So, I need to pick out the border print for ‘s quilt, and it needs to coordinate with ‘s quilt. Conveniently, I was able to find more of the print I’d used for the center panel, and I saved some of the border fabric for comparison. For reference, I’m talking about the green plaid (which is also what the initial is made out of).

Here are the three options, together with the white print and the green plaid from Grant's quilt. Looking at it this way, I'm finding it hard to decide (and I'm keeping my opinions, and those of Prince Charming, to myself so that I don't bias your input).

Does this help? (Whoops! They're not in the same order as the previous picture. Bummer.)

What do you think? Last time I bought 5 yards and didn’t have too much left over, so this is something to buy on sale or with a coupon, which means it needs to be decided so I can act when the opportunity arises.

And then some fashion input…. Last month I splurged and bought this cute plaid. It’s not flannel – it actually has a very soft texture and drapes well, but it’s a bit heavy for a shirt. It also has a cute silver thread running through it. I’m having a hard time figuring out what to make with it. I have 2.5 yards. Originally, I was thinking I’d make a skirt, but the more I look at it, I think it’s frumpy. I’m not sure this fabric is actually redeemable, though I want it to be. I came up with one pattern that I thought had enough… pizzazz to un-frump it.

New Look 6457 - any of the views but E, the white and black floral seen on the model, which is just awful. Trust me.

So I did some mock-ups (because visualizing this seems very important)…

L to R: View A, View A modified with spaghetti straps, View B (though I've never worn a strapless dress), and View D. Obviously, the accent colors could change, but I'm kind of limited to blue, grey and white.

What do you think? I could always treat this as a wearable muslin experiment (because I do plan on making up this dress). Or, I could put the fabric in the back of my closet until I find a better pattern or styles change. Or I could try to sell it on Etsy.

On a sad note, I “finished” Simplicity 2263 last night. It’s not hemmed, and the facing isn’t sewn down. Why? Because it looks awful. The fit is just weird. It bulges and folds in unflattering places, and I’m not quite sure how to fix it. So, it’s going to hang here in my “to fix” closet until I get the energy to rip out the French seams or decide to scrap the whole thing (or I could magically lose 10 pounds – it might fit then, if I lost it all from my hips, but there’s no guarantee of that, and it seems like a lot of work). I’m leaning towards scrapping it, because the fabric itself is a bit sheerer than I thought. Not indecently, and nothing a slip and appropriate undergarments couldn’t fix though. I made my own piping for this, and was so proud of it and it looked so cute! I’m wondering if it’s the yoked waistband that’s the problem. If I wear it below my waist where I usually wear skirts/pants, it’s too tight at the hips, which I can fix. If I wear it at my waist, it forms a little belly pooch, which is not cool. It’s a bummer, because I made sure to fit the waistband first, and then did the rest of it.

Where clothes go to die.... Also hanging up: thrifted skirt that needs to be taken up, thrifted shirt that's too big, thrifted shirt that needs... something, and a pair of pants that I'm 30 minutes from finishing (but had a tiny problem with the zipper fly and stalled out, even though it will take a few moments to fix that, and then hem the pants, and they're done).

So, for the comments…

1 – which print do you like for ‘s quilt?

2 – should I make up New Look 6457 in that plaid? If so, which view? If not, what should I do with that fabric?

3 – feel free to share any recent sewing failures, if you have any, and commiserate on the demise of what could have been a very cute skirt.

Three skirts in three days, that is.

Simplicity 2257:

These shoes are trying to kill me. My feet hate me today. As a follow-up to yesterday, these are size 9s, and they are slightly too big. Pretty soon I'm going to be able to share shoes with normal people.

Ponytail day – had two cavities filled first thing this morning, and I hate doing that with wet hair, as it tends to ruin the back of my hairstyle for the rest of the day.

The fabric is Felicity Miller’s “Up and Down” in Ivory, part of the Gypsy line, purchased about a year ago. The brown that I used for the facing is Michael Miller’s Curlicues in Chocolate, part of the Gnomes Sweet Gnomes line, a short cut purchased in 2009. I didn’t use all of it, but I did use most of the main fabric. Total cost, including zipper: $20, mostly because the main fabric wasn’t on sale at all, and I don’t usually buy fabric full price. But I liked it. (Fabric: $15.70 + $2 for the facing, zipper: $2.09, hem tape: $0.97 = $20.76.)

