Inverted Double box pleated skirt – Pleats are stitched down from the waistband

One day I was just surfing the web and happen to see this Donna Karan Abstract-Print Pleated Skirt [http://www.saksfifthavenue.com/main/ProductDetail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524446791620&site_refer=AFF001&mid=13816&siteID=Hy3bqNL2jtQ-Z42Nm8bUfEJIK6rMjwHdUQ&LScreativeid=1&LSlinkid=10&LSoid=347839].

I fell in love with this Skirt and wanted one for myself. But I cannot buy it as it is too high in cost. So I searched a pattern for box pleat skirt and found this lovely lady at http://wardrobedysfunction.blogspot.com/2014/07/wonderful-pleated-skirt-instructions.html. I followed her instructions and made a skirt for myself. I altered the single box pleat of the pattern to double box pleat because the Donna Karan Pleated Skirt had double box pleats.

 Follows the photos of my journey in making the skirt.

Finished skirt:

Transferring the pattern to the fabric:

Inverted Pleats are stitched down from the waistband:

Invisible zipper attached:

Making and pining the double box pleats:

Sewn an invisible waist band and finished with a single stitch around the skirt to hold down the pleats.

The peacock

This magnificent male peacock was walking on a foot path next to the lodge we were staying near Yala national park. In the Yala peacocks can be seen in abundance. This one posed for us. We waited him to show off his feathers but we guess  he was not in the mood … J

Trip to 'YALA' – The second Largest wild life reserve forest in Sri Lanka.

Our office annual trip was over and great memories remain. We were taken to the second largest wild life reserve forest in Sri Lanka named ‘Yala’. It is 378 sq miles.There was no rain for about five months to this forest so not so greenly. But wild life was abundant.

The safari jeeps…

A great tree … Species is ‘Ficus benghalensis’

The first to appear was an elephant. It came so close may be a feet from our jeep and made us absolutely speech less. We were even afraid to click photos. Follows some shots of him. It received a watermelon from my colleagues …

Then came the wild buffalo with it’s great horns. Those horns are about 2 feet long each.

Then some pelicans … and a crocodile. Water levels are very less in these water reserves in the forest since lack of rain.

Eagles … such magnificent birds.

Butterflies were plentiful. Follows only 2 of them…

There were many deer, but at one time we saw a large heard of about 200 …

The only wild rabbit we saw…

Some of other birds we were able to capture with our weak cameras.

Then the greatest surprise happened. The jeep in front of us was stopped and they were signaling us to be silent and pointing their fingers toward the jungle. And we searched for few minutes before we spotted the object of their attention. It was a leopard. The species name is ‘Sri Lankan Leopard’. It was about 100 meters away from the jeeps and was snarling and running in to the forest. Our cameras were not good enough to capture the true beauty of that magnificent animal.

After that there was three more elephants before we reached the end of the route. It was memorable. 

Pillow cases for an aunt of mine

One of my dear aunts asked me to embroider six pillow cases for her. Simple embroidery I had done on five of them are following…

For the sixth one I ironed glued butterflies given by a dear friend …