YAY! I made stuff!

WHOOT! I actually sewed stuff! Like, actual stash stuff.

I was good this weekend. I finished the Atom Red Dress on Saturday, right down to the hemming and trimming of threads. And then Saturday evening, I cut out this skirt.

And discovered that winging it with the lining may not have been the greatest idea, because it meant that I was short approximately 3/4 of a yard of lining material.

Oops.

So I did what I could Saturday night, until it was time to sleep. And then got up Sunday, did as much as I could without the lining. And then bought more lining material.

And got to mostly finish the skirt. Except for the hemming. In my defense, I want it to hang out for 24 hours before it gets hemmed. :)

I can sum up this skirt in one word: Adorable. It's more retro than I was envisioning, thanks to the combination of the print and the fact that the skirt is almost a full circle skirt. And I love it for that.

This Very Easy Vogue pattern (Vogue 8749) was true to its description. It took less than a weekend to sew, and basically involved putting a zipper in. I added the lining and bias tape, so I can't take that time factor into consideration when deciding if it was easy or not. If I had left it unlined and just did a facing, like the pattern called for, it would have taken far less time.

But it was important for me to line it for two reasons:

1. I like lined clothes because it means I don't have to wear a slip or worry about light going through and giving strangers on the street more than they bargained for in a Pittsburgh afternoon or morning.
2. This fabric is very lightweight. If it weren't lined, you could totally see through it. As it is, the lining really helps the colors pop more because it enhances the background.

All in all, I'm thrilled. I love the way it looks, and it hangs, and yes, I've already done the 5-year-old child thing where you spin round and round in circles.

Looking forward.

March.

I had really high hopes for March. They haven't entirely been dashed, although the lack of a blog post since the first weekend of March may speak to the contrary.

You know how life sometimes just gets in the way? Yeah. That's been March so far. There was traveling stuff, and work stuff, and the evil thing that is Daylight Saving Time.

But I am optimistic. I have hemmed the Atom Red Dress, and now all I need to do is hem the sleeves and trim threads. And I will be continuing to work on the new shawl that I bought Malabrigo for the first week of March, and I might even finish the stash-busting sweater or maybe the shawl for Nikki. I might not finish a knitted Thing, but I will be working on multiple knitted Things. Some of which will someday get finished.

A girl can dream.

On the other hand... Does it count in my favor if I make two sewn Things in March? I know I can finish the Atom Red Dress this week (maybe even tonight, if I had the motivation to get off the couch and sew). I also am going to make Vogue 8749 this month, with the fabric I bought in January. So that sort of counts as stash, since I bought it more than a month ago, and it's been sitting in the stash pile.

I goofed.

So here we are. March 3.

Know how I said I didn't want the sock to be the knitted Thing for February? Well, it was.

I made progress on the stash-busting sweater, but it didn't get done. I meant to finish it during Craft Weekend in New York, but then I didn't bring enough yarn, so I stopped, and I just didn't pick it up again.

I also didn't finish the dress. It's still at the point where it was -- zipper pinned in, and needing to be finished and hemmed -- but life got in the way. I got stressed, and frustrated, and just kept knitting and knitting -- and not on the sweater.

Case in point: I bought four hanks of Malabrigo Silky Merino on Thursday for a shawl. Which, thanks to some traveling this weekend, is seeing some pretty decent progress.

So there we have it. It's the first weekend in March, and although I finished the sock, I didn't meet my other crafting February goals. And now, instead of knitting on this lovely train ride through Pennsylvania, I'm tapping out a blog post on an iPhone.

But I've come clean. And March will hopefully be better, and more calming, and won't thwart my plans to Craft All the Things.

What do you want to do better this month?

The view from the train. Somewhere near Lancaster where there was 3G.