nineveh_uk

Making masks is proving less of a fun way to use up fabric scraps and create a well-fitting, comfortable, attractive new necessity, and more of an exercise in frustration. So far I have tried five patterns, and am yet to come up with something that makes me feel like a dashing highwayman with comfortable ears.

* They are small. Small things, especially small things that need to be turned inside out, are a pain.

* Pattern sizing is vague to say the least.

* They're a really annoying place on the body to try to fit closely without a custom-fit design. Faces vary a a lot, and they vary in multiple dimensions. A fabric mask that is mass-produced (including ordinary surgical masks) or has been home-made but not to an individual tailored pattern is by definition of not being made to fit an individual face shape not going to "seal" to the fact, and a "snug fit" is going to be pretty challenging if not impossible across the upper edge of cheeks and nose. Nose wires make a bit of difference, but can't make up for a poor fit or simply the effects of such things as occasionally needing to move the jaw in order to speak.

* Speaking of nose wires, bits of wire inevitably end up poking through the material, and the dedicated "nose bridges" only really worked in the pleated type of mask. There is no getting away from it: glasses with small lenses steam up. I suspect it doesn't help that If I am doing anything other than sitting absolutely still, and sometimes even then, I have to breathe through my mouth to some extent, so the warm air isn't being directed downwards as it would be by my nostrils.

The patterns...

(1) SleepingBaby The first I tried, and so far the best. Unfortunately, I traced the pattern off the computer screen as I haven't got a printer at the moment, and made it a bit too small. The instructions are a bit limited, but there's a comprehensive video to help. Does have the disadvantage that there's quite a bit of fabric over the mouth, which tends to be pulled towards it when breathing. I might try a piece of plastic boning down the centre seam. However this plus trying a couple of purchased ones suggests that it is the shape that works best for me, and I'm going to try it in the correct M size next.

(2) Burda. Lives up to everything you have every heard rumoured about Burda's terrible instructions. Despite being produced by a commercial company, the photos are useless because it uses the same brown gingham for the outer and lining fabric and it is impossible to see what process is being illustrated. The linked instructions are in German because I am 100% not recommending this to anyone so felt no need to go and find the English ones again. Having said all that, it's reasonably comfortable to wear, but there are much easier ways out there to achieve the same result.

(3) Pleated. Pattern over-complicated for what it is, presents the machine with a lot of layers, and the sides don't fit very well, whether in home-made or the blue surgical style. That said, the flat fabric over the mouth is comfortable.

(4) Japanese Creations. Courtesy of caulkhead. Not a terrible pattern, it has the considerable virtue of simplicity, but size M is too small, and the nose shape will obviously be wrong for me in a larger size. I like that you don't have to press a centre seam, but the turning things inside out bit was pretty tricky. It also doesn't allow for different outer and lining fabrics, not a simple interlining.

(5) Dhurata DaviesThis was the clear winner on many fronts. A straightforward pattern that - uniquely - gave face measurements to help select size. Good instructions with clear photographs, and easy to sew. Unfortunately, the finished mask didn't work that well for me for two reasons. Firstly, that while the nose-to-chin fit is excellent and the chin dart a really good idea, the mask fabric lies far to close over the mouth for my comfort, although this might not be an issue if you breathe through your nose more than I do. Also, despite the good lower shape, the fit above the tip of the nose over the bridge* and cheeks was too big for me. This could easily be tweaked by using a larger dart, but due to the fit over the mouth, it is the second choice for me of the five.

I am persevering, because my reward when I have the perfect pattern will be to make a mask out of peacock-feather printed silk and it will look amazing. In the meantime, I'm sticking to scrap cotton.

*I am increasingly getting the feeling that my nose is relatively short in length for its height at the nostrils.

Please, for the love of God, not a cream polo neck jumper. Black is one thing, but cream, and especially cream with a wool coat, is quite another. Leave it to Roger Moore.

