I’ve been sewing and ripping like mad. That’s because after the hot weather we had last week, I was determined to make some clothes for the summer.

So I tried this top again, pattern 18 from ISBN 9784579110438. I was hoping the problems with it would be solved by using a knit. I used the original pattern without altering it. I thought, “oh it’s a knit. It’ll just stretch everywhere.” Well no. It didn’t stretch everywhere as much as needed. It’s a rib knit so it stretched horizontally but not as much vertically. Which meant it wasn’t too tight anymore but the waist still sat too high, all the way in the boob area.

So rip, rip, rip. Cut, cut, cut. Some more sewing and I made it again with the alterations from before. Well then it seemed the waist sat too low. Accck how frustrating! So I cut away some of the top piece to lift the waist area and ended up with this.

Oh my gawd I reworked this a gazillion times and I DON’T love it. I give up!

So, onto the next thing. Pattern 2 from the same book in muslin. Guess how many times I had to make this.

TWO, damn it! I had a total brain fart and didn’t think about the sizing much. I just thought, “it looks gathered. There must be enough room there for the girls.” Ah…NO. It turned out just a bit tight and shorter than I liked. Thank goodness for muslin. And thank goodness this was so easy to make.

So I altered it and also lengthened it by 1.5 inches. The 1.5 inches was an arbitrary amount based on how much paper was left at the bottom of the pattern piece. Because I am a GOOBER.

So opinions on pattern 2? Worth making with real fabric? I think so. But maybe longer…

Oh and don’t you love how Isabelle inserted herself into the picture. I think she was saying “cheese!”

I’m having one of those days where I didn’t get much done. I thought about doing a lot but that’s about as far as I got, the thinking part. BUT I DID scan in the pictures from ISBN 9784579110438.

Here’s the picture from the book of the tank top I showed yesterday. I’ve altered it since then and…it’s so depressing, I’ll write about it tomorrow.

No. Actually, I’ll write about it now. The test tank top in muslin (thank goodness I made a muslin) as I mentioned before was pushing down on my boobs.

The empire style (is that what it’s called) part of it was sitting in the wrong area. It’s supposed to sit right under my boob but my damn boobs are so big I had to mush them in and it wasn’t fitting. The bottom half puffed out unattractively making me look pregnant. I didn’t take pictures of a side view because, oh my gawd, the horror! The picture, from yesterday, didn’t look that bad but in person, YIKES! So I altered it.

I thought I would add three more inches to the top half so there would be more room for the girls. Well it doesn’t smoosh my boobs down anymore. And it doesn’t make me look 8 months pregnant. But it’s still a little tight, just a tad. Then it dawned on me, to measure my chest. That’s when I realized, I’ve gained weight since I first purchased the book. Or to be more accurate, I’ve gotten bigger.

That’s why it’s so depressing. That’s why it doesn’t fit! I made the largest size, 13, and it still doesn’t fit!! Aaaarrrgggh!!!

So now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should alter it more to actually give me more inches around or just give up and try a different pattern.

But what’s the point? Maybe all the patterns from this book won’t fit since the largest size is 13. I really wanted to make pattern #13, the one above on the left, but it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of room in the chest area.

Maybe pattern #10, the one above on the right, has more room? I don’t know. Maybe I should measure the patterns.

Man, I’m bummed. I look at pictures of myself and am sometimes surprised that I look bigger than I imagined. Is that a weird thing to say? Well turns out I am bigger.

So yeah…don’t know what to do now. Oh I almost forgot the whole reason for my post. I got distracted by lamenting about my weight. Here’s what I meant to link to, the rest of the pictures from the book.

Oh I hate being pathetic. I had to give myself a laugh. I looked up “I’m too sexy” on youtube and sang “I’m too big for my shirt, too big for my shirt…” with a little head shake and everything. Yes I’m a goober, a big fat goober.

I spent way too much time on the computer today trying to make a change to my Wordpress theme. I was on the computer so long researching, I actually feel nauseous. And the change did not work to my liking. Sucks. And because of that, my plan to scan pictures of the one of the Japanese craft books I got ages ago, ISBN 978-4579110438, didn’t happen. Oh well…maybe tomorrow.

This tank top is from that book. It’s too small and pushes down on my boobs. I’m so disappointed.

But here are some pictures of Isabelle that make me happy.

We were drawing with Crayola 3-D sidewalk chalk. It comes with glasses and when you draw with both sides of the chalk, and then look through the glasses, the colors pop out all 3-D like.

I thought it was very cool. Alan thought it was very cool. Isabelle? Didn’t notice at all.

