Departing from the Text

I am taking up sewing again. The first time I learned, I made fitted diapers. I still have one, and it's quite nifty, but I had to give up sewing because the noise of the machine freaked out my baby. Next, I learned to knit. Knitting is a far better fit for taking along while caring for small children: it requires far less equipment (particularly important, no scalding hot iron for pressing), it can be put down at a second's notice, and the clicking of the needles didn't make my infant cry.

Now, though, I have gotten the sewing bug back. It's largely a testament to how much I hate shopping for clothing. So much is ugly, unflattering, or ill-fitting, and if I make garments, I can fix all of that. The most important thing I learned from knitting--on my first (failed) project, no less--was that I could make alterations to patterns. (Incidentally, I applied this to fiction and became a writer along the way.) So on my very first sewing project, I frowned at what I saw as a failing of the pattern and made a change to improve it.

Now, for the past two weeks as I've relearned how to sew seams, under stitch, edge stitch, overstitch, and staystitch, I've been looking at patterns and figuring out how to mix, match, combine, and alter them into the perfect dress. And in true RetroGeek fashion, this is the inspiration: