I have been mad jealous of Erin’s sparkly skirt since she first posted about rocking it at a mud race. I had a 7 day old baby when she posted the first picture, and I wasn’t the paragon of awesome fitness that I am now, and had zombies, aliens, or an escaped zoo lion attacked, I’d have been the first one eaten.

Now, however, there are at least three or four people who will bite it before me in such a scenario, so I clearly deserve a glitzy skirt as well. Even so, I don’t think I’m ready for this jelly, so the skirt does double duty of being awesome and not forcing anyone to look at what’s under it instead. (FYI, this fabric is sheer, so the skirt is meant to go over capris, shorts, etc.)

Since I make stuff, I have a really hard time justifying paying $25 for a bit of elastic and confetti dot fabric, though I give major props to those who can start and run a business selling such awesome gear. I know that most people will happily fork over the dough for some blingy runwear, but if you’re like me (poor and/or crafty), I’ll show you how to make your own for about $5. (I’m sorry about the crappy iPhone photos – I’m trying to teach the 4 year old to take pictures, but it’s slow going!)

DIY Glitzy Running Skirt

You will need:

1 yard or less (depending on size – you can do some complicated math after you measure or just buy 1 yard and call it good) Confetti Dot Fabric (Wait for a sale or use a Joann’s coupon to nab this for super cheap!)

Waistband Elastic, black preferably (I used 1.5″ because that’s what they had!)

Sewing machine, thread, measuring device

Directions:

1. Measure yourself where you want the waistband of your skirt to hit. Usually a couple inches smaller than that number will get you a comfortable fit. A good way to customize for yourself is to cut the elastic to your waist measurement and then overlap it 2 inches and pin. Try it on and adjust in or out from there.

2. Once you’ve determined a comfortable waistband size, sew the overlapping ends. I sewed the living crap out of it to make it really secure, though the sparkle fabric weighs about the same as a butterfly eyelash, so it’s not under a lot of stress. (You can match your thread, I used contrasting to show the stitches.)

3. Measure your hips. A good rule of thumb for running is about 4″ of ease, so you’ll take your hips measurement (h) and add 4″ to it for cutting your fabric. You’ll need to cut two long rectangles from your fabric. I cut the selvedges off (the bits on the edges with no little mylar dots) before cutting my rectangles so that none of my skirt was unsparkled. First, cut a strip of fabric around 5.5″ tall that is the width of your hips + 4″ measurement. Depending on your size, you may need to cut two strips and sew them together along one end.

Then, cut the rest of your fabric into strips around 8-9″ tall. You’ll need at least twice your hips + 4″  measurement, so you’ll be sewing strips together, and it’s best at this point to leave it longer than you think is necessary just in case.

4. The easiest way to do the next part is to use a gathering foot for your sewing machine. There are two settings on a gathering/ ruffler foot – one that determines the depth of the gather and the other that determines how frequently the foot places a gather. The setting I used was #2 depth and #6 frequency (I believe that means every 6 stitches it puts the gather). That worked out to need just about 5 inches beyond twice my hips + 4 measurement (this is why you wait to cut it!).

Place the longer piece on the bottom, wrong side up. The shorter piece goes on top, right side up. The bottom piece should go to the right just a small amount – too much and the part that sticks up between the layers will be too tall and flop over. Sew the pieces together. Trim off any excess long piece.

If you don’t have a gathering foot, you just have a few extra steps. First, go ahead and cut your long piece to twice the length of your hips + 4 piece since you’ll be controlling the gather instead of your presser foot. Next, set your machine to the longest stitch it has. On your longer piece, run one long row of stitches about 1/2″ from the top without backstitching (you’ll remove these stitches later). You’ll find that your fabric bunches up slightly as you go – this is okay, good even. Using the threads from these basting stitches, gather the fabric even more so that the piece is the same length as your hips + 4 piece. Lay your gathered piece just over the bottom edge of the hips + 4 piece, both right sides facing you, pinning in place. Using a regular length stitch, sew the pieces together.You can remove the basting stitches at this point.

