I’ve been hovering on the edge of migraine country ever since my head exploded last wednesday night.  The 90°F temps over the weekend — when i was taking a papermaking class that was outside almost half the time — really didn’t help.  My most reliable migraine trigger is heat+light.  Yes, i moved away from the East Coast to escape the hot summers.

Earlier this week i began to have a sinking feeling that i’d chosen the wrong paper for the cover of Cipher #2.  The more i thought about the paper, the more i realized it’s much better suited to what i have in mind for Cipher #3.  (Yes, i’m already thinking about Cipher #3.  But then, i’m often thinking about what i’m going to do with my next zine, and so far i don’t think the “next zine”s have ever been what i once thought they might be, altho’ the ideas always go on the back burner for some future project.)  I thought i’d just push thru’ this hesitation since i’d already had about 25 copies made of the inside covers.  But today i finally copied off a few of the outside covers and i knew instantly that, yes, this is the wrong paper for this zine.  It’s hard to explain why, i just knew as i picked up the cover from the copier that it was wrong wrong wrong.  I think tomorrow’s scooter ride is going to include a stop by Paper Zone so i can pick out something different.  I’m thinking maybe something in a grey tone.

Tonight felt like a night for sewing.  A few weeks ago i’d cut out the pieces for a new skirt, so i sat down at the machine and started putting it together.  Andy had a party to go to, so it was just me and my sewing and my music.  (And the cats, but they were off doing their things at the other end of the apartment.)  My goal was to get as far as both side seams before calling it quits.  Naturally, when i switched over to the zipper foot the machine stopped cooperating.  I slightly loosened the tensions (upper tension and bobbin tension).  Nope.  I changed the needle.  Nope.  Not only would it not sew on the zipper, it wouldn’t even sew the piece of scrap fabric i test stitches on.  Sigh.  Thanks to complaining on Twitter, Andy and i already have a date to sit down with the trouble-shooting guide tomorrow to try to figure this out.  Please don’t conk out on me, 50-year-old sewing machine!  I’m sorry my usual sewing machine mechanic died!  I miss Gma, too!!

On the positive side:  I never did come down with a full-blown migraine, and my zine really is finished except for the covers, and this skirt will be as awesome as i thought it was going to be.

Now i’m going to curl up with one of my new papermaking books and just expect that tomorrow will be awesome.

PS:  Tinnitus still sucks.  This horrible shrieking in my ears can stop any time.

Today was “Copy Your Favorite Garment” class:

Make a pattern without taking your garment apart. Pattern–making experience is not necessary, but you must have sewn clothes, know garment construction plus sewing/pattern terminology. This class is for those who cannot find a pattern or can’t fit patterns but own a garment that fits (and not mind pinning it and getting some wash–away ink on it). I’ve taught this class for 15+ years at local stores and since 2004 at the Experimental College.

It’s thru’ the Experimental College at the UW (it’s a student group), which is a great resource if you’re in the Seattle area.

GothLoli PA Dutch mystery skirt

I wanted to take the class because i have this fabulous skirt which never fails to receive compliments — but for which i have no pattern.  The awesome things about this skirt are:  #1, it has sixteen gores.  #2, the fabric is weird and quirky.  I tend to think of it as a GothLoli Pennsylvania Dutch skirt.  Can you imagine how fabulous this thing would be over layers upon layers of tulle??

The weird thing about this skirt is that Mom and i aren’t sure where it came from.  We found it in my grandmother’s sewing things when we were cleaning out her sewing room.  The gores were sewn together and the zipper was hand-basted in.  But all it took was one flip to the inside of the skirt and Mom and i knew instantly that my grandmother had not put it together — the seams were shockingly uneven and rough.  But the skirt mysteriously fit my waist, so i brought it home.  Put in the zipper, fitted it with my usual band-less waist, and sewed up the hem.

The more i wear it the more i love it.  (Tho’ i don’t wear it often because the ironing of it is a pain.)  The more i wear it, the more i want more skirts in the same pattern (okay, ironing be damned).  But there are no patterns for mystery skirts!  And so today i learned the basics of making a pattern from the garment itself.

