Cobra

Call me Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, 'cause I've vanquished this Cobra.

I went to Jo Ann's and got a zipper and spent the afternoon putting it in. I'm crappy at sewing and never really feel like I know what I'm doing with a needle and thread. But it looks presentable. One minor problem -- the green stripes on the collar don't quite match up when it's zipped up. I'm going to wait a while and see if this still bugs me.

Had to get these pictures taken quickly while we still had some daylight. Poor Jeff -- having to put up with my art direction and complaints about shadows, how big my tummy looks at certain angles and the burning of daylight. I don't know why he puts up with me sometimes!

Sewing in zippers is not exactly fraught with peril. Get things lined up right and it's hard to go wrong. But how does one actually get started? Do you tie knots? What is the back supposed to look like and does it matter? What do you do with the extra bit of zipper tape at the top of the zipper? I folded it down and sewed the hell out of it to try and get some reinforcement in what is likely to be a highly-stressed area. Right now I'm just happy that the zipper goes up and down smoothly without catching on anything. Which is probably the point.

I had gotten it into my head that the collar was quite tall, hence the name of the pattern. Not so. In actual fact, it's a rather inconspicuous 12-row collar that's barely there at all. Turns out it's not named after the animal, the federally mandated insurance program, or, as I'm sure my friend Tom might think, a 40 oz. bottle of malt liquor.

A closer reading of the pattern reveals that it was named after a British sports car from the 1960s. That makes sense.

I'm really going to enjoy wearing this.