5. Fold in half long-ways, right sides together. Sew the short sides together and voila, you’ve got something that looks like a skirt! Set your sewing machine to the longest stitch length it has and run one line of stitches along the very top of the waist without backstitching (you’ll remove these stitches later!). You’ll find that as you sew, the fabric starts to bunch up. This is good! When you take it off the machine, use these basting threads to gather the edge a little more sew that it is the same circumference as your waistband. It may help to pin the skirt to the underside of the waistband at this point to help get them the same. (The picture below shows the basting stitches gathering the edge slightly.)

6. Using a 3-step zig-zag stitch, attach the skirt top to the underside of the waistband, stretching the elastic ever so slightly as you go. If you forget to 3-step zig-zag, any stretch of the elastic (like, when you put it on?) will break your stitches and your skirt will fall off the waistband halfway through your race and someone will step on it. Or step on you after you trip over the sparkly fabric around your ankles.

7. If you’re anything like me, you flew by the seat of your pants a little when you were cutting, so at this point you should probably trim up the bottom nice and even(ish), and put your awesome skirt on to make sure you like the length. If not, trim to where you feel the fastest.

8. Let loose with phrases like “shake your moneymaker” while you admire yourself in the mirror in your fabulous skirt.

There’s no denying that it’s great to fit into smaller clothes sizes – especially when you go from fitting only into plus size to being able to fit into clothes at any store. Vistas of awesome open up (don’t get me started on the infantilization of plus size clothing), and self-confidence takes a big jump.

However, some of the best changes don’t come with corresponding size numbers that drop predictably as you drop the pounds. Sometimes you reach a size where things are uncomfortable as a matter of course, where you don’t realize how awkwardly you (don’t) fit into normal spaces until suddenly you do again. So, here is my (by no means exhaustive) list of how far 36+ lbs have taken me. I’m sure it will grow as that number grows – I can’t wait to see what other awesome it will include!

• A regular bath towel fits around me
• My butt fits into my molded plastic office chair from Ikea
• My butt also fits into our deck chairs
• I can get my wedding rings over my knuckle – they’re not comfy yet, but they go on
• I’m no longer wearing any maternity clothes
• I can sit in the bathtub without any part of me touching the sides
• My Freehand (baby carrier) buckles easily around my waist
• When I take an iPhone self-portrait, I can take it straight on instead of only from way up high. Come on. You know what I’m talking about.

And!! I’m not up to #13 nationally from #19 last week! There are a bunch of us sitting neck and neck with 4 weeks to go, so now I just have to have better weeks than the rest of them!

I keep wanting to update – there are so many things I want to say! Life, it keeps popping up and being inappropriately taxing.

So, the challenge continues and I am rocking it. I am currently sitting at #1 in the club and #19 nationally! The new rankings that include our weigh in today go up tomorrow morning, and I am always anxious in this 24 hours between weighing in and knowing where I stand. As of today, I’ve lost 36.3lbs, and today’s weigh in puts me 1.3lbs below my starting pregnancy weight for Wiley, so I HAVE LOST THE PREGNANCY WEIGHT FOR ALL CHILDREN.

SERIOUSLY.

In other news,  I now fit into clothes at regular stores, so I took the opportunity to try out something I’ve been wanting to try since doing the first incarnation of my Couch to 5K – a skirt from Skirt Sports!

My workout clothes were starting to fall off, and my grandma sent me some birthday money, so off to Boulder I went for a try-on. I could have fit (even at my largest size) into the XXL, but no stores carry it, and I wanted to try on in person. I felt optimistic enough to think that I might be able to make it into XL, so I went! I tried the Gym Girl Ultra, the Happy Girl, and the Lotta Breeze Capri. I CAN’T WAIT to try their new Adventure Girl skirt for when I ditch the treadmill – anyone have one??