This post brought to you by watching the men's short programme at the NHK Trophy (Grand Prix figure skating) this morning while turning a an ill-fitting tweed skirt into a bag. I remembered at the worst time that I had meant to use interfacing on the outer fabric - too late to do it when I should have done, not late enough to feel that I could just not bother.

Has anyone ever handwashed Liberty Burwood wool/silk? I am very, very tempted by some for a top - I saw the print a few years ago in a Brora dress, but had never seen it for sale as fabric and now I've found it - but it would be pointless if it had to be dry cleaned. I'm willing to wash quite a lot of allegedly 'dry clean only' wool and silk, but there are limits.

I might just buy it anyway, wash the leftovers to see what happens, and put up with dry cleaning if it's the only option. But I'd like not to have to.

I have just ordered Vogue 8772, 50% off, free postage - which means it is still twice what it would cost in the current US sale, but you can't have everything. I think I might try it in something cheap before I cut into my Liberty silk crepe - after all, it's only my first go at a buttoned blouse, what could possibly go wrong?

It has been raining since eight o'clock this morning. I have therefore used the day to do something useful. Unfortunately, "something useful" has been the discovery that the Decades of Style Girl Friday blouse (with simplified collar) is a fitting disaster. The waist is OK, the neck is OK, the shoulders and chest - in the thorax sense of the term - are a disaster. It utterly swamps me, and short of covering the thing with random darts I can't see how to salvage it. At least the fabric was only about £2.50, so I don't feel I have to throw any more time at it. I'll see if I can fiddle with the pattern and get anything out of it as an interesting variation on a T-shirt to salvage my £20 (pattern plus outrageous international shipping). I think that the problem is the combination of a shoulder dart and sleeves that are an extension of the body, which results in a lot of fabric around the back and front. I like the principle of the shoulder dart, but I haven't got the ribcage to take up the space created - it would work if there were a proper fitted sleeve, but not as is.

In short, I don't think I'll bother with Decades of Style again - that's the second pattern I haven't been impressed with, the sizing is inconsistent, and the instructions are rubbish. Next up, a bog-standard McCalls skirt that can't go wrong.

And now I'm going to make bookwormsarah's Amazing Aubergine for dinner, in the hope that it will warm me up against the rain.

ETA: No I'm not, the damn aubergine has gone off.

My sister and I have tickets to Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate. Crucially we have tickets for £21 on a convenient evening right at the end of the previews. I am happy to see it and hope it will be good, but the theatre is brutally expensive and there was no way I was paying upwards of £60 so was lucky to find a couple of tolerable seats in the balcony. Sister will just have to cut her legs off for the evening.

The problem with this dress is definitely the collar. I just can’t get away with seventies foxgloves right under my chin. If I am ever going to wear it – and it took a long time to make – I think I need to completely alter the neck. Blast.

I have been reading The Sheikh for 'research'. It’s the sort of book that is easy to laugh at, and oh, I do, but it also has considerable points of interest and one day I shall get around to doing a post on it and Riders of the Purple Sage together. Today, however, I shall just quote what has to be my favourite line, which sounds like a romance novel written by Baldrick:

She was utterly in his power and at his mercy - the mercy of an Arab who was merciless.

My sister and brother-in-law are not coming for Easter, which is disappointing but understandable because they’re mostly not coming due to his slow recovery from spinal surgery. But it does mean that I have to come up with a schedule for the four day weekend that leads to my having achieved something at the end of it, not least the final sorting out of the house. There is a Come and Sing on Good Friday, but I don't know the music at all (Stainer's "The Crucifixion") - happily there is a link to YouTube so I'll give it a listen and see if it sounds plausible given that I haven't sung properly in ages.

How is it Easter next week anyway? There was so much we were going to get done at work over the vacation and now there is only a week of it yet and it isn’t done and we’re all shattered. If I were Vice-Chancellor I would completely close the university for two days immediately after every term and give everyone a break (that did not come out of their leave entitlement) and make it very clear that this meant no working from home, and no emails.

