Pretty in Pink

I’ve had a sort of love/hate relationship with the color pink over the years. As a child I loved pink. Bubblegum pink, pastel pink and hot pink all drew my eye; I wanted to be dressed in pink, I wanted my toys to be pink and if given a color choice I preferred pink. Then I hit my tween years and suddenly pink was stupid—it was too girly and too childish. For years I avoided pink altogether; it didn’t matter what type of pink it was, if it was pink then I wanted no part of it.

I’ve finally hit a middle ground with pink and I like some pinks. I doubt pink will ever again be my favorite color, but there are times when I like certain pinks for certain things. I prefer roses, blushes and dusky pinks and I’m apt to be drawn to clothing in those more subdued pink tones.

I picked up some dusky pink sateen and decided to make a jacket with it. It was my first time sewing a jacket and putting in sleeves, and overall it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it’d be.

Of course I messed up a couple of times; part of the problem was that I didn’t fully understand the instructions before diving in and sewing. In particular the peplum at the back of the jacket I sewed incorrectly by not sewing the front and back of the peplum together first before sewing it to the rest of the jacket. That took some undoing and redoing. [Sigh.] And that’s why I like to sew garments first with cheap fabrics because I know it takes some practice for me to understand a pattern—and always gets easier the second time around.

Overall I’m happy with my jacket. I decided on using pink because I wanted a colored jacket and thought it could be a more subdued pop of color (as opposed to red).

With the rest of the pink fabric, I made a pink pleated skirt. It was my second time using this pattern, and it turned out better than it did the first time with my brown skirt (which I can now see some especially glaring errors). But when you finally notice what’s wrong with something that means you learned something, right?