First, they were all SO COMFORTABLE. As soon as I had them on, I knew I could run in them – they made me WANT to run in them! I think that in another 30lbs, I’ll feel better in the Gym Girl, but for now my best bets were the Happy Girl and the Lotta Breeze. The Happy Girl is just a smidge longer – enough to just give you the tiniest bit more confidence if you’re not used to showing leg, and yet still short enough to be a running skirt. I ended up going with the Lotta Breeze, because I felt the most comfortable in it with the way my body is at this moment. I’m so much stronger, and my legs have some pretty rocking definition (especially the calves!), but I’m still not anywhere near where I want to be. I love that the skirts didn’t feel like skinny people clothing just graded up to a larger size. It seems like they really have an idea of what a woman’s body requires in terms of flattering, so I’ve seen them look awesome on tiny people as well as the more zaftig among us, namely me.

I had to take a fitting room picture because I couldn’t believe that I was there buying a running skirt in regular old XL and looking…dare I say…good in it. What do you think? Does it make me look fast?

As important as looks are, it wouldn’t be worth the (slightly hefty) price tag if it didn’t perform, and I’m thrilled to tell you that I haven’t run in anything else since buying it! My biggest problem with the other things I’ve run in is that they tend to fall down unless they’ve got a drawstring as tight as it goes – I have no idea why. It is hard enough for me to knock out a couple miles without having to hitch up my drawers every eleven steps. I was worried because there are no drawstrings, but my worry was unnecessary. Not only do my capris stay up, they stay exactly where they’re supposed to. The capris stay in their spot and don’t creep up or down, and the waist fits perfectly and I’ve not had any problem with it rolling (hello, problem that fat people have) or sagging or falling. I’ve run every other day, so in this short time they’ve gotten a lot of laundry action, and they’re still just as awesome as when I brought them home.

I love that I can run without expending extra energy on whether or not my sweaty wedgie is at a critical level or not. Honestly, I need all of my energy to keep my feet moving and not fall down. I’m now up to week 4 in the Bridge to 10K, so I’m doing three intervals of 18 minutes running with 2 one-minute walk breaks between them, and between my Lotta Breeze Capris and episodes of True Blood on my iPad, I’m making it work.

PS: I bought them at Outdoor Divas in Boulder, and I cannot recommend them enough. I feel like this stray fat person who accidentally walked into a sporting store, and I’m still worried half the time that I’m not going to fit into anything and that people are looking at me like what is SHE doing here?? I know this is me and not anybody else’s problem, but it haunts me. The staff at Outdoor Divas was so kind and helpful, and when I came out of the fitting room a little nervous and unsure as to whether or not I could really rock these capris, they were honest and one even said it made her want to try some on, herself! Love them, and will definitely be back.

90 Day Challenge Stats:

(Feb 5th – April 10th)

Pounds lost: 36.3

Miles on my shoes: 102.45

Bra Size: 42DD – 38C

(I added this last one because OMG.)

I didn’t update last week because we had a friend visiting.

Our friend RSV is such a nasty houseguest that he brought along his gross buddy Bronchiolitis who brought along his PITA buddy Oxygen Tank. They all wanted to play with my kids, my 2 year old especially. They’re all bitches.

So, the weigh in just before we were descended upon by the sicks was pretty good. I lost straight up 4lbs, and went in the national rankings from #169 the previous week to #104. At the club, I went from #5 to #3.I got measured by my trainer, and in the month of the challenge so far, I’ve lost 4.7% body fat! Insane!

This week, I only missed a strength workout because of a very long day spent at our pediatrician and then Children’s Hospital (plus my dinner that night of cookies and two microwave chicken nuggets courtesy of a 7-11 snack run and the hospital meals for my two kiddos who eat solid food – I got the leftovers). My weigh in was pretty rocktastic with a loss of 5.3lbs, and moving in the rankings from #104 nationally to #52! I’m still 3rd in the club, but I’m less than 1 percentage point off of #1, and a little elementary school math tells me that unless she’s 5’2″, she doesn’t have all that much to lose! And even if she is 5’2″, I’m still going to beat her.

I can tell there is less of me. The baby carrier that I had to practically bisect myself to buckle (that really was so tight that I have no idea how the buckle even held, or how I held my breath that long) now buckles easily. It’s still on the outermost setting, but I’m not having to harm myself putting it on. The bath towel goes further around me, and I closet shopped and now all my old workout wear fits – just plain old XL instead of XXL or XXXL or HEY FATTY, THIS SHIRT’S FOR YOU! It’s hard to know how many sizes I’ve lost because I was wearing clothes that were too tight, so who knows what the right size was. The stuff that wasn’t too tight was 75% made up of maternity, and my kid is almost 5 months old. So yeah. There’s that.

