Sprinkles and Pins

We have already established that this is land o' sprinkles, I think. They must sell more ice cream sprinkles here per capita than anywhere else in the world. So natch, I had to take a picture of this ice cream store.                                                              

Now the other photo is my brilliant idea for fitting a pattern. You can't even afford muslin these days and since I'm twenty pounds heavier since the last time I did a lot of sewing for myself, I decided I'd better make a "muslin" of a blouse pattern I'm making.

So in lieu of muslin, I used one of my son-in-law's shirts. Sounds awful until you know that it had a rip in it and was unusable. My daughter had left it here last summer and I've not been able to throw it away. Such gorgeous fabric. But it worked great as a substitute for muslin since I was cutting out a shirt. My pattern was smaller than his shirt, so the pieces almost fit perfectly. (The pocket on one of the back pieces is kinda weird.)

The funny part comes after I baste the thing together in just a few minutes. (Wow, sewing goes fast if you can just baste everything and you don't have to finish seams or tie off darts! ) In order for Michael to have an easier time pinning me in the blouse, I stitch in a dark color the seam lines for the zipper on the back of the blouse. All he has to do is pin the lines together and I can test the fit. It was really cute. He asked me why I didn't just sew the back seam. I explained that I would have no way of getting into the blouse then.

So the pinning begins. The first thing that happened is that he stuck himself with a pin. I expected that. But then he struggled to pin me in and I kept trying to help him. So I wiggled and he told me to stop. And I tried to help him again. I wiggled and he told me to stop. This happened about three times. It brought back such vivid memories of me pinning patterns on my girls. I was much more impatient than the girls ever were. No wonder the girls had trouble standing still while I pinned a hem. It is BORING.

Come to find out, most of his problems were because I had cut the thing too small. When he got to the bottom pin around my hips, he just said "No way!" and he was right. I will be adjusting the pattern.

But he sure had a struggle with me. I was the worst mannequin ever. Girls, I apologize if I ever fussed at you for wiggling.