She just had fun drawing outside on the sidewalk, on her face, and on her clothes.

I’ve been feeling a bit scatter brained lately so this post is all over the place.

How was everyone’s weekend? We didn’t do anything except buy toilet paper and stuff like that from Target. Wow, how exciting huh?

Well we did play with binoculars.

They’re screaming fun! (Well for Isabelle)

Oh and I did get sewing done! Not this one but a tank top.

This one is the alteration on the pattern I showed before, in muslin, from ISBN 4579111494. I liked the band at the bottom but wanted it a little thinner than my test shirt. But I went overboard and made it too thin. I still love it. Well except for the color. What can brown do for you?

Oh and because this post isn’t random enough, here’s the drawing:

And also to make this post even more random and all over the place, here’s a video.

We were in the car and Isabelle was singing “Happy Birthday” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. It was so cute that I grabbed Alan’s cell phone and started recording. But when we got home, I checked the clip, and realized you can’t hear her. So I edited it just to the last bit where I’m singing and Isabelle is doing the hand motions.

Thank you everyone for the recipes!

And look! I’ve been drawing again…finally. I have another one all drawn up and ready to go for tomorrow (or whenever I get to posting again).

Yes. I know, I just went to the fabric store last week. But really, if you were me, you wouldn’t say no either.

And plus, I got to take pictures like this when we were there.

And I came home with….FABRIC! Bwa ha ha ha!

It’s linen. I had in mind to make more tops like the green top and the blue top with some alterations.

Alterations like this. No, I haven’t gotten back to sewing. I’m just playing catch up with pictures. This is the same pattern as the blue shirt from ISBN 4579111494. I just altered the hem. It has a wide band on the bottom. I don’t know if you can see that from this picture.

Yeah, so the plan was to make more of these shirts. That is until I remembered that we’ll be getting very hot weather in the summer. Then I thought maybe I should be making tank tops. No shirts. Tank tops. Shirts. Tank tops. I’m wishy washy like that.

Ok. Off I go to not sew with my new fabric or patterns, but to argue with myself on what to make. Have a good weekend and may you be more productive than me!

So I ended up cutting a pair of socks up, not the ones I took a picture of, but one of the pairs I drew. I cut them up and turned them into a sock elephant. I had a hard time taking a picture of him though, because Isabelle was running off with him. I’m going to say it again but wow it’s hard to take pictures of soft toys with a toddler around!

I did manage to finally get this picture of him by himself but it’s not quite accurate. He’s falling over so you can’t tell he’s all wonky.

His head is too small for his body. It’s not noticeable in this picture. I probably didn’t cut in the right place. And I should have stuffed his head more before I sewed it up. I didn’t notice though until after I made up his body. Then the size difference was waaaay obvious. And his ears are funny. I took such care with his arms and legs and ran out of steam with his ears. They’re not tucked in and just funky.

But Isabelle likes him and that’s all that counts.

Hee hee. My daily comic, continued from yesterday. Did everyone figure out what I was talking about yesterday? Or did you think, what a weird comic. What’s with her and the alligator?

Well, here he is, the monster.

Run away! Run away!

Oh wait, he’s not that big.

Yes Mr. Alligator isn’t very big at all. He’s the same size as the sheep. In fact, he’s made out of the same bed sheet as Mr. Sheep. I imagined a whole menagerie of bed sheet animals. But I’m actually quite tuckered out, what with all the climbing of trees to get away from the monster that is Mr. Alligator. Wink wink.

Making this alligator friend was hard. Yes hard, hard, hard. See his mouth? It’s not quite right. The mouth on the alligator from the book looks different. It’s a straight mouth but then goes down as it gets closer to the body. Whereas mine is just straight. I couldn’t figure that part of the pattern out. The pieces didn’t match in that area so I didn’t know what to do. I think I’ll have to try it again, make a Ms. Alligator. That is after I’ve recovered from Mr. Alligator. Whoo making friends is hard.

Oh almost forgot. He’s from 978-4391624205. That’s the ISBN-13 number. The ISBN-10 number, which I’ve used before is 4391624206. Why the two numbers? I just learned about this right now. I was looking at the back of my book and realized that number wasn’t the same as what I’ve shared here before. Turns out the copied and pasted ISBN-10 that I got from Amazon is an old standard. I always wondered why Amazon Japan had an ISBN-10 and an ISBN-13. So I went looking up ISBN-13 vs ISBN-10. But it’s confusing because you can’t find this book on YesAsia using the ISBN-13. It uses ISBN 10. Yeah…confusing.