I might actually finish this challenge

It's probably too soon to make such a call but I can't help but feel optimistic about my chances.

Here's my first garment, the Sorbetto top from Colette Patterns.

Lord, I love a me a free pattern, let me tell you. I've made this once before as you will likely see during Me Made May so I decided to change it up a little. I went with a bargain basement white eyelet of mysterious fabric content that I pulled from the wallyworld clearance shelf a couple years ago. To help it fit better into my palette, I decided to be brave and smock the center panel. To accomodate the sitching, I placed the pattern three inches back from the center fold, giving me six additional inches to work with.

I marked my pleats on the fabric with a Mark B Gone pen in 1/4in columns and 3/8in rows.

Then pulled them up and tied them off.

Next came the smocking. I don't want to discuss how often I pulled out these stupid threads. This is only my third smocking project so trust me when I say I jack it up often. Halfway through, I finally got my rhythm and came up with a stellar row of stitching that made all the other ones look like they'd been done by Helen Keller on meth. So once again, I pulled stitches.

The waist is a little blousy for my tastes and some sort of mishap resulted in uneven darts that I didn't notice until after I french seamed the sides but overall, I really like this top. I especially like the pretty red gingham bias tape trim. It reminds me of this absolutely terribly ugly square dance dress I had the poor fashion sense to adore to pieces when I was about 7 years old.

Hopefully, I won't look back on this top and be horribly embarrassed as I am by that square dance dress. I can't even figure out how in the world a little black girl in Brooklyn ended up with a red gingham square dance dress. In fact, I had two, one red and one yellow. Maybe this explains why I'm so in love with my color palette.


God bless childhood memories.

Imagine this in red and try not to shudder.

Now I'm on to my button up skirt. It's two thirds completed. I just have to do the hem, buttonholes, and waistband which I hope to finish by tomorrow. After that, it's time to start cutting the dress. And wouldn't you know it, while in wallyworld, two and a half yards of red roses on white lawn just hopped right up in cart and refused to let me leave until I agreed to take it up. So there's an addition to my palette challenge.