When your cup of tea saves you

Project weekend is to make a little dress from an op-shopped picnic tablecloth.

Friday I took the red gingham tablecloth with ric-rac trim and embroidery detail, about 90cm square, from the stash cupboard. 

Wish my unpicker really did work by itself...

My heart wanted to be lazy and cut out the dress pattern without removing ric-rac trim.  My head told me that was a bad idea so I duly picked off the trim - and that baby did not come off easily, took nearly half an hour of stitch by stitch unpicking.  I even decided to dunk the trim in a bit of bleach just to make sure it was nice and white for the finished product.

For some reason I left the gingham fabric (now sans trim) on the kitchen bench while I was cooking, I opened a tin of tomatoes and of course tomato juice sprayed on most things in the kitchen, including me, but somehow mysteriously missing the fabric.  After a quick inspection in poor light I decided the fabric had missed serious damage and I removed it to the more safe location of the dining table.

I spent Saturday morning negotiating the tricky business of cutting out the dress front and back with reasonable placement of the embroidered sections of the tablecloth.  The dress front was OK (you have to start somewhere), but the dress back piece eventually had to be made of two separate panels with a joining seam down the middle.  I cut one side out, then pinned the pattern for the other side and was just sitting back for a sip of my cuppa when I realised...at that very moment I was just a few seconds away from disaster. I had forgotten to flip the pattern for the second dress back piece!  Whoa!  I still cannot believe that all lightbulbs and alarm bells went off in my head at that exact moment - I say thanks to my cup of tea.  Maybe there is something about those anti-oxidants and what not in tea afterall? Another cup anyone?