the emperor's new ....

I just went clothes shopping. For once it was so successful I thought about putting my sewing machine up on TradeMe. Thanks Anneli! It is nice to have a good ready-to-wear experience.

Unfortunately my greed for variety is larger than my wallet so that will have to power the scissors to the stash and the foot-pedal to the floor. No matter how good the shopping is, to this long-time seamstress it seems like too easy a win.

Making it myself is always that bit more effort, that bit more stress of will it all work, the risk of cutting.

When I'm in the zone it all comes together easily. A few month's break is enough to lose that sewing fitness - last week's garden-party suit nearly failed through the dozy decision to cut knit on the bias. What was I thinking? Just enough fabric to cut a second skirt on the straight and recycle the first failed skirt into a jacket. Patchwork came to my rescue there.

Somehow I think the garden-party suit will be in my wardrobe longer than the 3 new off-the peg shirts. Nothing like a challenge!