All The Other Kids Are Doing It…

The year in review! I wasn’t going to do this but now that I consider it, I really ought to. I’ve made a lot this year, and some of it has been wonderful, and some of it has been wretched, and it’s good to look at all of it in the cold light of day and deal with reality. Sigh.

A lot happened to me in 2012. I got the hoarder stash. I quit my job. I got in to graduate school. I moved to New York. I made my first jacket. I started graduate school. I started running. My life dramatically altered. And I made a lot of clothing.

In total I made over 43 items. There are some I actually didn’t document, so 44 is the number I can show you in images right now:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I look at the many things I made this year, I have a few thoughts. Number one, I made a lot of stuff this year. This isn’t even all of it, I made a lot for other people, I made some things I never ended up taking photos of and featuring, I made a lot. Number two, I’ve been a bad blogger since I got to New York, and I need to be better about that. Number three, I’ve gotten rid of more than half of the things I’ve made. Curious. Some of them didn’t fit me well, like the shirt dress, some of them weren’t practical for my life, some of them I just didn’t like. Oh, some of them caused my mom to make fun of me. That happened too.

But I also made some things I can’t stop wearing. Like jeans, and knit tops, and  well-fitting skirts. So for this coming year, here are a few goals I want to try to pursue, in light of 2012’s sucesses and failures:

1. Re-measure myself and sew to that measurement. My body has changed a bit, and now a lot of things I’ve made/have been making are rather big on me. I need to deal with this, rather than just hoping it goes away by magic.

2. I wear a lot of skirts and dresses. That’s just what it is. And yet I’ve yet to find a skirt pattern that I really really really adore. It’s time to get on that.

3. I still really really really love doing this. I’ve yet to not. That’s a good thing, right?

I’m not going to make a bunch of promises about what I’m making in 2013 because I’m trying to just let the sewing happen these days, but if you have goals you want to share, let me know! And I hope that your year has been fantastic, I can’t wait to see what everyone makes in the future!

 

The Back to Black Dress

There were SO many things I could have named this garment. The, I Promise I’m Still Alive Even Though My Life Has Been Eaten By Writing, Dress! The, Three Needles Down, Dress (this stretchy soft sweater knit broke three sewing machine needles. I don’t even know…). The, Miss Me?, Dress, because I’ve been out of commission for SO. LONG. But I’m going with the Back to Black Dress because I like alliteration and I like Amy Winehouse and I like black.

So, you might ask, where the hell have I BEEN all this time? Again, I refer you to “my life has been eaten by writing”. The end of my first semester of graduate school got a little crazy, guys. There was writing. There was whiskey. It did not help the writing, but I enjoyed it anyway. There were nights hunched over my laptop furiously typing. There were nights hunched over my laptop furiously NOT writing, and those nights are the WORST. My lovely and amazing roommate Emily (who, along with my equally lovely and amazing roommate Jenny who are both saints to put up with all on my nonsense and mishagas) is also a writer, and we were talking with my friend Emilie (it got confusing, I can tell you) about writing and how when it’s bad, it’s horrible, and when it’s good, it’s amazing, and you live for the times when the writing just comes because there is nothing like it, it’s what I imagine a runner’s high is like. Oh, I run, a couple of times a week these days, but I never get a high, I just sort of collapse at the end which is embarrassing, but hey, it’s New York.

But now I have emerged into a warm pillow of time, i.e. my vacation, which is six weeks long. As I write this I’m sitting in Philadelphia, typing away in my parent’s office, waiting to set up my new laptop (THANK YOU PAPI!). And I have to tell you, it’s not that I haven’t been sewing, or knitting (lots of knitting for lots of holiday gifts). I just haven’t had the time to DOCUMENT any of it! ‘Tis a hard life. Cue the violins. In three days I’m off to Holland for a family vacation, and then I’m back, and then going to San Juan, and then back in the New York, it’s crazy! And what will Brother Cadfael be doing this whole time?

Yep. Did you expect anything less?

Onto the dress. I made this thing in a feverish rush a week and a half ago because I had run out of homework. I was so used to having a lot to do, and then I had finished my screenplay and my play and all the essays and scenes and I was sitting at home on a Wednesday evening after Zumba and I thought, well, I have some time….

So I pulled out this fabric which came from the hoarder stash of which I have oft spoke, and grabbed my trusty Renfrew pattern, and did a bit of lengthening a la Andrea (p.s. I was trolling through her project gallery, she is so impressive, I want to make everything she’s made) and here I have a dress!

And wore it to the department holiday party that evening. And then out, for more whiskey. Which did not make my Friday morning an easy or a pleasant one, but the life of a writer is one of hardship and sadness, so I’m chalking that up to a good source of material. Sometimes you need to dominate on 99 problems in some random bar, it HAS to happen, the evening wants what it wants!

Contemplating the beauty and grace of Jay-Z’s poetry.

This fabric, which, as I said, came from that giant pile saved from the hoarder, is a really cool fuzzy sweater knit with these little speckles of color in it. I have no idea what it’s made of, probably something highly flammable, but it’s warm and cozy and I’ve been wearing this dress with alarming regularity since I made it.

My mother said the neckline is a little wonky. That might be because the first thing I made her do when I came home was take photos of me…

Or it might be because it’s a knit and stretchy and yes fine okay it’s a little wonky I’m a human sue me!

Side view!

Back view! With flash, it started getting dark. You can see the seam down the back, which is my new favorite thing for knits because A. its efficient, fabric-use-wise, and B. I kind of really like the way it looks.

So if you asked me how I felt about this stretchy comfy easy to wear warm and to my mind, quite cute, garment, I would show you this picture:

 

Now, I’m off to run errands and deal with my existence which is sad, because all I want to do is this:

I hope that you are all having a perfectly lovely holiday season! My hanukkah was excellent, and I will be celebrating what’s-its-name tomorrow with Asian food and a movie, but I promise to post again before I go to Holland, and I will do my very best to not fall off the face of the earth any time soon!