I finished it. One brown skirt ready for action. And it only took me, what? A month??

This is why people don’t sew more of their own clothes.

What did I learn from this skirt-making experience? What’s the “take-away” here? Well…

1. Don’t iron synthetic fabrics at a high setting with steam. They will melt.

2. The purpose of lining is to hide ugly seams as well as make the garment less transparent. I didn’t accomplish the first but I did accomplish the latter. Oops.

3. Hemming goes a lot faster when you listen to podcasts of movie reviews.

4. Slip stitching really needs to be done by hand. Damn.

Perhaps tomorrow I will take SKIRT! out for a test run. The only trouble now is that I don’t know what to wear with it. I made a skirt that is roughly the color of a chocolate malt. Does that look OK with blue? Black? Maybe I didn’t need a brown skirt after all… Knowing me I will wear it with a t-shirt and flats. The uniform minus the usual jeans.

Hemming is my new zen activity. Insert needle, catch a tiny amount of the fold and the fabric, pull through, move another quarter inch along. I felt as if Yoda was standing underneath the ironing board chastising me when I became impatient. “Always with you it must be quick. Never do you appreciate the slow.”

OK, next sewing project… Blouse! Made of red and white dotted swiss. You can’t say “dotted swiss” without conjuring up visions of snow-capped mountains, wildflowers with dew all over them and well-fed children running in from the yard to eat a lunch of cheese and bread… I freaked out when I found the dotted swiss fabric at the store. It called my name. Pictures of dotted swiss to follow. Dotted Swiss Bliss!