Totally unexpected

Today, I did something I never do.

I SEWED.

I hate sewing. Well, no, I like it, but I have no patience with it. As the result, my sewn pieces come out sloppy, and the process is frustrating, so, yeah. I never sew.

But today, I got bitten by the sewing bug. See, I had this pair of pants that are a beautiful chocolate brown, but they were too short and too tight. I hate throwing anything away, so I figured, hey, let's make a skirt!

So I broke my brand-new sewing machine out of its box (I got it last October. As in 2005. Hadn't opened it!). And that's what I did.



I followed the basic directions for converting pants into a skirt (I think those directions were on sewing.about.com, but I saw them many moons ago, and went from memory today). Basically, I cut off the pant legs around the knee. Then I used a seam ripper to open the seams on the inside of each leg and up into the crotch area. Laying the skirt flat, I pulled the legs apart until the dissected crotch area, when overlapped, lay flat. Pinned and sewed. Cut open the leg remnants and sewed them into the wedges between the legs of the skirt. Trimmed the hem even. Finally, I added a polyester lace ribbon that I bought at Joann's months ago. You can't tell from the photo, but it's pale lilac.

Now, this skirt has many flaws. You can see one in the crotch area in the above photo -- I didn't overlap the new seam exactly with the old one, so it looks like there IS no seam. Trust me, though, there is. Secondly, The edges are only roughly finished. Thirdly, I stretched the hem too much as I sewed, giving it that belled look (which I actually like). Finally, there are a few spots where the fabric accidentally gathered, and I didn't feel like ripping it out.

Through it all, I sewed the front and back pieces of the skirt together more than once, and broke a needle (I had spares).

But I don't care, because the skirt still looks fabulous on me:



Of course, having sewn the skirt, I had to keep going. So I dug into my rather extensive fabric stash and pulled out these four half-yarn-wide pieces I bought back in college. There isn't enough fabric here to do anything with, really, so I decided to make cloth napkins, which goes wonderfully with my new resolution to be as environmentally conscious as possible.



These are the most basic napkins ever. I cut out squares (roughly square-shaped, anyway) and folded the edges under, pressed, and sewed. But they are pretty colors, and they do complement our dishes. Plus, it gave me a bit more time to bind with my machine. My mom's machine hates me, but this one seems to be getting on with me nicely.