March results

Projects:

• Schnittquelle Trondheim hoodie finished mid-March
• Neue Mode 22957 blouse finished a bit later in March
• Schnittquelle Malmedy jacket in progress
• Simplicity 1540 just cut

Out:

• 5.83 yards of fabric stash (I do count it as out as soon as I cut)
• Lots of clothing; certainly more than the 4 pieces I'd set as a minimum. Off the top of my head, among other things, I think this included: 
• RTW jeans, sort of a desperation purchase, never fit quite right (like most RTW) and had become much worse. Came with a belt that literally fell apart. They were bootcut and too long which I think is one of the worst combinations. What can I say, I was desperate, new to the area, and didn't know which stores had the best least worst fit.
• RTW gray jeans, also a desperation purchase, terrible fit, but such a useful color that I wore them a lot anyway, until I found a new pair that fit better.
• Likewise, taupe cords.
• Dark teal stockings (why? Some sort of costume I've forgotten about?) 

In: nothing.

Final pre-move pattern cull

Barring any wadders in the next couple months (that would prompt me to throw out the patterns involved), I've finished picking out all the patterns I definitely don't intend to sew and that I don't want to try selling later on. If I counted right, there were 226. Of course, having acquired so many patterns was a mistake. So these are my tips:

• Make a croquis of yourself, with front, side, and back views. I do this by tracing photos in Illustrator, but they can just as well be traced by hand. Sketch all patterns you have or are considering buying on this. It might be depressing at first, because a lot of us have body image issues, but eventually you figure out what general proportions tend to work best. If it's a pattern for separates, just make something up for the croquis to wear on the top or bottom; if nothing comes to mind, that's a bad sign in itself. Lots of my culled patterns were acquired before I'd done this — better to find out before spending the time sewing them, right?
• If you're getting rid of patterns, consider what's worth your time. Some might command a high enough price to be worth selling (what should you charge for your time?); some might not, but would be worth donating; and others might belong in the recycling. I think it'd be great if there were pattern museums that would just keep everything, but that's not my job.
• Especially in the U.S., with patterns being so cheap on sale, it can be tempting to just keep buying. The flip side of that is it doesn't look like such a huge loss to get rid of them. If they're unflattering/dated to the point they'd be embarrassing to wear, or distracting you from things you really want to sew, are they earning the right to take up your space?
• How much can you have before it gets distracting? For better and worse, I've drastically increased my limit by having a searchable database, so I don't have to look at all of my patterns whenever I'm trying to choose something for a given fabric/purpose. Of course, that takes time to maintain. Decide what tradeoff between organization and quantity works for you.

Back to the jacket

I've decided Neue Mode 22957 is finished, so it's back to the Schnittquelle Malmedy jacket.

The fit seems OK in front now. I might do just a bit of an FBA if I were to cut this pattern again.

I decided to drop the top of the back 1.25" by laying the pattern piece on again, shifted down by that much, blending the difference near the armhole notch (remember this is a raglan sleeve). I decided I needed to do this because I pinned that amount out as a big horizontal tuck. It's made a huge difference. The balance is much better, and the hip area is big enough now that it's in the right place. Of course, this means the back has to be eased onto the sleeves, but in a boiled wool like what I'm using, it's hardly even noticeable.

After doing this, my original alterations to the back waist darts were all wrong; I pretty much took them out and I'll check for the last remaining bits tomorrow. They may still need some more adjustment after that. The back armholes are still not quite right, just at the underarm; they may need to be raised, but all I can really do at this point is let out those seams a little.

Finally, I'm working on establishing a roll line. I might tack on a fusible tape for this (normally I'd use twill tape, but I'd want a dark color on this fabric, and I'm all out of black) at least for the upper parts; I might have to leave it off down toward the waist, where it could show. So far, it seems like the collar has to be rearranged carefully every time I put on the jacket; taping a roll line would help make it more permanent, I hope. I marked one with pins on the form and now I've got it chalked on the underside.

