Me Made May Days 1 and 2 (The School Ties Outfit)

Hello, gentle readers, and welcome to Me Made May, 2013 edition! I for one am more then a little excited. I hadn’t actually thought too much about it, but then I was explaining it to friends of mine and all of a sudden I thought, man, I love Me Made May, I really do! I love seeing other people’s outfits, I love planning my own, I love being inspired by new combinations of clothing, the only thing I don’t love so much is the daily photo session, sigh. Oh, well, the sad consequences of having a sewing blog, poor me, boohoo.

So without futher ado, because I have an outfit AND two new garments to display, Day 1!

Here I am in my Indiophile Tunic and my Too Practical for Words jeans. I easily wear these jeans once a week, they were a clutch move. I forced my friend Rohan (thanks, Rohan!) to take this photo of me yesterday. I forsee a lot of my friends getting over Me Made May REAL quick, but I don’t even care, they shall take my photo and do my bidding! Bahahaha!

Oh, and I figured, if I have to do a photo a day, at least, so does Cadfael:

He made zero things.

And then Day 2, a brand new outfit!

I’m calling this my School Ties outfit for several reasons. Number one, unintentionally, I made this shirt and skirt to go together and didn’t think about the fact that grey and blue are my high school’s colors. Weird. We even had this game day, blue and grey day. It must have sunk itself into my consciousness somewhere along the line…

The shirt is a Renfrew, made from Jersey from the Pennsylvania Fabric outlet, the same as I used for this dress. I still have some left, not enough for another shirt, but maybe for some underwear and color blocking? We shall see…

I cut the back in two pieces, as you can see here.

The skirt is self-drafted, just a simple pleated affair, and I made it from fabric my lovely roommate Emily had given me for Hanukkah. Thanks, Emily!

The OTHER reason I’m calling this the School Ties outfit, is because my friend Andrew (thanks, Andrew!) took these photos. Andrew just moved to New York and as we met in college, this outfit is just a conflation of my educational experiences up to this point. OH, and we took them two blocks from my building at NYU! It’s all coming together…

This fits all my requirements for a spring/summer skirt, and by that I mean it’s good for twirling and jumping. That’s the big one for me, right there.

And obviously I did not let the fact that I was in a public place stop me from doing either of those two things for the camera. To be fair, this was Washington Square Park, so I was probably the most normal person around…

Another day, another outfit, and yet Cadfael is in the exact same position as before…He leads a really hard life, guys.

And there we have it, the first two days of the month are over, onward into outfits of the future!

The Indiophile Tunic

My sewing backlog is out of control. I keep making stuff and not documenting it. What is my deal? I have a tripod. I have no excuse. I just always end up throwing things in the laundry and as I step into the shower remembering that I was supposed to take photos of that and now it’s dark and my hair is wet and everything is the worst. So I go talk to some food about that, and, and this is the important part, NOT TAKING PHOTOS OF MY GARMENT. And the cycle, she continues. How do you guys do this? Do you find it to be as much of a struggle as I do? Am I alone in being decent at the making but bad at the taking (of photos, which I know you guys get, I just love to end on a rhyme…).

However, today was stunning, and I wore something new, so I basically forced my friend Sam into snapping some photos of me in Washington Square Park, which is just a stone’s throw from where I go to school. It’s usually filled to the brim with hip NYU students and ornery homeless people, and today was no exception. Sam and I felt just right at home. It looked a bit like this:

Nice, right? The trees are just starting to bloom, the grass is growing, the homeless people didn’t spit on us, it was a pretty good day, all things considered. And Sam ever so kindly put up with my terrible modeling, because she is a good friend.

So, remember when I told you all that my friend brought me back fabric from India? Well, I made something with some of it…

The glare from the sun caught this at an angle and so there are odd large green hexahedrons on my legs. And a little one that in this photo looks like a hair ornament. So that’s fun.

