Amazing New Series Dracula: Yummy Clothes

Happy Halloween everyone. In case you missed this awesome new series with yummy period clothing, I am adding this week's eye candy for you. Now back to sewing.

And no, I have no excuses for watching this other than I love the clothes. It's no Game of Thrones, but definitely entertaining.

Textile Videos Worth Watching: Hot Patterns

      Ok, this week I'm busy catching up on Trudy's youtube videos while I do a bunch of handsewing for my Halloween costume. The plan at this point is to make myself a custom corsets for a night on the town, but I'm going to reserve judgement until I'm farther along as lingerie is COMPLETELY out of my previous experience depth. Here's to picking up new skills.
       I really love her videos and Sandra (Power Sewing), however I'm always torn on the actual buying of the patterns as I'm not really her customer body type (more a spoon than a rectangle) and most of my commercial work is in menswear. If you want to step your sewing up a notch, I can suggest spending a few minutes of your day for a month on her 7-8 min tutorials for a month or two. She's posted 12 hours overall. All of it is worth watching. The patterns she makes are reasonably priced in my opinion in the range of $7-12.00 each. Not as cheap as a large scale company, but certainly within range for someone producing them privately. Great for the home sewer, especially if you are plagued by a problem tummy.
       So, what are you making for Halloween?

How Look Better In Home Sewn Clothing

I recently stumbled across this gem of a paper by Debra McLendon on home sewing thanks to a fellow patternmaker, Dean Dyer. As some of you all know, most major home sewing patterns fit like crap, but frankly lacked the drive to tackle as I find the home sewing market confusing and degrading. Thankfully someone else has undertaken the research for me. While you can dig through the 160 page paper and pick up a lot of info, I suggest skipping to the end (page 140-141) to figure out which of the 5 major pattern companies to pick for you personally. The reason is there is a picture of the major dress company dresses sewn up and placed on the same mannequin for comparison:

Burda is a square body shape (If you had a square body shape/tummy buy this size).
Butterick seems to have the closest hourglass figure (Small 8% of the population)
McCalls is an spoon (Small bust, larger butt).
The New Look is knock off of Butterick (Less extreme version)
Vogue is a Triangle (Larger bust with smaller hips).

Overall, I would say that from a visual aspect....McCalls fits the best in the front visually, the New Look from the back, and Butterick/Vogue from the side. So look at yourself in the mirror. Figure out your overall size, and pick accordingly. I being an Irish woman spoon in a family of spoons will be buying McCalls. You may be something else. Happy sewing.