As drafted

I almost didn’t read the instructions, because this skirt was so simple (front, back, yoke, facings). But I’m glad I glanced at them, because one of the views had optional piping at the waistband. I looked through my stash and found some bright orange piping that matched perfectly! The pattern suggested at the top and bottom of the waistband, but I chose to do just the bottom. It did take me three tries to get the stitches close enough (four if you count the basting), but I finally got it right. It involved figuring out how to move the needle on my sewing machine. Good lesson to learn.

I should have taken this *before* putting the skirt on. It was quite awkward to take. Cute detail though, right? I might have to try it again.

This was the first skirt I’ve made in a while that I actually had something in my wardrobe that coordinated. Yay! (The next skirt? Not so much. Oh well.) I would have thought that this bright print would force this into the back of my closet, but no, I’m really enjoying it. It probably helps that it’s nice warm, earthy colors.

It has a nice 2″ hem that I made with orange flexi-lace I found on clearance at JoAnn’s the other day – they were clearing out some discontinued colors (lavender, orange, mustard yellow in all sizes of flexi-lace and bias binding) and I grabbed whatever suited my fancy. I actually turned it under only 1/4″, but the lace is the extra-wide variety. Something to know: flexi-lace can melt if your iron is too hot and the steam is on and you touch it directly. There’s a small part of mine that did. Whoops. I don’t think it will affect the integrity of the hem as a whole, though, and I’m not worried about it.

This brings my total since May 1 to 11.25. 2.5 for McCalls 5856 (though there’s a lot left), 1.5 for New Look 6388 (that’s an approximation, what the pattern calls for, because I have no idea how much I actually had of that piece of fabric originally), 2 for Simplicity 2655 View B, 1.5 for Simplicity 2655 View E, 2.5 for Vogue 8379, 2.5 for Simplicity 8722, 1.25 for the baby shower gift. 13.75 minus 2.5 for the plaid I bought that I didn’t yet use (I decided that if I actually cut the fabric and made up the item, then it didn’t count as a negative, only a positive). April’s total was 16.5 yards, by the way. I think I’ll run my total through the end of the month, and then start again July 1 (it’s easy to do it by months, and July may turn out to be an anomaly in productivity if we do, in fact, shut down and I find myself without work for a while). I think I’ll add something to one of the sidebars with the totals….

The last window in the family room is 70% boxed in (three sides minus one small cut that needs to be made on the third – we’re missing the top piece because we could not get the template right). That took us most of last night. There’s the possibility that our friends will be coming to stay in early July (we don’t know, but we’re making an educated guess), which means we need to get that ceiling done now. All of the framework is stacked up on the bed in the spare bedroom. Conveniently, we don’t need to finish the last window before starting the ceiling (which is good because if it keeps raining, it gets much harder dangerous stupid to use the power tools in the driveway in that case). did schedule a carpet cleaner, so we should be able to move the new couch into the room by the end of the month. I’m nearly giddy about the prospect of using that room again. Almost as giddy as I was yesterday about getting free zippers from .

Today, I am dressed like a 25-year-old. Maybe 22. Why? Well, other than the obvious fact of liking the outfit, my answer is… because I can. People never believe me when I tell them my age (classmates, co-workers, cooperating teachers, students…), and consistently guess that I’m 25. Quite a nice problem to have, really. It seems to be genetic.

Anyway, do you ever see 22-year-olds wandering around wearing who knows what, and you wonder why in the world they are dressed that way? I think the answer is… because they can. They still have 22-year-old hips and thighs and waists, and are brazen enough to not care if someone else disapproves of their outfit. It’s just a theory, mind you. When I was 22, I was working at a church. I wore running pants or jeans with a t-shirt to work every day, and people thought I looked dressed up when I wore khakis. I was also a firm proponent of dressing modestly, and needed to model that for the youth I was entrusted with. I touted the necessity of one-piece bathing suits, long shorts, shirts that didn’t show belly, no strapless tank tops… you get the idea. It can be really exhausting to monitor adolescent clothing choices, depending on who you’re stuck with.

Wow, I’m easily side-tracked today.

What I was trying to get at was… I’m wearing this outfit today because I can. It might not be age-appropriate (33 next week, thankyouverymuch), and it might be negotiable that the skirt length is in fact work-appropriate. But I don’t care. It’s cute, and it makes me happy.

It’s still gloomy here (it was pouring rain this morning), with nary a sunbeam in sight, so these pictures are not the best. Of course, taking pictures of one’s self  just before leaving for work is always a bit awkward anyway. I didn’t manage to get a picture of me wearing New Look 6388 yesterday, because it was rainy and I was running late for work. But tomorrow I’m wearing my completed Simplicity 2257, which I am in love with, even though it is a much bolder print than I would normally feel comfortable wearing. Seriously, y’all, it’s fabulous.

But, I digress. Here’s that Simplicity 2655 (the third one) that I finished the other day.

I swear I'm wearing nylons. They're just... pale. Like I am. I bought darker ones, but they seemed so... fake. Do you like how I coordinated my shoes?

I’d not made the short version (my other two versions have a band below the panels… well, you can see here and here) before, and didn’t realize how short it would be. But, I did a really narrow hem with pink hem tape, so it is as long as it possibly can be.

Now, while I intentionally wore it on a day that wasn’t very windy, I think that this skirt might be less likely to get tossed about in a gust of wind than the longer ones. Something to do with the hemline not being as wide, or there not being as much fabric to blow around.

Seriously, I’m thinking of making another one of these. Perhaps an inch longer. Not much.

I'm quite pleased with this picture. I made my pink shrug that I'm wearing, too. Maybe I should take all my pictures facing this direction. Maybe it's just this skirt that seems to be flattering to my derriere.

In other news…

Monday night we got all of the pieces cut out for the second built-in, except for the backs of the bookshelves (because we didn’t buy enough material). They still have some prep work before we can paint and assemble, but we’re much closer now. While doing this, we were eaten alive by mosquitoes. It made us work faster.

And last night I finished up Simplicity 2257, as mentioned earlier, though I should have been working on ‘s quilt. No worries. I really want to make up Simplicity 2263, so I’ll use that as my motivation to make significant progress on the quilt. (It is so very hard to resist such a simple project, though!) Hopefully I can have the sashing completed by this weekend, so I can do a final layout and then assemble that side. Unfortunately, this means re-counting the blocks and then cutting out that many 1×10″ strips out of three different green fabrics. I am starting to be afraid that I will run out before I get enough.  was kind enough to measure the initial on ‘s quilt, so I can get to work on the initial side for this one too. I may have found the border fabric for the initial side – I have to check at Hancock Fabrics to make sure the one I found there isn’t a better match. I bought 1/2 yard of the JoAnn contender last night. approves of it. I suppose I need to buy some batting, too. I also need to test drive some quilting thread and give free-motion quilting a try while I’m at it, just in case I happen to be good at it (I find that unlikely, but I bought myself a free-motion foot a year ago and should probably try it out at least once). You’d think that since I should have had this quilt done 3 months ago, I’d be a little more prepared to finish it up. I do have all of the binding cut, though. Not pieced together, but cut out at least. That’s something, right?

Friday night, I cleared the dining room floor and laid out the blocks for ‘s quilt.

Huh. That can't be right.

Unfortunately, I could not find my original design anywhere, so I wasn’t sure if I had it laid out wrong, or if I had just miscounted. After approximating the final size, it looked like this layout was correct. Bummer.

Fabrics picked out for 24 new blocks! (19 were needed, but having extra seemed like a good idea.) Some of these had been rejected from the initial selection of fabrics (like the pastel blue in the middle, because Prince Charming thought the spiders on it might be too scary), but they got recruited again. Some had been forgotten in the initial selection, and some were re-appropriated for this project. This coordinate with the overall selection very well, and fill in some gaps too.

So I spent Saturday and part of Sunday making the 24 new blocks and sashing them like the others. Then I laid it all out again, labeled each square, and packed it all up for the next step, before remembering that I should have taken a picture. Too bad. Then I spent some quality time cutting out more 1″ sashing strips. Oh yeah. That’s fun. At a certain point, I figured I’d earned a break.

