Fearless February part 3 - the result

Edit: part 1 can be found here and part 2 over here ;)

Yeah it's not February anymore... Knowing I'm a slow sewer and finding out when I made the muslin that it needed quite some readjustments it was going to be a close shave. Well, even the most experienced people cut themselves shaving sometimes don't they? At least I know I do.

After deciding the muslin should be good as it was after all those adjustments I cut out the fabric (I barely had enough!), sew in the zipper and sew it together. What's with all the upper layer's spare fabric when I'm sewing? The closer I get to the end of the seam, the more fabric is left...

Noooo... my machine obviously found the fabric too much to handle. I guess I need a walking foot. So I googled but still don't have one. My machine is quite old so I have to make a call to the Singer store (my machine is a Merritt, the owner of the store confirmed that is a Singer fabricate. Not very surprising since the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company's full name is Isaac Merritt Singer!). Unfortunately this skirt has princess seams, so 7 panels in total. With the sewing problem that was no fun. I unpicked the worst rippling panels and redid them very slowly. That helped a little but it still looks bad. No reason to let the challenge go though, only my perfectionism went out of the door (which is not a bad thing).

It's difficult to see, but what you're looking at is the inside of the high waist. The skirt doesn't have a waist band so I firmly handstitched the inwards folded fabric on the seams together so it would give a little firmness to the waist part.

Daylight was already starting to fade and I did not want to be any later than I already was (so sorry Victoria!).

Lol, it was already getting so dark my camera automatically flashed in the last picture. But here it finally is. My challenge for Fearless February as an inexperienced seamstress was to sew a pencil skirt (I never even tried one on before) and make it so it would have a good fit for me. The pattern I used was from the April 2012 issue of Burda Style, the princess seam pencil skirt 04/2012 118.

Even though I'm annoyed with the rippling because of my sewing machine, I am glad there was a deadline or it may have been a long time before I finished the pencil skirt. It is going to get a good press, it's only after seeing these pictures that I realized I should have done so sooner.

During the making there were some terrible moments where I was worried this was going to be a disaster (also I was worried a pencil skirt would not suit me). Now I am very happy with it! The fabric looks fancy, but I've tested and it's cat hair proof (not unimportant) and very soft. There is enough ease to comfortably wear it in the house. And I need garments like that, since all I'm wearing lately is jeans and old t-shirts and I'm tired of it. This is a garment that would have never seen the light of day if it wasn't for the Fearless February challenge. Thank you so much Victoria, for organizing this sew along, and thank you fellow contestants for your support! You can find the other contestants at Victoria's blog, Ten Thousand Hours of Sewing.

Now for some less good news. Last Wednesday I had to let my sweet cat Mischa go. She suddenly fell very ill and I left her in good care at the vet. They have been incredible for her (and me), but she got worse (which the lab results confirmed) even after treatment. So after almost 9 years with me I had to say goodbye to her.

Bye bye my sweet girl

Edit: there's a little story and pictures (even a movie clip!) about Mischa over here.