Vintage halloween skirt

Willow has been very busy working on her sewing project the last few days.  A pleated full skirt using a vintage pattern we picked up off ebay.  She's being particularly dedicated to it, as she picked up a yellow spider and star fabric to wear it on Halloween.(Here's the fabric and skirt pattern.)

And since Halloween (Here's the finished product!)

Both of us are still in our early days of machine sewing- I've been busy sewing bullet bras recently.  I'm currently doing my 3rd one- first one was just to get the feel for doing it, second one came out mostly as I hoped but I think I need a wider bra strap, and now I'm onto an orange gingham version(I'm hoping to *never* buy a shop bra again) and it turns out the bullet bra is incredibly comfortable.  I take a DD cup so this is important IMO.

Anway Willow is busy sewing pleats and needed some advice about basting.  In my brief internet search I came across this pattern, and I must say I love this scissor pleat skirt!

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2025  

I very much embraced the "fail faster" mentality during this phase of learning to sew, and each time  I made a bra that wasn't quite right.  I adjusted the fit, and made another one using the new ideas that I'd worked out.  All in all it took me 7 bras, I think, to get to one that was a good fit.

It taught me a lot about the idea that whatever creation I'm in the process of making, the next one, will almost always have evolved in ways that are likely to be improvements, because I'm always developing and growing.  This has been invaluable in my understanding of natural learning, and expanding my view of what John Holt was discussing in "How Children Learn".  The main thing that I was lacking during this process, was someone with more experience, to question  about my sewing and construction.