Tuesday, October 28, 2008

slacking off... well, not really.

I have several projects to finish for customers, and as we just had a month of YomTov (holidays) I haven't had very much sewing time at all.

I spent this past Sunday cleaning up the playroom (starting from the end that is really my sewing room).

What I accomplished:
  • I found a large percentage of the floor (there really was one under all that mess!)
  • I filled a big garbage bag with fabric scraps, food crumbs!, random bits of paper and broken toys
  • I sorted the unbroken toys into a multitude of toy boxes. We definitely have too many toys!
The idea is to make the playroom more playable in, so that the at-home-all-day kids (ie "the littles") will stay in there and play instead of getting bored and leaving to go make trouble.

But I didn't do any actual sewing on Sunday, since I was so busy cleaning.

Monday morning I actually played with the littles in the playroom -- good for the littles, and maybe progress towards getting them used to playing and staying in the playroom, but again, no sewing happened, or more to the point, no ironing happened. The most pressing project right now is putting the pleats back into the 4 uniform skirts I shortened several weeks ago. Taking out a hot iron while three littles play under foot... bad idea.

So this morning (Tuesday) I made sure to take some sewing time, but as I also had sole care of the three littles (ages 4, 3, and 1.5), I still wasn't willing to take out the iron. Instead, I went stash diving, and did some sewing for me. Felt like slacking off, but it was fun. And I did need it. (I so need to update my entire wardrobe!)

I was in JoAnn Fabrics about a month ago, picking up some last minute supplies for a project, and was on line to check out when I realized I was actually in the store during the Simplicity $1.99 sale, and what was I doing leaving without taking advantage of it? So I went back in and dug out my pattern wish list. One of the patterns I picked up then was Simplicity 4138:


I chose view B, the long skirt with a handkerchief hemmed flounce. (Shown in pink, on the model). My first choice of fabric, a black variegated rib knit, was discarded when I realized that after washing on hot, the fabric width was only 40" and the flounce wouldn't fit! I pulled out several other fabrics, finally settling on a 60" wide deep wine colored Bedford cord (really soft and flowy!) that I think I bought over 5 years ago. I had just over 2 yards of it, and it was a really tight fit (requiring a very unconventional layout) but I made it work.

Since I don't actually go in all that much at the waist (leftovers from past pregnancies), I folded down the top inch of the pattern to make the waist part a bit wider and closer to the hips. I also did a rolled hem on the flounce instead of the narrow hem the pattern called for, but those were the only changes I made. The instructions for the elastic waist suggest cutting a piece of elastic equal to your waist measurement and then trying it on and adjusting as necessary -- I did that and wound cutting off quite a bit of elastic. (At least 6 inches.) But I finished it in one day and I have a new and exciting skirt! (Couldn't find a hanger to showcase it properly, and didn't feel like changing just now.)


This evening I did actually get to that ironing... but I had a deadline, as Rosh Chodesh started tonight, and I don't iron, sew or do laundry on Rosh Chodesh. So I checked when sunset was, set the timer on my watch, and pulled out the iron. I finished pressing one skirt and got maybe 25% done with a second. Maybe Thursday night I can finish them and finally give them back? Then it's on to a big special order snood project.