The pattern is Butterick 5548, a tunic that I thought went well with this fabric, one of the three (THREE, I’ve said it before but thank you, Rohan!) that I have. This one was a border print, and sort of a lightweight kind of a thing, cotton, I believe? So tunic seemed like a good choice. Check out the weird pattern image:

I guess what I find so weird about it is that both of those models are actually the same person, but I feel like they are pretending it’s two difference people with the change of hair and pants and shoes. And it’s awkward. But the pattern is cute! I used the longer pattern and shortened it by about a foot, and yet it is still quite lengthy.

But I like it! What else did I change, hmmm, I guess that’s about it. It’s a very simple pattern to stitch up, only a few pieces and really the collar is the most complicated part.

It’s sort of flipping out in this photo, but I think you get the idea.

I loved wearing this today. I finished it last night after Game of Thrones (guys, I’ve gotten into Game of Thrones! That’s why I’m not taking any photos of my garments, I’m too busy with Game of Thrones! Obviously!, and it was perfect for today’s weather. The shot cotton (I don’t know if you can see it in these photos but it’s sort of a lovely shot cotton in two shades of orange) seemed to brighten the day for me. I never wear orange, but I like this! 

 

As you can tell, this fabric, amazing and wonderful as it is, wrinkles like a sharpei dog.

See the resemblance?

WE ARE THE SAME. Ahhhhhh!

A little close up on the gold border print. So pretty, right?

As a thank you (read, way to torture) my lovely photographer, I took a photo of her so the world can see the person behind the magic. Thanks, Sam, and thanks, Rohan, and thanks, today, because the weather was simply gorgeous!

Stay tuned for my Mad Men dress coming soon, which I swear to you I will document, by all that is holy, I will take photos of that damn dress!

 

The Old Fashioned Outfit

Before I write anything else, I just want to say, thank you very much, all of you, for your gorgeous and wonderful comments on my last post. I’m always a bit reticent to share real emotions digitally, after all, as we all know, the internets is no place for feelings. But in the swirl of all this nostalgia, I felt some impulsive need to inject a touch of reality, or at least, my reality, into the vintage mania, which I myself truly do share. Thank you all for reading, really, it means more to me then I can say.

And now, onto my second Sew For Victory outfit! This one is actually a reproduction print, the ever popular Simplicity 3688. I took the blouse and skirt patterns and made them both, in a Spring (or at least anticipating Spring! Come on, Spring!) outfit. And here is what I came out with:

As I look at this photo, I realize there is just a ton of fabric bunching at the waist. Oh, well, what are you going to do. I omitted the waist tucks, serves me right.

As you may recall (though why on Earth would you…) I’ve actually made this skirt before. But I’ve never made this blouse, and I honestly do like it quite a bit. The neckline is a bit high, and I had to add two darts at each shoulder to get the sleeve to ease into the arm, but otherwise it really works for me.

The blouse material came from Fabric.com from a year ago, and the skirt material came from an Etsy seller two full years ago. STASH BUSTING FOR THE WIN!

I shortened the skirt about 5 inches (because, for real, I am short, and also, I want to wear this thing, not just save it for theme parties!) but otherwise made no changes.

Dance break!

I love the print, I think it’s perfect for spring! The look might be a bit modest, but I think it’s pretty cute and flattering, even given women with less then subtle chests.

A whole bunch of darts in that sleeve cap.

And there you can just see the flatfelled seams of the skirt.

And there you have it! More 1940′s stuff. I do truly love the lines and shapes of this period. This skirt falls rather stiffly, but really it’s not as big as it seems, and it’s easy to make it fabric efficient. As is the blouse! Makes it all the easier to keep the home fires burning.

Also, as a last word, the title of this post actually refers to the Frightened Rabbit song, Old Old Fashioned. Love it.

The Passover Dress

So, just to warn you, I know that this is a sewing blog, but this post is going to get historical and personal, and if that’s not your thing, I just wanted to warn you straight away, and you can feel free not the read this, really, I wont mind. Of course, I’m never all about the stitching and the snipping, but still, just so you are aware before you dive in, you’ve been cautioned.

