i caved to a 99 cent sale

ok sooo i wasn't going to buy anything for a new project until i finish the project that i've been working on, the lined dress…
i have been watching tutorials and reading books about using the narrow hemmer foot and trying to get it to work. and it's just not working right. the shape of the foot looks slightly different than the tutorial i was watching. i think the lady is using a bernina. i have a brother XR 7700. so not as fancy. anyone else have the same machine and know any tricks to getting the narrow hemmer foot to work properly? the fabric just will not stay inside the curved piece of the foot. it feels like it's more trouble than it's worth. i trimmed the hem of the dress and the lining and it looks pretty even now. you should have seen the makeshift hem gauge i made. it consisted of taping a yardstick to the inside corner of a wooden box so that the yard stick was perpendicular to the floor. then i marked it and used that to measure the skirt length. the skirt was on the bias, so after hanging, it was a little wonky. ok, a lot wonky. and i decided to make it around knee length. so now it looks pretty even. tonight i'm just going to give up on the narrow hemmer foot (at least for now) and do a narrow hem the regular way. then i'll be done! party, party, party!
as i was saying…i wasn't going to buy anything, but… my new sister-in-law has a birthday coming up, so i ordered some fabric from Spoonflower. i've never ordered from them, so i'm excited to see it. i didn't design the fabric myself, which is an option with their website. i just found a print someone else had already done that worked for what i wanted. i wish the shipping was faster, but i just paid the standard shipping rate. i'll post pics when it comes and let you know how i like it. have you used their website before?
so then i also needed to run by the fabric store to buy a zipper to use in making her gift, and i found out that the store (Hancock's) was having their 99 cent pattern sale on all Simplicity and McCalls. ok, 99 cents!! i just had to buy a few. so i picked up these 3.

that last pattern is one that's been on my To-Sew list because i've seen several really cute versions of that dress (minus the big bow in front). i like the dart placement on it. it has 4 darts coming up from the center front. so then i started wandering through the fabric, and they have a lot of stuff, but i wasn't loving any of it and i didn't have any clear ideas of what i wanted, so it was time to go. i'm thinking i should probably keep using stash fabric, before my stash gets crazy. so i'm going to sit down and see if any of these patterns match up to fabric i already own. i will have to buy some more knit fabric though because i'm clean out of knits and i want to do the top wrap dress in a knit.
and why do i always want to sew dresses!!! i should really sew some more tops to wear with jeans on weekends or tops to wear to work. but once the weather gets warmer i'll be more inclined to wear dresses. i never really think to wear dresses with tights. it did get really hot this weekend (almost 80F) but now it's dropped back down to the low 60s.
anyway i hope to have the dress i've been working on finished tonight!!!! i want to knock it out. no more messing with the blasted narrow hemmer foot. i'm really excited to move on to a new project. yay! which reminds me… i need to buy some of that swedish tracing paper. but if i cut out those 99 cent patterns instead of tracing them, i think that wouldn't be the end of the world. eh, i'll probably trace them anyway, for making adjustments.
oh amazon, you know me so well. this is the email i received from amazon this morning…

ok, if you insist =)