Turtle Saturday

Yep, that's me, a sluggish turtle today. The brown skirt is such an easy project that it should be done by now, but it isn't. I've been in and out of the sewing room all day … sew a couple of seams, go flit about the house. Sew another seam, play with the dogs. And so on.

I will say one thing about this pattern, Who the HECK wrote the instructions?? While technically you will end up with a skirt that looks like the envelope, you might also end up with a few less hairs too. Well, not really, because none of the steps are hard no matter what method, but some of Butterick's are just plain bass-ackwards.

For example, the bottom section which is pleated. The instructions tell you to sew the sideseams together and *then* baste and press in the pleats. Why?? When it's so much easier to do the pleats when the two sections are still flat.

And the part I just finished … where the facing meets the center back zipper — which, BTW, I changed to an invisible zipper and am wondering why it wasn't an invisible zipper to begein with. I understand that some people actually *like* hand sewing and I have no problem with that. But hand sewing the facing to the zipper seam allowance is not the most efficient method, especially if you're in my camp of hand-sewing haters. ;-) And why waste hand sewing time in an area that is so inconsequential?

I'm not really grumpy today, although this post seems like it, doesn't it? ;-) I'm just scratching my head over the convoluted instructions and venting to other sewers. The skirt is actually coming together rather nicely and a quick try-on before I committed to permanent sideseams tells me the fit is going to be nice.

The skirt will be done before the day is over. And if the lighting cooperates, I'll get a photo. But right now, I've got to take the dogs out. Again. LOL!