I can hear 'Skater's Waltz' from here !

Busy day today. Found out mid-morning that FIL texted Beloved Hubby – they wanted to meet us for lunch, to catch up. Note that they didn’t text me. We ended up buying for them, which felt good, and the recent kerfluffle wasn’t mentioned, except for a single ‘he’s not returning our calls anymore’ shrug concerning their previous driver. MIL still wants to cut down her clothes and make Niece clothes from them, so I volunteered to put her on Hancock Fabrics’ mailing list, then arrange a girls’ day out, when patterns are on sale. Since she has her own machine and a thread stash, and says she used to sew back in the day, she won’t need much more of my help – I hope ! Still, I don’t mind untangling thread nests and diagnosing problems, it’s dragging everyone’s butt to OldTown several times a week that lights me up !

I’m so happy about yesterday’s sewing project. I successfully sewed a circle skirt / skater’s skirt ! I’ve wanted to sew those for years, in fact, one of my very first sewing failures was a Barbie-size ice skating outfit. I used the Perestroika patterns, and although the author did her best to describe how to sew and use her patterns, I simply didn’t know enough to follow or understand them. I also didn’t get it when I tried Aileen’s Petite Fashions, Simplicity’s, or McCall’s versions, either. Heck, back then, I thought I was well-versed when I paid attention to a print’s scale, but didn’t take into account how thick a fabric was until I completely mucked up a simple dress by using a recycled (i.e., worn completely out) sweatshirt. And I couldn’t understand why it was such a failure ! Ah, my ignorance. . . It’s always so embarrassing.

Anyway, I was doing my usual trawl for free patterns when I ended up at Sew Adollable, a site for AG tutorials I’ve visited before. I was actually following a Pinterest link for a cute peplum skirt, but I didn’t see anything different from what I already did, so I clicked on the Skater’s Skirt tutorial, and saw that there was a problem. Sure, it looked simple enough, but I couldn’t quite tell how she had the fabric folded, she didn’t photograph that part. As I read the comments (I always read those, in case the pattern is problematic), it was clear I wasn’t the only confused one. I fished some torn-up paid bills out of the trash and worked on figuring out how it was supposed to go, several times. Kept getting two halved pieces, wrong answer. Supposed to have one ‘doughnut’ like piece. Eventually, I figured it out, and took photos for my own reference. I’d share ‘em, but I don’t know how to do that on someone else’s page. And I figure if I can puzzle it out with scissors and scrap paper, I’m certainly not that clever to be the only one.

Long story short (too late !), since the directions were set to fit an AG, I reduced some measurements and made it for DP&M Belle. Came out pretty well, fit nicely, and although I used some thrift-scrap woven cotton instead of knit, it flares prettily anyway. Still, I think it’s a bit short, so I made adjustments and hope to make another soon. I’m also getting better with waistbands, something else I didn’t understand all those years ago. I’m also training m’self to cheap-serge all the raw edges before I start sewing in earnest – it’s a good warm-up and the finished items look much better, and I feel better about them.

For today, I sewed another wrap dress for Bree, testing out some more slight pattern alterations. . . that really didn’t seem to amount to much. But I like how the colors from two random fabric bits – one from the Flea Market this summer, the other a thrifted scrap from last year – look together. I also spent a couple fun hours sorting out a random box of small pieces of fabric, which yielded today’s match and possibly several others. While I like to have a random box to dig through, it’s better to have it arranged where I can see everything and be inspired that way. Post Bree’s latest soon, it’s rained all day, and photos are coming out much too dark.