So, I decided to participate in the wonderful and talented Lucille‘s Sew for Victory challenge, and honestly, I really didn’t think too much about this before I did it. After all, there are a lot of sewing challenges and sew-a-longs and dares out here on the interwebs and really I’ve participated in (and continue to participate in) many of them. And I do love this period of dressing and pattern making, I do, the lines, the designs, the fabric efficiency, it’s wonderful! It is. And it’s a great challenge, I’ve been thrilled to see what other people have been making.

But recently I was watching an episode of Foyle’s War with my roommate (a  fantastic series, everyone should watch it) and all I could think was, thank god I wasn’t born in this period. Because if I had been the age I am now, or any age, really, in the 1940′s, well, I would probably not have survived. After all, I’m Jewish.

This week is Passover, in fact, it started on Monday night, at sundown, as all Jewish Holidays do, start at sundown, that is. Passover is a celebration of the exodus from Egypt, a celebration of freedom from oppression and a recognition of the cost of freedom and the Jewish struggle for liberty in every age and generation. We celebrate our escape from the bondage of Egypt year after year with a seven-day festival and a retelling of the biblical story, accompanied with a flat tasteless cracker, Matzoh, which is called “the bread of affliction” for a reason. Because it’s the worst.

At any rate, when I think about the 1940′s, I can’t help but think about the major event that dominated that decade. And, honestly, can any of us really ignore that? The war effected everything, and it CERTAINLY effected fashion on a fundamental level. It effected fabric production and hemlines and cuts and refashioning and everything. 40′s fashion is specific because of the specific events that shaped it’s existence. But I’m I suppose I’m loathe to idolize or at least glorify that decade because of what it would have meant for me to have existed within it. I could not be more glad not to have lived through the 40′s. It’s only through the grace of history and fate that my family, for the most part, happened to have survived the war via avoiding alternative homicide (ask me about Russia in the 20′s!). But we were the unbearably lucky ones. And for the most part, we were the exception to the rule.

So when we Sew for Victory, as fun as it has been for me, and really, it has been fun, I love this period, I love these patterns; I can’t help but think about the realities of this period, and the implications that it had for the real people who lived and died in this time. So I decided to wear my 40′s dress to my Passover Seder, and as I did, I celebrated the holiday. and reminded myself of how lucky I am, how lucky my family is, and how unlucky so many of us have been. This holiday, this Passover, is the time that we remember, that we spend with the people we love, that we tell each other, Next year in Jerusalem. And what does that mean? It means, next year, we will all be together. Next year, we will all be free.

There is a poem that I have recently read, and love:

When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.

Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on in your eyes
And not on your mind.

You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting
Bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,

Give me away.

Obviously nothing else I can say will matter as much as that. So here is my sewing:

This is the dress I made:

The pattern is Simplicity 1720. It’s an easy enough pattern, though the skirt has a ton of gores, though I can’t complain about how it hangs, because I love it!.

The fabric is a rayon from an Ebay sale almost a year ago. I was concerned this would look too 1990′s, but, I actually think it works well.

I did french seams throughout, and though the front has facings, I just did bias tape for the neck and sleeve hems.

I love the way this hangs, I think it’s surprisingly modern.

Check out the details!

I love the back yoke, fussy as it is.

These buttons where unbearably expensive, they cost me more than the fabric. That is a real story. I got them at M and J trimmings, and I was so intimidated that I didn’t bother to ask the price until I was ringing it up. And it was HIGH.

Real Talk? These shoes probably ARE from the 40′s. They were my grandmother’s.

I can honestly say that I love this dress, I do. It needs that belt (for REAL the bodice is too damn high) but I do love it. And I wore it to Passover, despite the chill. You gotta pretend it’s spring, right? Fake it till you make it…

The My Kind of Staple Skirt

First of all, thank you people all so damn much for your kind comments about my last very form fitting dress! I really appreciate all the love, you people are amazing. I get really weird and nervous about putting those photos on the internets, so thank you. Seriously. You are all way too kind and way too amazing, and thank you for your advice about knit hems and junk in the trunk. Saving all my future makes is what you people do best!

