Sewing Around It - Adaptive Sewing BEING UPDATED!

Sewing clothes is magic. It allows you to make stuff really work for people.

I'm not talking just making nursing shirts and adding a dowager hump dart.

I've had the opportunity to alter clothes so that my MIL can access her insulin pump that rides on her belly. This has made me notice and search out other patterns that fall into the rough category of adaptive clothing. Pickings have been slim from the big 4

Also making a pair of rip off pants for a burlesque show.

This is no longer in print, but there are plenty of copies out there for sale.

The sleeves  have Velcro TM  tabs, and the openings are front and back.

The dress is pretty cute I have to admit.

https://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/149484

This review made it sound like all the facings and bands got pretty complicated, but I think you could eliminate most of those by using wide bias tape.

The pants are just pull on elastic waist. But you could make those rip off pants.

https://pincurlmag.com/diy/diy-tearaway-pants/

Essentially you are cutting up the sides and adding Velcro TM tape. 

I'd use premade snap tape. Easy to undo and sounds less gruesome.  As for snapping them up, you get the first two snaps started and the rest just line up so you can run your hands up them to secure. The plastic snap tape is super easy for that.

 Velcro TM is good for about a month of washes and then it gunks up with lint.

Look at that diagram. I'll wager there's a jillion similar patterns, some with hoods, that you could use right now right out of the envelope.

And finally

http://box344.blogspot.com/2017/01/es-new-pants.html

sewing around a medical device

I miss you Box 344. I hope you are well and finding comfort.

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I started writing this post in July of 2019, and am just now seeing more adaptive patterns (like TODAY Monday January 24th today)

I've seen chair bags and pads before, but not as a set

Shirts that also open in the back, front covering 'bib' patterns

More 'opens in the back' styles (fronts are sewn shut).

But this one! Heatable/freezable wearable wraps. I can rock those booties! That chest/stomach soother!

https://www.simplicity.com/simplicity-storefront-catalog/patterns/brands/simplicity-sewing-pattern-s9494-hot-and-cold-comfort-packs/

The whole line is at 

https://www.simplicity.com/simplicity-storefront-catalog/patterns/special-collections/adaptive/

Thoughtful pals adding more information:

https://usa.tommy.com/en/tommy-adaptive

Tommy Hilfiger.  I totally forgot, his adaptive clothes were in the World of Wearable Art exhibit I saw at MoPOP

https://www.worldofwearableart.com/competition-2/

my review

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-mcqueen-adorned-mopop.html

And of course, please add to this/ read the comments for more

Napoleon Pocket

 I can't help looking at bright waterproof rain jackets, especially with the record rainfalls we've been having in Seattle (known more for drizzle than measurable rainfall)

Well, I can't see it in the picture, but I know exactly what they mean by the term

https://www.gearpatrol.com/outdoors/a719133/napoleon-pocket/

covers what deets you might desire.

Or chest utility pocket, as you might prefer

Time is an illusion that helps things make sense

 My MIL had dementia; she was all gone, but the body remained.

Now she has passed.

Before she disappeared, but was clearly going, we had a couple of talks in front of a photo collage my SIL made. Family photos, photos of my MIL with her mom, photos of her with her family, as a child, as a young woman in a bathing suit on a beach.

And we'd go over them, identifying who each person was. And in all the older, gray haired photos, my MIL would identify the person in the photo that was her, as her mother, never herself. "No, that's not me,  that's my mother." In the younger ones, it was her story, but as a different person. She'd just make up stories. It was my job to correct her, to place her in those photos in those times in this role and that, to keep her in this time, right now.

"Time is an illusion that helps things make sense

Because we are always living in the present tense

It seems unforgiving when a good thing ends

But you and I will always be back then"

And eventually, we'd just talk about time. For her, all these things were happening all around her at the same time, simultaneously a girl, a beach babe, a mother, a grandmother. The river of time and the order we give it are eddying and swirling around her, as she drifts downstream; "Picture yourself in a boat on a river."

"If there was some amazing force outside of time to take us back to where we were
And hang each moment up like pictures on the wall
Inside a billion tiny frames so that we can see it all, all, all

Will happen, happening, happened.

But you and I will always be back then."

Song/lyrics Rebecca Sugar, all rights to her, hooray!

If you would like to read a really great graphic novel that covers this topic (or just read the original one)

https://www.qwantz.com/slaughterhouse/

(or just read the original one)

Both are very fine

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I am going into another quarter of hard coursework in accounting, and will post sewing but it will be a bit thin on the ground until this is done in April.

Also the pandemic seems to be roaring back, and I don't know what that means for my work schedule.

Take care of each other, take care of yourselves.

Be kind.