Fitting Fiasco

For years I've owned this wonderful, shapely cotton knit top that was my all-time favorite piece of clothing, because it not only had a flattering cut, but it was comfortable in any temperature, long enough to cover my bloating belly at the wrong time of the month, and dressy enough to wear in public, but not so dressy that I couldn't wear it while doing barn chores.  I wore it so much that it began falling apart at the seams.

Each time I went to a clothing store, I'd look for something like it, but could never find anything that came close.  I finally decided to recreate it myself.  I set it in my sewing room and spent about a year shopping around for the correct material.  I finally found a fabric that would work, but I wasn't sure where to start.  In the past, I always sewed clothing with the help of a pattern.  In this case, I needed to make my own patterns out of computer paper.  For about a year, I had crafter's block and did nothing.

I finally got on the stick and cut out some paper patterns molded from the shape of the top.  I then began cutting out the fabric.  After I cut out the back, I held it up to myself and thought, "This can't be right.  This is way too small."

Granted, I was holding the pattern for the back up to my chest, but I could still tell that it was way too small.  I then held the piece of fabric I just cut out up to the back of the original top, and it fit perfect.  It took some thinking, but I eventually figured out that I should try on the original top.

Holy smokes!  In the two years that it had been sitting in my sewing room unattended, my body had changed so drastically that it no longer fit me.  The top had a ribbon of material wrapped around the rib cage right underneath the breasts.  However, now that I am a middle aged woman going through menopause, my breasts have drooped to the tune of about three inches!  Which meant that I had to lengthen both the back and the front of the patterns for the new top by three inches in order to not have that ribbon of material running right over my breasts.  I would have looked pretty silly wearing that in public.

So, another lesson learned for the fabric design world.  Make sure the item you are using as your example still fits before cutting anything.  Had I kept going, I may have been able to finish the product, but I would have had to find someone who was my size from two years ago to be able to wear it, which would have defeated my entire purpose for starting this project in the first place.  I wanted the top for myself.