Outlook for April

Next month I'll probably be distracted by moving stuff a lot of the time, so the amount of sewing I'll do remains to be seen. Thoughts:

• Finish my scheduled late March-early April project (the Malmedy jacket); that may actually happen this month, though.
• Focus on quick projects that will use up fabrics that don't currently have a good home in a sturdy box, namely some of my boiled wools. Jackets will be useful indoors if it's cold, outdoors if it's warmer.
• Pick something for my April project. (I have no interest in Patternreview's RTW knockoff contest, so it won't be that.)
• I might do the Patternreview late-April challenge; if so, I'd count that for my late April-early May project, although it'd have to be done by the end of April. Or...
• I may swear off contests altogether for the next two months, maybe three. That way I won't have to take photos, sort through and post them, and write reviews by a certain date or at all. Given everything else that needs to happen, that could be a huge relief.

The blouse is essentially done.

However, I've also made a huge mess going through various junk supplies in the past couple days, so I'm not going to photograph anything until I go back to having a nice big junk-free area.

I donated two coats and two shirts today, and over the past few days I picked out around 180 patterns to get rid of. I don't even want to talk about what a small proportion of my stash that is.

Be that as it may, here's what I think I've learned from the Neue Mode blouse:

• With a non-dropped shoulder, I probably need a traditional FBA to get enough space across the upper chest. This may have more to do with posture than measurements per se.
• I need some real back shoulder blade shaping, probably more of it than can be had from easing alone, unless the fabric is a shrinkable wool or the like.
• I do indeed have square shoulders.

I have some other nebulous potential conclusions, but I won't go into them until I have some confirmation.

Being boring

I haven't done any more sewing; instead I'm sorting through all of my patterns to get rid of ones I don't want to move. I might get around to setting the sleeves on the blouse tomorrow.

Back to the blouse

On the Neue Mode blouse, I decided to let out the tips of the shoulder seams, straighten the front waist darts, and lengthen the front underarm darts. I think the resulting fit might be acceptable if not perfect. If I were recutting this, I might put in more shaping for the shoulder blade, do a real (if slight) FBA, possibly fill in the front armhole a little, and square the shoulders more.

The thing I find annoying about the way I generally do an FBA is that it makes the underarm dart angle further downward, when on almost any pattern it's already starting off too low in the first place. I don't know of a length- and width-adding, dart-intake-increasing method that doesn't do this; I'd love to know of one that did the opposite, if such a thing can exist.

I also took a separating zipper off a muslin I'd made, so I could throw out the muslin and keep the zipper. On second thought, maybe that was a waste of time. I might throw out the zipper too, as it seems to be extraordinarily temperamental about having everything lined up just right for it to start.

I haven't really done anything more, but

here's the jacket for now:

I need to adjust the hips of the dress form; they are obviously too small.

Still more fitting, and knitting

OK, I've sewn the shawl collar onto the neck of my Schnittquelle Malmedy, and also rethought the back alteration. I'm still flailing about changing too many things at once, probably, but here's how it is at the moment:

• I took the side seams back to normal from the waist up (so no inch of width taken out anymore).
• I ripped the back raglan seams and adjusted them so that the sleeve is eased slightly onto the back below the notch (with the back pushed down a little so it's sewn closer to the cut edge, which, since it's concave, is shorter), and the back onto the sleeve above. The reason for this is that I think the overall back waist length was actually about right; it's just the armhole that's possibly too long. (Maybe I need my back armholes even shorter than I thought? I think I may have had the same problem in my fitting shell muslin; I should have another look. As I recall, Müller & Sohn have you dart a certain amount out of the back armhole, but there probably was a range, and maybe I should've taken out more.) With the fullness in the very upper back steam-shrunk out, it looks pretty good so far; I might just need to fiddle with the lower part of the armhole a little more.
• I let out a lot of the front waist dart intake, since that's really not where I have a waist anyway. I'm committed to that dart placement and length now, since I've gone ahead and sliced them open.
• I lengthened the tops of the back waist darts, although this might not have been necessary; they might just need an overall reshaping.

What was very helpful in all of this was the chart in Jan Minott's book on fitting commercial patterns. I should have looked at it sooner. It shows a whole lot of balance and other issues that don't seem to come up in many other books.

Meanwhile, on the Neue Mode shirt, I've ripped the outsides of the shoulder seams, but that's about as far as I've got.

Finally, I started swatching the lace pattern on the sleeves of this sweater. So far it seems like it might be straightforward enough to actually look like something in the yarn I'm trying to use.

More jacket fitting

Today I ripped out the side seams on the boiled wool jacket so that I could take in a whole inch at the top of the back side seam, let out 3/8" at the hem up through the waist, and blend in between. This isn't a perfect alteration, but it might be the best that can be done without recutting. I may mess with the darts, front and back, as well.

