The fabric that doesn't want to be made

Or an epic in sewing.
Now that I've gotten my blog to behave better it was off to my sewing room last night. To finish the now stupid easy skirt that started off as a very simple Simplicity. That I went to JoAnn's to get elastic for that I forgot. That I finally got on my road trip with karent last weekend when I went to Hobby Lobby for the first time ever. I closed in my oh-so-simple waistband made from a piece of the original midriff and threaded through the finally purchased "no roll" elastic and proceeded to sew the elastic together. Nope, not gonna happen. After about 10 tries, I gave up for the night. No matter what stitch, facing, paper, fabric or needle I used my machine just wasn't going to sew this stuff together with edges abutting or to a piece of fabric to abbut. Nope. So the next night (it had to spend some time in timeout - you know that) I just overlapped the darn things, stuck a piece of tearaway behind it and sewed it up and pulled it into the waist. Bulky? Yep. Done? Yep.
Next step. THE HEM. Ugly is the work for the "pre-chosen" stretch-light hem. So I threaded up a double needle to try. Broke on the first trip down. No idea what it could have hit. I set the machine to double needle - 4MM. Had wide throat plate and foot. And it was the right side needle that broke and the shank was shifted to the left. So I replaced my old needle, re-threaded and tried the blind hem for knits. Again, no go. Every stitch just shoved the fabric into the throat plate. Pah! Tonight, I Steam-a-seam. I can't believe how much time I've spent on this dumb skirt.
AND (DH's out of town) I will cut out something fun to make. AND (yep, getting cocky here) finally hem my last Marlene pants. Don't have to make dinner, there's nothing on TV tonight. And I'm not putting another needle to the knit skirt. EVER.
As previously mentioned, I spent last weekend taking care of some family business from my dad's estate and then hung out with my BFF, karen. We did all kinds of fun, chick things. Shopped until we dropped. My first trip (won't the be the last) to Hobby Lobby. Their fabric isn't really "me", but their notions and accessories and other stuff is top notch. And they have brands I don't see in JA's or Hancock's. And lots of other useless junk that I love to look at. And a discount shoe store, and a couple of thrift stores (came up blank there - you just never know), and Kohl's where I was reminded of why I was making my own underpinnings ($10 a pair for panties! on sale) and some much needed bras. And Books-a-million. And I stopped at Dress Barn the day before I found a couple of really cute summer dresses. Wearing one today. And Hancock's - they were in the middle of a remodel - where they had Simplicity for $1 each. And Lowe's (gotta keep the plumbing working) and got our nails - all 40 of them done. Then, on Saturday we went to Asheville to Waechter's. You can see our haul from there on Karen's blog, we used the last of the light on her deck to photograph the fabrics. And wonderful Indy patterns where they have a large number of them made up for you to look at and touch. The 2 I bought were due to this amazing idea. I'd overlooked them on the envelope, but really liked the garment. Karen bought a couple that I want to trace off, too.
So know you know the rest of the story. Film at 11.