skirting the issue

Curtains sewn: nil.... Oh dear, finding the motivation for those curtains is proving difficult! But since they are mainly to keep the warmth in the house during winter, I have a good 6 months to get them done.

In the meantime though, I finished a skirt I started last week - BWOF 4/09 skirt 101A:

I didn't make mine in eye popping yellow though. Only in the pages of BWOF would a skirt that colour or the cleavage exposing tops they feature be appropriate in a workplace! I used fabric from the stash, bought long ago from a garage sale from a nice little Italian lady who make me a cup of tea and then piled fabric after fabric on top of me! She was so lovely, I walked away with bags and bags of fabric and still her house was full of fabric. From memory it is a wool gabardine (it certainly feels like it and has that wet dog smell when I washed it), it's very lightweight though so perfect for summer. The fabric is white with red, blue and brown checks. Bad description, but it is actually a nice fabric:

I wanted to make the centre front and back panels stand out since I used a busy fabric, so I cut them on the bias, and put red piping around the pockets to make them stand out as well. The red of the piping doesn't match the orange red of the button or the stripe in the fabric, but oh well close enough for me. And look, I even got the patterns matching pretty well at the sides too!:

I made my usual size 40 to fit my hips, but should have taken it in a bit more at the waist because it seems a bit big. But I like pulling my skirts down to sit low on my hips anyway, so it's just fine for me. The pattern is pretty simple, although the front waistband panel with the buttons is openable even though there is a side zip, and the method for attaching them is a little clumsy and messy on the inside. But no one can see the inside and only a sewist would care about such a thing really!

Well it's been a really long week this week and I'm looking forward to a little quiet time on the weekend when my husband will be home looking after Anna. I think I should install a little daybed in my sewing room, 'cos I need a nap or two this week! After slowly catching up my missed sleep from my insanely late night out, Anna has been very unsettled due to her teeth I think. Last night she was awake from 9.30pm to 2.30am (eek!), and would only stop crying if I held her. At one stage when I had absolutely had enough I gave her some baby nurofen, wrapped her really tightly and let her cry herself to sleep in her cot, but after an hour she was still screaming so in the end I had to rock her to sleep over the next hour. And this morning no teeth still! I can feel them in her gums but they haven't popped through the skin yet.

Anyway enough whinging from me, the little angel is having her daytime nap so it's time for me to have a cuppa, read the latest BWOF issue (8/2009) that landed in my letterbox the other day and imagine the kind of lifestyle the BWOF designers think that us mere mortals lead when they dream up those clothes.....