So, you know how Vogue and Marie Claire and Glamour have an article every five minutes about “The Five Staples You Need Right Now” or, “The Ten Pieces You Need For Spring” or “The Only Things You’ll Ever Need To Wear”, like no one is every going to shop again, like fashion as an industry is just going to stop and throw up it’s hands, all, okay, we’re all done. These things do not happen. And yet, the magazines keep selling! I myself buy them! What the hell? So we’ve all heard this mishagas about “staples”, like, THE black pant, THE white shirt, THE floral trench for 5000 dollars (which everyone totally needs, SAID NO ONE EVER). But of course, for convenience and simplicity and just normal day-to-day needs, most people DO have staples, they do have a sort of uniform. And mine is typically woven skirt, knit top, tights, go, especially in this long cold Spring we are having up here in the mid-Atlantic. So it’s obviously in my best interests to make things that correspond with that pattern. Hence this lovely thing I made recently:

I have, of course, made this before, and pretty damn recently, too. It’s Simplicity 4529, which I have learned from experience needs a non-stretch woven to work. But I think when it works, IT REALLY WORKS. Am I right? Even though the expression on my face above looks like I’m eating glass. I really need to work on my face…

Ignore the line of my shirt which you can totally see here, and isn’t this nice? Yes, it’s a bit wrinkled, whatever, I live a life of wrinkles, one must accept such things. The one seam of this 10 dart skirt (10 DARTS! My mind balks each time I consider it, but clearly darts are the key to happiness!) is finished with navy bias tape, which you can see peeking out here at the back vent.

More wrinkles, sigh. But I love this skirt! And the three times I’ve worn it thus far, everyone around me has told me they like it, including my bosses at the costume shop , who, like, sew for a living and are the real deal. So I feel pretty darn good about this. How good?

This good! To be fair, I’m more laughing because my friend Ben, who took these photos, made me crack up. Also, it was so damn cold when we took these. Also, it’s the end of March. Also, it snowed today. SO that’s why I’m making wool flipping pencil skirts at the end of March.

To the sewing! I made no changes except that this one has an invisible zipper not a visible one, which, I mean, I hate invisible zippers, but it’s what I had. I also shortened it by 3 inches or so, which is my standard for this pattern now. This buttery spongy wool I bought last winter at the Pennsylvania Fabric Outlet and I got the last remnant on the spool, and I pet it for a full year before I actually made this. But I’m so glad I did! I love this skirt, and, weather being what it is, I will probably get a lot of use out of it before it gets too warm.

I’m trying to dance to stay warm here because it was seriously cold. But I’m so thrilled Ben took these photos of me, after a bagel brunch celebrating our last leavened product for a while, it’s Passover now, goodbye breadybye!

So how to I feel to have a well-fitting red pencil skirt that I love and is my version of a staple?

I think you can figure it out.

 

The Weirdly Sexy Shirt

Nota bene, I was not the person who thought this shirt was weirdly sexy. In fact, I didn’t think of it as sexy at all. I wore this to the costume shop at which I work about two weeks ago (I MADE THIS OVER A MONTH AGO WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Finding time to SEW isn’t my problem, it’s taking flipping pictures of my flipping work! That’s why there’s been radio silence for a while, not because I am not sewing, but because I am no documenting what I sew. And I even have a tripod! What is my deal? That’s a question for therapy. Onwards!) and a girl with whom I work said, Leah, I like that shirt, it’s really weirdly sexy. And I said, thank you! I think?

The pattern is Cindy‘s amazing Dolman Sleeve shirt. I’ve been meaning to make this wonderful free think for ages, months! But for whatever reason I just didn’t get around to it. Then, finally, about a month ago, I took myself in hand and I said, self, make the damn shirt! And thus this creation was born.

