Step away from the sewing machine...

I am soooo close to being finished with my niece's second costume. I am attaching the skirt right now, and because I was not satisfied with the original look of the costume, I added my own parts to it, drafted from scratch, to look more "Cinderella" like. It is a really pretty dress, and I was stuck last night on a problem, was so happy to come up with a solution that added just the right detail...

And I just about ruined it twice in the last 20 minutes.

Costume satin does not like seams to be picked apart. The needle holes are sometimes still visible unless you very, very carefully use your fingernail to close the little holes, without further snagging the fabric. Usually, there isn't too much of a problem, though, because most mistakes happen in the seam line, or near it, which is pretty easy to fix or cover up.

It is a real pain, however, when you are carefully sewing a fairly bulky gathered seam to a tiny bodice, and don't realize until nearly too late, that you have managed to catch in a fairly sizable amount of BODICE into your seam. The first "Oh Shit!" moment of the evening.

And then, after patting myself on the back for fixing the problem, I go over the same seam, just inside the original seam, in order to reinforce it, and the SAME DAMN THING HAPPENS!

And this is only the first half of the skirt. The other half is waiting to be gathered (a trick in itself, because it's so much fabric for such a little waist), pinned to the bodice, then basted, and sewn very carefully (and it's not like I was being careless the first time!).

I really wanted to get this into the mail tomorrow... I know the 20th is the deadline, but I wanted to just wanted to get this done.

I think I am going to take a quick break, and then get to the point where I can just sew the skirt on tomorrow over lunch hour. Then, I can finish the zipper and hem tomorrow night, wrap the package, and get everything ready to go to the post office first thing Thursday morning.

I just have to give myself a little more time, or I am going to ruin this dress. :(