alteration

I altered the dress I wore to the navy dance. I just added a bow over the part where the waistline is skewed. Why fix your mistakes when you can just cover them up with a pretty bow?


Next up, we have a satin top I made from an old pajama set. Not too crazy about the fit, but it does look chic under a blazer.


Meh, I'm not thrilled with either of these garments. I'm getting kinda sick of poly-satin.

navy dress for navy dance

Here is the outfit I sewed for October. My school had a dance with the Midshipmen after the Notre Dame-Navy game, so this is the dress I made for it. Another unflattering picture. The flash makes the satin look all weird, but it's actually very fitted and pretty, and the back looks fabulous, I promise. I wanted to take better pictures, but I kept putting it off, so I decided I might as well just post this one.

So the dance was pretty lame and awkward (probably since we lost the football game so pathetically), so a bunch of us bailed and hit up Finnie's Pub in our dresses. Way more fun. We had a few drinks, met a few guys and had a great time. Let's hope Notre Dame does better tonight. Ha.

I started up a new blog with my friend Mary. http://judgmentalcentral.blogspot.com It's different from this one. It's called Judgmental Central, and we basically just judge dumb stuff and stupid people. We do have some coarse language, so read at your own risk I guess. Just thought I'd share that here since it's another blogspot one.

Well, for my next sewing endeavor, I'm going to try to make a blouse out of an ugly chiffon skirt I picked up at goodwill yesterday. The print is really pretty: navy blue with pink and taupe roses. The skirt is so ugly though. It's long and pleated and high-waisted and weird. Why do people waist lovely fabric on hideous garments? Haha, I guess I've been guilty of that too though...

blues and greys

Finished! The skirt doesn't really fit that well but I totally love the top. I made the skirt out of an old pair of men's slacks, and I made the top from some cheap jersey knit I got on clearance. I guess I don't have much else to say about it except that I'm glad I got it finished. Thanks everybody who encouraged me!

So, I'm thinking for October I might try making some pants, seeing as the weather's been in the 40's and 50's all week and they still haven't turned on the heat in my dorm. I'm wearing gloves and a jacket as I type this, shivering. So yeah, skirts and dresses don't sound all that appealing right now. I've never made pants before. I'm kinda scared but kinda excited. It might be a little too ambitious of me, but I guess the whole point of this blog is to challenge myself to try new things, especially if I'm scared of screwing up.

Wow, that picture looks really bad on my blog. Yuck. The colors and the lighting and the angle just look so amateur and out of place. I need to start taking better photos for this thing. Ew it just hurts my eyes with the tan against the grey background. So sorry about that. ick.

almost done!

I'm almost done with my september outfit! I had to change my plans because I screwed up the scallops and didn't have enough fabric left to finish the dress. So my back up plan was a navy blue shirt and a grey skirt. I just finished the shirt today! It's adorable, with a big bow on the front. The skirt is about halfway done. I'm a little worried about how to put in the zipper, but it's looking good. Even though I changed my design, it's still kinda inspired by the 500 Days of Summer wardrobe too, though not based on any specific outfit. Just the neutral color palette, retro silhouettes, menswear fabrics and cute feminine details that I've been so crazy about lately. Now, if only I could afford to buy a bunch of cute shoes and purses to complete the look... sigh.

intimidation

I haven't made much progress on my dress. I feel kind of intimidated by it, I guess. Why do I always get so intimidated when I have a good design or idea? If I screw it up, whatever, right? I'll get it right eventually, as long as I try, right? Especially if I'm off to a great start. It's the same thing with the play I'm writing for my senior comp. I've got about ten pages of notes on characters and scenes and plot and everything, but so far I've only been able to crank out about four pages of legit play. I need 3-5 more by noon tomorrow. I love my plot and characters, and I know this play could kick ass, I just get nervous whenever I write it. What is that? fear of not being good enough? even though I'm the one who came up with the idea? who could write this play better than me? Same with the dress. I designed it. Who could sew it better than me? So why hesitate?

updating

I've designed my next outfit, and I'm quite excited about it. It's partially inspired by Summer Finn's blue shirtdress in the film 500 days of Summer. I really wanna try making the scalloped hem and the scalloped button front. I've never done anything like that before, but I want to try new techniques and this is a perfect way to start. My design is a little different from the dress in the movie. It's going to be ivory instead of blue, and it's going to have black lace detail instead of embroidery. The skirt will probably be shorter and fuller, and hopefully there won't be as much pleating on the bodice. And mine will have pockets. I LOVE pockets. Especially on dresses.

Yesterday I went to Chicago sort of on a whim for this family picnic croquet tournament thing. It was a lot of fun. My aunt and uncle made some amazing food, and it was a really great time. It was pretty cold, so they set up a fire pit, which made the whole thing very cozy. And for the championship game, the kids made a playlist of inspirational music like the Rocky song and the Final Countdown so everybody was cheering and really getting into it. I love doing stuff like that. I love my family. I have this little fear in the back of my thoughts that I won't get to do stuff like this as much once I leave college. All the grad schools I'm looking at are in California, New York and Florida, all far away from here. And my parents are moving to Michigan next winter. That's going to be weird, but at least they'll be close by for the rest of my senior year. And my little brother is moving to Indianapolis, so that's just weird as hell. Now I've got this bizarre feeling that pretty soon we're all going to be disconnected and scattered across the country. And I'm probably going to be the farthest away of all after I graduate. Am I just scared to be going off on my own, without my parents to support me, emotionally and financially? I guess I'm just sad to be losing this closeness where we're all still involved in each others lives. Wellll, it's time for me to get some sleep.

back to school

I wore the dress I made in June (black with pink flowers) to a party last night and I got so much positive feedback on it. Everyone loved it and couldn't believe that I made it. So I guess I'm kind of an attention whore about it, but who could blame me? I'm really proud of that dress. I designed it myself, made it for cheap, and I even invented my own method of attaching the jersey knit top to the cotton weave skirt with elastic in back so that it can stretch without bunching. So yeah, I get to be proud of myself. I was so thrilled that a lot of people liked it. A couple girls even said they'd pay me to sew some for them too. How awesome is that? I could definitely do it too because this kind of dress looks great on all figures and it doesn't require too much fitting since the top part stretches and the back has elastic. So yeah, I'm feeling really great about this.