Day Off Sewscapades

I woke up yesterday morning at about 3 am with vague feeling of blah.  As I laid back and tried to return to sleep, the feeling of blah became less vague.  By about 3:30 I decided that I needed a day off to myself, and promptly fell back to sleep.  It was a good day to take off, since my students were on a slow part of the lesson and all had a project they could finish without my being there. (Phases of meiosis = boring)


Despite my lack of a decent amount of sleep, I was surprisingly awake when I got up with Hubbs to call in and set up a substitute.  The thought of getting to stay home by myself and sew all day must have been really therapeutic.  I had some lovely soft brown houndstooth and a blazer pattern that had been calling my name for while and I was finally going to get to sit and take a look at it.  I pulled up the pattern on my computer, and after I spent about 30 minutes messing around with it and getting it print, I got around to looking at the actual instructions.  They were a bit more complicated and less detailed than I was prepared to tackle, and I was missing a couple of the notions they called for.  I also kind of hate multiday projects.  If I can't finish something in one day, I start to lose interest.  Unfortunately, I had already printed the 28 page cutout pattern. Ugh.


(If you are interested in the jacket pattern, its a free one from burdastyle, found here.)


Since the jacket was going to be a bust for now, I decided to try making a skirt instead.  With the 28 page pattern already printed and me not wanting to print anything else, I took the patternless rout.  I got out the good old tape measure and started cutting out skirt panels.  I decided to start with a simple 3 pane straight skirt.  I cut one rectangular front panel, and two narrower panels for the back (so I would have a seam for a zipper).  I basted the sides and slipped it on to try out the fit and see what I needed to do to tighten up the top.  I added 2 darts to the back of the skirt on either side of the zipper and angled in the side seams.  Once the fit was good, I put it on the serger and overlocked the seams.  After waltzing around the apartment in the skirt for a while (I was making some barley to go with my mabo tofu for lunch), I figured I should probably add a slit to the back seam so I could walk fast without threatening to rip it.  Once the slit was added, I did a blind hem along the bottom, added a yoyo flower for decoration and it was complete!


In actual time worked, it was probably a 2-3 hour project.  I took lots of breaks and dishes and other kitchen stuff in the middle, so I'm not sure of the exact time.

However, my sewscapades didn't end with the skirt... I also made a hat!  I was browsing around on burda again and found this.  I decided to give it a try as I still had lots of the brown houndstooth left.  The hat was super easy and fairly cute.  The only thing I don't like about it is the pointiness of the bottom ends of the seams.  If I make it again, I'll be sure to sew it up so that doesn't happen. 

Once I finished the skirt and the hat, I decided to try my hand at making a pair of underwear.  Not going to post a picture of the results however, cause it was kind of ugly.  I suppose 2/3 successful projects in a day is a pretty good day for a beginner sewer.