Pumpkins and Pattern Problems

After getting my fabric all ready to go at the beginning of the week I came home Friday ready to get started, to cut everything out and start sewing. Unfortunately that was not as easy as it sounded. I very carefully smoothed my fabric out and spread it on the table. This is not an easy feat at the best of times because I had 5 yards of fabric and a table that's only 2 yards. The VERY first step to cutting anything is to roundup all the cats and put them in the spare room so they don't pull everything off onto the floor.

After rounding up all the helpers here's the first bit of my fabric ready to go. 

As soon as I started to lay out the pattern I knew there was a problem. The fabric shrunk so much in the wash that the big skirt pieces didn't fit.

Thankfully, I had always intended to add a band of printed fabric around the bottom of the skirt and after a consultation with my Mom and a bit of measuring we devised a solution. We traced the curve from the bottom and moved it up to the point where we determined the top of the printed band should start.

The other problem was that, according to my measurements, my waist is a totally different size from the rest of me so I needed to modify the pattern a bit to make sure it will fit right. Luckily most of the pieces I needed to change have fairly straight pieces so it was a simple matter of angling the side from size to the other.

Then, after 3 and a half hours, I finally had all the pieces I needed cut out. Well....mostly. I still have to cut the border pieces for the skirt but I can start sewing with what I've got and cut those out as I get closer to the end.

Although I went into work late on Saturday I didn't get any sewing started because we spent the morning running errands. We planned to go to the zoo on Sunday and wanted to get our grocery shopping out of the way ahead of time. So we were completely free yesterday for the Great Pumpkin Smash at the Kansas City Zoo.

Last year we spent all day at the zoo for the Pumpkin Smash and rushed to see all the animals they included. This week we only stayed about half the day and only made it to about every other presentation. But it was still a fun event. As always I made a point to see the otter getting their treats and we also saw meerkats and elephants.

The elephants were actually especially fun because the stood on their pumpkins to smash them open and then eat the pieces. It actually made a really neat loud popping noise. We were too far back in the crowd to get a good picture of the actual smashing but you can see the results. As one of the zookeepers said, they get dreamy eyes while eating the pumpkins. They really do look like they think they are the yummiest thing ever.

The other thing we made a point of seeing was the Fennec Foxes. They are new to the zoo since the last time we were out and super cute.

Hopefully I can make some progress with the actual sewing today. If not I also have a day off on Friday that I plan to spend working on my dress as well.