I have been looking for/planning to make a leopard skin (fake) coat for about 5 years. I have never found just the right skin in fabric or just the right style. I have feeling that I never will now. 5 years ago I might have compromised but it's gone beyond that point and nothing but perfection will do. I can see it in my mind's eye - beautiful silky fur in just the perfect shades, a 50's swing shape, the perfect satin lining, just the right collar shape.
If I ever do find it/make it I will wear it till I kick the bucket and then be buried in it.

None of my friends sew and I have to find ways of measuring myself, by myself.

I first turn up the front of a skirt hem to the length I want. Then I use the dining table to mark the hem evenly. It hits my thigh about midway ie. below any part of my body that causes a skirt to pull up or drag down. I rest very lightly against the edge of the table and turn slowly, marking with chalk or pins as I go. I then measure down from the marking by the same amount all round for an even hem.

I'm just recovering from a major panic moment when I thought I had lost my favourite vintage-ish sewing book. Found it! Thank goodness.

It's a Sunset Book publication called Slipcovers & Bedspreads.

I bought it 2nd-hand in about 1980 for $1 when I was living in the US. It's original price was $3.95. Don't know when it was published as the first page is missing.

I started making fitted slipcovers with this book - 100 pages of step-by-step instruction - and in nearly 30 years of making I haven't found anything to better it. Best $1 I ever spent. It has earned several thousand times its cost.