Much Ado About Sleeves

I read quite a few comments about Mrs. Obama's sleeveless dress. I agree with the Washington Post. If my arms looked like that I'd never wear sleeves again.
Remember what we discussed about Cotillion etiquette? That whatever the First Lady does in matters of fashion is correct? It is now correct to go sleeveless in February.
People who criticize are only revealing their ignorance of etiquette, as my mom used to say.
(Or they are jealous of those arms.)

I've had an epiphany regarding redesigning my top and have now moved to the testing phase. It will either be a huge success or I will be getting good use out of all of my knit scraps in testing. Win-win, right?

"Re-imagineering" Butterick 5327

I have been swamped with work this week, but when I am on conference calls and doing mindless downloading, I am all the while "re-imagineering" the construction of this top. The crazed maniacs at Butterick want us to first sew the top front to the back at the shoulders (kudos though for mentioning stabilization at shoulder seams), finish the neckline edges of front and back with a doubled narrow hem (on a KNIT! are they mad? ) and then hand sew all of the little teeny tucks the neckline edge. Knowing from personal experience that those instructions are just not going to give me the results I want, I have been plotting a better method. The recommended fabrics are jersey and cotton knit. Those fabrics can be heavy, and here we are pleating lots of extra into the neckine and there is nothing to stabilize those pleats, and knits are, as we all know, very stretchy, so a heavy pleated neckline will eventually droop. It's a puzzle, and I think most sewistas are problem solvers. How can we make this a better way? I have some ideas that I'm testing. One, to do the pleats on the front while that piece is flat, before it is sewn to the back, and to make the ornamental pleats first by machine and then do the shoulder seams and bind the top edge folding the binding to the inside. A very narrow binding. And I think a very lightweight stabilizer would help the top edge not droop. I don't think that the pleats necessarily have to be done by hand. What is it with these pattern instruction people? They seem to be in the dark ages about sewing machines. They are always saying, "sew this by hand" as if that is the best way. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. I don't mind hand sewing and I do a good job when I do it, but I resent unnecessary hand sewing. And I think it puts new sewists off.
If you have a better idea than Butterick's on how to do these pleats and finish the top edges, feel free to share. I think this could be a very cute top if made a better way.
Is it Spring yet? I want it to be Spring by the time I finish this. Mother Nature, are you listening?

Butterick, how can you be so wrong?

Last night I read the instructions of all my new patterns while I waited for Mr. Hunting Creek to finish his eternal conference call and come make dinner with me. I wanted to decide what to make next. Reading pattern instructions is like being an airline pilot: hours of pleasant boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror. (OK, maybe not EXACTLY like an airline pilot. But, you get the idea.)
The following instructions should strike fear into any sewista familiar with the handling of knits:


A doubled narrow hem on a knit? Are they kidding me? Whenever I have attempted this, it has always resulted in a wavy stretched out disaster. Knits, most of them, don't unravel, so why are we doing a doubled narrow hem anyway? Why do we finish the edges at ALL? I decide to rebel. I decide that I am not following their instructions.
I feel like a rebel. I feel like a renegade. I contemplate changing my name to Tonya, a la Patty Hearst. Mr. Hunting Creek, when informed of the collossal wrongness of Butterick and their misguided knit finishing policies, is not suitably shocked. I now understand the evangelical fervor of religious missionaries.
I can hardly wait to finish work today to put my revolutionary knit finishing theories into practice. (Is this what Karl Marx felt like? A sense of fanatical RIGHTNESS?)
...to be continued