Lateral thinking on pants, books and ties

I have two new projects underway. I started on a muslin of that Vogue top I have been obsessing about, but am now reconsidering the design of the sleeves. Its a little too Carmen Miranda for me. I came across this version by Nibbles and Byte and think I may downplay the sleeves in a similar way.

Meanwhile while watching the pants sewalong from the sidelines I noticed that people were having difficulty achieving a perfect fit. My right brain solution was to start with a pair of pants that did fit well and unpick them. I had the perfect pair in my closet - simple cut, great fit but tragic sparkly fabric from the 1980s. It took over an hour to unpick all the seams. Some of you may regard this as cheating, but I now have a perfect fit trouser block. My only concern about the trousers that I made is that the original pants were in much lighter weight fabric. Mine are jeans weight stretch demin, so may need to be taken in a little more at the back of the thighs. Anyway I'm withholding my verdict for now. The block can also be used to check and adjust other commercial patterns.

You might call this cheating too, but one of the things that I've missed since I started my sewing venture is reading. Now while I love sewing, reading is one pleasure that I can't live without. My lateral solution was to borrow three 'talking books' from the local library. This works well as I can 'read' and sew at the same time. But it does raise the question why this section of the library is so limited.

Finally the young sewist in the family has a school holiday project in mind. A skirt dress made from old ties. She has ratted her fathers closet and the local thrift shop and nearly has enough. With the global downturn we all should put ties (and suits?) to good use. Maybe a suits and ties remake sewalong? The original inspiration was this dress worn by Aussie pop princess Gabriella Cilmi and made by her Mum.