I made two skirts today. It's nice to discover that my sewing skills haven't completely atrophied. My sewing machine is a little cranky, though. It kept breaking my thread and refuses to do a zig-zag stitch. I'm trying to decide if it would be cheaper to have it repaired, or to just buy a new one.

I did discover that it worked better when I oiled it. Funny that.

So why am I sewing skirts? Well, one of them was a practice skirt. I have a formal event to attend in a few weeks, and for some reason I'm incapable of just going out and buying a perfectly good dress. I always have to piece things together from various places and sew things when I have to go to a formal event. I guess that means I'm always wearing designer gowns, right? At least I don't have to worry about people showing up in the same dress as me.

Books: I finished chapter 16! At last! I kept falling asleep the last few nights when I tried to finish it. Not that it's boring (I hope). It's just that I rewrote it many many times for the first pass through this book, and it's kind of daunting to pick it up again. But it's done now! It can get read by my first-draft reader and commented on. Hopefully it won't require huge edits. Then I can print it out and give chapters (at last!) to Sarah.