you may have noticed that my twitter feed lately has been filled with the doom and gloom of apartment hunting in NYC. it's probably the WORST time to be looking to move (what with all the recent college grads coming to make their way in the world) and i was feeling pretty low last week. it's a long story which i can't get into here, but the good news is that we've worked something out to let us stay here till october. looking for a new place in fall will be much easier especially with all of this advanced notice. i feel so relieved! i also think that i may have lost about 5 pounds with all the worrying. now i can get back to my regularly scheduled program.

i have two FO updates to clue you in on. first is a skirt that i finished two weeks ago.

madras skirt

i've had this madras print in my stash for almost 8 years now! i remember buying it when i first moved here and i was living with my grandparents in new jersey. now you remember my last skirt and the issues i had with it? here's what i did differently.

• redrafted the pattern bringing in the waist an inch, the hem up two inches, and the rise the same both front and back. i also drafted another piece to make facings for the waist (sorry i don't have pics of those. i will do better next time!)
• i used this tutorial (via green kitchen) to sew the whole thing together (minus the darts bit.)
• yes, i even did the glue stick zipper thing and it was awesome. worked like a charm.
• the only thing that i'll do differently next time is to rip out some of the seam on the zipper before sewing because i could not move the zipper down to sew around it without doing that. ripping while in the midst of sewing is near impossible. i'll do it before hand.
• i did end up using this technique to sew the hem and it also worked like a charm!

all in all, i love it! i'm going to do the exact same thing on my next skirt, whenever i get around to it.

so i'll confess that there was a little bit of secret knitting going on which is why my updates were pretty sparse last month. i participated in the circle of friends blanket for our fellow spider, amanda.

amanda's baby blanket

she really loves it and we were so happy to make it for her!

amanda loves the blanket!

katie has a funny picture of us weaving in the ends before the party. i think that i'm saying "no pictures please!"

progress on flair continues! it's really my only active project right now and i'm almost done with sleeve #1. i should be done with this thing before we go on vacation june 7. can't wait to get south and enjoy some beach and reading time!

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