Craft Rage

I had a real "DOH!" moment yesterday. I cut and assembled the simplest circle skirt ever;
I LURVE this skirt, 'cause it's simple and pretty, and can be made out of anything, and also because from cutting to wearing is an hour, tops, if you're paying attention. I know this because I've gotten into the final ten minutes TWICE, then made the most ridiculous mistake ever, and ended up with a whole lot of circle-skirt-shaped scrap fabric.

For me, the final ten minutes would have been wrapping the hem with a fun contrasting bias binding, but I decided to make a slight change to take in a few inches at the waist - I didn't NEED to, but I decided I wanted to. So I started to unpick the narrow waistband with my seam ripper.

I don't enjoy listening to music while I sew - I find it very distracting, because I tend to sing along, loudly. It's difficult to sew when you've got your head thrown back, belting out the words to Kathy Mattea's 455 Rocket - "Did you boys come here to race, or just kiss?". Also, I can't sew to Metallica, because I am always driven to do the white-girl head-bang - sort of a really enthusiastic nod. And forget Top 40 - there's no need to be dancing around my sewing room, trying to perfect my booty pop.

Instead of listening to music, I listen to books on CD, or audiobooks I've downloaded from various sellers online. Normally, it just sort of plays in the background, and I don't pay a lot of attention, just absorbing it by osmosis, but for some reason, I was listening more than sewing. Mistake.

Not even thinking about it, I picked stitches on the waistband I intended to remove, freeing up about 5" of the band. Then, for some reason I cannot explain, I decided to rip the rest of the stitches by giving the waistband a good yank. Uh, yeah, note to self - don't do that. About four inches into the rip, the waistband stitches held, and the fabric itself ripped, down about six inches into the skirt. Oy vey!

So there I was, shocked and dismayed, but figured, what the heck, in for a penny, right? I shifted the fabric and gave it another tug. Another length of waistband stitches came free, then held again - a second rip, about 8" into the skirt. Well, what the heck - one more tug can't hurt, right? The third and final rip extends about 6" down, and I still have to unpick the stitches on the last few inches of waistband.

I'm not too worried - the print is such that I can easily stitch the fabric back together with no great loss in the volume of the skirt, though the rips will likely sit funny. Still, I'll have a cool and comfortable skirt for bopping around town, so whatever. But really - I think maybe this pattern is cursed, and I shouldn't make another attempt until I'm willing to think about nothing BUT the skirt I'm sewing.

Off topic - in an earlier post, I mentioned that I had bought a fabric called Peony Garden almost compulsively, in two of three available colors, red/green and purple/green. Well, I finally broke down and bought the last of the three, yellow/gold, and I've already decided to go back for more. What's wrong with me?? Sheesh!

Honestly, I don't know why this particular fabric speaks to me - I'm not a floral person at all. But it's so crisp and weighty, and the colors just...pop. Well, except for the yellow/gold - it's much livelier in real life than it is in the picture. Still, what an odd choice for me!

Labels: projects, stash, stupid mistakes