I ran today’s 25 minute end of week 6 in my brand new running shoes. I loved my old ones, but the tread was sad. Well. It would have been sad if there were any left.

I tried on eleventy pairs and had the gait testing and all that jazz to make sure I’m in the right kind of shoe for me, and wouldn’t you know that I ended up in the updated version of my same shoe? I went from the Saucony Progrid Guide 3 to Guide 5. I am nothing if not predictable!

(We all got new Saucony’s yesterday!)

I’m in pretty desperate need of some new music ideas. I have been hitting skip on my songs a ton – which means I have to turn around my phone and see how many minutes I have left. Never a good idea. Today I skipped at the end until The Donnas brought me home, and maybe I need more of them in my life. I have too many things that aren’t quite fast enough. I do not want to be not quite fast enough.

90 Day Challenge Stats:

(Feb 5th – Mar 7th)

Pounds lost: 18.7

Miles on my shoes: 51.43

Well. I posted when I lost 9lbs, so I ought to put on my big girl panties and post when I lost POINT FOUR.

I’m not sure what the deal was this week. I was well within points, and I worked out every single day. Okay. I lie. Maybe I know what was up. Maybe I sucked at drinking enough water, and maybe that bit about not losing if you don’t eat enough is coming into play, even though it sounds like total bullshit of the highest order. I also ate cereal for breakfast instead of eggs (I am so bored of eggs, what else do you eat that’s protein-rich in the AM? Suggestions? Recipes? Favorite things?), so even though it was whole grain and no HFCS, it was still…well…frosted. I admit it. Frosted.

In better news, I am LOVING doing the strength portion of my workouts every other day. I was all set to brag in this weekly update about how I jogged for 5 minutes straight on Monday now that I’m up to week 4 of the Couch to 5K, but then I took my angst over the Tuesday weigh in and channeled it something fierce into W4D2 today. It’s supposed to be intervals of 3 minutes jogging, 1.5 minutes walking, 5 minutes jogging, 2.5 minutes walking, and then repeat once.

I was really nervous about the 5 minutes when I did day 1, but I handled it and I was actually looking forward to today. I get on the treadmill and I feel really good. Taller. I have no idea why, but I did. I was into my walking warmup and I was at the speed I’m always at and it felt slow and my heart rate was at what my resting rate was a couple weeks ago. I remember thinking how funny it was that before I’d turn it on to that speed and be surprised at how fast it felt and here I was feeling like it was slow.

I do the 3 minute jog interval and I felt like I could keep going, so I did. Then I just kept not stopping, and I jogged through the whole thing for a total of 24 minutes. TWENTY FOUR  MINUTES.

I’m not sure who this person is, but I’ll take her.

90 Day Challenge Stats:

(I thought it would be fun to keep track of pounds, inches, and miles my feet have carried me!)

Pounds lost: 9.4

Miles on my shoes: 34.32

NINE. That’s how many pounds I lost this week. (Okay, close to 9 – I don’t know my exact starting number because it was given to me rounded, so it may be eight point something, but omg NINE!)

I am irritated because while most clubs seem to have gotten their shit together and had people’s numbers input wherever so that the leaderboards counted them, mine did not, so my number is still zero. A lady posted on their Facebook wall asking how many women were in the challenge, as she was #190 or something (not really, since not all clubs are represented, but we’ll let her have that). Even being #190 was a huge motivation for her to kick it up this week, and it’s pissing me off fairly hardcore that they dropped the ball. Competition is a HUGE motivator for me.