The dress progresses, as it ought to because I haven't been doing anything else for a week. It now needs only a hook and eye, the lining catching to the zip tapes, and hemming. Among the reasons I will not be coming back to Burda any time soon is that I have made two fitted garments in a row, one a skirt. I had to take in the skirt three inches at the waist, and I am not a woman shaped like Marilyn Monroe. I had to let the dress - same size - out an inch at the waist (and in fact having done so, didn't need to, but this is OK because it has a belt. Not that I am enough of a masochist to make the pattern belt. Grosgrain will do fine). I let out the bust, which was the right decision, and the side-seams are in the right place under my arms. Except that they start a good inch too low, thus showing an unacceptable amount of bra, because the top half of the thing is apparently designed for somebody very long indeed between throat and bust (though a B cup bust), with an enormous ribcage. In short, for a short-waisted Valkyrie in a minimiser bra. Happily, I do actually think that the dress and fabric have worked well, and it should be good once I've sorted out the last fitting issues.

I could: take up the shoulders, take in the side-seams, put in a centre back seam, or a combination of all three. I think I shall: bite the bullet and take in the side-seams even though this involves redoing the zip. Then if necessary I shall put a couple of darts in the neck. And next time I see a nice Burda pattern I shall tell myself not to be silly and retreat to Vogue. But first I shall put everything away and leave it for another day, because I am sick of it being all over the sitting room. And then I shall go for a bell-ringing demonstration and cake.

Spent this morning making a muslin of a top that I know I have to alter. It was the only simple non-button-front, non empire line, non stretch top I could find in 6 pattern companies*, and would be perfect did it not date to an era of rather loser fitting clothes and can be pulled on over the head. Somehow, therefore, I have to alter it. Firstly, however, I have to work out what size I should be altering. I am normally a 12, but there was so much ease I made a 10. Now I can’t work out whether the basic fit would be better in an 8 or a 12. Happily I have lots of old sheeting so I can make both, but I think I’m going to end up over at Pattern Review begging for help. I suppose I shall learn from it. I really need to make a Vogue fitting shell. Also, the much-lauded Fit for Real People (honestly, you can tell from the title) is completely useless.

I saw Chéri at the pictures this afternoon. It looks gorgeous, but is unfortunately not a very good film. The script is a mixed bag, the pace all over the place, it’s wholly unsexy despite the subject matter, and Michelle Pfeiffer, though she acts reasonably well (though nothing like as well as the critical plaudits she’s been getting would suggest), is miscast. My impression of Léa in the novel was of a sensual, practical, fairly intelligent woman with a degree of self-knowledge. Pfeiffer just isn’t interesting – one doesn’t wonder about her background, what she finds amusing, what she likes to eat (indeed she doesn’t eat onscreen at all - ‘maigre’ indeed). Rupert Friend, on the other hand, is rather good as the young man who isn’t vacuous enough to be happy, but doesn’t know what to do with himself in the circumstances. He’s trivial, often spiteful, charmless and monumentally selfish and self-absorbed, but retains, though largely oblivious to the fact, genuine feelings.

There is a 1950s French version I’m curious to see, but I can’t help thinking that what it really needs is a stage adaptation by Ibsen. A central heroine, a closed community of shuttered lives, desires suppressed and unknown. It’s right up his street. Although I’m not sure whether in the Ibsen version Edmée would end up making a respectable but dull marriage, announcing she intends to set up a business, or running off to seduce the King of the Belgians.

*It is very tedious that despite producing fashionable (or at least modern) skirts, suits, dresses and trousers, pattern companies only seem to manage the dullest shirts, empire line tunics for 15 year olds, and other tops that the FLDS would consider desperately out-of-date.

Note to sewing magazines and books: please, please, please will you stop referring to the "derrière"? Likewise, "fluff".