Bust Darts

Things are not going well with the cheongsam/simplicity 5098. I don't know what my problem is. I must be terrified that the top isn't going to be big enough over the gigantic ones. The first one, the one in the picture, was too big, so I took out 1/2 inch from the full bust alteration. That seemed right. Well, the second top, in a wild aubergine and orange print (delicious), is too big, too.

Did I fit the pattern pieces on Buttina? NOOOOOO! How dumb was that? When I did the first fitting, I didn't have Buttina (my duct tape double), so I couldn't check things on her. But now I do. It's probably like any new tool; you have to get used to using it.

The good news is while this top is a wadder, I have another 7 yards of this print to play with. I liked it, and it was cheap, so I bought it. I forgot I bought it and got some more. I suppose I could rip out the seams and reuse everything except the front. Hm.

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I went swimming yesterday. It's been really tough. They closed the pool at work. It seems the structural steel under the concrete pool deck has completely corroded away. Concrete has very little strength in tension, so it's a serious hazard. The pool is 60 years old. The pool structural engineers that evaluated it said that concrete pools, usually, only last 30 years. The Navy must have really over built when they put it in.

Yuke, a work, swim, & sewing buddy, is training for a triathalon. She's nuts, but she needs to swim. And that gets me to the pool. I love swimming, especially now that I have a swimsuit that fits. I'm short in the crotch with gigantic boobs, so suits that fit on top were falling off my bottom. That doesn't work for butterfly or flip turns because the suit bags and fills with air or water. If I buy one that fits on the bottom, I can't get it on the top. It feels so good to get in the water. The only problem is that it takes 2 hours to go swimming now. The pool is across town. And the local park district isn't going to keep it open after school starts. They are building a new pool, but their latest news release said it wasn't going to be ready until April 2005, almost a year late. They've been having a lot of problems with the contractor.