This bizarre wonderful fabric is totally a velour, which makes me feel like a retiree in Florida off to shuffleboard, but what can you do. It’s from the Hoarder Stash, and I’m keeping with my stashbusting, so I think that’s all to the good!

I love this pattern. I want to make 10 more. I lengthened the sleeves on Cindy’s lovely design (and I would lengthen more next time, my wrists get chilly!) but otherwise I made no changes to the original design. I love the length, I love the fit, I love the mobility of the sleeves, and for whatever reason, whenever I wear this people compliment me!

Today at a play reading someone said I looked like a Modrian painting. Which I guess is only a nice thing if you like Modrian, but I’m going with it.

My lovely roommate Emily took these photos. We both loved this one, because I mean, look at my hair! It’s its own animal!

Speaking of animals:

I’ve been cutting out a lot of projects lately, from my Sewing for Victory patterns (I got so excited about the 1940′s that I’m making three, maybe four things! I haven’t decided whether or not to make number four, but I’ve finished one and two and am on three, so get excited. See, I told you SEWING isn’t the issue…). And of course, as he so often does, Cadfael is unbearably helpful in this process.

You want to cut? But, this is a bed…

It’s ALL beds. All the things are beds. Don’t you know that by now?

Seriously, though, if you haven’t tried Cindy’s amazing Dolman sleeve top, grab yourself a knit material and do it. I want to make longer sleeved ones and shorter sleeved ones and live in this daily.

Why, you ask? Well, if you can’t SEE for yourself, at least know this.  I can dance in it. And that’s always my gauge for all things. How much can I dance?

I can dance so much:

So. Much. If you can’t dance in something, what’s the point of wearing it?

The American Apparel Knock Off Dress

I have to admit, I am completely a dress person. I’m a formal person in general, as it turns out. My grandmother was a formal woman, and my mother inherited her sense of what is and isn’t appropriate, and now I kind of have that too. Like, for example, jeans. As a kid my mom wouldn’t let us wear jeans on European vacations. Or any vacations. At all. And now I do sort of thing jeans are a bit, I don’t know, casual, when you travel, and I don’t wear them. Of course, these days everyone wears jeans and it’s no longer the thing that marks you as an ugly American, but still. Some things infuse your identity and never let go. Like, when I was going to Hebrew school my mom put me in skirts and dresses every week. That sticks with you. So I like skirts and dresses. But I also like being warm. And comfortable. Which is not something my grandmother thought of as a concern, but what are you going to do.

So I’m always looking out for dresses that fulfill my sense of wanting to dress nicely and my sense of comfort and warmth and ease of wearing, because let’s be real, not all dresses, gorgeous as they are, are easy to wear and live in all day/night. The obvious solution to this is a knit dress, no? And I have a good knit dress pattern, my beloved Dixie DIY Ballet dress, which I’ve been tweaking over a series of versions, and here is what I have finally come out with:

I have to say, I’m pretty into this dress. It’s unbearably comfortable, probably because of the hellishly soft stretchy lycra cotton blend fabric I got from PA Fabric Outlet the last time I was home in Philadelphia and had time to fabric shop. I still have quite a bit of this left yardage-wise, and my brother has requested pillowcases, but even with that I might be able to scrape together a shirt or something, which is great, because it’s warm and cozy and lovely.

Here is a full body shot, complete with my tights/socks combo,which I have found makes every day a bit better as your feet are a touch warmer.

What did I do to the pattern, you ask? Well, I extended the bodice by two inches to have it hit at my natural waist. I lowered the neckline by about two inches at the lowest point, and I slimmed down and extended the sleeves. Were I to make this again, which I probably will, despite my resolution to sew different things, I would slim the sleeves even more and extend them to the wrist. And I changed out the skirt Dixie provides us with with a half-circle skirt. Love the swish. Oh, and I cut the back bodice and back skirt piece in two pieces each and seamed them up. I really like doing this for fabric efficiency purposes, but also I don’t think you can really see it, can you?

