I rule!

When I was still in the active duty Army, I had long hair. Army regulations (it's a PDF, and the regulations about female hair are on pages four and five) require that females not have their hair go below the bottom edge of their uniform collar and not interfere in putting on or wearing a protective (aka gas) mask. So I put my long hair up in a bun, but I always wished I knew how to French braid my hair because I love how that looks. Years later, when I was in the Reserves, I grew my hair long again and tried a few times to braid my hair myself but failed miserably. So I’d go to my hair stylist’s house early on drill days and pay her to braid it.

That got old, and also expensive. I remember one week in January I was frustrated with myself for not being able to braid my damn hair. We’d had a box of fresh Florida grapefruit given to us for Christmas and since I was the only one who really loved them and there were far too many for me to eat before they went bad, I’d juiced up a bunch to make Greyhounds. I sat in the family room watching some show I don’t remember, sipping my drink and fuming over my hair. Enough was enough, I thought. I was earning all sorts of academic awards and honors in college but couldn’t figure out how to braid my hair?? That was just crazy! And that night I taught myself to French braid my hair.

Today I figured out my serger and I did it without drinks. I won’t say I’ve mastered it but I did get a wearable, usable garment out of it—the purple sweater I moaned about here. And I’m pretty happy with the results, even if the process was more painful than it needed to be.

Basically, I cut apart every seam in the garment except the shoulder seams and then I serged them all back together again. That means I took out about ¾ inch in every single seam—and the finished garment is not too small. I had already taken out a lot of width in the pattern when I cut out because I didn’t have enough fabric. Altogether, I cut my version of this top a good 10 inches smaller around than the size I should have cut according to the pattern directions and sizing charts.

But all’s well that ends fairly well. I’d post a picture but Kent is heads down working on work stuff and my efforts at self-portraits generally stink.