stalling and sewing

and suffering, I suppose.
Sorry.  I'll stop.
But seriously.  Ahh!

Let me just tell you why I'm so lame.

Remember that time you didn't back up your hard drive for 3 months and you started working on a new pattern, and after 3 days of progress in Illustrator your computer froze on a gray screen and never came back to life? And it turns out your hard drive was mostly dead? 

That time?  Yea.  That just happened me.

The good news is, I backed up everything in June.
The bad news is, I backed up everything in June.
And the takehome lesson is....don't feel sorry for me.  This is something we all have to learn and remember.   It's so easy to just click on that little time machine every night and send stuff over to the external drive.  Doi.  It's the little things that can be hard sometimes, right?

So now my laptop is at the data extraction doctor....because 3 months of data was more than I could part with.  Have you ever gone to one of those?  The kind of extraction place that actually opens up the drive in a "clean" room with hazmat suits and junk like that?  It's kind of crazy.  I was expecting a normal computer store front with apple-y signs in a small strip mall.  Instead I pulled up to a medical building, found the company name on the lobby placard, and took the elevator to their waiting room.
Funny.
And reassuring.  I have high hopes that surgery will go well.
And in a week I should be back up and running.

In the mean time, I'll just keep testing my own pattern! The First Day Dress
Thankfully I had printed one black and white copy of the semi-completed pattern (and rescued the pages from the outside trashcan.  And wiped melty chocolate cake off of the front.  Worth it)

Dude.  By the time this thing comes out you're gonna be sick of it....or itching for it.  But I really think you're going to like it!
And thank you for the input on the pattern name!   You talked me into keeping it as-is.  Because the First Day of anything deserves a special Dress or Top.  Then every time you wear it, you'll remember that first day excitement all over again.   

This time around I used the pattern to make two Tops for Lucy.   
And we both loved them!...despite the fact that I sewed the sleeves on wrong.
Whoops.

I sewed the hem side into the armholes which makes the sleeves flare out more than they should.  But eh.  It works.  And you like it when I make mistakes, right?

I added an extra inch of length to the sleeveless version, since the gray one seems a bit short.

And finished it off with a nice lining and folded hem.
I seriously love this thing.

and hopefully you will too.
Stay tuned!

And have a great Thursday.
And don't go to bed without backing up your computer.

Talk to you soon.