An Unexpected Project

Yesterday afternoon, I got a text from H asking if she could borrow my sewing machine to attached a zip. Now i new exactly what that meant, but I invited her over, and set her up with the leotard she wanted to attach a zip to, the zip and a piece of tailors chalk. She looked at it very confusedly for a minutes, then asked for help. So I took over as I expected. The zip was to go up the front of the leotard like this:

What I didn't expect was that she also wanted to make a hood. She (actually better make that I) was making a Halloween costume for her birthday, and wanted to make the grey leotard Jesse J is wearing in this video (Warning NSFW lyrics):

She had brought a grey t-shirt with her, but didn't seem to understand either the amount of fabric needed for a hood, or that the colours needed to match.

There was just enough fabric in the t-shirt (which had a design on the front meaning the front couldn't be used) to patch the back of the leotard, which had a scoop back, to make a normal neckline which a hood could be sewn to. As it was a different shade of grey to the leotard, I left part of the original seam showing, to make the change in colour look like a design feature rather than an accident.

I then sacrificed my grey vest top to make the hood:

I cut the top of the vest off along the dotted line, then cut up one of the side seams

I then opened out the vest like this, and seamed the two sides marked A together. I then seamed the sides marked B around the neckline from one side of the zip to the other. Luckily, it was almost exactly the right length. This also meant that the neatly sewed hem around the bottom of the vest became the hem around the front of the hood, whilst one of the sided seams became the seam at the top of the hood.

Finally, I had her try on the leotard and pinned the hood in a curved shape at the back to make it less pointed, then seamed that.

The finished garment:

And a close up of the hood:

What do you think? I don't think it's too bad for a surprise scratch job.

We also made gluten free pizza for the first time! As I said earlier, I don't cook, so the boy and V made the dough whilst H and I were making the leotard

It was yummy, but the recipe was a bit weird. If we'd left the pizza in for the time needed to make the base perfect, the toppings would have been completely burnt. In future, we're going to pre-cook the bases. My contribution was the topping on the left half of the left pizza =P

Also, Ginger Kitty now has a new name: Perdita (Said Perd-it-a not Perd-eet-a) meaning "she who is lost," and Purdy for short. She's definitely a knitting and sewing cat:

Yes, that is the leotard she's sleeping on. Looks just like all the cat blocking pictures I see on Ravelry. I was actually in the middle of cutting that when she decided it look comfy, and I couldn't bear to move her for ages!