Ginger

Well, I did end up ordering those two Colette Patterns (Ginger and Violet).  Seeing Erika's finished Violet Blouse made me want my own, and then I discovered a Ginger Sewalong.  How could I resist?  Sunni at A Fashionable Stitch is hosting the sewalong, and has a great lineup of guest bloggers who will be doing a series of posts to help guide even absolute beginners through making the skirt.  And may I just say, I wish I could have the skirt she made to kick things off?  That fabric is to die for!  And the red piping!  swoon . . .

Now, I'm not an absolute beginner, but I do feel that this sewalong will be a great learning experience for me.  I have been sewing since my teens (yes, 30+ years ago), but only intermittently.  In junior high and high school, I made a lot of my own clothes, and when I was in graduate school, I got into making quilts and a couple of Folkwear patterns entirely by hand (because I enjoy hand stitching, and also because I didn't have a sewing machine at the time!).  About ten years ago, I made Hubby a couple of shirts that he still wears and claims are his favorites.  And around that time, I subscribed to Burda magazine and made several pieces from the patterns included.

But my love of sewing is on-again/off-again.  I'll do a bunch of sewing for six months to a year, and then my machine will sit, alone and forlorn, for five or more years.  One of the reasons I haven't been as interested as I used to be is that I feel I'm much harder to fit than I used to be.  I now take one size for my hips but one to two sizes smaller for my waist, and I never learned to do any fitting or tailoring.  So I'm hoping to learn some of those skills through my participation in the sewalong.

I was down with some strange virus for the early part of the week, but yesterday I finally made it to the fabric store to get my fabric, and look what I found:

Is that not the cutest thing?  I love the retro vibe!  The pattern is quite large:

And the fabric is slightly thinner than I'd hoped to find.  But I just couldn't pass up this print!  I'm going to treat it like a stripe, and matching stripes is another thing I'm hoping to learn from the sewalong.

I also got some fabric to make a coordinating Violet blouse to go with it!

This is a cotton shirting, almost like a dotted swiss, but the dots are squares:

I actually think both sides are really cute, so I'll have to decide which side to make the right side.  I'm leaning toward the tufty side . . .

I decided after the fact that I'll do some black piping around the waistband of the skirt and maybe around the edge of the collar of the blouse too.  I have to go back to the fabric store anyway to get lining fabric for the skirt.

I did get my zipper, and also some hemming lace that matches the zipper, just because!

So now all I need are my patterns!  I ordered them on Monday, and they shipped on Tuesday, so I should be getting them soon.  In the meantime, I have to wash and iron the fabric . . .