NO! NO! NO!

I'm a quilter.  I've mentioned that, right?

What I'm not is a seamstress.  I know I've mentioned THAT to a few of you.

So why did I let myself get talked into making a costume for my friend, Paula?  Well, I'm still trying to figure that one out.  Maybe it was because it looked really cool.  Here's a pic:

Anyhoo.  I said yes.  Then I started shopping.  I found shiny yellow fabric at Joann's.  Then I found some spidery-like black fabric to drape over it.  I bought tulle in black and lemon.  I bought non-curl elastic for the waistband.

Everything arrived and I figured I'd better try to measure my subject.  Have I mentioned that I haven't the slightest idea what I'm doing?

I measured her shoulders, underarms, waist, length of torso and length of skirt.  For some reason, I never measured her bust.

So I'm at home trying to construct a top with missing measurements.  I freaked out and stopped.  Here's when I thought that I could just bring the material to work and pin it straight to her body.  Yep.  Professional.

She agreed to have a sleeveless top (thank you, Paula!) and so I brought the material back home to make a tube.  When I tried it on her, it fit!  Yippee!  It's a miracle!

So now we are at 4 weeks into constructing the costume.  It's getting down to the wire.  I've now measured the elastic waistband straight on her body and I know I have to finish this pronto.

I get the black spidery-like material sewed onto the yellow stretchy stuff and here's what I have now:

Debating on whether or not to add little droopy sleeves.  Not REAL sleeves, of course.  I don't make clothing.

So when that was finally finished, I sewed the waistband together.  That went pretty smooth.  I mean, I sewed two ends together.  How could it go wrong?  Woo-hoo!  I'm on a roll.  So I pull out my tulle.  I bought a huge roll of both black and yellow.  They were each 6" x 25 yards EACH.  I figured I was gonna have tulle coming out my butt.  I mean, HELLO!  50 yards of tulle.

Here it is cut into strips:

As I'm tying the tulle onto the waistband, the kitties are helping.

Believe me when I say that this was VERY helpful.

So yeah.  I get those boatloads of tulle attached to the waistband and here's where I am:

I'm not even halfway done.  Apparently I'm going to need 150 yards of tulle to finish it.  Holy cow!  I had no idea.  So back to Joann's I went.  And guess what?

Chicken butt.

Just kidding.

They have the black tulle, but no yellow.  So I went to Hobby Lobby.  Hobby Lobby doesn't open on Sundays so that their employees can have time with their family.  Really?  So then I went to Michael's.  Michael's did not have yellow tulle either.  But they did have these great boxes that were 50% off.  Win/win.

I ended up having to order the tulle from Amazon.  So I guess I'm done until Tuesday.  Thank goodness for Prime 2-day shipping.

So in closing for now ... I say again - I DO NOT MAKE CLOTHING.

I am never ever ever going to attempt this again.

Silky fabric ... difficult to work with.

Spidery-like fabric with giant holes in it ... difficult to work with.

Tulle ... difficult to work with (mainly due to it all sticking together and the cut ends getting caught on each other).

UGH.