All I've got to show for my time ...

This is going to be a bit of a rant.

Of all the compromises I expected in moving to Tasmania, not being able to buy BASIC sewing supplies was not one of them. The only fabric store in Hobart is Spotlight. There are a few small quilting stores and the sewing machine repair store down the road from my office at least sells thread.

I had a hell week at work last week and as it was a long weekend, I looked forward to a solid three days of finishing my SWAP and maybe doing some planning for future sewing. I didn't get time to buy thread for my jeans during the week, but as Spotlight is open all weekend I wasn't worried.

Last weekend I spent an entire day working on refinining the fit of my TNT jeans pattern and so I was ready. Saturday I cut my jeans out and Sunday morning at 10am on the dot I was waiting outside Spotlight for the doors to open. I needed a zip. The zip rack was half empty and there were NO metal pants zips at all. Funnily enough I could have had any size or colour open ended zip I wanted when they are usually the ones I can't get! It wasn't a disaster because I had a longer plastic zip in my stash I could use.

Next up: thread. Spotlight only has Gutermann (other stores have Mettler and Coats as well) so I knew my choice would be limited but I was shocked to find the thread rack half empty as well. Not a disaster either as I knew I had enough close colours in my stash to sew the seams, all I needed was top stitch thread. Guess what? The top stitch thread rack was half empty as well!!!

Spotlight is always packed. No matter what time or what day you go there is at least a 20min wait to get served so there was no point in getting into the line that was already six people long. I went home pretty pissed off. Later that night I saw an ad on television for a 30% off sale starting Monday. What did they plan to sell? The racks were all empty!

After giving up on my jeans I knew I had to sew something. I wanted a quick fix. I want to make some green things when SWAP is done so I pulled this purple and green print knit from my stash. It was actually this fabric that got me on my purple kick a few years ago. I bought it at Sew What in Murwillumbah, which was sold and changed its name and is now closed so the fabric is rather old. The reason it has sat unsewn is because the diagonal print is a hard thing to use in a pattern.

At first I planned to make BWOF 09-2011-108http://www.burdafashion.com/fr/108_B_T-shirt/1437260-1783085-1783088-1783111.html tunic with cut on sleeves but knew the stripes wouldn't match on top of the sleeves, so then I decided to cut the pattern in half so the stripes would chevron down the front. It didn't work! No matter what way I turned the pattern I couldn't get it to work. For the second time this weekend I gave up!

I turned to my TNT Kwik Sew pattern 3338. It's XS on top blended to S at the hips and lengthened several inches. I made absolutely no attempt to match the pattern because by this afternoon I just wanted to have sewn something. Guess what? I love it. The fabric is the most luscious buttery soft rayon knit I've ever sewn with, but I will never buy a diagonal pattern again!