Bits and pieces

I'm sick, lazy and busy, three things that really don't go together, so this is a bullet point post.

• This is Flossie! She belongs to my mother, who bought a dressform for herself in 1965 when she started at teacher training college (my mum was a home economics teacher before she retrained to teach primary school, so she had to learn to teach sewing, and then for the longest time she made all her own clothes). Flossie came to me pre-named and slightly beaten up and I love her. Flossie has been around in our house forever -- in more recent years up in the attic or in the garage because my mum doesn't use her but couldn't bear to part with her. She is actually, even fully extended as shown in this picture, a little bit too small to duplicate my figure, but she's not a million miles away. My mum gave her to me because she's thrilled someone will get some use out of her after all this time, and I am thrilled to have her because I love the continuity of using her. (Also, a new one is £100 minimum!)

•  I buy a lot of my fabric at the moment from eBay and I realized suddenly that I was buying a lot of fabrics I wanted to use for clothes to wear and nothing that I could really just go, OK, this is a muslin and I don't care if it doesn't work out. I went looking for cheap bundles of fabric that I could get for under £2 per metre. I have scored some AMAZINGLY DREADFUL fabric in the process, it's kind of awe-inspiring, but I've got some of it from as little as £1.15/m, which is excellent for learning on.

• I have a Cunning Plan for my next garment project. I was going to make this amazing twirly skirt from Ottobre, but I thought I knew what I was doing cutting out my sizes, made a little muslin of the waistband and realized I'd traced one size too big. So, back to the drawing board (literally -- I have to retrace) on that. In the meantime I am going to try something else, with an eye to learning some particular skills that I'll need. I sound very cryptic here >.> <.< but it's actually because I haven't got the pattern I want yet and I am worried about jinxing my eBay-fu by talking about it!

• In free moments and while watching TV, I've been busily making a million (or, you know, 50) yoyos, also for a Cunning Plan project, although this one is a bag.