Miss Fisher's silk pyjama trousers

When there is an open invitation to a party in a different time zone, turning up at the right time can be a bit awkward. I gather from Karen's post that everyone will be up late chatting and eating popcorn, so I am hoping that any time before midnight GMT will mean that I don't miss out.
 I have been re-reading Kerry Greenwood's Miss Fisher series, whilst watching the ABC series with my daughters, so considering that there is a literary sub-theme to this party, have made Miss Fisher worthy pjyamas.
 
 I enjoy these books for their escapist plots, the triumph of good over evil, just right for bed-time reading, and the delightful characters, with the added bonus of detailed descriptions of 1920's clothing. In the television series, the costuming is fabulous. However, I am very glad that I own the original print issue of the books, as I much prefer the Art Deco illustrations to the new covers.
 My homage to Miss Fisher are silk-satin pyjama trousers ( fabric bought mere weeks ago from The Remnant Warehouse), cut from my standard trouser pattern, but straight up from the hips at the side seams, without darts.
Due to the shaping at the centre seam, this cut makes the trousers too narrow to be pull on, so I have added a gusset at the fly. This construction means that the pyjamas are comfortable, but only slightly gathered at the waist (with my elastic attached to shiny-side-in bias tubes as ties), which is much more flattering for someone with my waist to hip ratio than normal pyjama trousers.
 
 The trousers are constructed with french seams throughout, with a little machine embroidery over the gusset seams, bias binding at the bottom of the gusset, and running stitch by hand at the top of the waist band for a neat edge when the trouser drawstring gathers the waist. The remainder of my Miss Fisher outfit are the gown and nightgown/pyjama top from must-be-out-of -print-by-now New Look 6929. This is a very comfortable outfit, and looks much better than my flannies!

 

Exercises in supporting or depressing the sewing mojo - trouser jeans

Thank you for your kind comments about my blogging absence. Thank you also for the kind words about my mojo, but unfortunately, it seems a fragile and feeble thing at the moment, rather than returning in good shape as would be preferable.
Here are some mojo killing depressing jeans that I finished prior to the trip.

I am not a jeans devotee ,but have to admit that they are a useful item of clothing for someone who tends to dress in order not to stand out in any way, and only wants to take carry on baggage.

I do not really want to talk about these jeans, they were dull and un-co-operative to sew due to the stiffness of the fabric combined with the vagaries of my figure, which tends more the shape admired in the 1880's than one that looks its best in jeans. The pattern is my adapted TNT trouser pattern from Burda 04-2009. I embroidered one leg, then got sick of it.

They look better than RTW jeans.

I am sewing a skirt next

Lets move on to mojo stimulating activity.
Here is my $22 worth of things from Hunter Valley junk shops. (My husband loves junk shops)

The singer binding foot and pattern tracing wheel are from Morpeth, where I did not buy an incomplete Singer buttonholer for $30, but the foot was only $1 - Did they know what it was? I am planning a bit of electrolysis this weekend to see if I can make these tools a little more useful.

The buttons and lace were from a lovely Old Wares shop in Branxton. This was well worth the visit, with a lot of vintage clothes, vintage fabric lengths, buttons and trims. The prices were what you would expect for someone trying to make a living from selling these things, except for the cotton lace in very good condition for 50c per metre which the lady said was a mistake, but sold to me for that price anyway. I hope she made a profit on my husband's purchases!

I have been on a fabric diet since mid January, which I could possibly blame for mojo depression, but had always planned to finish the diet during my trip to Sydney, as my daughter and I planned an exciting expedition to buy fabric for her self-designed high school graduation formal dress.
This dress is a very big deal to my daughter, particularly as the Yr 12 graduation dinners are highly interesting events to our country town, with all the attendees photographed red carpet style and all the photographs being published in a special issue of the local paper.
After being unable to find a suitable-to-my-daughter shade of green silk fabric in any of 9 internet shops I thought this would be a loooong day.
My plan was to start at Alexandria, then move on to the fabric district in Surrey Hills where there are 3 shops from which to choose - Greenfields, The Fabric Store and Tessuti.
This was my first visit to The Remnant Warehouse, both Gail and Sharon recommended it to me, and I am very grateful, as it is a terrific shop.

