skirt-y esque-y things

My poor girl child.  I fear her fashion sense may only be marginally better than my own.  Despite this, she seems to have an intuitive grasp of how clothes are put together and has managed to create several dresses for her cabbage patch-esque doll.   I say intuitive, but after watching her mother draft patterns for her wardrobe throughout her life, perhaps I'd better just say she's observed and learned.  Another point for doing your own thing and letting the kids be. 

Here is Smootch's drape at the Calgary science centre.  Smootch is the one with the head (unkempt, as usual).

This past week I've begun to stretch out a little in my sewing and try making something for myself that isn't a skirt.  It would be lovely to take a costume cutting/construction course to learn techniques for period costumes and work on some amazing, un-ordinary garments.  Given that the nearest costume course is an impossible full time two year diploma program in a city an hour and half away, I must make do with putting myself through an informal study.  I'm starting with Burda patterns.  This is probably an ill considered move.

However, I am being educated.  Making a blouse, I've already learned a new term: peplum, which is a little skirty thing on a blouse that makes ones look fatter than one would like to.  I've also discovered that the construction instructions in an actual hardcover book published by a major pattern company contains glaring omissions and misdirections.  (I genuinely feel awesome about my own technical writing now, knowing more about how the big guys do it: badly.)  Despite my dislike, already, of the blouse, I shall put on the sleeves this weekend and see if I can salvage enough room in my heart to take some pictures of the completed job.

If I can find some time also, I will get to show you what nine organza circle skirts look like and tell you what kind of maddness one must suffer in order to make them.