Finished!

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know this was the huge crazy project I started back in July. Using instructions from The Alabama Stitch Book, I worked for months, made a few mistakes, worked a whole lot more, and finally wrapped everything up today. I dyed many yards of fabric before settling on these colors, stenciled each outer panel, stitched the inner and outer panels together (by far the most time consuming part), cut away parts of the outer panels, seamed everything together (twice!), took the seams in to improve the fit and finally added the waistband this afternoon. The waistband is the only part of this entire thing which wasn't done by hand though I ran the sewing machine so that's still me doing the work so it absolutely counts.

I modified the pattern slightly since I'm considerably curvier than your average model. I made this work by making the skirt out of five, rather than four, panels. This seemed like a brilliant idea until I finally got to the trying on phase where I realized that I'm not actually an entire panel wider than the skirt in the book. I spent some time taking in seams and then the elastic pulled it in the rest of the way so that it fits!

I am so delighted to have this skirt finished, and to be able to wear something I made entirely myself, from dyeing the fabric to every one of the thousands and thousands of applique stitches. I may be crazy, but I'm a well dressed crazy, thanks very much.

Next up? I might try my hand at embroidering some Indian style blouses. Or sew some clothes for my daughter. Or start a new pair of socks. Ideas?