New Look 6843 view B-ish in black eyelet

My life is somewhat stabilizing after the big software release on 7/1.  I feel like everyone needs something from me at work, and some days I'm getting over 100 emails, and I still have a boatload of documentation to write and data cleanup to do and I have office hours/support labs.  However, I'm no longer working weekends (though I am tempted to put 2 totally uninterrupted hours from home this weekend, just to get a leg up).  I'm back to the gym 3x a week.  I'm reading books again.   (10% Happier (non-fiction, meditation) and All Fall Down (Jennifer Weiner's latest).)  I'm working less nights.    And I sewed a whole entire skirt last weekend!


I have sewn view D/E from New Look 6843 many times before. That's the A-line version.  I love love love how the skirt sits at the waist!  It is *so* difficult to find skirt patterns that sit at the waist, which is the most flattering look for me and my pear shape.


Apparently I sewed view B/C once before in 2006 (as per my envelope notes) but who knows what skirt that was.  I pulled out the pattern last weekend and made view B, minus the slit, and with the zipper on the side, and the CB cut on the fold because I used this fabulous 100% cotton black eyelet that I've had in my stash a long time, from Joann's.  It was in their remnant bin years ago, and wasn't quite 1.25 yards.  Usually all their remnants are under a yard but this one wasn't.     I decided to go with more of a pencil shape because the eyelet runs straight up and down the fabric. It seemed like the pencil shape would "go better" with this fabric.

I decided to use bias tape (also from stash) for the waistband and for the hem.  Basically folding the fabric in half meant that my skirt length was about 1.25 inches above the cut line for view B.


I lined it with black fabric that feels like rayon challis--but I remember buying it from Rag Shop (RIP) when I was a college student, probably summer of 1996 or '97.  It feels fabulous!

I noticed on Carolyn's blog, one of her interior skirt shots, instead of sewing a dart she sewed in a pleat in the lining instead, which makes a lot of sense. So that is what I did here too.


Here I've flipped up the hems to show what it looks like inside. I used my narrow hem foot to hem the lining (on the right) and think it looks great!  (though the basting stitch for the bias tape doesn't look so great--I suppose I could remove the basting stitch but it only shows from the wrong side and probably is providing some stability...)


Because it is 100% cotton, and I had driven to work wearing the skirt, it is already wrinkled for the ivy shots.

My work photographer calls these "mug shots"


Could you identify me in a lineup?



Sweet William from the Princeton Farmers Market

Be well!!

Actual sewing has occurred!

Sneak peek at actual skirt I sewed this past weekend!

More tmw!

What I've been up to

Celebratory cake on 7/1/14.  We had fruit tart and brownies too!

So, I'm going to indulge in a totally non-sewing related post.

I'm a bit punchy.

My big work project, which started in earnest for me 21 months ago, went live on Tuesday.  I had seen the go live date of 7/1/14 for so long now written in so many ways for 21 months:
7/1
7/1/14
7/1/2014
July 1, 2014

and on Tuesday morning, when my eyes popped open at 4:30am, and I turned on my laptop and looked in the bottom right corner of my laptop screen, there it was.

7/1/2014

I am SO happy, SO excited, SO relieved.  There is still plenty left to do, but the heavy lifting is over, the analyze, design, develop, customization, spec writing, configuration, business process, testing, initial data cleanup, data conversion, data validation phases are all over.    I have been teaching folks on the new system, and there more training to be done and documentation to write. I will run some labs. There will be more data cleanup.  There will be better data checking.  There will be a phase 2.   I doubt that phase 2 will be as much work, as intense, as stressful, or as meeting filled as phase 1.  There was a week where I had reached my personal record of 21 meetings in 4 consecutive days.  Could it ever be that busy again?

I have been working 6 days a week for a while now.  I worked the last 18 days straight, some of them were 12 hour days.

I feel like I just graduated with a masters degree in PeopleSoft Grants.  Or like it was Christmas morning.

We had an amazing session with the university president on Wednesday morning.  I felt so proud to be on this project.   A project that I did not volunteer for.  A project that was not in my job description.   This project was one of the most difficult and stressful things I have ever done.  There is a school of thought that anything worth doing is hard work.  This was hard work.  It was worth doing.   I have learned and grown so much, been challenged in many ways.  And I'm so glad the project is released!

I'm taking these three days off, but afterward I look forward to reconnecting with you, my blog readers, doing some sewing again, and posting here actively again!!

Be well.