Weddings

I have a couple of friends getting married this coming spring. Shocking, right? Although, to be honest, I seem to be at the tipping age where more of my friends are married than single. We joked last weekend that the next friend to get married would be Darren. Darren is fourteen months old.

But no matter who is getting married. I need a dress. I was originally planning two dresses, but I somehow ended up as a bridesmaid for one of the weddings and will be provided with a super awesome swing type dress. I love it when dancers get married, everyone should be this cool.

But that leaves me with one dress. I thought about buying one but there is not a dress on this planet that is my style and my price range. So I had to make one. I found Simplicity 2588, which I am hoping is versatile enough that I can make some casual dresses, too, and tromped off to JoAnn Fabrics. My mom technically picked out the fabric and it is awesome. I've fully lined the dress and nearly successfully put in a completely invisible invisible-zipper. All that's left to do now is the hemming!

Limbo

If Limbo does exist, it must touch the physical realm between Christmas and New Year's. Those six days of no man's land where all the loose ends of the current year get tied up but nothing for the next year can officially be started. It's either a time crammed full of high speed stress or a lazy daisy wandering... or a little of both.

It is in this time of instantaneous yet delayed change, that my house is a mess. It seems this happens every year after Christmas. The onslaught of presents causes the need to find new spaces for everything, which triggers the need to go through closets and chuck what we're not using. Our dinning area/entryway is currently storage for piles of recycling, donations, things that need to be returned to their proper owners, and stuff for an 'out with the old, in with the new' clothing exchange. I suppose you could say it's the blessing and the curse of a small space that we can't just cram everything in.

The good news is, all this craziness made my husband realize that we really do need to figure out a workable, defined, maintained use for our spare bedroom (instead of just letting it be the catch-all room that functions as guest room, crafting room, office, library, attic, and garage). It still does most of those things but we've shifted the primary purposes around. I claimed it.

I've been trying to let it be mostly Dustin's room. Since I stay home during the day I feel like the rest of the house belongs to me and I feel it's important for someone who has to face the working world everyday to have a space in their home that is a kind of personal haven. That led to a room covered in electrical wires that may or may not be connecting anything and, bless his heart the man can be organized when he wants to be, tools everywhere but mostly just inside the door. Why they always ended there, I don't know, maybe because that's close enough to his side of the closet that they were quasi-put away. It drove me nuts, but I tried to just shut the door most of the time.

When Dustin expressed a desire for the room to be reorganized so that it wouldn't be messy all the time, I was thrilled. We finally moved the computer into our living room entertainment stand (hey, it's entertainment) like we've been meaning to since we moved here, which moved the 'office' out and freed up the desk. I asked Dustin if I could have the desk. He said yes. I asked him if he could not put anything on the desk at all, or on any of the shelves. He gave me a funny look but said yes.

I spent most of yesterday going through all my crafting stuff (yarn, fabric, thread, patterns, tools) and chucking all those odds and ends I've been saving 'just in case' but know I'll never use and reorganizing everything into boxes. It freed up about a quarter of the space in the closet and I now have a very sweet and darling space. My sewing machine can sit out and with the love seat tucked into the corner and the new lace tablecloth from Belgium my mother-in-law gave to me for Christmas, it makes me giddy happy whenever I glance in the door.

It is pretty girly. Which is what I was trying not to do, but the boy seemed pleased when he saw it, so I guess it'll be alright. Now, if I can just get my dinning area back...

Socks

I just finished my first ever pair of crochet socks! See and admire!

On the Campaign Trail

I need new clothes. Rather, I need more clothes. I finally admit it. I'm a girl and it's just hardwired in. Need. More. Clothes. Must. Have. More. Clothes. To. Play. With.

And, in all honesty, it's just wrong for a woman's husband to have twice as many clothes as his wife. Really, very wrong. Not to mention the shoes. Geez.

So, I'm campaigning, in a very passive aggressive sort of way. (FYI, my husband reads my blog, so it's not like this is going to be a secret.) For the next seven days, I'm going to wear the most outlandish things I can pull together from our combined closets. Yesterday was one of his shirts belted with a pretty black scarf over a black skirt with ridiculously high heels.

