Clothes and fit

So the other week I left for Florida without having sewn up the final version of  McCall’s 7158. While both muslins technically fit, neither looked right on my body thus my enthusiasm for this project waned. I was been struggling to figure out the reason instead of defaulting to the old “Well, it’s because my body isn’t right” excuse.

Since I’ve started up sewing again, I’ve been adding a lot of new sewing blogs to my blog reader. I’ve enjoyed Julie of Jet Set Sewing, Kate of Fabrickated, and Stephanie of My Vintage Inspiration to name a few. They write well, are thoughtful, and cover a lot of ground.

I was perusing past posts from Fabrickated, where Kate has written extensively about body shape. Her post about the shaped body spoke to me:

The shaped body-line has the following characteristics; narrow or sloping shoulders, narrow, tapered ribcage, obvious waist, high round hips, and shaped calves.

…When dressing this shape we need to emphasis the waist as straighter styles, especially if they end at the hips or thighs can make the wearer appear wider.

It was like a light bulb turned on; this waist-less style of dress serves only to make me look like a wedge. I also dug her analysis of Marilyn Monroe’s body:

Standing at ease we can see her relatively short legs and “long-waist” ie the length between bust and hips. This is not a traditional “model girl” figure, but it is nevertheless a beautiful body.

Short legs, long waist; Marilyn, we have so much in common! Aside from the fact I’m pretty flat-chested.

Work has been sucking my soul dry of late, and consequently very little progress has been made in the crafting realm.