Pleating a Plaid

Why pick a plaid if I want a pleated skirt?  I don’t think I realized what I would be in for and not having directions certainly does not help!

My not so dainty slip stitching but it
seems to be doing the job

Once I cut out the skirt, only one pattern piece cut twice, the fun horror began.  Pinning the pleats….easy, matching the plaid not so hard.  Brain strain over how to get the pleats with the matched plaids to stay in place during sewing.  Basting think I.  Wrong, did not work for me.  After the steam started streaming out of my ears from the strain I determined I would slip stitch the two pleats together.  Great, I suck at slip stitching!  Fun times.  Though about 1/2 way through the second pleat I got to wondering…why do this.  Yes, I would like the plaids to match and I certainly don’t want my friends pointing and laughing at my mismatched plaids.  But, would slightly off plaid matching stop me from buying a similar ready-to-wear skirt.  Nope!  Not unless the mismatch was glaring.  So why put myself through this exercise?  I guess simply because I am making the skirt and want to do the best job possible.  I wonder if anyone else struggles which the high expectation you place on yourself when sewing versus not as stringent rules for RTW clothes?  I then had to stop thinking and just do because I knew I would not be happy if I did not ensure my plaids matched.

One side pleated and stitched together.
Not bad.  But now I notice one pleat is off
and that I should probable do it over.

Off I went slip stitching away, ripping out the slip stitching, and trying again.  I think it turned out ok.  Lets hope it holds in place during the actual sewing.  

Match Made In Heaven

Mmmm pleats

Or just influence by the picture on the pattern.  I have had Simplicity 4547 for year having purchased it in a lot of other patterns on ebay.  I love the pleated skirt pattern and when trolling through my fabric stash I came across a relatively new purchase which screamed to me pleated skirt. Subliminal programming perhaps.

I have to admit that my subconscious may have been at work given the closeness of this fabric to the picture on the pattern. 

Yike…really close just different colors.  For me, this fabric also seemed Christmassy.  I am not a lover of a red/green Christmas palette preferring greens and blues.  Weird, I know.

Mmmm plaidy goodness

So whip out the pattern, check to see if the pieces are all there.  Yup….only one piece for this skirt.  But all the other pattern pieces were accounted for…..except wait a second…what are these 2 extra pattern pieces for?  They are for an Advance pattern …hmm….cool….but wait there is something missing.  The instruction sheet is not in there.  Oh boy, I am going to wing it on a pleated skirt in addition to matching plaids.  This should be fun!

Technical Difficulties

For the past little while, I have had some horrific technical difficulties.  Life was moving by, but you wouldnt know it by looking here mostly because of a break down in my computers.

While I had the good fortune to be forced to take a business trip to New York....yes forced or so I told them, but how were they to know that I was doing a happy dance just waiting for the weekend when I would be let free to come the New York fashion district, I did run into some problems upon my return.  That is my main computer was fried during a storm.  I have as yet been able to determine if it is good and truly dead......oh no....or if I will be able to bring it back to life.  Unsure what happened but upon my return, I could only get a black screen with a sort of dos prompt for my username and password.  I tried to start it in safe mode but that would not work.  I have not yet tried starting it with the system disk or taking it to my local Apple store for help.

To make matters worse, my lap top which barely works anymore will not let me upload picture.  Oh, there are pictures that I have downloaded but when you try to upload them or attach them to an email, nada...it just doesn't work.  And who really wants to read a blog with no pictures/

But I have been working to come up with some solutions so that posting can re-occur......and I think I may have figures something out....fingers crossed.

Happy New Year!!!

And lots of sewing to all!

With no Rose Parade today, it did not feel like New Year's Day.  I did not do any of my typical New Year's traditions.  Most of them will occur tomorrow.  Instead, it seemed like a normal Sunday albeit with little traffic.

I hope 2012 brings lots of good luck to everyone!!