Today, I've altered some of my clothes and stolen his, um, crown. :P

First off, I bought the green skirt a while ago but it has always annoyed me. It was a wrap around skirt that tied in the back; however, because it tied higher or lower than the actual waist of the skirt, the hem was always lopsided at the bottom. So, I rolled out of bed this morning, hunted down some scissors and cut off the ties and opened up the waist band, threaded the longer tie through the waistband and can now tie it like any ordinary gathered waist skirt. I left the side seam open so you could see...

The black skirt. I made the black skirt out of some heavy twill a last month-ish. I wanted a floor length, full, winter worthy skirt. I've been quiet pleased with it (with the exception of the zipper, but no one ever sees that). It also doubles as a petticoat, as seen here.

The corduroy shirt was a clearance find and I love it. It's really comfy but isn't obviously 'relaxation' clothing. Dustin found the belt at Goodwill and used it as his crown for Halloween. After the party he took it off and explained what it actually was so, naturally, I attempted to fit it around my waist. He made some remark about my waist not being as small as his head when *click*, oh, look, it is. :P

The green tie at the neck is just the shorter tie from the green skirt. Somehow I can't help feeling that Bob would be proud. The shoes are just there to 'mix it up'. Isn't that what all the fashion designers say when they know their clothes don't match?

Now, all in all, I don't really expect this campaign to be successful. It's not like we don't have a budget that we actually have to stick to. BUT, it's worth a shot, right? ;)

Sew Beautiful... out of skirts.

This was yesterday's project. I just got my first Sew Beautiful magazine in the mail and couldn't wait to try out a pattern. It's just a little girl dress with two front pockets but it was more complicated than some of the dresses I've made for me.

I really like this dress (besides the fact that it's cute and about a foot and a half tall) because I made it out of a skirt. I just picked up the skirt at the flee market (actually, Dustin's aunt bought it for me). It was a really cheap skirt, both in price and in quality. I didn't even have any twinges of guilt as I cut the skirt up because it was so poorly made it really didn't even deserve to exist.

The blue bow at the front and the 'ribbon' around back is the draw string from the original skirt. It feels like it should be elastic but has all the stretch stretched out of it. The red pockets are made of leftover fabric from one of my fall/winter dresses, my first sewing project, in fact. The purple see through trim at the bottom of the skirt, on the pockets, and where the yolk meets the skirt are leftover ribbon from our wedding decorations. :) The binding over the 'ribbon' is thread from a huge cross stitch I finished at the beginning of the summer.

So it's a 'leftover' dress but I think it turned out really well. There are a few mistakes in it (the frill isn't sewn on correctly all the way around [but you can hardly tell], I accidentally snipped a small hole in the skirt while trimming a seam, I cannot for the life of me tie the shoulder bows at the same spot) but I am happy with it. Now I just need a baby to go in it :P In a couple years, maybe.

Why?

Why do women need so many shoes? My husband has more than most men, but that's because his parents garage sale and if it fits, he gets it. I, on the other hand want more shoes. I was a good girl and got them down to 5 pairs: tennis shoes, black dress, white dress, brown and black work shoes, and I might have had flip-flops but they hurt my feet. I figured men only need three pairs of shoes and generally look fine so I know it can be done. I was right, I generally look good and it can be done. But I want more. I now have a pair of brown boots, black dress, white dress, gold dress, bronze dress, suit shoes (business looking, not pretty like my dress shoes), street sneakers, hiking shoes, black sandals, and house shoes. That's 10 pairs, not including what's packed away for the winter (which are only about 4 pairs, most of my shoes are closed toed and do well in all seasons). But I want more. More colors, more styles. You can wear the same outfit with different shoes and jewelry and it will be totally different. Sigh. But it's hard to convince your practical half to cough up the money so your creative half can be satisfied.

Skirt

I took in a skirt today.

My husband took me shopping last weekend and he found this skirt on clearance. It was a beautiful skirt: dark brown; nice, swirly embroidery with flowers; lined, good quality. Great skirt, size 12. I'm between a 2 and 4 usually so, naturally, I wrote it off and continued looking. Then he asked if I could take it in (curse learning to sew and a super supportive husband). I did not want to take it in. I had no good reason, I just didn't want to. But I flipped it inside out and took a look at how the seams came together and decided that, yes, I could take it in, that it would be the most complicated thing I've done to date, and there was no way I knew of to take it in and have it look like it hadn't been taken in. But it was only $7, he said, so it wouldn't matter if I messed it up totally. I still didn't want to do it but he was trying very hard to be helpful. I bought it.

So this morning I started looking at it again and pulled out the first seam to get a better look at what needed to be done so it would look reasonably well done. I was right, in my experience, it was really complicated. I tried my very best to be objective about it all, my perfectionist nature would have loved to make a basket case out of me. I made decisions and stuck to them. I pinned the seams and checked them all at least twice before I sewed them in. I finished it all in one sitting (so to speak since I had to keep getting up to make sure the skirt would actually fit when I was done) and my husband tolerated my very focused, please don't speak to me attitude, for which I am very grateful. It turned out well. All my mistakes are on the inside and fairly undetectable on the outside. I'm not entirely pleased with how the waistband turned out but I have no idea how to make it any better without pulling the whole skirt apart, which I am not willing to do, so I am content.

The first picture is a front view of the finished skirt, the second picture is a side view of the side that I took in.

Outfit #4

So, remember that I got to talking with my lil sis and ended up making our Easter dresses? Well, this one is mine.

For those who care it's Simplicity 6557, with a modesty panel. Any time you ask your husband if you can wear a dress and he replies "in our bedroom" odds are it's too low or too high :P Which is pretty easy to fix. It zips in the back, is fully lined and really comfortable to wear. I am wearing a shirt under it (that would be the sleeves) but it's just as good sleeveless, just a little cooler. The weather's actually decent now so there are no extra layers underneath. The belt is just a standard chain belt and the shoes are sturdy slip-ons.

I'm really pleased with this dress.

Belt - Cato's
Shoes - Goody's
Dress Pattern - Walmart

New Blog of Note

You may have noticed the short list of blogs in the right hand column of this blog. I am pleased to announce that I have found another.

The Hand Made Dress is a blog written by a mother of three and avid sewer (as in she sews, not she's underground). She posts about family and sewing and is soon opening up an online store for sewing stuffs, not to mention all her nifty sewing and crocheting tips. I find her refreshing after all the mainstream commercial clothing producers. So check her out!

P.S. Her kids are so cute :)

Count Down

Okay, I've finished one of my two papers and one of my two presentations. Two down, two to go... plus four exams, but those are timed so I don't have to worry about them until that time. Yes, I'm one of those. It's worked well.

Why am I telling you this? So I feel productive. That's it. Plus I need to stay on track, so really that wasn't it. I made the mistake of talking about Easter dress with my little sister and am now committed to sewing both of us dresses. This is not a bad thing, in fact, I'm thrilled, but remember that separation of the mind in the last post, yeah. I've already made a mock up of her dress and pulled out an old pattern for mine (said pattern is currently laying all over our living room floor). These were both bad ideas. I am now seeing the world in seams and zippers. I've caught myself analyzing how other peoples' clothing is sewn together in class. Ahhh.... I just need to concentrate for four more days and then I will permit myself to actually purchase the fabric.

Outfit #3

Today I am wearing my favorite green skirt :) and a purple baby-doll tee-shirt (which just means it's a fitted tee-shirt instead of a box) over a long sleeved shirt. The skirt is a wrap around skirt and I love it, not only because it's an awesome corduroy and patchwork skirt, but because I can fit it to anyplace on my waist. One day it's a floor length skirt, the next it's only ankle length. Very handy for varying shoe heights.

I don't feel I have a whole lot to say about this outfit. I like it:)

As always, underneath I'm wearing a tank-top, long-underwear bottoms, one of my long peasant skirts from summer (as a petticoat) and good thick socks. This is very important if you're hometown looks like mine.

The second picture is what I saw outside our front window this morning. Now, if you're from the real North (MN, ND, etc.) this may not seem like much, but in a tiny town with one salt truck and a couple of really old snow plows, not to mention our vast collection of giant hills, it can be pretty scary. I've heard a rumor that our city is now completely out of road salt. So sad. Maybe the university will get closed for a day or two :P

The skirt if from the Import House.
The purple shirt is from JC Penney.

Outfit #2

We had a ton of snow today. Local schools canceled, Universities praying for that level 3 so the could be canceled, all that jazz. Unfortunately, no level 3 and school for me. But that's okay, I only had two classes today anyway.

