The Indian Soccer Mom Outfit

Guys, sometimes you make an outfit that you think is going to be super awesome and cute and vintage and fun and it ends up being….different. Special. Hell, awkward. And that, my friends, is what has happened here.

In the spirit of not ablogogizing, (god bless this concept, I learned it from Did You Make That, anyone else?) I’m just going to say that I have many undocumented makes and I’m trying to document them and someday that will happen and there that is. Did you know, for example, that I have three, count them, THREE sets of Carolyn Pajamas I have yet to blog? Not to mention the two sets I made for my mother, which takes me to five, oh hell. What can I say, I love a Carolyn Pajama, although I have yet to get the pants to fit EXACTLY right, sigh, they always end up a little too snug and a little too low in the crotch, but I’m working on it! I have a bunch of seamwork patterns, like a Mojave maxi-dress, and the akita top I’m currently wearing and a pair of moji pants which I will never blog about because the fabric I made them in bled like a body in a Quentin Tarantino movie so I wore them and the matching shirt I made using the grainline tiny pocket t to my haldi because you are supposed to give the clothing you wear to that ceremony away because it gets smeared with turmeric and is therefore lucky and if you want to know why THAT is the answer, as told to me, was because Hinduism. Here, see for yourself:

The point is, I have a lot of back log, but I’m not going to ablogogize, because I feel like for me, the whole impetus behind that is hey, no, really, I’ve been making stuff, I promise! And why do I have to do that? I make things for myself, and I shouldn’t worry that you are all out there judging me, assuming that I’m not being productive enough because I haven’t posted a new thing. I shouldn’t assume you are thinking about me at all. I’m sure you have much more to do with your time. See, at its heart, I think ablogogizing is a sort of self-centered thing to do, so I’m not going to do it. I am, however, going to tell you about this outfit which I’m just going to own, regardless of how completely, well, let’s say not-my-normal-look it turned out. Basically, this outfit makes me look like a soccer mom. And not a great one, not one with an awesome SUV (I threw up in my mouth typing awesome to describe SUV, fyi) and a perfect plan for the kids and all their activities, not one who posts her OWN projects for cute snacks and fun 30 minute dinners on pinterest and gets repinned a thousand times, no, more like that soccer mom who really wants her kids to become readers and hopes they will get into drama and shows up with a package of Oreos to the school bake sale and is, in fact, a pinterest fail. The kind who calls wine mommy juice and drops out of every spin class about halfway through. Man, I can’t WAIT to be that soccer mom, actually, come to think of it….I don’t even need kids for that. I wonder if Cadfael would want to try soccer out.

It’s not looking likely.

Anyway, with no further ado, I present you THIS:

This is one of those outfits that has two individual positive pieces that together somehow make up Julie Bowen on crack. Sigh.

The shirt is a Grainline Archer, (ps have you seen the new popover variation? I want to go to there.) This shirt is actually pretty cute, I promise. I made view B, with the little flare at the back, and I’ve worn it countless times, I kind of adore it. I stitched up a size 12, french seamed it all and the only adjustment was to lengthen it a bit, three inches this time, which is standard for my archers.

I got the fabric at Mangaldas Market in South Bombay. I was going for more Kate Spade than stuck in Suburbia, frankly, and I don’t know where in that spectrum it falls on a normal day but with these pants? It’s the beginning of the Feminist Mystique up in here.

The pants are Butterick 5895, a Gertie pattern. I used a very stretchy cotton bottom-weight fabric which I got here at Sew in Style, an expensive but lovely fabric shop in North Bombay. This fabric is so stretchy that after a day in these pants they have bagged out like none other, sigh. It’s okay, they are extremely comfortable, and I like the pockets and the waistband. They were easy enough to sew, and I french seamed the majority of it, and omitted the overlap waistband for a longer zipper and a hook and eye. I do think some element of stretch is good for these pants, but maybe not quite…this much. I have a stretchy black twill and I’m thinking of mixing this with a pair of Clovers and seeing what happens.

See? They are so extremely bagged out, it’s like a super market grocery line here. Ba-dum-ching!

Nevertheless, there are worse things to look like than a soccer mom, and hey, at least here in India it’s not such a prevailing stereotype that I feel like people judged me for it. People called me ma’am, but then, this is India, they would have done that anyway.

Okay. There you go. Soccer mom meets India. Now, time for some Mommy juice.