I call a do-over.
See how I’m posting about sewing here instead of on my actual sewing blog? That’s because the sewing blog is no more. I had originally intended it to be a place where I could do detailed write-ups with photos of works in progress. Only it turns out that I’m not really the type of person who wants to stop every 30 minutes or so to take pictures and I found doing the write-ups to be kind of tedious. So, I deleted the sewing blog and now you all get to read about it here. Luckies! Amy’s school choir group has a spring concert next week at the performance hall used by our state symphony. I’m sure the choir director would love for us to believe that this honor is due exclusively to her hard work and string-pulling, but in reality I’ll bet the owners of the theater reasoned that, Hey, we’re not using the building that night so why not let a bunch of school kids in and charge their parents for tickets plus parking and some seriously marked-up concessions? It’ll be great. But there I go being cynical again. Really it’s good because it’s a chance for her to perform on an actual stage and it’s an actual theater with gold leaf, chandeliers, and sculptures in the lobby. It’s all quite grown up and exciting and naturally, we needed a new outfit. The choir’s “uniform” is a white shirt and black pants/skirt and a red tie. The velvet pants Amy wore for the Christmas concert are now faded and too short so they were out. Besides, stretchy pants may have been okay for the school auditorium, but not for this. So we decided to make a three-tiered black skirt from black lace with a cotton underlining and a sequin trim. I attempted this on Saturday. If there’s one thing I’m guilty of when I’m sewing, it’s impatience. I get so excited to see the final product that I don’t always take the time to fit the pattern properly. Amy was gone all day doing stuff with Dan so I couldn’t fit her anyway, but this is an elastic-waisted skirt. Adjustments = easy. I cut out the fabric in her coordinating size and by the time they got home, I had the whole thing assembled, sans elastic and hem. It did seem a little big as I was sewing, but I reasoned it was supposed to be full so I kept going. This skirt is not just big, it’s huge. You guys, it fits me! No, I mean it really fits me. All I’d need is a hem and it would fit me and I could wear it out in public and stuff. It’s supposed to be for a skinny 8-year-old and it fits a 34-year-old, nine-month-pregnant, fully-grown woman. Soooo big! Why so big? Okay, yeah, I should have measured better but still! We’re not talking a couple of minor changes. It’s 16 inches too big for her around the waist. That’s almost a whole other skirt - how do you even justify that? What is wrong with you, McCalls? Who are you using to come up with your standard measurements? So I ripped the layers apart last night and will spend today cutting them down and redoing all the gathering. Good thing I have the portable DVD player and my LOTR boxed set. I shall need it.
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