I was crazy productive on Thursday – had a fantastic day at work, then came home and successfully completed a project. I was mighty proud of myself, but my enthusiasm for getting All the Things done on Thursday led to a Zombie Friday: I was so tired and out of it that I drooled/slept through most of the day (except for a brief period of lucidity in the afternoon in which I got a lot of work done). I tried to nap after work, but there was an Incident with Processed Cheese that turned my Friday evening into an uncomfortable exercise in crankiness with a bad taste in my mouth. In fact, the only high point of Friday evening was my long-overdue wedding to Optimus Prime:

i am ridiculously proud of the boutineers on the wedding party

Saturday was full of random and dinner at the Tacofino Commissary (verdict: I still don’t like their fish tacos, but everything else we had was fantastic) with friends, plus another extended bout of standing at my kitchen counter, sewing up a new skirt.

One of the reasons I’ve never really been a consistent crafter is because I have trouble following rules (which is highly ironic, given my job). I like taking shortcuts, and I love experimenting even though I almost always get disastrous results. I failed miserably as a knitter because I hated following recipes, but I didn’t know enough about knitting to start going off on my own. Also, doing a gauge swatch is for suckers, and I don’t want to have to count things. I just want pretty things to happen out of my own hands like magic. That isn’t so much to ask, is it?

That being said, I’m really enjoying this whole sewing thing. The classes I’ve taken at Spool of Thread have been invaluable, because after I made a bunch of bags earlier this year I started to get cocky and tried to go off on a sewing tangent (with disastrous results). Ever since taking the skirt class a couple weeks ago, things make more sense. I’m cautiously starting to apply logic to my own ideas, and .. it’s not terrible.

The skirt I made on Saturday is not reversible and is therefore only one layer, and took me all of an hour to put together from start to finish – I cut the pattern, sewed it together, pinked the seams, edged it in my beloved bias tape and slapped in an elastic waistband; all while Ed napped. I wanted to make a slightly fuller skirt, so I made some random adjustments while cutting (measuring is for jerks) and accidentally ended up with a really frickin’ cute skirt with a wacky little tulip flip at the knees. The skirt is made out of this dark black and white tiny plaid I picked up at a 70% discount last week, and edged in black. It’s .. very normal looking, actually. So, I fixed it:

turns out i had the button all along

I sewed – painfully, by hand – a bunch of coloured buttons in a cluster on the left side of the skirt for fun and good times. I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out (so look for every project I complete from here on in to be covered in buttons) and it was (with the exception of the button application) incredibly fast to do.

Then, because I needed something to do while sitting around the house with henna on my head for 8 hours today, I made a necklace:

the beads came in a kid’s craft kit to make a bracelet. i thought they deserved a better form.

Now my hands are REALLY sore, but my hair is a glossy dark red and I have fall-coloured things to wear and I am quite pleased with how my rainy Sunday played out. I did put all my sewing stuff away for now, though. I need to start packing for our trip, which is less than two weeks away (eeeeeeeeeeee) and really, I have enough skirts for now: it’s time to tentatively look into sleeves. Plus. the house is clean for the first time in weeks and I’d kind of like to keep it that way (sewing is messy).

Pleased!