bust? God, my friends are going to mock me sew (Yes! I got 1 more in) bad for measuring my bust size. It wasn’t bad enough just sewing, but now this!

Well, here are my measurements ladies. Fatter than I should be but I’ll be slowly working my way down. I am curious what I am going to do with these measurements. All the clothes patterns in this books is book are for, you know, non-male types. The measurements will go to waste. Maybe there is a chickiddy that has the same measurements as me that I can make a dress for! Oh, on second thought I hope not…a women who could wear clothes for a man with an 18 inch neck and hips trained for 400lb squat repetitions is probably a women to be feared and avoided.

Bust: 40.5
Waist: 33
Hip: 35
Sleeve Length: 22
Neck Width: 15.5
Side Leg Length: 37
Front Waist Length:38
Upper Arm Circumference: 15

Well, today was productive, and best of all I didn’t have to fight “The Machine”. If only I could figure out how to avoid him/her (I can’t tell which gender it is) at night life would be perfect. Until next week ladies

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Pattern Review: Little Boy’s Shirt

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I was recently asked to make a wedding dress and  two little boys shirts with the dress. They are going to be made of the same fabric. The brides 2 boys are two and four. Since I don’t have much experience in sewing children’s clothing, I bought this vintage boy’s shirt pattern. It said the pattern size was 10. I really didn’t know what that meant but I bought it anyway without further research of vintage pattern sizing since it was on sale. When the pattern arrived, I opened up and tried to grade the size down according to her boys’ measurments. But, I noticed while doing this, that the size 10 fits a boy age 10, and trying to grade the pattern down to age 2 would take a lot of effort. Instead of fighting with that pattern, I looked for some little boy’s shirt pattern I could use for this project.

The pattern I found is from the Lily Bird Studio. She is on etsy, but I bought the pattern from her main site. It is called “Summer shirt for Boys” and it was $6.50, PDF pattern. Pretty reasonable. However, I had a lot of problems with this pattern. Unfortunately, I don’t think the pattern maker is very skilled in pattern making or knows much about sewing… For one thing, the sleeve pattern was created to cut on fold. As far as I know, I don’t think sleeve patterns, especially button down shirt patterns should be made to cut on fold. That’s because the front sleeve curve should be different from the back one. The front armhole is scooped deeper to allow forward arm movement, and the back should be less so. The length of the back armhole should be longer than the one of the front. So I was a bit confused by the fact it was supposed to cut on fold.

Also, the labeling was off. For example, the back yoke was labelled “back top” and collar stand was labelled “neck”. It just made me think the pattern maker has no idea about pattern making and perhaps it was traced from an already made shirt and made  into a PDF format? I had other problems with the instructions, but I won’t mention it here…

Well, despite my beef with this pattern and its instructions, the shirts turned out ok, I think. Here are some pictures.

One of the modifications I made was on the sleeves. I added a little slit detail and a button. Oh, another thing is that the seam allowances that were included in this pattern were 1/4″, all around. I thought this was kind of strange. I lengthened the sleeve length because I needed more than 1/4″ of seam allowances for sleeve hem to hem them (I changed to about 2cm).

When I finish these shirts, I put them on my ironing board. Then I had this gold YSL nail polish in my hand and somehow it slipped from hand and the cap opened up! It poured on one of the shirts! I freaked out but it was too late. I did some quick research on how to get nail polish off of fabric. It says to use nail polish remover but it did not work. So I had to make another shirt, thank God that I had extra fabric!!

By the way, fabric I used was a cotton blend with stripe pattern. It’s nice since it does not wrinkle much.

Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 3 Remedial Class

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Happy New Year! Many men ring in the new year with drunkenness and debauchery, others with time spent in holy reflection at church. Andy however, sits in the Vivat Veritas lab sporting a nice new DUNCE cap! My first day of working through the bad boy Burda behemoth bible (Andy you English genius! Master of alliteration!) was a titanic and mythical success. Not only did I read the first few pages with no problem, I was even able to slyly and coolly write about my exploits into the sewing world. I was truly a King among men (or at least among Michael Korsesque men).

But then…Day 2. I tried to transfer my ever increasing knowledge of notions, sewing space and flat surfaced pattern drafting areas onto BS’s (both meanings are indeed meant) hands on with the sewing machine experience. I was set, I had time, I had a quite house with a sleeping baby, I was locked, loaded and ready to thread my bobbin and sew using both correct all-purpose needle and all-purpose zipper footses. Then, sadly then, I sat in front of the beast herself, that unforgiving task master known as Chie’s sewing machine and engaged in a battle I could not win. We struggled for hours, and I ended in tears having lost a life and death struggle to MAKE….THE…..DAMN…..THING…….WORK!!!!! Sadly, my years of education and my years of boxing training were no match for that vicious beast from Hell. I could not thread my bobbin correctly, nor could I thread the needle in an appropriate amount of time (it took me 30 minutes). I, for all my desire, could not even conceive of how the bobbin thread should run through the face plate. I drank heavily that night knowing that Chie would soon come and mercilessly mock, scorn and ridicule me. True to form my loving wife upon he arrival home proceeded to, with not an ounce of sympathy, do the “Andy is a moron” dance in conjunction with the “Andy is a moron” song. I now know the pain of generals defeated in war. It was a sad night.
Perhaps the most neutering experience is yet to come. Tonight, I will sit with Chie and have basic sewing setup skills taught to me. I am in the remedial class. I have failed day 2 and now must have a personalized program to catch me up. On tonight’s plate is 1)Bobbin threading, 2)Needle threading, 3)Pushing appropriate levers and buttons (whatever the hell that is officially called) and sewing my first straight/curved lines.
After much scolding, yelling, swearing and crying I have completed the assigned duties. You can all see photo evidence of my remedial class completion. Chie kept repeating  (while she hit me) “This is for your own good dummy!”
Ladies, will the shame and failure end? Those of you have learned how to sew, when does the joy begin? When, as Allison says, will I take pleasure in sewing spaces and when oh when will I  take fabric pieces and form them into something resembling a garment?
Off to bed now to lick my wounds and pray for an end to my misery!