This is beautiful.  I'd love to see what it looks like on a head.

I love this too.  I've been trying to think of a good way to store my necklaces too.  I hate the look of a large jewelry box and this keeps everything untangled too.  I am now on the search for a large shadowbox.

Thanks for posting

That looks awsome,  Great yarn choice.  I've been trying to figure out what to do with my recycled yarn and this looks like a nice project.

caeebe

These are great.  If you do figure out how to explain it I would love directions.  I haven't made any amigurumi yet but I've been seeing lots of items that would look great on an xmas tree.  This looks cute and simple to start with (and I have appropriate yarn).  I guess I'll have to try and wing it too. 

Thanks for posting

The yarn depot is actually called The Yarn Outlet but it is still a good yarn shop.  The lady behind the counter is not particularly friendly nor are their hours particularly accessible but it is still a fun shop.  Peter Patchis yarns is a very odd place.  They are on the second floor of a warehouse and it is a bit hard to find.  The one time I visited (looking for needles and to browse) they looked shocked to see me like they hadn't had a customer in years (not kidding) I started to browse but I was so uncomfortable since they hadn't even greeted me but kept giving me sly glances like they didn't understand what I was doing in their space (it didn't feel like a shop)  I asked if they had any needles since I needed a size 7 circular.  They didn't seem to know what circulars were and took me to their "needles stand" that literally only held needles from the 70s.  I talked to some other knitters in RI and it turns out that they mostly market to the machine knitter and they have yarn on cones.  I haven't been back.

I just spiral bound a different paperback book at Staples last week.  That book had nearly 1in margins but I didn't need that much space.  The book was about half as thin as the stitch and bitch books and it cost about 4:50.  My happy hooker book barely has a margin so I don't know how well it would work.  I'll explain what exactly the staples guy did to my book.  First he had to cut off the spine.  They had this massive paper cutter machine that went through the whole book.  This is the step that I think would be most subject to operator error.  It would be possible for cutter to cut into your text and remove valuable parts of your book if they aren't paying attention.  Once your book is a set of loose pages they have to hole punch it for the spiral binding.  They have a special machine for hole punching and they had to do a few pages of the book at a time so this was the lengthiest step (about 3-4 minutes).  I just measured my book and the deep edge of the holes goes  about 5/16in (about 7.5mm) into the book.  Then they just slide the plastic spiral through all the holes (they have a machine for this too).  My book only seems to have a 10mm margin so I haven't decided to have this done yet.  The staples people would have to only cut off 2mm of the spine for me to be willing to have it spiral bound since mine hasn't broken yet.  I'd love to hear if other people have successfully done this with their happy hooker books.

I suggest the lacy wristwarmers (also my next project)

For tops, measure your high bust (http://simplicity.com/index.cfm?page=section/fittips/howmeas.htm) and use that as the bust measurement if you take a B-cup or larger. Then you can just taper out the the waist size as needed (and adjust the bust with a full-bust (or small bust) adjustment if needed). 

I always see statements like this "for B-cup or larger" but then never see explanations of what to do when you are smaller then a B-cup.  Is there the assumption that small chested women are going to buy a padded bra to fill -in? or is there some obvious fix for things that doesn't need explanation?

I'm a newbie sewer so I'm not sure how much help I can be.  You said the skirt is still large on you so my suggestion is that if you have enough space you could take it in evenly right down the center.  This would make the skirt smaller and pull the pleats in.  I have plenty of clothes that have seams down the center front so I think this would work with looking wonky.  Other than the wide pleats your skirt looks great.

I also just made a skirt and I think I over estimated the size a bit too.  I was between sizes so I went up despite the fact that the pattern listed a couple of inches of ease at the waist.  Who want ease at the waist of a skirt?  How does it stay up if there is ease there?  Luckily my skirt was a wrap skirt and all I had to do was was move the buttons in.

Good luck

I know people who have spiral bound their paperback knitting books so that they would lay flat when opened.  I don't know how much of a margin is needed though.  They just went to a print shop like Kinkos and paid somewhere around $10 for this service.  Does anyone know how much of a margin is needed to do this?