I’m sorry about these photos being indoor ones and not the best light, I forced my wonderful parents to snap these when I went home for a benefit for Pig Iron Theatre Company. I wore this dress to work at the costume shop before I took the bus home (which was HORRIFIC, never take Megabus, seriously, every time it’s late and every time I think, why is this happening? and this time it was COLD and it picks you up at 12th and 34th which basically feels like you are about to fall off the edge of Manhattan, just don’t do it. Take the Bolt. Learn from my mistakes) and one of my lovely co-workers gave me the ultimate compliment. He said, that looks like you just stole it from an American Apparel! Hence the name.

Being home is a great opportunity to squeeze multiple cats:

Squeeze ALL the cats! Don’t tell Cadfael I was cheating on him…

And then we went to the benefit! Which is and always is awesome.

That’s Miss Martha Graham Cracker. She’s a rockstar.

I paired my dress with a cream wrap sweater from Buffalo Exchange, and of course, wine.

I’m quite happy with this dress, I really am.

But I couldn’t match the majesty that is Martha Graham Cracker:

Not everyone can pull that look off, now, can they? I love her. Dito van Reigersberg, aka Martha in daily life, is just so insanely talented. Check out this version of Life on Mars. Magnificent.

But I tried. I really tried.

So this month’s Stashbusting challenge is to sew for other people! I need to get on that…any requests?

Fighting and Scrapping

Boy, I came a bit late to the Stashbusting Challenge game this month, now, didn’t I! And yet I am still trying to fit some scrap usage in before it’s too late. So in light of that, I spent my Sunday cutting out a fair number of projects for little bits of fabric, in the hopes of at least making a gentle dent into my enormous scrap pile. What have I been concocting here in Brooklyn? Step into my lab…

I am a compulsive fabric saver. I just can’t stand to let even the tiniest scrap go by the wayside, and that is not a great quality for someone who lives in New York. Or, really, someone who lives. You just can’t save it all, you can’t use every fiber and flash of fabric, it’s not humanly possible. And yet, I try.

The thing that I loathe throwing away the MOST is jersey. So I went on a hunt for scrappy projects that involve that material. It’s not easy, honestly. There are a ton of things you can do with scraps of quilters cotton or even apparel weight cotton. Like make little mice for your little cat (or dog):

I honestly forget where I found this template, but I know if you google “mouse toy diy” you will find just a million and one templates and tutorials and ideas. I have made many of this pattern for friends and no cat has ever neglected to enjoy this when a bit of catnip goes into the stuffing.

But back to my jersey woes, I have, of course, found the obvious solution to small pieces of stretchy jersey left over from knit projects:

So I made a bunch of underwear, of course. I’m not going to model it for you. That would be weird. My mom reads this.

But what do you do with LARGER jersey scraps that you love, that AREN’T the kind of stretchy material that would make for comfortable underwear? Because having attempted underwear with 2-way stretch fabric, that is just some bad news bears. So I hunted down a way to use such pieces, and I found this! The Dixie DIY Portia Top, a pieced pattern suitable for lightweight wovens AND knits! Yay!

Cute, no? It’s a bit big on me, which is weird, because I cut it down to an extra-small to fit onto the fabric I had, hoping it wouldn’t be too tight, and there you go, still loose. Bizarre. The printed fabric is leftovers from this dress, and I got it originally from Girl Charlee (guess what? Girl Charlee now has a blog where you can submit projects you made with their amazing knits! Do it!). The white comes from a t-shirt that I never wore because it was huge on me. So there you go, refashioning and stash busting all at once!

Sorry about the less-then-stellar photos. I finished this about an hour ago and wanted to post about it as soon as possible. I’ve just missed the January deadline, sigh, but that’s okay, I’m glad I got to use a bunch of scraps!

This is the back view. A bit blurry, sadly.