Really, week one isn’t that big of a deal. Everybody’s excited, motivated, and if they’re drinking their water and eating better they’re going to have a nice big loss to get them moving. What matters is week five and week nine and week eleven when shit’s getting old and you don’t really want to go to the gym and instead how about getting a pizza. As we go on there’s the natural attrition rate for any kind of challenge like this, plus the smaller people who are going to run out of weight to lose. The fat people like me are the competition. And, you know, are they going to be motivated in week nine? The ones who have been eating crap as bad or worse than me, who have been sedentary as long or longer than me? The ones who work full time and are tired of going to the gym and why don’t we just order lunch from Panera. And they’re going to drop. The real test is when we get closer to the end, who is still going to be eating great and working their asses off? They’re my competition. Bring it, bitches, because I’m coming.

I feel pretty good about the week. I was probably 90% where I wanted to be with my eating, including on my birthday (Valentine’s Day!) which is double hard because it involved standing in front of a veritable cupcake smorgasbord at my son’s preschool Valentine party. I kind of crapped out on my workouts over the weekend because we had a stomach bug, but I sort of kick ass for having a puking kid and realizing that I was starting to feel sick and deciding to hurry up and at least get my Couch to 5K run in before I started puking myself. Win!

Tomorrow, I do Week 3, Day 2, and I will say that I had very little hope of jogging for 3 minutes straight after my craptastic W2D3 performance. I did that run after my strength workout while trying to get everything back in order after missing a day from the pukes, and that was an enormous mistake. My legs were like WTF? We just did that and now you want us to jog? I finished it (barely), and now that Courtney the trainer of awesome has added a BUNCH of extra strength, I feel like my C25K days and my strength days are weighted pretty evenly in terms of effort. I dialed down the speed and surprised the hell out of myself with W3D1, so I’m planning to surprise the hell out of myself tomorrow, too and have a run of awesome.

Also, I got running socks. And holy balls, these must be spun from the armpit hair of unicorns or something, because I have never in my life paid so much for three pairs of socks, but so far they are totally worth it. No more wacky blistery thing going on, no more slippy, much more support. Plus, they were clearly magic running socks that got me through three minute intervals with only minor huffing and one or two puffs.

I started weight training today! I feel it in a big way, even though I didn’t feel like I did all that much. I can’t wait until Friday when it’s the next weight training day! I can’t wait until next week when I’m like, “Hey, Courtney!” (trainer of AWESOME!) “Can we add some more??”

For some reason, I’m less gung-ho about tomorrow, the start of week 2 in the Couch to 5K. It’s only 90 seconds on the runs, and even when I was first starting this time, I added some extra time and extra runs. I don’t know why it’s worrying me. I was to the point where I jogged for 30 minutes without stopping last time.

Okay, I’m lying. I know why it’s worrying me. It’s the first time I will progress, the first time (of many) where it will probably feel hard and I will probably have to push through. I’m not a stranger to pushing through – part of the weight I’m carrying is from my three babies – but until that momentum gets going, it’s not easy to feel like you can do it – even if you’ve got loads of confidence and are feeling great with the working out and eating well.

So, maybe somebody will need to fistpump with me when I complete the next run.

To give me some extra motivation, and because this is still week 1, I am going to list a few of my goals that are non-scale related. Even though the contest is won by losing the highest percentage of body weight, the contest is also won by everyone who sticks with it and reaches their goals.

Non-scale Goals for the 90 Day Challenge:

• I want a regular bath towel to fit around me.
• I want to jog the entire 5K on May 1st (one of the 90 day events)
• I want to wear out this pair of running shoes
• I want to fit into a running skirt from Skirt Sports
• I want the waist strap on my Freehand baby carrier to not be on the farthest out setting and still then only closing by the grace of God.
• I want to fit into the sweater my best friend knitted me

And of course, I want to WIN. I’m going to need the money to get all new clothes, right?

I am a smidge on the competitive side. The first sweater I ever knit (after never knitting any scarves or normal things that one starts with) was the Rogue hoodie (closed cables!). The first quilt I made wasn’t nice blocks of machine-sewn whatever, but almost four thousand hand stitched hexagons. I still remember the word I went out on in the sixth grade district spelling bee (reservoir, and I knew it, I was just going too fast and once you say a letter you can’t go back). I’m apparently also still defending myself over it (And I still remember that Sarah M. won! I didn’t even know her then!). Moving on.