I found it easy to access via public transport, as it is only a few blocks from the train station.
(Train station is Green Square, not Alexandria,just to be confusing)
Fortunately for me, the shop is located right next door to an enormous tool shop, for the entertainment of accomanying husbands, no doubt. We thought this person was safely off kayaking for the day with his brother, but this fell through at the last minute. Much as I enjoy my husband's company, he is not my favourite companion for fabric shopping.
The Remnant Warehouse has two shops, one for dancewear, costumes and swimwear, and one for dress and quilting fabrics.

Here is my score from the swimwear shop, which I accidently entered first - 2 nylon/lycra pre cut 1 metre lengths at $9.95 per m, and the one my daughter fell in love with cut from a roll at $19.95 per metre. See all the lovely doo-dads useful clasps and things-I-might-want-one-day. It was probably just as well that I was on a strict time limit in this shop, there were some very interesting remnant and trim boxes.

Next door, there was a good display of dress fabrics, about half of the shop was quilting fabrics. There were silks in a reasonable range of weaves, weights and colours, scattered amongst other fabrics, but clearly labelled. Amazingly, my daughter found the exact colour she was after, in a medium heavy duchess silk.

I thought it was a real bargain at $16.95 per metre - so I bought myself some in red as well. It took us about 20 minutes.
The service was excellent and well informed - also beyond the call of duty. I had a few 3kg flat rate post bags with me, not being keen to carry fabric about all day, (and being quite keen to buy too much fabric to fit in my carry on), and packed one of these at the fabric counter. The shop is in an industrial area and I had not seen any post boxes, but before I could even ask where the closest one was, the saleslady offered to take my parcel to the business post centre, which not only saved me lugging it about, but had my parcel delivered interstate and rurally in only 2 days for no extra cost (normally $7 extra for this speed).
The only problem with this wild success was that I had no change of convincing anyone to visit the Surrey Hills shops with me ;(.
We walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge instead.

Travel Wardrobe. South Island New Zealand. Trousers BWOF 04-2009-118, t shirts

A particularly annoying thing about outdoorsy techical clothes is their incredible ugliness and unflattering nature for non-20-year-old-ectomorph figures.
I find this particularly notable in the trouser selection, my figure being trouser resistant. Shorts are worse.
Despite these feelings, I made a pair of trousers that convert to shorts for my travel wardrobe. The fabric is not-quite-thick-enough wicking woven nylon from The Rainshed. Sometimes practicality trumps feeling nicely dressed, and although we did no overnight hiking on this trip, there will be future trips where convertible clothing will save me pack room.
Fortunately I do have a TNT trouser pattern.This fits sufficiently for my trouser tolerance.
I converted my adjusted BWOF 04-209-118 trouser pattern to a convertible shorts/trousers pattern in the following way.
1. Lengthened the legs by 10 cm in the general region of the knee.
2. Constructed the trousers to hemming stage, then stood in front of the mirror with a roll of masking tape applying horizontal lines at possible shorts cut off lengths until I had a only slightly disgruntled happy compromise between no-zips-at-knee-creases and covering-sufficient-leg.
3. Added hem/cuff allowance to thigh end of this line (7cm-which was not quite enough as it turned out), and cut off the lower leg, marking the front of each lower leg with a pin
4. Discovered that the leg circumference was longer than any light coloured pairs of separating zips in my stash other than chunky zips.
5. Applied chunky zips to one leg, then folded down a cuff to cover the zip. (This is why the 7cm cuff allowance(+3 cm for the zip seams) was insufficient), as my cuff needed to be deeper than the 6cm I had erroneously allowed to cover the zip sufficiently, next time I would increase by 15cm rather than 10.
6.Discovered that chunky zips are too bulky and stiff for such an application and are also rather uncomfortable under the back of the thigh when sitting.
7.Removed chunky zip.
8. With reluctance, bought 2 overpriced Sullivan junky, thin separating zips from Lincraft,due to time constraints, still at less than the circumference of the leg due to the limited usefulness of Lincraft.
9. Reapplied zips, thigh end with wrong side of zip to right side of fabric, lower leg side with right side of zip to wrong side of fabric, gap at outer side seam.
10. Added button tab to cover gap.

11.Hemmed ankle end of trousers.
This covers the shorts conversion.

My other additions were to fold gussets into the back pocket vertically and horizontally, to give more storage room. I had to tack down the gussets where they crossed to avoid a very unflattering protusion when the pocket was empty.