This shirt is fairly easy to put together, despite all the pieces, and really you could do all kinds of color combinations, which is cool. I would make it smaller next time, trimming everything down a bit, because it’s really quite blousey for a knit top, but I like it and I’m sure it will be airy and cool come summertime. The only changes I made were not gathering the sleeves (because I didn’t know that was a step, sigh) and changing the cuffs to a binding on the sleeves.

I just really think this is kind of a cool top, and I like the scrappy nature of it, I do! It’s like a t-shirt/quilt. I like it! Would you guys be into something like this or is it just too weird?

For all my travels, it’s nice to be back with Cadfael!

And I’ve also started a quilt! I’m using a free pattern from See Kate Sew, a blog I have just discovered and fallen madly in love with, like I do. She’s looking for pattern testers for clothing for little people, if you are interested…

But I’m making this quilt:

She has this free pattern on her blog, and it looked fun and easy. I might add strips to the sides to make it a bit bigger, but for now, these are my fabrics:

Of course, it’s really hard to bust your stash when your amazing friends keep GIVING YOU NEW FABRIC! What the hell, awesome friends? Why you gotta be so amazing? To be fair, of the two gifts of fabric I got recently, one I did see coming, as I asked my friend Rohan (hi, Rohan!) to bring me fabric back from India, from whence he comes. Don’t worry, I gave him some rum from Puerto Rico as a thank you…

I have just under three yards of each of these three fabrics. WHAT? Rohan is a marvelous man. And god, he has astoundingly good taste, right? I love each of these, they are so lovely! The orange border print, the ikat, the blue? I LOVE THEM ALL. I don’t know what I’m going to DO with them, but I will figure something out, I’m sure..Well done, Rohan, well done. More rum for you.

And then, my glorious roommate Emily got me fabric too! WHAT? Yes. My other equally glorious roommate Jenny got me this compilation of plays, so I honestly can’t decide which of these two ladies I’m more in love with right now, but hey, luckily I live with them and don’t have to choose! (I made them nice gifts too, I promise!) Look what Emily scored for me:

Is that…LIBERTY OF LONDON? You bet your ass it is. A. Mazing. And the blue behind it is just buttery as all get out, I love it! What to do, what to do with these amazing stash building gifts? My poor stash, it’s one step forward, three steps back with me.

Cadfael says, this is mine now. I likes it.

The I Have A Problem Shirt

There are times when, having vocalized a desire, I find myself filled with the need to do that which is exactly the opposite. For example, having recently decided that I should be making new patterns, or at least ones I’m less familiar with, I then go ahead and make this nonsensical little shirt, which is the fourth iteration of a Dixie DIY pattern. Why am I like this? Could it be because I deeply fear change? (Yes, it could be that)

Or it could be that for whatever reason, I really like this swingy sweet style. It’s so not my normal thing and yet I really like it! It’s comfortable, it’s breezy, I like the way it swings around…

After all, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Well, come on, I had to make that joke, I’m a human, aren’t I?

I couldn’t tell you why I keep making this pattern over and over again. It’s not the most flattering shape for me, and yet I like it. What is that about, some odd self-destructive tendency? But then, more than one person thought this was cute, unsolicited, so I guess it’s better than I ever thought…

I made very few changes to the pattern, I only lengthened the sleeves slightly. I would have lengthened them more but couldn’t due to a lack of fabric. This shirt only took a yard and a half, so yay for fabric efficiency!

And it does feel wonderful when I swing around… but god, the look on my face here is like I”m being tortured, isn’t it?

The colors actually match Puerto Rico neatly. Don’t you think?

Right? Don’t I fit right into the scenery?

There is very little else to say about this shirt. Except that I really have to stop making the same thing over an over again. And yet last night I made ANOTHER repeat pattern. What. Is. My. Problem.

I think maybe it’s comforting to make the same thing over and over again for me, I feel like by the second or third time through I have the pattern down pat and I really know how to make it, and while the bloom is off the rose, so to speak, my final version is usually better then my first (though, not always…isn’t THAT troubling?). But I also think it’s a bit of a laziness/fear thing, like, I know I like this pattern well enough, I don’t worry about the fitting, there are no surprises. But then when I have the finished object, I also have no surprises, and I think that’s starting to get to me. So note to self, after this dress I worked on last night (a cute little number but yet ANOTHER pattern I’ve made to death) I really have to get on the new-pattern thing.

