The People Have Spoken

And they have requested photos of fabric. It wasn't that I was disinclined to post photos yesterday, I just didn't have any on hand--but I thought I had better take advantage of the urge to post despite the lack of photos.

Here is the fabric I'm using.

The colors are a little off; the green is more lime, and the blue is more teal. I really like it.

And here is the pattern I'm making.

I'm making View A, the short-sleeved version shown here in a yellow and white striped fabric. (Question for the ages: Is it yellow fabric with white stripes, or white fabric with yellow stripes? The world may never know.) I considered making the long-sleeved version, but then I decided that my fabric didn't work for that. It's a short-sleeved fabric. I'm glad I made that decision, because when I was cutting out the last piece, here's what I saw.

There was no way to fix this without making one of my skirt panels upside down. I'm not entirely sure it would have mattered, but with my luck, if I had cut it out upside down it would have been glaringly obvious. So what's a girl to do about this? Well, probably make the skirt about two inches shorter. In the end I just cut out the piece and decided to figure it out later. Last night I was very sleepy and had a nasty headache, and I just didn't want to deal with it, especially after the other mistake I made.

What other mistake? Well, when I was cutting out the bodice back, I lined it up according to what I thought was the grain line on the pattern piece. It was not. I failed to notice that I should have lined the pattern up with the fold in the fabric, thereby cutting just one piece that folded in the middle. I now have two pieces, oriented sideways to the rest of the pieces. I'm not too worried about the sideways part; I figure that the back of the bodice can be sideways and it won't matter, not like one skirt panel out of four being upside down. I'm slightly concerned about the fact that I'll have to sew a seam up the middle, which will eat up some width. My plan for dealing with this is to make a very narrow seam, like 1/4 inch, if I can manage it. I think I can probably make that up in the side seams, and not have too much of a problem. Ta-da!

After I laid out that final piece, the one in the second photo, I remembered where I probably went wrong. I was in love with the fabric, but it was a little short on yardage--I decided that it would be okay because the fabric was a little wider than 45". (Also, laying the back bodice piece out wrong probably contributed. Sometimes Ann=not very smart. This is what comes of cutting out your fabric in two sessions, and doing the second when when your head hurts.)

Anyway, I did go to Hancock last night and buy my thread, and I also picked up some buttons. And I took a look at the batiks they had on hand. They were few, and ugly. I didn't buy any. My local Hancock Fabrics feels more like a quilting/crafting/home decor store than a fabric store--they don't have a great variety of fabrics that aren't fleece or wacky cotton prints. Next time I want fabric I think I'll try JoAnns. I didn't actually do any sewing yesterday. I'll work on that tomorrow, and hopefully Thursday I'll have more fun photos!