My desire to win could accurately be described as burning with the heat of a thousand suns. No pressure, right? I say all this to explain why there will be adult content on the blog. If you object to swearing of the exuberant kind, swearing of the frustrated kind, swearing of the gratuitous kind, probably you should skip the posts soon to be forthcoming.

So there I am on the treadmill, finished up with week 1 day 2 of the Couch to 5K, but I kept going because I both had more time to use and I’m not sure how to use the weight machines yet. I had all my crappy music playing (truly, wonderfully crappy music), and I was looking at the bunches of stinky people around me on this super full Sunday. There were lots of fit-looking people, a bunch of dudes (who are not my competition), and a few women who were looking like they needed to lose enough weight to be in the challenge seriously. I made sure I was working harder than they were.

It was a great run-ish thing today – I felt strong and capable. I found my speed sweet spot for the runs and I had the hardest time not doing the gym fist pump when all my runs were finished. I was just shy of 500 calories burned when I hit 59 minutes, so I cranked up the speed and raced it – and hit the 500 calories before the hour was up.

I took a picture when I hit 5K, and I’ll use it as my baseline. Since it’s the first week, I only ran about 10 minutes out of the whole time, so I figure that I’ll have some great progress by the end of the challenge since the time is sooooo sloooooow right now. Still, I’m fucking impressed as all get out with myself. I know it’s only day 1, but I’ve been chomping at the bit since joining the gym and finding out about the challenge. I wanted to wait to get started training and eating better because I didn’t want to waste any of my weight loss before it counted. Now that I can let it go, I feel like I’m flying. (Even though I’m more like plodding. Slowly. Fatly.)

So here’s my slow, fat first day 5K. Watch it get faster with me. Watch me take these bitches down. (I mean, I hope they lose a lot of weight and feel really awesome and wonderful, but Imma take them down anyway. Sorry, bitches!)

God, at least I hope so.

Tomorrow I begin the 90 day weight loss challenge at my gym. I will admit that the biggest draw of the gym was the fact that they offer 2 hours per day of childcare included in your membership. I have three children. There are anywhere from 28-31 days in a month. That is a lot of me time, I have to tell you. And the membership fee (that includes access to the club, almost all the classes, and family hours in the pools and gymnasium) is like miniscule when you add in the child care. It’s like the equivalent cost of someone watching the three of them for a few hours one day. I kid you not.

Anyway. The 90 day weight loss challenge.

I am really fat.

It is not my genes, it is not my thyroid, it is not a serious mystery medical condition due for its own special on TLC. It is the fact that I don’t exercise and I eat my weight in Little Debbie.

So, when I joined and found out that within just a few weeks they were starting this weight loss challenge, I figured that I ought to go ahead and win it. I am the perfect storm of factors that put me in line for this particular crown. Like I said, I’m really fat, so I have a lot to lose and fat people tend to lose big chunks of it more quickly at first. I’ve lost weight successfully before (over 60lbs, kept it off a long time, though this is my highest weight by about 55lbs), and just before getting pregnant with baby girl, I completed the Couch to 5K program. I was fat then, too, and it gave me incredible amounts of confidence as well as the absolute knowledge that I can do it again.

Plus, they’ll take care of my kids for 2 hours every day. I will happily run on a treadmill and lift a bunch of weights and crunch my stomach off if somebody is watching my children and I can also use that time to think a complete thought and not wipe anyone else’s butt. Seriously.

Even though I am of course going to knock it out of the park and win the whole thing, I am still going to need motivation and to remember just exactly why I am doing this. So, here’s a list that I can go back to when I feel like crap and want to eat an entire cake.

1. I want to be strong. I remember when I was nearing the end of the C25K, I would see my arm moving to close the car door and just feel like that was the strongest arm ever. (And remember, I ran it on my legs, so who the heck knows why it translated to the arms, but it did!) I felt so good and so fit, and I was still about 75lbs overweight.

