Elusive Creatures

Meet Bai Long, our elusive half Siamese. Her name means 'white dragon', and yes I realize she's all black. Except a small white patch where she was shaved when they fixed her. My roommate at the time said we should shave zebra stripes in her, cause wouldn't it be cool if it all came in white? My response "Go right ahead and try, that's all you. Let me know how it works out." Needless to say, this never transpired.

Bai Long was born three weeks before I met my husband and she's been with us ever since. That makes her 14 years now. Why am I bringing this up? Well the fur that I chose to use for my Dragon Scale Skirt looks and feels just like her. In fact, Felicity asked me what I had done to Bai Long that made her hair go all over the place. My very helpful roommate told her we had a disagreement. Really it was cause I had trimmed the seam allowance on the piece of fur and it got EVERYWHERE. But walking in from work to be accosted by a seven year old going "What did you and Bai Long argue about?" was not what I was expecting. But to the right you might be able to see what I mean.

So I managed to sew on the fur trim (my husband does the Beavis laugh every time I say that, no idea why...) and I also got the darts sewn in the back. I tried it on and my roommate said "Hey, it makes your butt look smaller". Cool? Maybe? I kinda like my butt but I guess that's OK. I took some pictures of it in the sun. (The skirt, not my butt. Get yer minds of the gutter, sheesh)




See what I mean? When the light hits it just right it does not look like anything I've ever seen. I wish I could have been able to get more of this fabric cause its just so cool.

I do wish I could offer up a better picture of Bai Long but she does not photograph well. I've never met a cat that has quite such a talent for being invisible. So many times we've walked through the room searching for her and can't find her until we sit down and realize she's there on the white pillow and languidly opens one eye at us. Some part of me thinks she really was a dragon in a past life.

Check Out This Zipper!

As promised I took some pictures of the Skirt-In-Progress. I have decided that I am going to call it the "Dragon Scale Skirt" because the way that it reflects light gives it an ethereal sheen and makes me think of the Blue Dragons from the Pern Series.

I found this fabric at Gail K's. There was only one bolt of it and it was a whopping $30 a yard. The plus side is that at 60 inches wide I figured I could squeeze the fashion fabric out of just one yard. The down side? After washing and laying it out I discovered that it was very badly off grain on the cut so I had more like 7/8ths of a yard. I knew that it would be four inches shorter than usual, since the bottom will be trimmed with fur. It took some serious fabric origami but I got it cut out. And after my last skirt I learned that one should put the zipper in the back pieces FIRST before sewing the rest of the skirt together. I decided to machine stitch in a metal zipper because I'm rather hard on my clothing and hopefully I will be able to wear this skirt a lot. I'm really proud of how the zipper turned out.

The pins you see in the skirt to the left are marking the darts I need to take. I have... well I have what my husband affectionately calls "ethnic booty" and a sway back that curves into a waist that's almost 10 inches smaller than my hips (and my bust and hips are almost the same circumference, especially now that I've been putting effort into working out and weight loss). This is one of the reasons I learned to sew. RTW doesn't make garments for the true hour glass shape. So four darts in the back of the waist to take in four inches. Hopefully without puckering.

So now I have to finish the darts and sew on the fur trim at the bottom and then start on constructing the lining and the waist band. And since I don't have enough fabric to do ONE solid piece of fabric I am going to use a men's tailoring trick in which you have the seam go through the waistband as well. This will make it three separate pieces sewn together but also allow me to take it in if necessary (or out, but who wants to think about that?).