Uma

100gsm is light for a pastedown, especially anything coated. 120-140gsm text weight with the grain right is far more forgiving while you're learning.

Getting dressed between steps is the low-effort version of the wait. Serum, get dressed, sunscreen, brush teeth, done.

You're stretching it, and reducing pressure alone rarely fixes cotton-lycra. Three things together sort it out for me.

Drop the presser foot pressure further than feels right. Most machines go much lower than people try and the feed dogs still move the fabric.

Stop pulling behind the needle. Guide it, let the feed dogs work, and if you must apply tension apply it equally in front and behind so the fabric passes through relaxed rather than stretched.

Use a stabiliser strip in the hem allowance. A 2cm strip of lightweight knit fusible along the fold gives the double needle something stable to stitch into and eliminates the wave. It slightly reduces stretch at the hem, which for a skirt is fine.

The wave returning after pressing means it was stretched while stitched, so the stitching is holding it longer than the fabric wants to be. It'll never press out permanently.

You can partly rescue this one. Open it in stages from the outside in: front board, back board, then twenty pages at a time front and back, pressing the gutter gently with the flat of your hand. It won't undo the grain problem but it'll stop the cracking getting worse.

Worse when you raise your arms is a separate clue worth checking. A low, wide armhole restricts arm movement and drags the whole front panel with it. Compare the armscye depth to a shirt that fits you well. A higher, smaller armhole is more comfortable, counterintuitively.

Six weeks is genuinely early. Mine took about four months to stop protesting and the last two of those were fine, just slightly tight. Flaking without redness, stinging or itch is the ordinary version of this.

Punch through a template, never freehand. Fold a strip of card, mark the stations once, use it for every section. Uneven station spacing is the number one reason a first coptic ends up skewed.

Rough shorthand for future purchases: if a paper is sold to fountain pen users specifically it will say so, and if it's sold on thickness alone, assume nothing.

This is why altering a jacket is a series of small changes rather than one big one. Every seam does a specific job and moving the wrong one costs you movement.

Halfway house: cheap one for body and reapplication, one small nicer one for your face if texture is what stops you wearing it. That's usually under budget and removes the excuse.

Worth knowing why it happens so you don't repeat it with your other books. Red rot is acid deterioration in vegetable-tanned leather after a century of sulphur in the air, and it isn't contagious, but the conditions that cause it are shared. Getting the shelf away from a radiator and out of direct sun matters more than anything you brush on.

Give him a script if he wants one. "Mum, we love seeing you, can you text before you come round now we're both working from home" is enough. People freeze on this stuff because they're trying to compose something perfect that offends nobody, and then they say nothing for a year.

Slight counterpoint: one pen you actually love gets used every day and four adequate ones become a drawer. That's been my pattern anyway. If you go single, buy from somewhere with a returns or nib exchange policy given you can't try in person.

Split it. Hem them yourself, pay for the waists.

Hemming trousers is genuinely a beginner job. Measure, press, blind hem or hand stitch, all three done in an evening. It's the single best value alteration skill and you'll use it forever.

Taking in a tailored waistband is not. You unpick the waistband, deal with the centre back seam, the lining, the facing and usually a belt loop, then rebuild it so it doesn't look rebuilt. 45 is fair for that, and a badly done waistband is visible from across a room in a way a slightly imperfect hem is not.

At two evenings a month, learning waistbands on wool trousers you like is a recipe for three unwearable pairs and a lost autumn.

Use the same cheap fabric with a similar drape for every toile, otherwise you're changing two variables at once. A stiff calico toile of a drapey viscose shirt tells you almost nothing about how the finished thing will hang.

If you ever need it gone faster, a sealed box with an open tub of bicarbonate of soda for a few days pulls a surprising amount out. Don't let the bicarb touch the book.