Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Blue Prints Saltbox and Sew Over It Ultimate Trousers

The Saltbox and Ultimate Trousers are two patterns great patterns! I know that I will make both of these patterns again.
The Saltbox is an easy sew, but it was a challenging fit for me. That's mainly because of my body. I did a full bust adjustment, reduced the width of the neckline in the back, and did a 1" sway back adjustment. Although these are typical adjustment for me, the challenge was working across multiple pattern pieces. I think the effort was well worth the time. What a super pattern for color blocking!! I'd like to do it in a knit next time.

The ultimate trousers are a quick, easy sew. The pants took me a long time to sew because I kept doing stupid things. I'll list them at the end of the post in case you don't want to read about the tears I shed. The only fitting adjustment that I did was a 2 inch baggy seat. I typically do a 1/2 to 1 inch adjustment. I'm glad that I did a muslin!! I've noticed that a lot of bloggers have a similar problem so beware if you make these great pants. Kenneth King has a great tutorial on Threads for making this adjustment. I did make the pants a bit long. For me, pants tend to shrink after washing.

Some more pictures:


Here are the CRAZY things that happened while I was sewing these pants:

1. My husband's printer won't work with Windows 10 (that's a warning!) so he used my computer. To add paper, he moved my serger that was sitting next to the printer. I don't know how he did it, but the thread feed was bent and the thread was tangled inside the serger. I was able to fix it, but that took most of an afternoon.

2. The fabric right and wrong side are very similar. I manged to sew them backwards because my chalk marking wore off on one side of the front. My thread matches the fabric so ripping dark navy thread took forever.

3. My needle broke when I was attaching the facing. There was no pin or anything that I could see. It was irritating.

4. I thought that I added 2 inches to the back pattern to compensate for the 2 inch baggy seat adjustment. Somehow, I added the length to the front pattern. Don't ask me how I did that!! Fortunately I had some extra length, but I still had to add a facing. I kept changing the length on the wrong side. I spent at least a day ripping and adjusting the length of the pants. This one really was stupid on my part. (Yes, there was more ripping of dark navy thread!)

5. I was almost finished and the bobbin thread ran out. I should have had enough, but I did all that resewing.

I think there was more, but I've forgotten now. I love this outfit so the pain is fading quickly!