And now, i shall make more and more skirts just like it.  First up, a skirt in this:

alphabet: red-lime (by applesandorange, @ Spoonflower.com)

Oh.  My.  Freaking.  Word. I loved this fabric the instant i saw it.  Yes, it’s a Spoonflower fabric — and, yes, that means that 1 yard of cotton will cost about $18.  I would normally not pay that much for fabric if i were buying it at a local store.  (The most i’ve ever paid for fabric was $15 a yard, but it was Japanese fabric in an adorable owl pattern and the drape and feel of the cloth was absolutely divine.  And that is the careful-est sewing i have ever done on any garment.  You bet i didn’t want to mess it up.)  But i think, for a design that i absolutely adore and at a cost that will go to support an independent designer, i might be willing to make an exception to my upper-limit for fabric cost and buy this one.

About a month ago i pulled apart a skirt i’d made back in 1999.  I think it was only the 3rd thing i made when i returned to sewing as an adult.  I could just imagine my grandmother rolling her eyes as i tediously pulled out every single seam, but i really wanted to save the skirt.

Tonight, finally, i had the time to sit down and sew it back to together.  I’d cut out the pattern pieces last month, too, but i’d just never gotten the hours-at-a-stretch block of time i needed to get the sewing done.

Simplicity #9569 -- made uncounted times

The pattern i used was this one: Simplicity #9569 (do not be deceived that the envelope says it’s a 2-hour pattern — the sewing alone took me FOUR).  I’ve made this pattern … lots. I’ve made it in 4 of the 6 styles, too.  I haven’t made either the straight- or A-line mini-skirt, because i don’t like wearing skirts that short anymore.  But i like the straight-line knee-length as a sophisticated skirt for work and i like the A-line knee-length for pretty much everything, but especially with t-shirts.  I’ve made the long straight-line skirt with swishy fabric (faux satin & faux velvet).  I did try a long straight-line skirt in a heavy fabric, thinking it would make a nice pencil skirt, but it didn’t — turned out to be hard to walk in even with side slits.  I’m going to chop it off to make a knee-length skirt.

The iteration i made tonight was the 1st long A-ling skirt.  The skirt i unsewed was originally a long A-line, but back when i started sewing i wanted things simple, so it was an elastic waistband.  Which was great for awhile, but these days i prefer clothes that fit my body a little better and the looseness of that skirt (and the other, oh, 7 i’d made to the same pattern) was starting to drive me nuts.  Also, i’ve gotten wicked good at putting in zippers.

Four of the 8 skirts have been / will be cut down into the long straight-line pattern.  Two have been cut down into A-line knee-length skirts.  There were just 2 left, and i wanted those to be long A-lines.  Now i have just 1 more to go.

finished skirt -- 1 down, 1 to go

Here’s the finished product — not looking so hot in part because i don’t have great lighting anywhere in the house for taking pictures of clothes, and also because my phone’s camera doesn’t have sharp colors.  You can sort of see that the waist still has a wrinkly effect from having lived as an elastic waistband for 10 years.  You can’t quite see that there is a slit on each side seam, to make it easier to walk.  Also, the 1 modification i make to this pattern is to make it a bandless skirt.  I like the smooth line of having no waistband.

The biggest reason this picture doesn’t look so hot, however, isn’t lighting or camera: it’s that the fabric is faded almost to nothing.  (Which also made the fabric flimsy and difficult to work with as i cut out the pattern and did the sewing.)  The skirt this cloth was originally made into was, as i said, 10 years old.  And the cloth was 10 years old before i ever made it into the original skirt in the 1st place.  I bought the cloth when i was still in high school because i absolutely fell in love with it.

And that’s why i wanted so badly to save the skirt and make it into something i’d want to continue to wear for awhile.  Because even tho’ the cloth looks like this these days:

faded cloth

Once upon a time, the cloth looked like this:

cloth in its original glory -- such rich colors!