I sewed a skirt.

My fear of using my sewing machine goes back a long ways. To be such a crafty person that, for the most part, can pick up just about any craft without TOO much trouble (crochet, hand-sewing, embroidery, etc.), using my sewing machine successfully has always eluded me for some reason. I think it's because it's a MACHINE... and my creative mind just sort of glazes over when it comes to technical stuff.... you know, if the machine decides to give me problems, I usually don't have the patience to do any problem-solving. I usually just give up. HA. How's that for lazy?

I'm not sure what inspired me to decide to make a skirt last week... wait. I remember what it was... I saw that they were going to be carrying an Adventure Time line of fabric at Joann! I was so stoked! Sadly, most of the patterns they have are large-scale and in fleece, instead of cotton. I wanted to make a skirt! (Although I did end up buying the fleece for a blanket I asked my Mother-in-Law to serge so that I can give it to Cooper for his birthday coming up.)

Since I was so excited to make myself a skirt, I decided to just go for it... with other fabric. I found a really "easy" skirt tutorial online... you know the one where you sew two rectangles of fabric together, add elastic to the waste (that's fool-proof, right?!), hem it... and you've got yourself a skirt. Weelllll... not so much in my case. (You can read my

But I was determined!! I remembered that I had bought a Burda skirt pattern (#7229, style "B") a while back (I guess I was feeling hopeful) and decided to try that one. Many of my friends encouraged me to go with an actual pattern instead of an online tutorial. You just never know what you're going to get with online tutorials. You need something that FITS. So, a pattern is really needed, especially for a beginner sewer like me.

All did not go smoothly... it took me the better part of last week to finish this skirt. Lots of starting and stopping just due to having "life stuff" going on at the same time of course. There were MANY seams ripped out and even when I really felt like giving up, I told myself to just stay calm and persevere. (who would have thought sewing would test one's will power so much?!)

I'm so glad I stuck with it... because I love my skirt! It came out how I had envisioned and it even FITS. Miracle I tell you. I've always had a hard time finding skirts I like. They're either too short (thanks Forever 21), or too long, not flattering, or just poorly made. The style of this skirt is very full, which I LOVE (it hides all the places you want hidden). It's just very flattering. And I love the retro feel that the bias tape edges add ... that is something I added on my own, including the pockets. One pocket is functional, and one is not because I flubbed something on that one. ; )

(It's looking kind of wonky here, it's a bit twisted to one side.. but you get the idea.)

The dotted and heart patterned fabrics are from Joann and the Majokko anime character fabric is from an Etsy shop. I LOVE LOVE this fabric as I'm obsessed with everything vintage Magical Girls Anime right now (these girls are from 60s, 70s and 80s anime). I need to get more of this fabric because I could only find it from one place online! The skirt even has a zipper (!!) and a reinforced wasteband (!!!). Needless to say, I was super proud of those two babies (not for the beginning-sewer-faint-of-heart.)

I'm excited to actually WEAR something I sewed. I'm taking it with us to Tokyo (we leave two weeks from Friday!! AAAHHH). I can't wait to sew more skirts. I bought some Charlie Brown Halloween fabric from Joann that would make the cutest accent pockets.

I'm not sure if you noticed my hair... the color is already a bit faded in the above photos. I found someone locally to do my hair because I was so tired of doing it myself and I do not have the confidence to do ombre. I have orange to pink ombre now that I love!! I'm sad that the pink fades very fast... need to find a way to make it stay longer. My stylist uses Pravana Vivids mixed with Neons to get it really bright. The color does seem to stay longer than the other brands I've used... but that pink is tricky. This is what it looked like a fews days after it was dyed. I was trying to get some professional looking shots for my stylist, but they were all failures. But the one below left gives you an idea of the color. The photo on the right was taken by my stylist right after she finished dying it.

Even though I look very tall above, with my head almost hitting the string lights outside.. I'm actually sitting on the deck railing. ; )

Do you sew clothing for yourself? Are there any skirt or other go-to patterns that you love? Anything easy enough for beginners? Please share!