An Engineer's Guide to Handwork

 This was a kind of spur of the moment project, but I'm super pleased with it. I bought the pattern when Cashmerette came out with it, and picked up the fabric when I was buying fabric for the Lenox dress. I made a straight size 18, which for this worked well. It's nicely skimming everywhere. I could probably get away with a 16 for a closer fit, but the 18 is good for a substantial knit like the one I used. I did the view A neckline but the flat hem from view B for coverage. I could have done a little extra swayback adjustment (the cashmerette pattern have some swayback drafted in), but I don't know that I really care that there's some fabric pooling at the small of my back.  Front view of tank I haven't done a ton of sewing with knits, and I'm pleased with how smoothly this one went. I used the recommended .5x2.5 zigzag for the seams, and then a wider zigzag in the seam allowance to prevent fraying. The neckline and armhole binding was attached with the same n...

A while back I decided that it might be fun to add a waistcoat/vest type garment to my wardrobe. Something to wear over a long sleeve t-shirt to dress up and add warmth for work. It turned out to be a bit of a fitting journey, since the pattern I started with (from freesewing.org ) was drafted for a masculine figure. There are a couple of adjustments I needed to make to get it to fit me correctly (slight understatement).  Freesewing.org is a pretty excellent resource, with several different patterns all drafted to your measurements. They have patterns drafted for figures with breasts and without, though not every pattern is available for every body. There are some limitations, a design that's been drafted for a masculine figure may not do so well on a body with breasts, and there are some combinations of measurements that will cause the generator to fail. I ran into that with a basic body block - when I put in my actual chest and arm measurements it threw an error code. I think th...