I added an internal waistline pocket.
I wore these as trousers several times in New Zealand, with leggings and stockings underneath.(The weather was not entirely wonderful at all points of our trip).

Very windy walk to Rob Roy Glacier, near Wanaka

Gerturde Saddle walk, Fjordland National Park
I wore them as shorts only when staying at a backpackers' lodge at Milford Sound for trips to the showers - it is unpleasant to have trouser legs contact a wet floor whilst dressing.
The t-shirts I made for the trip co-ordinate with both the bone trousers and the burgandy skirt.

The pattern is an adaptation of the two layer t shirt in Burda Style 08-2010.
The dark purple/brown t shirt is a rayon knit, with a dark brown voile bias strip gathered and stitched with zig-zag to the neckline.
The print is from scraps of silk jersey left over from a wrap dress I used for my 2010 trip, with the neckline bound with fold over lingerie elastic.
I used these knit fabrics after my good experience with them as quick dry fabrics for a previous travel wardrobe. I find the wicking knit quick dry polyesters no faster to dry, less pleasant to wear, and prone to nasty smells if they are even slightly damp when packed, whereas the silk and rayon (and merino) do not seem to become musty in the same way.

Multiple trousers BWOF 04-2009-118 and Jalie 2215 . How even TNTs can be exciting - not in a good way.

I have the best intentions with capsule and wardrobe sewing. Every so often, I decide to make a set number of garments that work together so that I have lots of outfits to wear. Usually I even sew a few of them.
This winter, I joined the Northern Hemisphere centric Summer 6 piece sew along at Stitchers Guild, running May to July. Naturally I ignored the Summer bit. I planned a capsule for work, as I seem to wear out these clothes with depressing frequency. I made a couple of blouses, a pair of dark olive trousers, knitted a cardigan and made a brown skirt that did not look good with the blouses, and I could only wear very occasionally to work anyway. 4 pieces, and a ring in, not too bad. Then my mother stole my cardigan. (It looked better on her) 3 pieces and a ring in. Only one month over the deadline I have I made another pair of trousers, dark brown wool, very thin (so I can wear them as it warms up) lined with cotton batiste, same pattern, same pocket as the dark olive pair made previously.

BWOF 04-2009-118 technical drawing, mine have devolved quite a bit

I might finish this capsule by our Summer. I am pretty sure I ame confusing capsule sewing with uniform sewing, but unfortunately, my work clothes are severely limited by what is practical for the tasks requried.

Worn here with a 2009 Vogue 7093 blouse (2009 SWAP). Rather repetive sewing I am afraid. However, sewing has excitements even when using the same pattern. This trouser pattern was last used for the world's most unflattering trouser jeans. I was quite nervous sewing this pair,in case they had the same strange crotch shortness and elephant leggedness of the denim pair, but they fit very nicely. The relief was considerable.

I have dragged my photographer to the park after work to add a little background variety to the photo shoot. Pity it was raining, and almost dark. Oh well.
Here is some more repetition, Jalie3 2215 yoga pants in Polartech powerdry.

These were quite exciting to sew though, mainly because there was an certain urgency in their construction.
It does not rain here much during winter. The school sports uniform, which in winter includes black tracksuit pants or similar, gets hung outside overnight to dry. This can be a problem. Some teenagers seem to think that wet yoga pants in the morning due to unusual overnight rain can be fixed by their mother sewing them a new pair before work. At least she made me a cup of tea. There is nothing like sewing induced adrenaline for waking you up! I hope you didn't miss my Supermum aura in the previous photograph, or maybe it has worn off by now.



Whilst we were at the park, it was very noisy, as the Rainbow lorikeets roost in the Bunya pines overnight, and were starting to return as the light faded. We can tell Spring is coming, some of those birds are sitting very close to each other.


(This tree is a jacaranda, not a Bunya Pine - the tails show up better without leaves in the tree)

Workhorse garment, workhorse pattern, BWOF 4-2009-118 trousers

Thank you for the expressions of sympathy in reply to my last post. I appreciate them very much.

