Although Christmas has passed us in a flurry of snow and freezing temperatures, our two previous winters in Charlottesville has taught me that the coldest months are yet to come. And while I'm not the biggest fan of the many drafts that we're finding throughout the house, I don't really mind the cold weather. I'm a wool kind of girl. I look forward to the cooler weather every year so that I can deck myself out in wool skirts and tights and socks and sweaters. Especially skirts. I can never have too many wool skirts. Not that I really have that many, I really only have three that I wear regularly (and by regularly I mean all the time) but I'd like to have more. Which was why my thoughts drifted straight to "skirt!" when I saw the tweed jacket at Goodwill a few weeks ago.
So although my time would undoubtedly be better spent today hunting down the drafts that seem to follow me wherever I go this week, instead I puttered with patterns and got started on turning my new jacket into a new skirt.
About a month ago I picked this book up after reading some glowing reviews on it. I haven't
really made much in the way of clothing for myself for years. Between the cost of patterns, the cost of the amount of fabric needed to make the patterns and the fact that I have a little girl who is much more fun to sew for, generally it's easier and cheaper to just buy what I want. But I liked the idea of tailoring patterns to the style and fit I wanted. And since the tweed coat was all of $3.50, it doesn't seem like much of a risk to give it a whirl.What I'd really like is to make a new version of
my favorite skirt. My mom picked this skirt up from an OxFam (kind of like a nice Goodwill) when they were living in London while my dad taught there for a term. Who knows how many seasons ago it is since I've had it several years now and it was obviously used then. But I love it. It fits perfectly, washes well, is warm and on top of all that, its my favorite color (brown, how boring am I?)Sadly, after making a pattern for the skirt I realized that the jacket just didn't have enough fabric to make the slightly fullish skirt. Sigh. On to attempt #2.
The SewU skirt pattern looks more promising, I think that it might just fit onto the pieces of coat. Now I just have to decide if it really is cheaper to fix my trusty old (but pretty much unusable at this point :( ) machine or just get a new one. That is, if I can even find a sewing machine repair person, which so far, I cant. I'll have to do something quick though, because I can feel my fingers itching with the prospect of this skirt. And I dint think even I am up for hand stitching an entire skirt....