I think the problem is mainly that I didn't trust my own measurements enough and alter the upper back to be quite a bit shorter and narrower with respect to the front, and, shall we say, the lower back quite a bit wider. Short of having back armhole princess seams, I suspect the best flat-pattern alteration might be to cut a short diagonal downward from the "corner" of the back armhole, cut a straight line up from the hem to meet it leaving a hinge point, and pivot width in at the hem and out at the armhole. I'd like to try it sometime.

There's still some iffiness going on around the armholes, I mean the raglan seams, but I'll have to rip those anyway to distribute the extra sleeve width, so we'll see then. The jacket seems much more comfortable with the changes I've made so far.

As for the blouse, I've taken the sleeves back off but haven't done anything else.

Boiled wool jacket progress

I've sewn most of the seams on the boiled wool jacket. Here's my sewing order so far:

• Sew all darts. Do not press or clip yet.
• Sew CB seam of shawl collar.
• Sew side seams and sleeve underarm seams.
• Sew raglan seams.
• Try on. Decide something is not quite right, but above all the sleeves are not as loose as they should be for a jacket.
• Rip raglan seams between notches.
• Sew new sleeve underarm seams, letting them out halfway.
• Rip old sleeve underarm seams, for which I'd forgotten to switch the stitch length back from the tiny length used for reinforcing the corners of the shawl collar. So of course those are the seams I have to rip....
• Try on again. Something still isn't quite right with the upper back and the upper chest, but this might be fixable at the side and/or raglan seams.

I'll fuss with it more tomorrow. I also tried the Neue Mode blouse on again and decided it isn't so bad, but I may still want to fiddle with the darts and the armscyes, if I can stand it. I really don't like the doing the whole fit-as-you sew process on myself.

Apart from all that, I donated 5 clothing items today, and I'm going through and ditching lots of sewing patterns as well.

OK, I made a decision

I've cut out a new tracing of Schnittquelle Malmedy, with the following alterations:

• keep the total length, including keeping the button placement, cut of the collar, and CF the same
• shorten above the armhole 1.5" (this affects the front and back raglan seams) — this sounds drastic, but the armhole depth seems rather long on this pattern, and mine is rather short
• shorten the top of the sleeve the same amount to match:
• first cut a V-shaped slash from one raglan seam, down to the center grainline at 45 degrees, then square back up to the other raglan seam;
• then overlap the slashed area 1.5", keeping the grainline straight (sounds complicated, but it avoids shortening the shoulder dart). [BTW, I'd considered taking out wedges ending at the tip of the shoulder dart instead, thus keeping the length over the top of the arm the same, but I thought that that length actually should be decreased if anything, since I would ordinarily shorten a set-in sleeve cap, and since the sleeve looked more than long enough overall. Plus, I thought it'd result in a problematic dart shape. It might've been OK if only some of the length was taken out that way, though.]
• shorten total waist length 1"; since the armhole had been raised this actually meant adding 1/2" to the length above the waist
• likewise, those length alterations taken together also meant a relative addition of 1" length below the waist
• when blending the side seams below the waist, I erred on the side of adding more hip room

I may still add some extra width at the side and underarm seams when cutting. Width-wise (except for the sleeves), this is still a 38, and I should wear a "39", more or less.

Idle thoughts

I haven't done any sewing today.

Theoretically I wanted to get 2 projects per month done this year, and get rid of 2 clothing items per new project.  Be that as it may, I might front-load as much of that getting rid as possible, because I have to do a customs inventory. So you might see me getting rid of more like 14 or 18 things per month — if not more — in the next couple of months. Riveting, I know.

Possible new project

I've taken out Schnittquelle Malmedy to consider sewing in a solid, dark violet-ish boiled wool. I have a lot of "special" boiled wools with fringed or otherwise bordered edges, single-sided patterns, etc. This seemed like a good pattern to use on a "plain" fabric; the curved cut edges won't work with borders, and the wrong side will show on the collar (it would also be great for a double-sided fabric, but all of mine happen to have nice borders and I want to save them for patterns that can use them easily.)

