plaid about you

Reminder: Tomorrow, Friday the 10th, is the last day to enter my fabric giveaway for Sew Grateful Week. You have until 11:59pm EST. That's 25 hours from now. Go go go!

Patterns are still my sewing crutch, so whenever I successfully create something without one I can't help but FLIP OUT WITH JOY. Mostly because it means I don't have to re-fold and cram any tissue back into the envelope after the project is complete, sulking about how the envelope that used to be nice and flat now looks pregnant and awkward stacked against the unused patterns on my pattern shelf. #firstworldsewingproblems

Offending preggo pattern: fourth from right

So yeah, it's not like this pattern-less project was complicated or anything. I just made another half-circle skirt (like my navy knit one made only two weeks ago), though this time I used wool so it required a lining and zipper. I'm proud to say I figured out (all by myself! Kind of!) how to machine-stitch the lining to the invisible zipper and attach a lapped waistband. I couldn't find a tutorial online for doing all those things together, so I combined some resources and did a lil' sewin' improv in between.

Here are a couple relevant but not exact resources for some of these techniques, because I'm sew grateful for them, and you should be, too: 

• Slapdash Sewist's post on machine-stitching lining to an invisible zipper on a skirt with no waistband
• Casey's post on making and attaching a lapped waistband on a skirt with a lapped zipper and no lining

This skirt is quite the A-line. I kinda feel like this chick:

Except I have a neck and she doesn't, apparently. She has arms and I don't, apparently.

This skirt was cut out awhile ago, but I got sidetracked into making baby stuff for some babies (that post to come once I can snap pics of le bébé  - oh boy, get ready). Meanwhile, Lauren's own plaid wool circle skirt popped onto my blogroll and I was all like, "Okay, my turn." 

So, do you all normally stick to patterns or do you prefer experimenting and figuring out construction on your own? What do you like and/or dislike about using commercial patterns?

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linked to sew country chick