Fall Palette Challenge 2011! Woooo!

So all of a sudden I suppose it’s fall, right? I mean, who knew? Seriously, I did not see this one coming. I mean, I empirically understand that seasons come every year but then they really DO come and I feel, well, tricked, somehow, concerned. How did this get here, I think? Wasn’t it JUST July? But then I look on the calendar and think, nope, there it is, September, hello, fall, aren’t you just right around the corner. Which means, of course, Colette Patterns Fall Palate challenge! Yay! It also means a lot of other things, including the Philadelphia Live Arts/Fringe Festival, which I am blogging about over here, but for the purposes of sewing, I’m going to stick to the palette challenge, if you don’t mind.

This also might be the perfect place to announce that I recently started a new job at this lovely theater company. And while the dress code there is FAR from formal, I am the kind of person who enjoys a certain amount of formality in my daily outfit. So I want to make a couple of cute, not-too-formal but not-too-casual garments that will take me through to the early winter. I made myself a color palette, all excited for hues and tones, and then I looked at my fabric stash. And I sighed. Because it’s more important for me to bust my stash then stick by my exact color palette and spend a bunch of money. So, well, I may not get my ideal color combinations for the fall, but hey, close enough, right? And I didn’t even see this season coming, so Autumn can’t really blame me.

So here they are, the fabrics and the patterns. Drumroll, please…..

1. A blouse!

A Lovely Cotton Lawn

To go with:

Colette Patterns Jasmine Blouse! It's new, and it's amazing, don't you think? No closures!

2. A skirt!

A wool (I think?) blend I bought at a flea market. 5 dollars for 2 yards. Yeah, man.

To go with something like the following…the pattern is the Burda Style free Helena Skirt Pattern. I love a free pattern…

3. Another blouse!

Cotton shirting that was 1;95 a yard!

And the pattern? My so loved Ute from Burda Style.

4. A pair of pants! Oh, scary face. In fact, I plan to make TWO pairs of pants, using these two fabrics:

A 98% wool, 2% lycra blend.

(This looks grey, but it’s black, I promise you, a cotton lycra blend)

And Colette Patterns new Clover cigarette pants pattern. Sarai has PROMISED us a sew along, so hopefully these wont be an epic failure.

5. Another skirt! With this fabric, which has been sitting in my stash, a leftover from my Who Are You Calling Easy Dress. How cool is that?

Wool, wool, 100% wool.

Using this FREE pattern from Vivet Veritas! Lengthened, of course. I do NOT have her legs.

6. And here is the wild card, a dress, for which I have the pattern but not the fabric. What to do, what to do. What do you think? A nice bright wool? But what color? Or a silk, would that work? Any advice? What would you do?

My instinct is to say a red wool, but that’s just because she’s wearing red in the pattern image. I’m so susceptible that way.

And that’s my fall palette challenge! Are you planning anything for fall? Do you like my choices? Did this season come as a complete shock to you, or am I the only one? So many questions, so little time…

The Dead Sea For Me Cover Up

This is going to be one of those very rare posts heavy on the photos and light on the text. You see, Theatre Exile’s The Aliens starts its first preview in two hours and I work for those people now so I can’t spend all night with the jibberjabber. Oh, not to worry, there will be time enough for chit chat and blabber later, but not right now, you see, there’s work to be done! So I’m just going to give you a little explanation of the garment in question and then go on my way, leaving you to oooh and ahhh at the lovely photos I forced poor Adam, a fellow trip mate, to take for me.  So without further ado, here is me, modeling my fourth (count ’em) incarnation of the Burda Style Tara top, this time made into a knee length beach cover-up and using the scraps of my self dyed Shibori fabric for my Naomi jacket!

Photos can of course be very deceptive. For example, you probably wouldn’t guess, seeing the following, that I was in fact enduring the first day (on my very LAST day in Israel) of a vicious cold. But it was so very hot at the Dead Sea that my sinuses cleared right up, and instead of looking sad and stuffy, I think I look quite fetching, don’t you?

On a clear day, you can see Jordan.

And regardless of the cloud pattern, you can always see the bottom of the Dead Sea, the water is extremely clear.

But you still ought to wear shoes, because the stones are slippery and sharp. I myself am showing off a pair of fake crocs I bought in a mall outside of Tiberius. They broke, like, thirty minutes after this photo was taken. Good times.

It truly is amazing to wade into the clear waters and feel your body floating, weightless, in a way no other water can make you feel. You can literally sit on the water and read a newspaper, it’s a popular tourist photo to take. I didn’t take it. That’s not how I roll.

Another fun fact about the Dead Sea? It hurts like a bitch. Seriously. Any open skin, any sensitive area, your eyes, your razor burn, your mouth, it stings with salt. You cannot, CANNOT swim in the sea, really, you can’t dive, you really shouldn’t get your face wet. It’s something like 33 % salt. Just to give you an idea, regular seawater has 3.5%. Chew on that for a while. And then spit it out. It’s gross.

Well, whatever. Sick, stinging and sad to leave Israel, I still had a good time. And I covered up in style, don’t you think?