My new friend

Well, I finally made friends with my sewing machine last night. I had to get the book out again to figure out how to thread the bobbin and all the other start-up stuff, but I did it and it worked, and I managed to sew a straight line (the third time) and I'm psyched! It's funny, the whole time I was threading the machine, I was thinking "I could just hand sew the darned thing!" but then when I sewed a seam in 10 seconds, I put it all in perspective!
I don't have any pictures of last night's portion of the refashion process because I missplaced my memory card. (Found it this morning!) But I almost finished my refashion from a few weeks ago on a skirt which I've never worn. It was white and flouncy...too flouncy. I was told that because of my wide hips, I should wear a-line. I took it to the extreme and picked up this skirt that was just so poofy it was ridiculous. Plus note to self: never buy anything you intend to wear without trying it on first!! Of course, that doesn't apply if you're just looking for things you can refashion, but you get the gist...
So I took out the waist pannel to shortten it and all the triangular panels and I was still left with an A-line skirt! (Tells you how poofy it was!) I did a lot of the seam ripping a few weeks ago, plus a dye job - my first! Came out really well! It's now a light blue and I love the color! I also had to take the top band panel out in addition to the silly oversized wrap/ties. Yeah. I don't need anything else to help make me look wider, thank you very much!
The only thing I need to finish is the closure. I hand-stitched in hook and eye loops but now I see why they aren't used in leu of zippers. It leaves big gaps, so I'm going to have to break down and put the zipper back in after all. I think I'll spring for some iron-on adhesive. Hopefully it doesn't push me too much over my WR budget! I learned this zipper trick from Darling Petunia. She's fantastic and all her stuff comes out looking great!
All in all, I stayed up way too late, but I wanted it finish it! It's not done, but only because I need that adhesive strip...pictures tomorrow as long as I get to finish it!!