Over the weekend I made work trousers. I used my TNT trouser pattern BWOF 4-2009-118, (is it wrong to feel smug about being able to write tried and true about a trousers pattern?) which so far this year has been tracksuit pants with a side zip, cream linen trousers, and pyjama pants. None of these earlier efforts had much in the way of details, which is usually how I like my trousers - inconspicuous.
I put in a bit more effort this time, but hopefully still have inconspicuous trousers. I am trying to embrace the seemingly constant lack of work trousers in my wardrobe by smartening them up a trifle, so I actually fancy sewing some.
Fortunately, I managed to have a few photographs taken of these trousers before I spilt tea all over them whilst eating breakfast this morning. No wonder I am always needing new work trousers!

These trousers are made from vintage fabric I purchased from a lady in her 80's.

The fabric is Lincraft brand wool, with the name woven into the selvage, and is at least 20 years old. It is rather nice fabric, so it is a real pity it is no longer produced.
I used the internal waistband pocket and extended buttoning tab I have described before, as I find this pocket very useful for my mobile phone whilst at work. I am trying to train myself not to keep a pen in this pocket, as leaky pens have been the demise of more than one pair of my work trousers. I am hoping that making the pocket 5cm too short for my pen will assist in this endeavour.



I lined the trousers with cotton batiste, and bound exposed seams. This sort of secret inside sewing almost makes me enjoy work trousers.

BWOF 4-2009-119 cream linen lined trousers

I am not entirely sure of all the factors that inspired me to make cream linen trousers, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was a terrible case of itchy bites after an evening social occasion. This time of year abounds with out-door barbeques, and I am always the first person to notice that the mosquitoes have arrived at the event. I am not sure if this is due to my overwhelming attractiveness to biting insects, or because I am usually wearing a dress.



Next barbeque, I will wear trousers, even though a dress would look better.
These trousers are from my old faithful pattern 4-2009-118, although I am calling them 119 because I have left off the pockets, and lined them with cotton batiste. This is the difference between the two patterns.
I have also moved the zip to the side. I am not very good at side zips on trousers, if they are my trousers, due to a certain curviness in this region. I think the side zip does make the trousers look more feminine.



I also tried making loops for the buttons. This would have worked really well, had I measured the loops a little more accurately against the buttons. I had to put bigger buttons on than I originally planned, and you can see here that they are almost too big to fit on the waistband.


Disclaimer: The trousers do fasten at the waist, I undid the buttons for the photo so as to display the loops and the unfortunate zip

Fortunately, these little home ecky regions will be disguised by a nice long blouse or t shirt. Maybe I will wear my knee length transparent tunic and really annoy the mozzies.

Tried and true trousers BWOF 4-2009 -118,dumbing down a pattern

I am in the sewing doldrums. Despite at least am hour spent reading pattern magazines in my rocking chair today, the only thing I have been able to sew this weekend is dumbed -down trousers from BWOF 4-2009-118.
First I thought I would use up some mysterious fabric. Pattern Review's stash challenge is responsible for this decision. I have owned a piece of pseudo "gabardine" since textile studios, (USA) decided to remove itself from fabric sales. I bought quite a lot of fabric sometime in 2009 in their closing down sale, but have used none of it until now. This piece is an odd sort of knit. I was expecting a woven from the description "cotton/rayon gabardine" but the fabric was a peculiar spongy texture, maybe a double knit, with a sort of twill appearance on one side and a definite reverse stocking stitch appearance on the back. I had intended it for trousers, but it was heavy, drapey and stretchy, yet ravelly - not a good candidate.
Despite these misgivings, I thought I could attempt trousers from this fabric. I thought I might be able to wear them under my beach cover up tunic.
Here are the trousers.




You can see that there is a certain lounge wear vibe to these trousers. I had not intended this , but the stretchiness of the fabric took over. First I cut out the trousers (pattern is for woven fabrics) with no seam allowance in the the vertical seams, and removed 3cm from the to the depth of the crotch, to allow for fabric sag. Then I reinforced the horizontal seams and the crotch seam with woven selvage to prevent sagging. Still the trousers were too big. I added elastic to the waist seam - no joy, then a drawstring to the front waistband, almost they fit, but alas, they look more like tracksuit pants than proper trousers. These are relegated to lounge wear, and as they are far too hot and heavy to wear to the beach, I think I will save then until next winter.
Despite my original disappointment, I am quite happy with these trousers on further reflection. They are the most flattering track suit pants I have ever worn. (You can see why I prefer skirts!) I may need to put a side zip in all my tracksuit pants in future.

