But that’s not what this is about! I’m not here to tell you that I saw The Great Gatsby, I’m here to tell you about the clothing I made that I wore! And so I shall…

Day 8, in which I emerge from the sickroom and back into the world

These are new pants and a new t-shirt, but though my wonderful friend Allie (hey, Allie!) snapped some good shots of me, I realized afterwards that I really needed more detail shots to do a true outfit post, so I’m just giving you this, more explanation on the pants to follow, and expect a post about the shirt soon. Oh, and I made that jacket.

And Cadfael:

Yep. Seems about right.

Day 9, or, The Swing Swish Dance Outfit:

Okay, so, the pants! These are Clovers, of course, as always, I need to send Sarai a fruit basket or some wine, seriously. I shortened them about 2 inches, but altered them not at all otherwise. I’ve worn them probably 5 times since I made them. I LOVE THEM. Perfect spring pants…

See? See how happy they make me?

A bit more of a close up. I took these photos with a tripod and kept cutting off my feet, sigh. Just accept that I have feet, okay? They exist. I promise.

A little rear view for you. I did flat felled seams for most of the seams on these. and the inner waistband is a quilters cotton. it’s the little details that make things fun to wear…I gotta say, the curved waistband on this thing is excellent for girls with, um, curves…

And the shirt, I love the shirt! Oh, I love this outfit, is that weird to declare? But hey, I flipping DO, what’s wrong with loving what you’ve made? It’s better than hating it….

The shirt is Dixie DIY’s swing shirt, which I’ve made seriously 7 times now…I lengthened it by 4 inches, always having wanted it to be longer, and I gotta say, I don’t hate it…

The fabric is from Paron’s, and I’ve made a dress about it that I still need to blog, sigh, But I still have some left, even from these two projects! I think another dress, something sleeveless, thoughts? I love this fabric, the drape is great and the graphic pattern is really fun.

Did I mention the drape? Because it’s swishy and swingy and I love it…

I love this photo. Look at my hair! It’s almost perpendicular to my head! What the what!

And there we have Cadfael.

Day 10, in which I wear another unblogged dress WHAT IS MY PROBLEM:

Yeah. I went to see this amazing show and the look on my face pretty much communicates how I felt about it. I really need to take more photos of this dress, I adore it…

And Cadfael:

Day 11, in which I don’t leave Brooklyn:

The days I don’t have to leave Brooklyn are the best days…

The my new denim Clovers, LOVE, and a blouse I had made for my Halloween costume this past year. It’s a bit big but I still like it.

And Cadfael:

There we go! All caught up. How is YOUR Me Made May going? And if you saw Gatsby, what did YOU think?

So without further existential questioning, I give you, days 3 through 7!

Day 3, or, in which I impersonate a soccer mom:

This is meh. What, I made it, I wore it, I can say it! The blouse is my Mirror Image Blouse,  and the jeans were my first ever denim clovers, my Never Have I Ever pants. The sweater is from Forever 21, from years ago, and the goofy smile, I’m pretty sure I was born with that.

And Cadfael wore:

Yeah. I DID make that quilt in the background…

Day 4, or, in which I pretend jeans and a knit top is a real outfit

Yeah. It’s not. Same jeans as the day before (what, you’ve totally done that, don’t judge!) and a knit top I made in the fall. Coffee from Lincoln Station, and if you live near Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, you should check it out! Great coffee and it’s a wonderful place to write.

And Cadfael took advantage of my roommate Emily being out of town to do this:

Day 5, or, the day the photos begin to fail:

The Wildcard pants, with a plain Banana Republic T-shirt (thrifted). I realized on my way to see a play that I needed a photo so I just quickly snapped one of myself, and one of my compatriot:

Day 6, or, in which I begin to get sick:

So, yeah, I got sick. Which is the worst. And while I did got to class on Monday, I was so tired and ill when I got home that I just showered and changed, forgetting to take my daily photo! Oh, curses, all was lost, EXCEPT, I made my pajamas, TOO! What the WHAT?

Made the pants, no post, and the top. The top is a bit of a struggle, which is why I only sleep in it, really.

And Cadfael, in sympathy to my exhaustion:

I know the photo is blurry but the face was just too precious.

Day 7, in which I recover and break my MMM13 vow

I know I said I wouldn’t repeat an outfit, but given that I spent Tuesday in pajamas, well, I kind of had to….I’m sorry! It will never happen again, I promise! Don’t hate me!

This is me when I’m sick. I do not wear my contacts. I do not put on real pants. I do not eat anything but soup. Works for me…

I did, however, watch Arrested Development episodes for the 1000th time. Cadfael is SUCH a Bluth, now that I think about it, no wonder he wanted to get close to the screen….

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!

Just a quick post to say, I’m totally do Me Made May! I kept meaning to post about it and forgetting or putting it off, but I’m all in, this is my third year in a row! And this time I’m upping the ante…

I, Leah of Struggle Sews A Straight Seam, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear one handmade garment each day for the duration of May 2013, with no outfit repeats.

That means NO OUTFIT REPEATS AHHHH! I’m probably going to make stuff during the course of the month, like I do, and I currently have five, count ‘em, FIVE garments yet to be documented (I…have a problem), so those should be making their appearances as well. Who is excited? I AM!

And what will Cadfael be doing during this exciting time?

Yeah. Pretty much just the same as normal.

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!

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.

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…

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.

I am, I will say, a fairly modest dresser. I don’t know why, really, I have no moral or religious stipulations on my dressing, I don’t feel negative about showing parts of my body, I just, I don’t know, seem to have adopted that way of being. But recently I felt the need for something a little, I don’t know, more close fitting? More curve hugging? More contemporary? More something. Less FABRIC, but more something. And thus this pattern hack was born:

I’m showing a touch of bra in this photo, so just be cool, okay? This is a Renfrew, sized down and lengthened. And I will say, I do like this dress, but boy oh boy did it turn out to be close-fitting…

Like, I have to be careful what UNDERWEAR I wear close-fitting. And I also, you know, lowered the neckline. As you can see.

Not too much, though.

I’m not the kind of woman who thinks that tight automatically means sexy. But I will say, damn, it kind of helps! This dress puts a lot of sway in my step, and no, my hips don’t lie. In this thing, they couldn’t possibly.

I really like the back seam, both for fabric efficiency purposes, and because I kind of like how it looks. Is that super weird?

I love that you can see a cat that seems to emerge from my posterior in this photo.

My only issue with homemade close-fitting knits is that it does that kind of weird flip thing at the hem. What is that? Does anyone know what that is?

My mom took these photos for me because I have a grand total of FIVE items I still need to document and I haven’t been able to and I’m home this weekend for Passover and I though, well, if I’m home I might as well be documenting clothing…like you do. She likes this dress, my mom, but she thinks it needs more color. Therefore the cat.

I actually finished this two weeks ago and wore it to an event. My lovely roommate Jenny took some photos of me, but I kind of look like I want to commit murder in them:

RIGHT? There is a real killing people turn there. Still, at least you can see it in action!

Okay, that’s one down, I’ve still got four to go…stay tuned!