The overall size of the pattern seems about right. I traced off the sleeves, incorporating a bicep alteration in the process; I'm now working on a tracing of the front. I'm currently preoccupied with various length issues. I prefer (require?) a very shallow armhole depth. So I've taken quite a lot of length from the armhole and added some back above the waist, but I might have to rethink how to juggle all this and have the roll line and the closure end up where I want them. Plus, I also need to think about whether I really should take out quite as much armhole depth as I'd like. Realistically speaking, this should be able to fit over RTW, which generally has deeper armholes than I like.

I've set aside the blouse for now, but I do plan on finishing that, one way or another, by the end of the month.

Nothing to see here

I'm not getting any sewing or knitting done today. Lots of other things instead. I hope to have both energy and a little time tomorrow.

More on the blouse

I got the buttonholes and buttons done, and tacked down the facings on the inside. The fit in back is still not quite right, but I've neither moved the darts up nor done the clipping that will eventually have to happen. The fit in front is... well, it depends on what's under it, and what's under it today is evidently not at all suitable.

That aside, I'm underwhelmed by the whole thing. With the small print, all the gray, and the collar, it ends up looking very austere. I'm having my doubts that this was the best thing to do with this fabric, although I can't think of anything better at the moment.

In any case, I could have something completely finished and wearable, if not perfectly fitted, in very short order: strictly speaking, it just needs the hems, armhole seam finish, dart clipping, and a few thread ends dealt with. So that is an option if the rest of the fitting seems unbearable. What I might do, though, is let it sit and move on to something else, at least for the next couple of days.

Blouse fitting

I've got all the pieces of Neue Mode 22957 together now. Thoughts:

• I don't have the buttons and buttonholes on yet. I think I will need to add them before I can really be sure about most of the issues below. In turn, that means I have to decide on the hem length, at least in front... ugh.
• I'm glad I sized down in the shoulders. It may still be too wide across the back. This is partly my fault for forgetting to plug the alterations I'd made to my LWD (second test of my fitting shell) back into my cross back measurement. I might be able to cut the back armholes inward, but I also don't want to overdo it and end up with too little reach room.
• There are definitely other back fit issues as well. I suspect they amount to too-little hip ease masquerading as swayback. Moving the back dart shaping upward seemed to help (it used to go all the way to the hem and I've now stopped it 2" above my cut edge), so I'm going to try moving it up further.
• The shoulder line might be a bit too sloped, or it could be that I don't have the fronts lined up quite right and they are tipping apart. See first point about closures.
• I had been worried about the front dart shaping, but it seems like it might be OK.
• The gathering really is concentrated in the top of the sleeve cap, as the illustration indicates. Fine with me.

RTW bra parts salvage

If you sew bras, it can sometimes be useful to salvage parts from RTW that has seen better days.
This can be especially true for things that go with everything (underwires) and colors that are hard to find (here, light gray).
Here's what I personally think can be worth saving, in order of likeliness-to-be-useful:

• Underwires: in my experience at least, these are usually just about good as new. Cut a hole in one end of the channeling and take them out.
• Label: this can be useful as a reference, to keep track of the underwire size and the brand.
• Plastic boning at the sides, if any: if not too bent, again, it goes with any color.
• Bows or other small trims.
• Rings and sliders. Usually you get 2 pair, but this one had 4 because there was lace on the middle part of the straps that would have blocked adjustment. If they are metal, so much the better. Plastic ones, I suppose, might eventually break, and the older they are the more likely this would presumably be.
• Back closure: if it doesn't look too worn, it's a color you're likely to use, and you are obsessive enterprising, it might be worth ripping out the dense satin stitches. Since it's so color-specific, I tend to just cut it off and leave the stitch removal until later — that way I haven't wasted much time if I never end up using it. Here I've done the former on the right and the latter on the left.

Other parts are the first to go in my experience, but if you are careful to get each individual piece flat (e.g. stretch the elastic the right amount but not too much), you can also take a pattern.

Blouse cut

Nothing terribly exciting, but I cut the blouse out of a cotton lawn, which probably looks more drab on screen than in real life.

I cut the 3/4 sleeve view. It might have been possible to cut long sleeves had I been very careful with the layout, but my priority right now is to use fabric at a good clip, not to save it. I did pretty much all the marking, but I still need to cut interfacing.

I get the impression that the sleeve caps on this pattern aren't all that full, which if true is just as well.

