random thoughts – Day 2,218 (Monday) – another day, another quiche

This morning, it was gray and gloomy and the house was dark inside. The plan was to work on the 25-yard skirt project. I measured one of my 25-yard skirts that I thought was 36-inches long and discovered it is 37-inches and now I know why I keep stepping on the hem. Calculations were recalibrated to make the length 35 inches to minimize the risk of stepping on it and reduce the need to roll the waistband. The overall length dictates the depth of the individual tiers and the measurements were checked and rechecked. The math wasn’t math-ing on the yardage layouts for cutting the tiers.

Another day, another quiche.

When the going gets rough, I tend to head to the kitchen. Sometimes it’s to stress eat, but cooking is also a frequent activity. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the kitchen, cognizant of the facts I was hungry, hadn’t eaten anything yet, and lunchtime was approaching. And suddenly, I was making a quiche with six eggs, multiple cheeses, spinach, broccoli, and mushrooms. The chopping, mixing, cleaning up the dishes and the counter, and emptying the dishwasher took long enough to clear my head.

After eating a piece of quiche with some grape tomatoes, I was at the computer starting a new spreadsheet to figure out the yardage needed for using two different fabrics in the skirt. The yardage calculator from a belly dance sewing site uses one fabric for all four tiers, but my friend and I are using two fabrics. When we bought the material, we bought every inch they had in the patterned cloth and it isn’t enough to make two skirts in the one material. We had assumed that might happen and had also chosen a coordinating solid. To add to the fun, the fabrics are two different widths which requires two sets of calculations.

Another day, another spreadsheet.

I looked at the numbers all afternoon and it felt like my years working in finance. It also made my brain hurt. I found a couple errors in the original chart from the sewing site and while watching the process video I realized I was setting the strips along the length of the yardage and not along the short edge as the creator of the pattern had done. That has a major impact on the number of strips needed to form each tier.

The measurements feel correct now. Tomorrow the cutters will come out. (Sure, I say that now.) It still hasn’t been determined if it will be the rotary cutter or the scissors or the pinking shears, but I can figure that out over coffee in the morning.