Sew-sew

My son went back to Detroit this morning, I know he was ready to go home. But, when he got back to his apartment he found that his PS3 had been stolen. The maintenance crew at his complex is a key suspect. I suspect he'll never take another vacation. Nothing else was taken, not even some major meds that he has on hand.

On Saturday morning I decided I wanted to make BWOF April 101, this skirt: so I tossed this fabric into the wash and started tracing. Then I laid out my fabric, put the pattern pieces on the fabric and just stopped. Bleck. Boring. Dull. Drab. Back to my sewing room to ponder on this for a while and my eye fell on this. From Fabric.com just a few months ago, when I bought some quilting fabric. I loved it on the 'net, but when I got it home and unfolded it, I was stumped to what I could ever use it for. The repeat is distinct, large and there's a large white line in the center. It's was listed as a cotton stretch sateen, but it's pretty matte - no sheen. 2% lycra, so just a tad stretchy. So it was folded away, brought out, refold, repeated a number of time,s I was afraid it would end up in the "what was I thinking" box. But there it was, peeking out from under some black wool. Just the thing to cut into 6 gores + yoke. It's a clean white with sage/olive (more towards sage - NOT the grey it sort of appears in some photos)

I started to try to figure out what BWTF (thanks, Cidell - had to use this!) was trying to say about how to do the yoke. Then I just make the yoke with the lap, put in the buttonholes, and attached to the front center. From there it was just piecing it together with an invisible zipper (I got to use my new Inv Zip foot, nothing like a new toy). I thought hard about adding the pockets, even made them (one of them twice - I just didn't like the fabric placement) but in the end decided not to. They would have to be top-stitched on and I didn't want just the pockets topstitched and I didn't want to topstitch the skirt - that would be too casual a look. Here's the full front, I wish I'd been more random with the pattern. and the back, which I actually like better: Oh, and I used my blind hem foot. Not wild about the result on this fabric, but it's blinder in real life - the flash really picked it up. And it worked like a charm. Fast and easy. So 2 sewing toys in one project. This is really a very easy skirt to make, I took my time and it was a 2 day-er with a lot of interruptions and some extra time laying out the pattern. And the time spent trying to decipher BWOF instruction before "just doing it".

And, since all I had to do was put on the buttons and hem I thought I'd start another project. Kicked around some new PJ's with some clearance fabrics from Hancock's. Nah. How about BWOF #111 from May (sorry, no picture, I can't find it on their site). Pants with no waist band and slant welt pocket (yeah, I was going to leave out the pocket - I'm so ashamed). Traced it out and placed it down on some navy/cream lightweight wool that was only about 50 inches wide, not 60. No way. **sigh**. How about some shorts? From the new June issue? I've had some raw green silk that's been wanting to be shorts for 2 years. Drag out the tracing stuff again - actually, never got put all the way away. There's a lot of "extra" stuff to cut on this one, btw. Carriers, facings, "belt". And you guessed it. Not enough fabric, A-gain. **sigh** So back to the sewing room again to ruminate and think about PJ's again. And I found this: from last year's late summer shopping at Fabricmart.com when I panicked and thought I was running out of fabric. (yeah, pretty funny). White and dark navy stretch twill. Probably a better choice than the silk for this pattern. I left the cutting board in for size reference. I got it cut out (yea!) and bumbled through the first of BWOF's set of instructions to realize that I need some belt buckles for the belt. And I have none. Not sure if Hancock's will have any, either. Errrr! Foiled yet again. This is getting tedious. I think I'll go look at my green skirt some more.

Good night.