Now that I had managed to get back to the sewing machine, I kept working on clothes for my weekend away. I wanted semi-public suitable sleepwear (weekend away with girl friends). I made a pair of pyjama trousers to co-ordinate with the BWOF 11-2009 camisole I made last year. The pyjama pants are quilting cotton.

I used BWOR 4-2009 again, this time changing the darts to gathers, enlarging the waistband, an adding 1.5cm to all horizontal seams. I think the pyjama pants turned out quite well. It is very useful to have a simple, tried and true trousers pattern.


Next up I will be making another beach cover up. Here is what happened to the last one. Theft! pure and simple.
DD the first on her way to her school swimming carnival on Friday. For some strange reason she did not want to wear her fancy hat for the photo.

She did not get sunburnt at all, so it is quite an effective cover up, even if rather hot to wear between dips in the pool.

It looks better on my daughter, otherwise I would be stealing it back.

Overcoming fabric remorse, BWOF 4 - 2009-101 skirt

My fabric hogging Jacaranda coat gave me fabric remorse. Not purchasing remorse, which rarely afflicts me, due to my fondness for fabric collecting, but use remorse. This purple linen had been dozens of beautiful garments in my imagination, and I mourned every one of these after I had finished the coat. I have never claimed to be rational about sewing.



After considering the pitiful remnants for a few weeks, I decided that I almost had enough fabric to make BWOF 4-2009-101.
It took some squeezing, and a centre back seam, but I managed to cut it out. This was a great balm to my fabric remorse.
Even better, I could use the same oddly shaped pieces from the coat lining for the inside of my skirt.

I have made two of these skirts previously, which I have been wearing frequently for over 18 months, and the inside of both annoy me each time I put them on. I had already sewn the back side pieces to the centre back when I decided to take more trouble this time.
I tried underlining. I had never done this before for a whole garment, due to my frequent need for post construction fitting, but I felt confident that I could manage with this pattern. I see from the date on Laura Lo's tutorial, that I have been thinking about trying this for more than 2 and 1/2 years.
I did not measure precisely, which is the recommended technique, just cut out the underlining approximately 1.5cm bigger at the horizontal edges, using the cut-out, outer fabric pieces as a pattern. The back pieces I sewed together as a detached lining, but the centre back and side seam as underlining. This was fortuitous, as there is a huge curve for me in the seam I had already sewn, and I did not want to clip my pretty faux bound seams. There were several advantages to using the underlining - pre-finished seams, increased seam allowance, and a bit more body for the top of the skirt.

I was pleased with the effect of the underlining, so kept fiddling with new techniques. I am very fond of invisible zips, but felt that there were too many layers of fabric to use one. Instead I used the new-to-me insertion technique from Kenneth King's Cool Couture for a lapped zipper.

This was terrific - fast and easy, even the hand picked bit, but I overlooked a small problem. The technique expects a waistband to be attached, and there is no waistband at the back of this pattern. I bound the top of the underlap with bias binding, and added a tab and button on the inside to keep the top closed. It is not too bad.

I have looked up a better way of doing this for next time (Australian Stitches Vol 9 #8)

I was not sure how to finish the bottom edge of the underlining. I should have finished them before sewing the seams. To disguise this oversight, I hand-stitched lace to the hem.


I used the same buttons for the skirt as for my coat. I am quite certain that the skirt will show them off more frequently. This whole project makes me happy. Now I just need some tops to wear with it.

BWOF 4-2009-118 trousers, September 9

Today's outfit is for clinical work again, but much more fun.
I did not make the blouse. Elizabeth gave it to me. She made it from a vintage pattern, and I had admired it on her blog (there is a very cool yoke), and whilst I was in London, trying on all her clothes, she decided that the fabric was not her best colours. I was not about to argue with her! I feel quite spoilt wearing this.
The trousers are new. I am in chronic need of work trousers, and one of the reasons for participating in Self Stitched September was to aim at no more than 2 views of a pair of work trousers per week. This meant I had to make some.
The pattern is Burda World of Fashion 4-2009-118, which I have used several times before. The fabric is a medium weight cotton gabardine from Michael's Fabric.
I have added a few details. The facing and inner pocket are quilting cottons.

The buttons, tabs and waistband are my token nod to the military trend.
I liked the waistband inner pocket in my travel trousers, finding it very practical and non-hip enhancing, so I have put one in my work trousers.

