Wardrobe design

I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog. Probably about 50% of my hits come from family or friends. But for those who don't know me in real life, I'm going to be spending the Spring semester abroad, in Germany. BUT! I'll be going on the German semester, which means I'll be gone from February to July. And, due to the fact that I am flying on a cheap student ticket, I get to check one bag.

This means I need a very focused wardrobe. It also needs to be very varied, because this is the Freiburg temperature map:

(Image source: weather.com)

In other words, I need to be prepared to dress for temperatures in between 29 and 78, with the possibility of it getting cooler or warmer. Yikes. I don't like extreme temperatures, and both of those ranges sound unpleasant to wimpy me!

So, here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

1. Skirts are more versatile than pants, because they can be worn with tights in cold weather and without in warm weather.
2. Skirts and tops are more versatile than dresses, because with two dresses you have two outfits and with two shirts and two skirts you have four outfits.
3. I should have at least one pair of shoes that I can do *lots* of walking in.
4. I should have a pair of warm boots, which I can do *lots* of walking in. So I guess really I need two pairs of shoes I can walk in, since I won't be wearing winter boots in the summer.
5. I probably need at least a week's worth of outfits, but do I need more? If I do laundry every Saturday, I could theoretically repeat the same clothes every week for six months. Theoretically. That would be pretty boring!
6. I should probably limit my clothes in terms of colors, so pick one neutral color to be my neutral colors for the semester. Then I won't have to bring as many shoes, for example.

Has anyone else done anything like this? Does anyone have any advice? I don't want to be too spartan, but I also am starting to worry about packing, and if I decide to sew a bunch of things I want to know sooner rather than later!

ME, in muslin

Well, I finished sewing up my body block muslin on Monday, and Gail fit it for me. It was rather strange, I have to confess, to have someone not in my family fit me. But on the other hand, she knew what she was doing better than anyone in my family does. So I'm not complaining, just noting.

We ran into problems because I kept forgetting to stand up straight. Instead, I would turn and look down to try and watch what she was doing. I didn't even do it consciously! She wound up setting up a three-way mirror so I could watch her in the mirror.

Here is my altered bodice. Interestingly, it still needed some pretty major alterations even though the pieces were made to my measurements. There's more than one way to carry a given set of measurements, I suppose. It's also pretty likely that the instructions assumed a symmetrical person!

 This is the back. As you can see, there are darts pinned going into the armscyes. (Did I spell that right? Spellcheck doesn't like it, but has nothing to suggest except armistices.) Gail says that those can be rotated up into the shoulder seam, which is where patterns are more likely to have them. The darts are needed because I have sloping shoulders and a rounded back. Other than that, the back fits pretty well.

 The front. Well. It came in at the neck, and in at the shoulders and sideseams, but the thing that threw me is that Gail took out about a half an inch all the way across the front above the bust--and then added about the same amount to the bottom of the bodice. Essentially, this changes where the fabric is, rather than how much there is. I had never thought to do that. (I guess this is why she earns the big bucks and I don't!)

This is my completed muslin. It looks pretty strange on the table, but it looks pretty good on me! Interestingly, wearing something so fitted makes me look more normally proportioned, not less. I had expected to look better in something that fit properly, but not necessarily better-proportioned.

Up next: altering the pattern pieces. Or maybe making new ones. I don't actually know what my next step will be!

Alterations

I really need to learn how to alter. I have very narrow shoulders and a small bust, but wider hips. I've basically taught myself to alter pants and skirts, because those are pretty easy--I go by hip size and take in the waist. It has worked well in the past, with a few exceptions usually caused by other problems (like the time I cut out a pair of pants off-grain and decided to sew them up anyway...).

But where tops are concerned, I'm pretty hopeless. If, by chance, the pattern were to fit in the shoulders and bust, I could make the waist wider. But this has yet to happen. I have tried many different ways to wing my alterations. I've made it too big and ignored the loose fit. I've muslined, and altered that as best I could. I've made it as-is and then altered that.

I've really only had two successes, and neither of them really counts. One was the spaghetti strap top from my inaugural ball dress, so it didn't really *have* any shoulders to alter. The other was NL 6807, which I altered by taking a giant pleat in the center front. I love that shirt, but adding a giant pleat isn't really a sustainable or widely-applicable option.

I think I need lessons. I can't decide if I have the mental discipline to take a course online while working, going to school, and commuting, or if indeed a course for people who have ridiculously tiny shoulders even exists. I'm toying with the idea of trying to find someone to give me private scheduled lessons. It's probably more expensive, but it might well be worth it. Anyone have any thoughts? Have you ever had private sewing lessons? Were they worth it? Alternatively, anyone know any good online courses?