Sunday night, I started working on Simplicity 2257. This skirt is so embarrassingly simple that I almost didn’t look at the directions. It’s so simple, I’m almost embarrassed to have the pattern in my collection, only I didn’t purchase it for the simple A-line skirt I’m making. I purchased it for the pencil skirt version. At any rate, I should be finished with it shortly, just as soon as I go buy a zipper.

To make things easier for myself, back when I cut out a new selection of projects, I also went through and cut out all the interfacing and ironed it on to the appropriate pieces. That’s been nice, because it means I can get to the sewing part faster. It would be even better if I’d transferred all the markings from the patterns to the fabric, but apparently that was too much work.

Also, I have pictures of that completed New Look 6388! Well, not pictures of it on, but they’re pictures nonetheless.

Ta-da! I made it as long as possible, only turning up the hem a tiny bit (I used bias tape), because I'm nearly 33, not 16, and I didn't want to look silly in this skirt. I mean, a bright green pleated skirt already says something. I don't also need to look like I'm pretending to be a teenager. It's just above my knees.

See, that fabric I'd picked out really does match, despite my draft picture. This green is really awkward to capture. It's Kelly green, but the cross-threads (those hashes) are turquoise, so it varies depending on how the light reflects. I like the bold floral with the plaid-like print. Conveniently, I had a teal invisible zipper in my stash that I'd got on clearance for 97-cents. I need to find more bargains like that - I'm running out of 7" zippers! (In fact, I may be out completely.)

I’ve made this one before (the box pleats version), and I get compliments every time I wear it. When I went to cut this one out, it seems that I cut out a size 16 last time, though I’m not sure why – my measurements are solidly a 14. So, I ignored my previous actions and cut out a 14.

Now, here’s where things started to go wrong. Because I never have problems when I cut out a 14, I blindly forged ahead and attached the yoke and the facing, including understitching it, without trying it on. Thankfully, I hadn’t put the zipper in yet (which I’ve found it best to do after installing the facing, at least for invisible zippers). When I tried it on… it was huge! The open side overlapped at least 4″ in order to fit properly! So, rip, rip, rip… remove the facing, remove the yoke. Fix the yoke and the facing. Re-attach yoke. Try on – fits. Great. Sew on facing, including understitching. Wait… something seems odd. Oh. Genius. I attached the facing upside-down. So, more ripping, more pinning, more sewing… and finally it was right.

Yeesh! It seems that skirts have gotten so easy, that they’ve actually gotten hard again. I need to pause and think through things before blindly charging ahead.

After installing the zipper (but not stitching down the facing, which I do at the very end, by hand), I tried it on again, and it was still just a bit too big.  That was OK, though, because I had a plan. I’d liked the elastic I’d added to McCalls 5856 so much that I wanted to try something similar here. Only, I didn’t want to alter the way the skirt looked too much, so I only added the elastic to the back half.

Very, very secure.

This made stitching the facing down by hand a bit difficult, but it wasn’t too bad. Just required a few more pins than usual.

And now it fits great. I think I may have to do this for those two other skirts I finished recently, because they’re a bit big in the waist too. The elastic in the back is perfect – it doesn’t alter the way the skirt looks from the front, and just makes it snug all around, which means no more fussing with the skirt rotating around. Does that happen to you? All of a sudden, I look down and my side zipper is nearly dead-center. I think this is because the waistbands aren’t fitting snugly. Well, I’ve finally found a solution for that problem. Now I need to go buy more elastic, because I’ve nearly exhausted my stash of 1″.

Now, if I can manage to get myself out of my cube and over to Macy’s, I may be able to wear one of these skirts this week. Somehow, I’m down to one pair of nylons, and while some people I know think it’s perfectly appropriate to go without in the summer, we are technically “business casual” here and going nylon-free is just not right. Besides, it’s good practice for when I’m a teacher, right? (Plus, I’m at that age/weight where control-top nylons seem like a good thing and I actually enjoy wearing them for their shaping benefits.) I’m on phones this morning, but I have no excuse to not take my break this afternoon and re-stock. None. (I’m yelling at myself, here, because I’ve needed to run this errand for two weeks now. Seriously, in two weeks I haven’t taken a single break. That’s so wrong, and it’s my own fault.)