I haven’t managed to buy new needles for the sewing machine yet so haven’t got much further on the latest project. Thanks all for the advice and encouragement! I will definitely try out different needles with this fabric and the petroleum jelly trick.

However it occurred to me that this dress isn’t particularly ambitious in that it doesn’t incorporate any techniques. There’s a lot of advice out there that you should try something new with every project, but I find I actually enjoy doing the same things a few times in a row because I definitely improve each time. It’s so satisfying to eventually produce a garment where everything lines up nicely and neatly. (I have managed this exactly once so far, on my fourth version of McCalls 5799, the world’s simplest A-line shift dress so I am certainly not claiming to be any sort of perfectionist – it’s just nice when it does work out.)

Years ago I was told that a good dressmaking exercise for beginners is to take a simple pattern and make it five or six times, altering it slightly each time. The lady who was giving this advice started with a basic blouse and did a sleeveless version, a wrap version, a couple of others I don’t remember, and ended up with a shirt-dress. It’s a great idea – pity I don’t wear blouses. But maybe it would work with a dress with a waist seam – you could do a sleeveless version, add sleeves, turn it into a skirt by taking the bottom half and putting a waistband on, and then there are collar and neckline variations. Anyone out there done that? Did you get bored? I’m wondering if I have a dress pattern in my collection that would lend itself to this. It might be a good way to reduce the fabric stash as well.

Anyway I should stop procrastinating and start cutting out what I’m working on right now. And buy needles. And, erm, fabric for the Vogue fall 2010 patterns I ordered because somehow I have nothing in the stash that goes with them.