Of skirts and shorts

I forget if I've mentioned it on this blog before, but I do a little bit of running in my spare time. I run a few miles a few times a week. Now that it's getting warmer, the long running pants I got for Christmas weren't cutting it. So, me being me, and generally avoiding pants, and entirely shunning shorts, asked on a running forum for advice and recommendations about running skirts.

I must say, I was rather surprised by the response I got. The majority of responses were people asking me why shorts weren't good enough for me! Twelve people responded. Four of them were helpful as to where I could buy or how I could make a running skirt. Two responded to other people in the thread and were neither helpful nor unhelpful. The remaining six questioned why I didn't just wear shorts, told me wearing a skirt was a bad idea, and so on. The tone was, surprisingly, pretty defensive.

Does it really threaten these women that much if I wear a skirt while running? I didn't say shorts were evil. I didn't say they were immodest. All I said was that I prefer skirts to shorts and pants. Surely a modern "enlightened" woman should be able to be secure in her own choice of clothing (workout gear, no less! a place for function over form if I've ever heard of one!) without having to convert everyone else to her own preferences.

Now I'm wondering if this is just a small example of an aversion to things that are traditionally feminine. Is the reaction a reaction to me wearing a skirt to run in, or me wearing skirts in general? I haven't done much discussing of my clothing choices with the general public. What do other people think? For those of you who primarily wear skirts, have you received negative feedback about that? For those of you who don't, do you think other women wearing mostly skirts is weird, or wrong, or just impractical, or something else? Is this, in fact, a societal trend, or did I just run into a cranky bunch of people? Share any thoughts you might have on the subject!

Conservative in the Costume Shop

Once again, I haven't posted in quite some time. Sorry! I had been planning to post a few days ago, but a very dear friend wound up in the emergency room shortly before I was to leave campus to go home for dinner, and everything went just a little haywire. (The friend is now on multiple prescriptions and has a bad case of bronchitis which developed into a mild case of pneumonia.)

Anyway, I love the sewing I do in the costume shop, but the people...let's just say they can be a little stressful to deal with sometimes. I find the extreme liberalness of the other workers in the shop to be somewhat wearing over time. Now, I have multiple liberal friends and family members. I'm aware that I'm so conservative I make the Republicans look left-wing. I'm not telling everyone to think in lock-step with me. I honestly wouldn't mind an open debate. There have been a couple of those and they were fine.

What bothers me is the constant bashing of people who don't think like them, all in the name of tolerance. What makes this particularly irritating is the people they tend to pick on are near and dear to my heart. Just yesterday we had homeschooler bashing, humanities students bashing, and bashing of the former dean of the honors program.

Homeschooler bashing because a drama student who was homeschooled had missed out on a crude joke popular among small boys. They were absolutely ridiculing him for not having known this joke before they "enlightened" him. I'm still not sure why the humanities student bashing was going on, but apparently it made a lot of people unhappy that a philosophy teacher wanted his class to come see the show. I guess the drama department is catering to a higher level of student than philosophy classes can offer? As far as the former dean of the honors program, there was a worker who claimed he had threatened to not give her permission to take her classes if she didn't take one humanities class and she had to make him back down. Let me tell you--I've known this man for ten years. He wouldn't threaten a student. And if he did, he wouldn't back down! Argh.

I tried to be fair while writing this rant, but I'm sure it was pretty biased and unfair to the people involved. So I have tried to avoid names and more than general depictions of people. Essentially I needed to get that off my chest.

Good news, bad news

Well. This is an unexpected turn of events. The presidential inauguration has been postponed, because the chancellor of Catholic University, Archbishop Wuerl, is being made a cardinal. I think this is great news, but it means that the inauguration, and hence the inaugural ball, won't be taking place until late January (not December, sorry!). This is, of course, a shame, because it means I no longer have any motivation to sew for the rest of this semester! On the other hand, it takes a lot of the pressure off. The next week is going to be extremely busy, with multiple important tests and papers, and it will be nice to not have to worry about sewing.

I did do the fitting of the dress last Saturday, and I have an upcoming post about the bodice alterations I made. We'll see if these alterations are still good enough come January, or if I'll have gained enough of the freshman 15 that I will have to start over with my alterations! I hope that doesn't happen, though.

Old project

I don't think I have free time any more, but while I'm trying to figure it out, I'll post some old projects of mine. I do go through these sewing slumps, and I haven't figured out a way to motivate myself back into sewing--I just have to let nature take its course.

This dress I sewed myself last summer. The shoulders are slightly large, but it fits fairly well overall, and since it's not a terribly fitted style, it doesn't look too bad.


I apologize; this photo is terrible. However, it's ten thirty, and I have less than no desire to go and change for the purpose of taking an (equally awkward) photo in the mirror on the back of my closet door. I should have another picture of me in this dress somewhere, as I wear it fairly often. I'll try and see if I can dig one up.

What I find intriguing about this dress is that it is far and away the piece of clothing I own that gets me the most compliments. I've never thought of it as particularly attractive or particularly flattering, but everyone else on the planet seems to love it.

