I am on a quest.....

I am on a quest. Yes I am. Recently I have decided to start sewing for myself. Why would I take on this endeavor?

Well....

#1 As I have lamented to yall before, what is out there on the racks is either "teen- age hooker" or " little ole polyester lady".

#2 I have this expensive machine that I need to get more use out of.

#3 My hopeless boycott of China...yes I do believe it is hopeless. Even if the material is made over seas at least I can rest assured that the garment isn't being made in a sweatshop somewhere by small staving children.

#4 I am sick of the poor quality of clothing and the high price for said clothing.

#5 I don't want to look like everyone else. I like originality.

#6 Because I am a fabric junky and this gives me one more venue to feed my addition. Plus.....scraps for quilts!

#7 Because all the women in my family are and have been excellent seamstresses.

#8 Because there is some totally awesome fabric out there these days. And I must have some. This ties in with #6.

#9 Because I feel like rebelling against society as I know it. Yes in my mind this makes sense to me.

#10 All of the above.

**** All men reading this blog if there are any, may be excused from the rest of this post. It does not concern you and you will not understand so go and read about fishing, or hunting, or car racing.***********

With this new quest for clothing that is suitable for a woman of my age and "mature" shape I have ran into a brick wall. That being the simple or not so simple in my case, pattern alteration. Does not the words "pattern alteration" just give you the hives? It does me. Yuck. Double yuck.

My Mother taught me to sew when I was around 12/13. Then in high school they had this class where you were actually taught something useful and practical...it was called "Home Ec". Do they even have Home Ec anymore???? The first of the year we were in the kitchen and the second part were were in the sewing lab. We were required make one garment of our choice. Part of the class was going to the local variety store and buying the pattern and fabric and all the notions that one would need to construct the garment. See what I mean about practical? I love practical learning.

I learned a great lot from those two sweet teachers. They had to have nerves of steel with a group of teenage girls. My best friend sewed her finger to her garment. Mrs K and Mrs C just took it all in stride and disengaged her finger from under the presser foot and raised the needle. Sent her to the school nurse and the class went on.

What I apparently did not learn in the class....Maybe I was out sick...or maybe I just didn't care and tuned it out...like most of my classes, especially algebra. Never made a lick of sense to me. I still do not know how letters make numbers and formulas. And I can honestly say that in my whole life I have never had the need for algebra, and have not missed it one little bit. But that is a rabbit trail and I will get off of it now.

Pattern alteration. I can read a pattern. I can put a pattern together. But altering them....OH My. And why am I concerned about pattern alteration? Ok I will tell you.

I have had a wake up call. When I used to sew for myself long ago I had a different body. Now I do not know who came and stole that body and for what purpose they wanted it but girls...it is gone. And the sad thing is it has been replaced with this body that I do not know. I would hope and think that if you were "body snatched", the snatchers would at least have the common decency to leave you a better and improved version...or at lease the same kind. But no. That did not happen. This thing that they left me with is just not right. I mean nothing is in the right place. In my mind I have this picture of "perky" and "toned". It is only in my mind. I have had to face reality. I have had to wake up and smell the coffee. Reality hurts.

I have to say that I have almost been at the brink of despair over this. I have even considered driving 3 hours to Lubbock Texas and buying 5 boxes of Krispy Creme donuts and eating every one...because why not? But then the good Lord got involved and prompted my DH to tell me out of the blue he was glad I was not built like an ironing board, because he liked a woman with curves and a quarter horse hip. If you know anything about a cowboy being compared to a well built quarter horse is not an insult it is a high compliment. Although I have always wanted to be a Thoroughbred, long, lanky and tall. But DH hates Thoroughbreds. He says they are high headed and flighty. At least he didn't say I reminded him of a Shetland, that would mean low to the ground and mean. Although..... So I take it as it comes. Sorry if that is too much information, but it did make me rethink my plan of a Krispy Creme eating binge.

I guess I should tell you what my dilemma is......Do you know that all patterns are made for women that only wear a "B" cup. Are you gasping!!!! I did some gasping, I will tell you right now with the last shirt I made myself. I gasped as I tried to button it up and it just would not button. That will make you gasp for sure. I gasped as I ran down the stairs and checked my pattern thinking I had make an awful mistake and cut the size 7 lines. I gasped as I remeasured and I gasped as I saw the huge size number on the pattern that my measurements coincided with. I gasped when I remembered with fondness the day I could fit into a pair of 27x34 cowboy cut wranglers...OK that memory is pretty dim, but there is a flicker of it in my brain.I gasped when I discovered that I had been body snatched!

After I got over the hyperventilation episode...all that gasping ya know. I decided to pull myself up dust myself off and be a woman about the whole thing. So the last few days I have been researching pattern alteration all over the Internet. And guess what I found out? But you can't wait to hear this. I found out.......I am not alone! I feel as if a heavy burden has been lifted off my shoulders. I am not alone! There is hope for short, curvy, busty women everywhere that want to sew a shirt that does not gape across the busty area. It is called.....are you ready? Can you barely contain yourself? It is called....FBA. I kept seeing this all over the web on sewing sites. I thought what can that mean. And then on SEW MAMA SEW I finally found the answer to all my questions. I know what what FBA means....Full Bust Alteration. My life has made a turn for the better. And I found by reading the comments that many women are in the same boat as I am. I truly felt it was just me. But no. There are others out there that have had their body snatched, and contemplated suicide by Krispy Kreme. I just get weepy when I think about it.The pain and suffering that pattern companies have placed upon the women of the world. They should be brought to justice. I think I will write Washington and ask for a new government program to be put in place for all busty women to be compensated for all their distress and misery. They make things up as they go along anyway so I would imagine that we would have a pretty good chance at getting some funds. Heck they have lots of printing presses I would not think it would be a problem. I want to call it..."The Bust Endowment Fund," Or TBEF. For the prevention of Krispy Kreme Addition.

I was so excited that I just had to tell someone..so as my DH and went on our date last evening I enlightened him and told him all about FBA. Let me tell you he was riveted. Just could not hear enough about it. I could tell he was in deep concentration as his eyes closed. That is what he does when I tell him things that I have learned on the Internet. But since he was driving, I decided that we should converse about other less interesting things like the state of the world and what kind of tires we should get on my Jeep. Anyway.....

So now the next step in this new and bright world that I have discovered is....how to do this. I have to confess, I am just more then a tad scared to give it a try. But I will. They recommend using muslin to make a dummy garment first and work out all the kinks on the pattern before you cut into your wonderful fantastic fabric you just had to have. Hum.....seems like my mother told me that years ago...wonder why I never heeded her wise words?

And I have books on order from Amazon...yes pattern alteration books. Who knew?

I will learn FBA, I will learn FBA, I will learn FBA....... "clicking my heels together and turning around 3 times."

God Bless and Happy Trails
RanchWife