Gift sewing - Topkids 59 skirt 24

I have been embroidering a t shirt as my handbag project for the last few days. This is for my niece who turns 8 this week. I do not smock for this family, as although they are gratifyingly appreciative of anything I make, they keep smocked dresses for "best", which means "worn once", where I am more of a " You want to wear that dress in the sand pit, sure - you will look gorgeous!" sort of smocker. (Smocking is resilient in the washing machine)
A few Christmasses ago, I was very rushed and busy, and did not manage to make presents for my 3 nieces of this family, so I bought presents. This gave me a disappointed feeling in my middle, so on the long car trip, then plane trip to Melbourne to visit them, I did a little embroidery on 3 plain white t shirts from Target to add to the present. These were a wild success, out of proportion to the small effort involved, - and were worn for the family photography that year. I was stunned.
So now, I embroider a t shirt for most birthdays (long story, sorry). This year, I was inspired by a hairclip set, and was quite happy with the embroidery. (Double lazy daisies - 2 pinks, orange, with french knot centres and detached chain leaves, all DMC cotton stranded)

I had bought a book for the rest of the present, and was planning to post the present yesterday. However I woke up at 5am yesterday morning thinking of lime green stretch cotton. On automatic (my usual state in the early morning) I found the fabric, this already traced out TopKids pattern in the right size, and hot pink patterned shoelace, gingham ribbon and bias binding in less than 5 minutes. You would think my sewing things were organized (you would be wrong).
The skirt took less than one hour to cut out, sew and embellish. Nothing went wrong, and the colours all co-ordinate. I did not even look at the t shirt while I was picking the fabrics. I think I made this skirt in a dream the night before, and was just repeating myself. Sewing is doing strange things to my brain.
I went around in a happy glow for the rest of the day, then, after work and dinner, thought I would finish the neckline and hems of 2 knit tops on the coverstitch, which has just behaved beautifully on 16 items of swimwear. The stitches skipped, so I changed the needles (and unpicked the hem - not easy, that pull the chain thing does not happen when I do it). I then spent 4 hours trying to thread the coverstitch and sew a hem without making a hole in the fabric.
After the 78th (I am guessing) time threading the machine exactly as the manual instructed, it suddenly worked, and behaved beautifully. Sewing is not for the faint hearted.