New adventures in sewing

I decided it was time to get over my fear of my sewing machine and make friends with it. I have owned a sewing machine for years and have intended to sew myself some clothes for a lot of that time. I have made a few items of clothing in the past. As a child various items for my Sindy doll - then at school all the girls made a wraparound skirt when we were 11/12. There's also a gingham apron I made myself at some point. I didn't enjoy sewing lessons as much at high school - I remember sewing a blouse but I don't think it was ever finished.

In my first term away as a student, I made myself a skirt. I got the pattern from a magazine - it was a long skirt, with six panels and pockets in each side. I bought some blue fabric, thread and elastic at Oxford market and spent the autumn/winter evenings sitting in my bedroom at my lodgings sewing it. I had no sewing machine back then, so the whole thing was handsewn.

That was 25 years ago and that was the last item of clothing I successfully made myself. There was another attempt at a blouse in the early 1990s (again handsewn) but that was a failure and unfinished. The shop I bought the fabric from also sold other sewing items and I moved onto sewing tapestry and then counted cross stitch (some of which I still unfinished).

In more recent years, although I've been sewing my hexagon quilt, I've mostly concentrated on knitting. I have however, not forgotten my plans to sew and have read lots of sewing blogs for inspiration and have built up quite a fabric stash ready for when I got around to it.

So last Sunday I took the plunge. I knew I wanted to make a skirt and it would be similar to the skirt I made 25 years ago with panels. This time I wanted to alternate the panels. I picked out some fabric for it a few weeks ago and last Sunday I picked up the scissors and started cutting.

Then I put down the scissors and found my cutting wheel, which was much more efficient.

The end result would not win me any awards on Great British Sewing Bee - in fact, I'd probably get sent home when the judges had recovered from their horror at my wonky seams and haphazard techniques. But I wore it for an evening, danced it in and it did not fall apart - so I'm happy with it.