The Handcrafted Gift Season has begun...

Yes, it's coming close to Christmas and the time of year I have to really crank out the pressies. There's a whole lot of birthdays coming up in the months before Christmas, then the big event itself, so that doesn't leave much time. Chop chop, snap to it and all that!

This wrap skirt is a birthday gift that needs to get sent today if it's to make it to the recipient in time. I finished it about an hour ago. You wouldn't think a wrap skirt would be too hard, would you? Well in actual fact it isn't really, it's just that I always find taking direction from other people all too hard and end up making things difficult for myself because I just want to do it my way. (Yeah, fight the system! The Man isn't going to hold me down!)

Anyways, it's done and I think it turned out pretty cute. I just love the Japanese style fabric, I'm not sure if you can tell but there's actually metallic gold print for the outlines. I used the pattern (kind of!) from http://www.bigredcouch.com/journal/archives/2007/03/wrap-skirt.html but because I'm not quite sure of the exact size of the person receiving this (she just had a baby but is usually about the same size as me) I made a little bigger than needed to fit me then added 2 darts to the back panel. That way there's enough fabric to let it out if needed, but it's ready to wear if she's about the same size.

There were many a sew/unpick drama in the making of this skirt but I think I finally got it right. I think. Doesn't help that the presser foot doesn't stay up on my sewing machine anymore, which is a worry since I had it replaced once before and the machine is only 12 months old - not sure if I'm too hard on it or it's just a design fault. Ho hum, better take it out to get fixed again!

I'm working on some other crochet stuff too, pics soon...