How do you feel about tried and true versus new patterns? Do you get into a re-making rut like I do? Or are you all about new horizons?

In other news, I had vowed as a Sewalution for this year to for real for real get into my stash. And who should swoop in to help me but Cindy! (Side note, if ANY sewing blogger would be a superhero, wouldn’t it be her? I think so, with Walnut has her trusty sidekick…) So I’ve joined in her Stash Busting Sewalong, which is gloriously structured and filled with challenges and monthly themes. Here is my vow:

I, Leah, commit to using 15 pieces of stash fabric in 2013. Additional option: I also commit to not buying any new fabric/patterns/ notions except for needles and thread and zippers until July (my birthday month!).

This month is chock full of Itty Bits, so I will get into my scraps as soon as possible, as the month is almost over! Quick, to the scrap pile….

The Thrice as Nice Shirt

Sometimes titles completely elude me. For example, every play I’ve ever written has had its title tacked on at the end as a complete after thought. As a result, the titles are not very good. For the screenplay I wrote this semester, it got to the point where my teacher just looked at me and said, really, Leah? Untitled Screenplay? I tried to pass it off like a Duchamp “Fountain” thing but I don’t think he was buying it…

So sometimes I have a hard time finding names for the pieces I make, and nevertheless I like having names for the pieces I make because I like thinking of my wardrobe as something filled with chatty vibrant personalities to rival my own, so when I get dressed in the morning I can say, hello, such-and-such-blouse, hello, such-and-such-pants, who wants to hang out with who today? Am I anthropomorphizing my closet? Mayhap. You should see the chats I have with my cat. Seriously, you should, my roommates could use more people with whom to watch and judge.

So this blouse is New Look 6808, my third version of this all-too-cute pattern. This time I did the collar, but without the little bow in the middle because I’ve really been working on this “dressing like a grown up” thing. And I did long sleeves, because it’s cold out here for a pimp. And I did stretch poplin because it’s seriously comfortable and I had some in my stash from over a year ago when I got a bunch of stretchy fabric for clover muslins. Ancient history.

I adore this color. One has to admit, though, this poplin is a tad wrinkly…

Eh, what are you gonna do….I also made the pants! My first clovers, in fact, which makes this outfit weirdly perfect and fated, come to think of it…

Side view! I had to add two pleats to force the sleeve to fit into the shoulder. I’ve had to do that every time with this pattern, but instead of altering it I just go with it because I kind of love the pleat!

I also noticed that the sleeve cuff detail is flipped up in all of these photos, sigh…

A little back view for you. You can’t see it in these photos, nor can you really see it much in real life, but there is a seam down the back which I have because I pieced together the back. If I was a super-villan, that would be my trademark, back seams. I just some fabric efficiency!

A little wink, terrifyingly caught on camera. You can see the cuff here, sort of, it’s cute.

Annnnnnnnnd there I am talking to my cat again. Of course. Duh.

We are actually having a tearful goodbye moment. Sniff. I love vacations but I loathe leaving him. It’s a constant dilemma for me, travel or Cadfael? Wow, my twenties are just WILD.

I know this is some rapid fire posting over here, but I wanted to throw this up online before I leave tomorrow morning for San Juan. My internet access is sort of limited there, and I can only use my computer in one of the two Starbucks in town. So my blogging shall be curtailed for a while whilst I swan about the island with my friends and then alone, and then with my family. Of course, that alone time is reserved for writing, writing, and then more writing. Because that’s why people go to tropical paradises, to sit inside and write…

I hope everyone’s New Year is treating them gorgeously! And before you call me out on it, I’m aware this blouse doesn’t fulfill my plans to make new patterns. I’ll get there, okay? At least I tried a variation. Counts, right?