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Monday, March 14, 2011

Happy Pie Day!

I love Pi Day! (Yeah, I have geek tendencies.)

Edited 3/24/11 to add these pics: I've found a couple pictures from Pi Day, 2007. I used to use these Bento boxes for my kids' lunches. These are tiny blueberry pies made in little tart pans. Yes, DD1 sold hers. Note how I used Japanese cutters to cut the carrots into shapes. LOL

When my kids were little, even before they knew what mathematical Pi was, I would bake tiny pies - usually two kinds - and put them in their lunches on Pi Day. I'll never forget the year that DD1 sold her tiny lunch pies to a boy who coveted them. Now that they are teenagers and rarely around, I don't bother making tiny pies anymore.

Me-Made-March

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I have been fairly quiet, but I have been continuing to participate in Me-Made-March. The photo is today's outfit. The top is a Sewing Workshop Liberty, made as a pullover. The pants are the Sewing Workshop Trio pant, one of my favorite pants. (Yeah, I have lots of pants favorites, but mostly Tilton and TSW. :) )

PenWAG and Linda Lee

This last weekend was an intense sewing weekend. First, I attended PenWAG. The featured speaker was Linda Lee, of The Sewing Workshop. I very much enjoyed hearing her lecture and seeing the trunk show of her clothing. She really has an eye for detail and a wonderful ability to select unique fabrics and to combine them in creative ways. She immediately recognized my Teagarden T and asked to take a photo of it, so it may appear in her online photo gallery at some point. (If you haven't seen her new website, it is much better organized and easier to navigate than her previous website.)

Cutting/Altering Frenzy and the Perfect FBA (for me)

I spent the remainder of the weekend altering patterns and cutting them out. I think I really have finally settled on "my" version of the FBA. For the longest time, I was unhappy with FBAs that added width to the lower portion of the garment, but now I just chop the bottom of the pattern off where I *don't* want width, do the FBA on the top half only, and then reattach the top and bottom of the pattern, merging them together as needed.

Before I started doing FBAs this way, I used to spend a lot of time fitting the garment - particularly removing fullness at the hip, but not so much anymore. Plus, some patterns, with bands on the bottom or around the edge, for example, couldn't be tweaked easily once constructed. This new approach is SO MUCH BETTER!

The following pic shows a pattern that I altered yesterday using this approach. It's the Katherine Tilton swing top pattern and has princess seams. Hopefully you can see the image well enough to make out my alterations.

I love to use Bienfang Canary Tracing paper from Dick Blick for pattern alterations and tracings. NAYY.

So, if you know of any busty gals with (relatively) thin hips, feel free to send them my way for FBA advice. :)

And enjoy some pie today!!!