Pamela's Patterns Magic Pencil Skirt

I need a vacation. ;-) I've been very busy this weekend but in a selfish good way.

I cut and sewed the brown ponte knit skirt tonight, using Pamela's Patterns Magic Pencil Skirt.

The magic is that there's just one pattern piece, no zipper, no waistband, and you end up with a flattering and comfortable skirt. It's pegged just the right amount and while it has an elastic waist, you can't tell by looking when you're wearing it.

$10 is maybe a lot to pay for one pattern piece, but the bottom line is that it works. I can see making many of these, which brings the pattern cost per skirt a lot lower, plus it uses less than a yard of 54-60" fabric so it's economic that way. I plan to make the higher waist version too. For this one, the lower waist view, I cut the Medium per my measurements. The only adjustment I made was adding 3/4" to the length. You can definitely make this skirt start to finish in an hour, especially if you don't have to change thread in all 3 machines like I did. I'm going to write up a proper review on PR (probably after returning from my trip) because this is a sleeper pattern and it needs some enabling. ;-)

Before starting the skirt, I (re)made my Jalie top from last year smaller. And by smaller, I mean I took out 8" of width, 4" at each sideseam, tapering up through the armhole and down most of the sleeve. I took a good 2-3" out of the bicep area, tapering to nothing by the wrist. I also removed 5" of length. I can't believe the old stomach and boobs took up all that space — wow! Well, I can, but seeing it that way was eye-opening. This is the before shot from the earlier post:

And this is the remake:

Lastly, I finally cleared off my pile of costume jewelry off the top of my dresser and hid it all in the top drawer, except for my little dish of earrings still on top. I still have the big pile of too-big clothes (which keeps getting bigger) and I'll deal with that when I get back too. And I should probably dust my dresser now.

That's my Fire in its new brown leather case in the bottom right of the pic. I also stuck on a screen protector, so it's officially good to go for tossing into my purse. Teri - you asked about battery time with the wi-fi. I don't have a good answer because so far I've never been too far from a charging source so I've not let it get low. I'll try to pay attention on our drive, when we'll be mobile hot-spotting it with Alex's phone.

Another good use for the Fire? Killing time in the Walmart customer service line while waiting to return the purchases I didn't show you.