Skirting the Issue

(I give up. I’ve been waiting for a sunny day to take the pictures I need for this post, but it’s going to be another day of thunderstorms and grayness. So I took the pictures in the semidarkness.)

Have you ever had a project that you knew you had plenty of time to get done, but it was boring the living daylights out of you? That’s what I’ve got on my desk right now. I really should get cracking at it, but the topic area just isn’t as attention-keeping as I thought it would be when I first took on this job. Blech. Instead, I’ll work on this crafty post, then I’ll get editing…

Four years ago, the Consort went on his first trip to Guatemala with students. Being a fan of the DK books The Material World and Women in the Material World, I told him the only thing I wanted was some traditional Guatemalan fabrics. I could then make skirts or dresses for the girls, and wouldn’t they look cute?

He obliged. I didn’t. Now, the girls have (mostly) outgrown the joy of wearing skirts—Impera completely (she sighed deeply when I made her wear a skirt to the James Galway concert she was invited to, and the Middle School Music Concert she played in), and Trixie practically (she still will wear one every now and again, but it’s mostly jeans, shorts, and skorts for her). And he’s planning a trip to Nicaragua. How can I ask him to bring me anything back if I haven’t done much of anything with the Guatemalan fabric? (I did make myself a vest with some of it, but other than that, it’s just been sitting in the closet.)

Enter the book I bought recently, based on a random blog post by a blogger I can’t remember: Sew What! Skirts. There are sixteen skirt ideas in the book, and after showing you how to make a pattern for a skirt based on your measurements, the authors set you loose to create what you will.



Aren't those fabrics cool? What was I thinking, letting them sit in a closet for four years?

I started with a very simple A-line skirt, that took me about two hours to make. (I made it yesterday afternoon, when I should have been working on the Boring Project.) This was my tester skirt.



Now I’ve got a sense of how to handle the loose weave of the Guatemalan fabric, where to place the darts I need for my curves, and I am ready to make a straight skirt with snazzy pleating at the bottom; probably with that red stripey fabric at the top of the first picture. Maybe this afternoon. It’ll be a good bribe, because first I’d have to get cracking on that Boring Project. What do you think? Would three hours of editing allow me to then make the skirt?

*Sigh* Oh, Motivation, where art thou?