The Goldilocks Skirt

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away lived a woman called Sox. One day, Sox decided to sew herself a long, cozy corduroy skirt to keep her warm through the cold winter months. These were dark times, many years before the proliferation of indie pattern designers, and Sox chose a pattern from a house of the Big 4, companies she had sewn with many times before.  

Sweet innocent Sox decided on her size from the measurements printed on the envelope, not from the finished dimensions on the pattern pieces themselves, and merrily cut out and sewed her skirt. Imagine her surprise when the skirt did not fit! It did not fit to the extent that as she walked, the skirt spun around on her waist, much like the sun was once thought to spin around the earth. Sox shortened the skirt so that the hem might not provide so much traction, and thereby reducing the amount of movement, but alas, the skirt stubbornly continued to rotate. She put the skirt in the give-away box.

For some reason tho' Sox still had hopes for that pattern, with its slightly A-line shape and yoked waistband, and in the opening days of the winter of 2012 she took that pattern and some wonderfully colourful, cozy, quirky fabric on a weekend visit to her parents farm in order to cut it out on her parent's huge kitchen table.

Colourful upholstery fabric.

Imagine if you will, Sox's surpirse, when she discovered both waist yoke pieces were missing from the envelope. Undaunted, Sox decided she would simply draft a new waistband and carry on. Unfortunately Sox's motto of 'don't think, just do', a philosophy which has served her well in sporting events, good deeds, and affairs of the heart, did not translate well into endevours requiring mathematical precision. The waistband sides were not the same width, a slight miscalculation that went unnoticed until the sides were sewn together.

If there was pattern matching one point, there isn't now.

And even tho' Sox had cut the skirt two sizes smaller than that first much-too-big skirt, the second version was still much

too big.

So Sox took it in, and then took it in some more, and then a smidge more. And then it was

too small.

At that point Sox regretted the third 'reduction' involved the use of her serger. Shame on Sox for being so impatient. So the skirt was left to languish on the naughty pile, and the pattern discarded ruthlessly into the recycling bin, while Sox moved on to adventures with other fabric.

Then came the never-ending winter of 2013. Sox was Desperate. For. Colour. She entered her magical sewing chamber, saw the skirt of quirky colours and pounced. With some judicious finagaling of the back seam, she was able to get the skirt to a point where it fit (in a sub-standard way)

just right.

Flash reflecting from my Nutella jar 'tripod'.

(tho' slightly too short to be worn without tights).

Why do my top and tights look two different colours?

Is there a moral to this story? Undoubtedly. Will Sox learn something useful from it? Probably not.

But here they look almost the same?

Oh well, at least the skirt is still warm. And colourful. And no longer a UFO.