2. I have a daughter now. I know it’s important to model a healthy relationship with food and exercise to boys, but it seems just so much more urgent now that I have a baby girl. I do not want her to remember her mom as being morbidly obese. I do not want her to remember her mom being on a diet. I do not want her to see foods as guilty things or hidden things or things you gorge upon when sad or stressed or overwhelmed. I want her to see her mom make good choices, enjoy exercise, eat treats in moderation. I don’t want her to know that McDonalds is a restaurant that gives out toys.

3. I want the energy and clarity of mind to deal with my children in a peaceful and patient way. It’s hard to do that when you have barely any self-esteem and you’re fat and uncomfortable and exhausted. No amount of red velvet cake fixes this deficit. A strong body and a healthy mind (2 hours a day!) will go a long way toward helping me reach this goal.

In order to win, I need a big percentage of weight lost in this 90 days. In order to do that, I’m going to take advantage of the exercises available to me for 2 hours every day, and nix all the junk. I’m not going to go no carb or super low carb or any of the other “diets” that might jeopardize my milk supply for baby girl and my ability to run or crunch or lift. I’m going to feed my body good foods in appropriate quantities and work my ass off. After the 90 days, my goal is to taper into a nice 1-2lbs per week rate of loss until I hit my goal and then maintain. Because this initial 90 days is going to be incredibly difficult, I’m going to need some help. I’m going to need to talk about it. I’d love the accountability that comes with people knowing I’m doing this. It would be super fun to just suddenly turn up in 90 days like, “Oh, you think I’ve lost weight? I’ve just been popping over to the gym and eating a few less cupcakes, no big.” In reality, it is very big. This is big big big.

So tomorrow is my “before,” and they weigh me and measure me and send me forth into the gym with a written plan and the tools to set this thing in motion. What I do with it is all me. Care to join me in May for a victory lap?

Before:

I am about four hundred different flavors of thrilled because I get to teach my most favoritest thing ever at the coolest fabric and yarn shop this side of the Mississippi – Fancy Tiger Crafts!

Grace started it, so I blame her. She posted this amazing quilt from the 1930′s showcased at the Nebraska Historical Society. I had some tangential knowledge of paper piecing – enough to know it when I saw it – and I piped up and said, “Oh, yeah! English paper piecing, totally easy! You could recreate that quilt with a bit of graph paper, no sweat. You don’t even need a pattern!” Well, there I went putting my foot in it, and I could. not. stop. thinking about that quilt top. So much so that I ran out and bought a jelly roll at Joann’s and started piecing using YouTube videos and scattered tutorials. I weeded through hard-to-find resources, figured things out with trial and error, and ended up with basically the coolest thing I’ve ever made.

It was actually my first real quilt – so easy – and yet so, so impressive. Admit it, you’re impressed, right? All of those 3/4″ hexagons hand pieced together to make a twin-bed sized quilt. Whatever. I’m impressed enough with myself for everybody! I only hope that my sweet baby girl will like it when she is big and will feel all the love that went into it for her. I was pregnant at the time, and it seemed only natural to make this complex and beautiful thing while I was making another complex and beautiful thing.

So, if you’d like to impress yourself with your mad skillz and create something that even sewing and quilting people will drool over, come take my class! The best part is that the project is infinitely portable – I carry what I’m working on in a tiny makeup bag, needs only a few supplies, can use up all of your cool scraps that you can’t bear to throw away because they are Heather Ross mushrooms or Kaffe Fassett crazy prints and you are sure there is a project to use the 1″ strip you’ve got left. Well, here’s your project!

I’ll be teaching 3 sessions this spring – one in March, April, and May! You’ll learn to choose fabrics, design your own original quilt, piece a star out of hexagons, and applique it to a tote or garment (or you can use your applique skills to put it on an applique border once you’ve finished your truly epic quilt top). Plus, you can bring scraps of your own for the class or use scraps provided by Fancy Tiger – and you know that means scraps of their stellar store stock. Be there or be square!

Sign up for the class here!!

Because I am a lunatic, I’ve started a project with 1/4″ hexagons. They are tiny, tiny little beasts, but once you gain the confidence from the bigger hexes, you can do ANYTHING – even make a queen size quilt with hexagons the size of green peas. And by “you” I mean that general “you” that actually only means me, because who else is this crazy?