avoidance

Sooooo, the denim jacket and I are still not seeing eye to eye.  Actually, it's still sitting on my dressform sleeveless, hemless and with a wonky collar. I put it aside momentarily while I waited for some buttons I ordered online to arrive, and while the buttons have since arrived at my house my inlaws have too so my time in the sewing room has been extremely limited lately.  Thankfully they're off to China this Friday, so I hope I can get to the bottom of my wonky collar problem soon and finish this project.  I am determined not to let it become another UFO.

But I did manage to slip in a teensy bit of sewing before the inlaws arrived last weekend, and made a simple denim skirt for Anna since I still had blue thread and denim needles in my overlocker.  This is from the fabric leftover from the jacket - gotta love being able to use up those larger fabric scraps instead of stashing them for years!

I used Simplicity 3040, which is a 1970s pattern that I've made before in a bright yellow cotton with back topstitching.  What I like about this skirt pattern is that it is a quick and simple sew, but it's also appropriately modest for a little girl's skirt.  I don't want to sound preachy, but it disturbs me a little (ok a lot) all the toddler clothes that are short, tight or just tacky. 

This skirt is so simple, just an a-line skirt with an elastic waist and it was also good practice for my top stitching - between this and my nearly finished denim jacket I've become quite the pro at it! The skirt front has patch pockets:

I used a decorative stitch across the back patch pockets and added a little bias ribbon tab to the pocket to give it a bit of RTW look:

Here's the finished product on my budding model who is becoming much better at smiling for the camera:

It seems this skirt is good for practising one's tai chi moves:

And for just being a cheeky little monkey too: