Blueberry Ketchup and the First Drafted Skirt Block

Have you ever made blueberry ketchup?  I'm a big fan of Chocolate Covered Katie, who spends almost all her time trying to create healthy desserts, but occasionally posts recipes for other things than desserts, like this recipe for blueberry ketchup. I like ketchup all right, but I get bored and often swap it out for Heinz 57 sauce, barbeque sauce, chipotle three cheese ranch, or if I'm out whatever they have that looks interesting, so the blueberry ketchup was something I've been thinking about making on and off since she posted the recipe. I made it a few days ago and it's been sitting the in fridge just waiting for the opportunity to be used.  Last night, Q made a late night snack run and gave me some of his fries to taste it.  I don't think anyone that only ever uses traditional ketchup is going to be sold on it, but if you're like me and like some variety, I think this is a good recipe to try.  I will make one note and that is to not skimp too much on the sugar like I did as it does need a little sweetness as mine was slightly reminiscent of A1 Steak Sauce.

I also finished the single dart skirt sloper from Building Patterns The Architecture of Woman's Clothing. I used the suggested 20 inch length and a high hip of 4 inches and a low hip of 7 1/2 inches, though the suggested is 4 1/2" and 8 1/2".  I'm just under 5' 4", but I have a very short torso for my height.

 The front 

The back

I think I need to work a little on this before I move onto the variations. The front isn't too bad.  I'm tempted to take the center waist down about 1 1/2 inches.  I've always had that weird dent across my waist at my belly button (it was even more prominent before I had kids and looks even more weird when I was thin)  and I wonder if the skirt might be better if I place the top of the skirt there, though I'll likely keep it where it is for now.  I'm using this fabric as my muslin because the dots are really too large for me to make something for my girls with and I'm not sure I'd ever wear anything made with it.

The side fits well except that the seam line down the hips is supposed to be vertical and not slanted forward from the waist to high hip.  I think I'm going to draft the skirts again and for the waist I'm going to add 1 1/4" to the front and take 1 1/4" from the back instead of the 1/4" suggested, though I wonder if I could just reduce the front darts to 1/2" and add that space to the back darts.  I also think that there is too much fabric in the back so I think I'll curve the bottom of the skirt in 1".

 

The back is actually better than it looks from the waist to low hip.  I didn't do a zipper, but just used safety pins for this opening because while I've been adding more zippers to my stash lately, I'm still getting a feel for what to stock.  The book does have you make two measurements for the right and left side to the ground, but it doesn't have you make those same measurements for any of the other measurements, like the waist to knee.  I'm going to add 1" to the right side and the center back of the left side.  

I'm planning on making these changes and another muslin before moving on to the first variation which is a yoke skirt.