Fitting shell vs. muslin vs. Neue Mode

I made one sleeve and put it on my muslin (which is not made of muslin at all — since I have a muslin shortage — but rather a weird fused fabric). It fit into the armhole quite well considering how unsuitable the fabric was, but I decided that I could stand to narrow the shoulder line by about 8mm and the upper chest about 2.2cm. So this might need to feed back into a future draft as a wider armhole diameter and narrower front width. As for the shoulder seam length, I'm not sure off the top of my head if Müller & Sohn have you use a shoulder line width measurement, or if they come up with it automatically from the back width (which is given more ease in their blouse draft example than in the base pattern).

Having considered all that, I had another look at Neue Mode 22957, which is what I'm now thinking of making next. Since it has puffed sleeve caps, I want a very neat fit in the shoulder width, so as not to build out the shoulder line even more. I decided to cut a 34 in the upper torso, blending into 38 under the arm. The 34 is somewhat shocking to me, but it seems to produce the right armhole depth and shoulder width, and combined with the 38 further down, makes it easy to get the sleeves wide enough (of course, the gathers help too). So apparently my torso might be quite cylindrical. Explains several things.

There are a couple of other alterations I've done, and I'm a little concerned about the shape of the back armhole in the Neue Mode (too much of a J rather than an L?) vs. my blouse draft, but I'm probably going to go ahead and cut in fabric soon. The combination of sizes also had the advantage that the 34's buttonholes are the only ones marked, and end up spaced just about right in spite of the reshaping.

Still muslining...

OK, I did decide to sew up the blouse fitting shell, and draft a sleeve for it. The torso fit seems decent so far, given that I didn't seriously try to address certain of my fit issues from the waist down. I've drafted a dartless sleeve that I hope to test in fabric tomorrow. So far, it looks reasonable and walks reasonably around the armhole. I like how Müller & Sohn state the cap ease (and yes, they do use cap ease) as a percentage and not just a set range of numbers.

Drafting, knitting...

I decided to try drafting the "blouse with bust dart" from Müller & Sohn as a possibly useful comparison to the more fitted base pattern. I have the upper parts finished, more or less, although I haven't dealt with the back shoulder dart (or lack thereof) yet.

M&S have you shift the shoulder seam forward 1cm on your base patterns; they say it looks better. I don't disagree, but I'm beginning to suspect that many pattern companies don't do this. For purposes of having an easy-to-use basis for comparison, maybe I should make my fitting shells without the shift (or at least with both lines present and marked). It does also explain part of why the shoulder notch looks so far forward on the sleeve I've drafted (not that it should be symmetric, of course).

I say this partly because I've been trying to compare a Neue Mode blouse pattern to my fitting shells and finding my front armholes disproportionately short. I might need to shorten the NM armhole regardless, but maybe I should try my blouse fitting shell in cloth, with sleeves, before rushing to judgment. Do I have the patience? We'll see.

Today I also was desperately looking for some hand work to do, so I tried to pick something to knit in a sport-weight wool I have (Spinning Flock Farm Wensleydale). So far I haven't really liked any of the swatches I've tried. I need to find some sort of stitch pattern and gauge that... looks like something. I might kick the can down the road and go back to sewing for the week, since the need for hand work has passed.

Hoodie, and blouse plans

I finally copied the last alterations onto my Schnittquelle hoodie tracing today, so I could get that put away. I'd changed the center back seam (original seamline in green, if you can see it) and the top front of the hood.

And here it is.

I'm now drafting a sleeve for my fitting shell. The elbow dart is looking a bit big to me, but I'd have to make a mockup to know if that's a custom fit feature or a problem.

I'm thinking if I do sew something for the blouse contest this month, it's probably not going to be a self draft. Given the required details, and the sorts of things I'd want to make with the stash fabrics I have, it would be such a departure from my fitting shell that it wouldn't make a very helpful initial test. Plus it'd be extra work. So I'm thinking I'll either use a commercial pattern, or skip it.

Again,

nothing got done today. Well, no sewing. A lot of other things did get done, which I hope to some extent means I have more sewing time this weekend.
Aside from the patterns I linked earlier, I'm also thinking about Neue Mode 23304 for the shirt, especially if I use one of the silks.

