I’ve just finished the new blue/silver dancing pants. While they have their share of imperfections, I am very happy with the result. Each of my projects has been a little more ambitious than the last, and the sense of improving skill is definitely part of what makes this satisfying. My last pair of pants was a modified version of a commercial pattern; this time I continued with the same general design but made my own pattern from scratch. I also did a lot more with the quilted brocade design elements – more pieces and more complex curves.

I haven’t been as successful with the serger as I’d expected. I don’t know whether it’s just my inexperience, or some limit of the machine, but the seam-trimmer often seems to slip off track, and then the serger produces big thick folded-over seams. Come to think of it, this mostly seemed to happen when I’d try to stitch through the big seams with four layers of fabric and two layers of batting, so maybe I was just overloading the cutter. In any case I had to do a lot of restitching. I also can’t seem to find any adjustment that will give me a shorter stitch length. Oh, well, it’ll come in time.

Leftover fabric scraps are becoming a problem. It feels wasteful to throw them away and cluttery to keep them. I’d stash them all in bins at the Rocket Factory, but now that we have to clear the place out that hardly seems like a solution…