.
I plan to make a few more pairs this month.

More trousers BWOF 4-2009-118

Fortunately for me, the third pair of trousers from this pattern, BWOF 4-2009-118, looks quite different from the last two pairs.


The woeful welt pockets are not too bad (if you squint a bit) once they are placed in a large expanse of trouser, especially if I pretend that they were supposed to look like single welt pockets the whole time. As I have not even half a scrap of this fabric left, the welt pockets just have to stay in their current state.

Do you notice that this pair of trousers is far less tight fitting than the last pair, cut exactly the same. This is just as well, as I have been eating Easter eggs, but I find it a great sewing mystery that two fabrics, of similar weave and weight can behave quite differently.
The best thing about these trousers, is that I know I will never spill Chlorhexidine on them, they will resist rust stains, and will never tear. This is due to the disaster repelling properties thrown over a whole garment when an already stuffed up pocket or zip is present in the garment. I will not be able to throw out these trousers until the fabric wears through, just what I need for work pants!

Trousers

I complain a lot about trousers. I was strongly tempted to just not post about these, but I am trying to keep an honest sewing journal.

I was thrilled with this pattern, BWOF 4-2009-118 in the first incantation. I made trouser jeans, and I like them very much. They fit nicely. I know this despite not having worn them since last August because I tried them on this morning after the photographs of the current version. Of course I had to alter the original pattern.
This pair is made from a twill fabric, I think it is cashmere cotton from Michael's fabrics. It reminds me of proper moleskin jackaroo trouser fabric (R.M.Williams gear is very popular in rural QLD). It is quite a heavy fabric, and I found the trousers had less give than the denim pair. Despite this, I had to take them in at the side seams below the high hip, as there was too much room across the backside.
Unfortunately, now the crotch is not quite long enough. I have altered the side seams several times, but cannot quite manage a happy medium between bubble butt and wedgie.

Scooping out the crutch did not help much, and there is no wriggle room at the waistband seam.
My daughter assures me that the photographs make this backside problem appear worse than it is in real life. Despite this kind comment I do not plan to wear these trousers unless I lose 5kg.
Overall this is a disappointing outcome, as the previous pocket disaster responded very well to Joy and Trena's suggestion to add a flap. I have kept the zipper underneath, as I was rather pleased with it. All the apparent backside width remaining, is, alas, genuine, and no longer a visual illusion.
I am having trouble starting to sew the next pair. Trousers are bad for my mojo.

BWOF 04-2009-101 Gabardine cotton version

After making the denim version of this skirt #101 from BWOF 04-2009, I received some very helpful suggestions from a few people.
Cidell and gwensews suggested that the stiffness of the denim might contribute to the hip poochiness, so for this second version I chose a quite drapey cotton gabardine from Michaels Fabrics, that just happens to be left over from the Marlene pants I made a few weeks ago. (This skirt is very useful for remnant type pieces.
I think this has helped a little in minimizing the poochiness, but unfortunately I think this fabric seems to have amazing wrinkle revealing properties in photographs. I would swear this just came out of the washing pile rather than straight from the ironing board!

 

Goodworks felt that the skirt did not look like an A line except from the side, and that this was probably due to fitting issues.

 

I thought this sounded feasible, especially as Cidell also mentioned fitting issues for people with more backside than hip (relatively for me!), so embarked on some fitting adjustments. I took some hip curve away from the side seams, and added the same amount to the side -back to back panel seams. There is now plenty of room over my behind, and my side seams are now straight, but I agree, the skirt still does not look much like an a line from the front or the back, so maybe all my adventures in different skirt shapes should be undertaken with a different pattern!

 

 

Carol also offered some really good suggestions about changing the skirt length and the width of the a line to see which is more flattering. I did make this skirt a smidgeon shorter, but I think I need a bilateral leg replacement in order to look as good as Carol in a short skirt, no matter what shape it is.
The next step was to try out a whole heap of different tops as suggested by Katherine. It really does change the overall shape. I did have some photos as examples but they have fallen off the post. I found that tucked in woven blouses effectively remove my waist, and increase apparent fatness, tucked in fitted t shirts replace my waist but make me look shorter, and that the best look is close fitted stretch t shirts with asymetrical hem
- I have one of these only, and it also completely obscures the waist detail of the skirt! Back to the drawing board for this wardrobe plan.