Thirty-some years ago, someone showed me a sewing machine. I was allowed to make a few seams. Fast forward to 2007, and my true-love cleverly gave me a novice-friendly sewing machine for my birthday.

Having experimented with modifying a canvas blazer, I obtained some cotton twill, and set forth with the X-kilt instructions. Other novices take heart: while I have some mechanical inclinations, I have to count my fingers before using power tools, to be sure I end up with the same number when finished.

I found at first that a 2-by-4 foot drawing table is not necessarily the best place to iron and organize a 5-by-12 foot piece of fabric. However, I had it on hand, having built it for other reasons, and that's where I had set up the sewing machine in my underground Fortress of Solitude [a.k.a. the basement where SWMBO dares not tread---because it's too full of stuff].



Once the cutting was done, though, the table came into its own. That steel ruler on the edge turns out to be very handy with the trusty framing square as well as for measurements. How clever of me to have put it there 20-odd years ago!



If I keep the fabric rolled somewhat neatly, the job progresses nicely through sewing many pleat edges.

[ more to come ]