OK, most of you know I can sew, but the truth is its something I LOVE to do, but rarely do. Like commercial clothes, commercial sewing patterns just do not work for me, and I don't have the drafting skills to make the right alterations, or draft my own patterns. I became disheartened when I would end up with so many failures that I ended up doing very little sewing.

But, about 6 months ago, I found out about a program that allows you to enter your own measurements and it prints out the patterns to fit you perfectly. I thought long and hard about it because it was a $200 program and I didn't want to outlay that for more failure... but after a month of reading reviews I took the plunge and bought it. (I bought the Boutique version and am VERY interested in buying the kids version...)

http://www.wildginger.com/prod.....master.htm

Now, I suspect that if you have a fairly proportioned body, it would be a relatively simple exercise to create the fitting garments and perfect them. But proportioned I am NOT!! So, after about 5 months, we (you can get email help from the program people) have *almost* got the basic dress fitting pattern sorted. (Interestingly, this process has really helped me work out exactly why commercial clothes don't fit me and where my biggest fit issues are).

Its taken lots of adjustments and I am probably going to have a party when we do get it spot on LOL. Once we get the main fitting garment sorted, I can make pants, jackets, dresses, skirts and all manner of variations - so it wont be a matter of living in the exact same things - I can make everything a bit unique!)

But, my last attempt had me quite happy with the lower half of the dress, so tonight I decided to make a simple straight skirt and see how it went... Well I'm VERY impressed!! For the first time, since, well, forever, I have a skirt that fits me well!! (I would hazard a guess that this is the first time in my life I have something that truly fits me!)

So I just wanted to share with you my first skirt that fits - you can see how high my waist is in this shot LOL - pity it wasn't all legs - darned long rise LOL!! (It does need a couple of teensy tweaks, but this is fine as it is for every day wear for now).

Now, if you've made it through all that rambling, I am now on the verge of making a pledge that in 2011, I will not purchase clothing - I will make it all (with some exceptions - underwear etc LOL) - I'm so sick of nothing ever fitting me as perfectly as I expect it to, and now that I'm so close with this program, I'm feeling brave enough to consider some bold pledge!!

So, here's my skirt, and also a pic showing the basic dress fitting garment - this one does NOT fit me well (I have to make one more up that *should* be it!), but you'll get the idea of what I'm talking about anyway!

(Please forgive the rambling - I'm having a celebratory wine - oh and that's possibly why the photos are a bit crooked - I couldn't stand the tripod up straight ROFL!!)