Shirt fabrics

Again, no sewing today. I had to deal with a lot of other stuff.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about various stash fabrics for the shirt (which I'll use as an excuse to draft and test sleeves):

• Dark green cotton sateen. There isn't much of this, so it would have to be short-sleeved. Not a bad fabric, but maybe I should save it for something sleeveless.
• Ecru oxford. Traditional shirt fabric, and there's a lot of it. I think it might need a pattern with some details; otherwise it could be boring.
• Shirting with a geometric jacquard pattern. This is more interesting, so it would need a plainer pattern, and the pattern would probably need to be matched.
• Various linens. These would make the most sense for something short-sleeved.
• Silk shantung and silk broadcloth. I know, silk is generally regarded as the sort of thing for which you make a muslin, rather than using for a muslin, but I haven't sewn these because in all honesty I have little apparent use for them in my life. That said, if there are any fit issues, these fabrics will magnify them.

I'm leaning toward the oxford, the other shirting, or one of the silks. I have enough of each of them for long sleeves, which I think would give me a better idea of my sleeve draft fit.

Next...

I got no more sewing done today, but I'm thinking about what to do next: probably some sort of shirt.*
Maybe Neue Mode 22848, or Vogue 8476, if I want to use a commercial pattern. I don't like any of the sleeves on the Vogue, so I'd draft new ones.
Or I might draft the entire shirt. We'll see....

* This way I could do the PR blouse contest. I've been meaning not to go overboard doing contests just because they're there, but this one requires fitting a set-in sleeve, which is something I could stand to do.

And done.

I've finished the Schnittquelle Trondheim hoodie, although I may not put up a review for several days yet. I still need to transfer some alterations back to the pattern pieces.

Once it was in fabric I really didn't have to make any startling changes: I just adjusted the CB seam, cut a little off the sleeve length, and took in the front of the hood seam (the hood is still loose, but that's what you get with only two pieces and no drawstring).

Aside from the darts (I hand-basted those, largely because I'd marked them on the wrong/incorrect side of the fabric, but maybe that was just as well) it took very little time. Boiled wool's nice that way.

Hoodie torso sewn

I've put together a lot of the Schnittquelle Trondheim hoodie (not the sleeves). Thoughts:

• It has the sort of back seam that goes in toward the waist and then more or less straight down, same as the standard Müller & Sohn draft. I have a hard time seeing how this actually fits people (women, anyway), but maybe it's my own fit issue. I cut it straight down from the neck, just to have more to work with. I'll need to fiddle with it once the rest is together.
• The darts look nice.
• All the seams are meant to be sewn wrong sides together and trimmed. I'm planning on sewing the sleeve seams right sides together and not trimming. That particular seam is less visible anyway, and tends to be the first thing to tear out in my experience, so I'd rather not have a tiny seam allowance there. I'm debating whether to do the same thing on the armscyes, but it might be too obvious.
• The hood is probably going to be a bit voluminous. That's not unusual for a hood with just one seam. At least it isn't pointy.

Ditching for February

Since I finished 2 projects in February, I meant to get rid of 4 other items. Here's what they were/will be:

• navy coat that I relined but then decided not to keep, due to road-salt staining and other issues.
• taupe corduroy trousers: the fit was probably iffy to begin with and has somehow become far worse since I've lost weight; the zippered pockets are annoying (scratchy).
• cheap navy blue leather belt that I shouldn't have bought, evidently; it is falling apart having been worn only a few times. I may cut out and salvage the buckle, though. (In contrast, I have a decent greener-navy belt from Furla that has lasted many years, although the color isn't great for going with everything. I had been trying to use navy as a neutral, which in retrospect I think is a pretty terrible idea; in fact, it's probably one of the hardest colors to match.)
• old dark green velvet Burda top with dolman sleeves: this was one of my earliest projects and the construction quality is somewhat embarrassing; there is also something off about the balance that makes it distracting to wear.

I also have several things waiting in the wings for March ditching; here's hoping sewing will keep up.

March plans

as of now:

• Finish the Schnittquelle hoodie within the first half of the month. This should be relatively quick to sew, aside from the fact that I'm hand-basting the darts on the front.
• From my fitting shell, draft an upper torso (blouse) shell and sleeve. I meant to do this in February, actually, but lots of things got in the way.
• Use that blouse shell in some way (flat patternmaking? using it to check an existing pattern? combination of both?) to get a fitted shirt pattern, and test/sew that by the end of the month.
• Sometime later in the month, pick the next project (for early April). So far I have no plans for this whatsoever.