i demonstrated admirable self control when my fabrics arrived - i didn’t open the parcel until i’d finished the skirt. i knew as soon as i did my head would be too full of new plans to concentrate on finishing it.

if you’ve ever wondered how much fabric you could buy for the price of a second hand overlocker (i’m sure we’ve all been there lol) well, now you know. i don’t feel even slightly deprived now. the stars of the bunch are the wonderful koalas which will be a winter jacket, the oilily style turquoise flower print which is a medium weight knit described as sweat tricot and the floral embroidered orange cotton that i think is destined to be her birthday party dress.

once again very impressed by the fabrics and the speed of delivery was phenomenal.

this is my absolute favourite of nanny’s knits. the colour’s fab on madam (very blonde, big blue eyes) and the style’s really cute and funky. it took all of 5 balls of debbie bliss cotton cashmere. it’s a wonderful yarn, really soft and silky but quite heavy too, nanny said it was lovely to knit with. it’s machine washable at 30º but i’ll handwash to be on the safe side. it’s a good size, too, age 2-3 it just fits now but it’ll be a lng time till it’s as trim as the one on the pattern picture.

not too many hitches after the ‘on the small side’ realisation. this was generally a nice pattern to sew - no awkward waistband to do. i mainly chose this pattern because it uses so little fabric as i’m hoping to get a pinafore dress out of the same stuff. i just love the fabric, it’s a super-soft babycord from my original MS stash, the colours are totally gorgeous (difficult to show in the pix, maybe a little more muted irl). it was lovely and easy to work with but was slightly more delicate than previous stuff i’ve used and i got pulled threads from the pins in a couple of spots, hopefully not too obvious.

i love the fact that it’s lined, though i did find that the lining turned out a lot smaller than the outside, think i should probably have staystitched the waistline. i used leftovers from my frilly skirt to line and found it slightly more manageable second time around. steaming the excess fullness from the hem definitely made a difference, though i was still left with a few ugly tucks. i topstitched too close to the zip so it doesn’t quite go to the top, but i think that was the only other hitch.

i felt confident enough to stray from the instructions and hem before i pressed the pleats, i took the chance to practice my blind hemming again, since i thought the stripes should hide it a little. while it doesn’t look as prominent as a topstitched hem, blind it definitely aint (evidence). i wasn’t confident enough to go it alone when the instructions decided to stray though. i managed to totally lose the issue half way through - still haven’t found it. massive thanks to faith from the ottobre english list who so kindly typed the whole lot out for me!

of course much as i adore this skirt it’s totally impractical - a skirt that has to be ironed every time it’s washed is so far out of place in this house it’s ridiculous. i was wondering about stitching in the pleats - i’m sure there’s something about running stitching along the line of the pleats in my sewing book. i wondered whether i could just sew the inside pleats so if it didn’t work out it would barely show, but it still gave a bit more structure… ? comments welcome.

it turns out it’s waaay too big - lengthwise and around. i made the smallest size (92) but it seems a fair bit bigger than her other 92 skirt, possibly down to stretching during construction, i’ve still got the pattern pieces handy so i’ll see whtehr that’s it. i’m a bit worried that by the time she fits it lengthwise she’ll be out of nappies and might have nothing to hold it up. and i so want her to wear it cos it’s lovely

feeling a bit intimidated by the interlock that came with my michas stoffecke order: these tips might help my nerves.