Musings on Modesty

As Peter puts it, "it's modesty week on the blogs!" And while I am certainly not as high-profile as Peter or Gertie or Sal, I did feel like sharing my thoughts, because this is a topic I have thought about a lot.

(Disclaimer: I am a Catholic with traditional sensibilities. I do not intend to preach in this post, or in any other post for that matter, but do be aware that what I will say does come from a religious perspective. You've been warned.)

To start off with, Gertie linked to this study, which I didn't find nearly as horrifying as some of the commenters did. A lot of commenters, particularly women, seemed to view this study as the religious patriarchy trying to oppress women. This study really didn't seem oppressive to me. Take this quote from the study overview page: "We're not telling you what to wear -- we're just telling you what we, as guys, have to guard against." To me, this study is more about providing information, and less about forcing women and girls to wear something ugly or burka-like. If I know what guys find difficult to deal with, this study can, at least theoretically, give me some information I might find helpful. (It's probably worth noting that although I found it interesting, I can't see myself changing anything about the way I dress based on it.)

However, me wanting to dress in a way that makes it easier for guys to not lust after me presupposes something, and that something is charity. Or kindness, or concern for others, or whatever you like to call it. If I dress is an immodest manner, is it my fault if someone reacts inappropriately? Not really--we all have free will and are responsible for our own actions. But at the same time, if I offer a recovering alcoholic a glass of beer and he falls off the wagon, I did help to cause that. Yes, it was his choice, but I could have been more sensitive. In the same way, while men obviously have the choice to look and whistle and imagine, or not, we can help them by dressing in a modest manner.

Being empowered does not mean that we should be selfish all the time. Peter said, "It seems many of us, scarred by the battles for equality perhaps, are loathe to admit doing something partly for others' pleasure, as if we were in some way contributing to our own objectification." In the same vein, I would suggest that the battle for equality has caused this division that is causing many of these problems, this attitude of "it's his problem, let him deal with it!" or "it's her body that's causing all the problems anyway--not my fault!" What would happen if both sexes changed their attitude and realized that objectification of a person, whether he be man or woman, is a serious problem, and one best dealt with by co-operation between the sexes? What we all dressed modestly, did our best to keep our thoughts under control, and took responsibility for our own actions?

I am very firm on the topic that modesty should be a two-way street, but at the same time I think that rules based on inches are hard to apply, arbitrary, and don't even work a lot of the time. Personally, I am a fan of the guideline that if you would be uncomfortable with someone of the opposite sex touching your bare skin in a certain place, that skin should be covered. (I don't remember where I heard it, though--if I stole it from you, please let me know so I can give you the proper credit!) I like this rule because it allows for personal comfort, while still providing a semi-objective standard. This rule doesn't work for everyone, but it's good for most people. There are obviously scenarios in which this rule can't be applied (bathing suits come instantly to mind), but for regular day-to-day wear, I like it very much.

I should probably add (and then I will finally shut up) that I am not at all a fan of the fashion police. I may think what you're wearing is beyond tacky or horribly skanky, but when you get right down to it, we all have to make our own choices, and forcing people to comply with our ideas of what is modest and what isn't is a very sticky issue. There are very few people, if any, who get up in the morning and think, "Hmm. What is the worst outfit I have in my closet to wear today?" Most people are trying to look nice most of the time. Depending on the circumstances, it may be appropriate to offer advice ("Dear sister, are you aware I can see right through your skirt? You may want to try a slip with that."), but going around judging strangers for what they are wearing only causes negative feelings and more divisions.

Anyway, I have given my opinion pretty strongly here, I think, but don't let that scare you away from jumping in. Agree? Disagree? A little of each?

Strong and tough?

There's an extremely interesting post called Strong and Tough up at Already Pretty. This quote really spoke to me:

"People have told me all my life that I’m strong. Because I went to college far from home, because I quit all the jobs that made me miserable, because I asked for what I felt I deserved. But I never quite bought it. To me, strength is cultivated, intentional, definite. I felt like I could deal with catastrophe and challenge, but only because I have an excellent autopilot setting: I don’t even THINK about it, I just deal. Is that strength? It sure never felt like it."

(There's supposed to be a way to put this as a quote, however, it doesn't seem to be working today.)

Replace "I went to college far from home, because I quit all the jobs that made me miserable, because I asked for what I felt I deserved" with slightly different things, and I could have written that. I wonder if all "strong" people just have a really good autopilot setting?

Physically, I know I have more upper body strength than most girls my age. I can fake a push-up well enough that my karate teacher doesn't call me out most days, I can do crunches and leg-lifts and chin-ups. However, I was still mildly surprised this past week to discover that lifting suitcases to overhead racks was something I could do quite well and most of my girlfriends couldn't. Maybe I am strong after all, at least physically?