Today's outfit was a dress over jeans.

The dress itself is one of those empire waist dresses that you can buy anywhere these days. Short sleeved, knee-length, tie in back.

Today, as you may have guessed from the snow, was cold. So this dress is layered over long-sleeved shirt (which is why there's a giant patch of black where the neckline usually is, I'm not sure what I think about that yet, perhaps a blue undershirt would look better).

The jeans are gray and have a black design on the bottom left leg and the right thigh (it's a shame you can't see it because of the skirt but what can you do).

I'm wearing a small pearl necklace and dangle earrings.


I wore these shoes with the outfit. Flats work best for me in the snow and I love the strap across the top. I bought these after one too many over confident strides on campus caused me to lose my slip-ons. Most embarrassing.

Under the outfit: yet another long-sleeve shirt, long-underwear bottoms, and two pairs of socks.

The dress and pants are from Kohls.
The shoes are from Wal-mart (please, don't shoot me)

Today's Outfit

Today (for the second half of the day because I looked like a bum for my morning classes) I wore a tan skirt with a forest green sweater.


The skirt is slightly flared at the bottom and has that school teacher look so I have to be careful what I pair it with (no offense to the school teachers, you look good but you're a teacher and I'm not). The sweater is supposed to be off-the-shoulder but what's the point of a sweater to keep you warm when you wear it off-the-shoulder. Maybe come spring. I'm also wearing chandelier earrings.

If you're really bored, try taking a picture of chandelier earrings in your ears without making them move. I'll see you in half an hour :P Ideally, this outfit would go with awesome brown boots, but I don't have any, sorry.

Also, UNDER this outfit (because it's cold and I know from experience that some of us don't know how to dress in skirts in the cold) I am wearing a long sleeved t-shirt (you can see the pink at the neckline), a pair of opaque tights and knee high socks. It was below freezing today and snowing hard as I walked to and from class and the only part of me that was cold was my nose. Of course, at the time I was wear a scarf, gloves and coat, but I can't say as much for other people. Ladies, invest in some long underwear, no really, you'll thank me.

The sweater is from Goodys.
The skirt is from JC Penneys.

Bandwagon Time

I've spent countless hours searching the web for a way to modestly, femininely dress. Without looking like I've jumped out of a children's story book. I don't think it exists and, however much I would love to dress up like Snow White or Laura Ingles, I do wish to look like I live in this century (or at least the last one). I don't want to look like a guy (no flannel shirts and jeans; modest, yes, feminine, no.) I don't want to look like Britney Spears (no explanation needed). I want to look, well, I've already said it: modest and feminine.

Now, there are tons of websites lecturing us ladies on why we ought to be modest and feminine, mostly religious ones. We tempt men (well, duh.), we should set an example for younger women (yup), it's good for our self-respect (looking good does that), etc., etc. Great, we agree, where do I shop? What? No answers? Thought so.

That isn't exactly true. There are tons (well, okay, I've found a couple dozen) of web-sites created by women who sew (praise God! They still exist!) and are willing to sew for other women who want to dress modestly. Most of them are Amish or Mennonite and do a fabulous job at looking both modest and feminine; however, they don't generally meet my 'this century' requirement. But if that's your thing: http://www.modestclothes.com/. There are other sites that sell ready-made clothing, mostly Mormon. The nice thing in monopolizing a single state with a religion is that the stores tend to cater to that religion's standards. My favorite so far is www.mollysclothing.com (her tag-line is: "Put Something On." Now who hasn't wanted to say that to some young thing or, even worse, some older thing. There are other great sites for Jewish and Muslim women but I don't particularly want to dress quite like that.

I've also started to frequent A Dress a Day by a woman named Erin. She posts about, you guessed it, dresses. She leans more toward the vintage style and recommends dozens of patterns to try (for those women who sew whom I was talking about earlier). If nothing else it at least offers a little hope that there are ways to be modest and feminine at all.

After my hours and days and (quite honestly if you added up all the hours) weeks of searching for clothes I realized that I should probably stop complaining about there being very little material on the web to use and start posting some for the other women I'm sure are in the same predicament I'm in. I've decide, after finding other women doing this, that I'll post some of what I wear everyday to give others an idea on my take of modest and feminine. I won't post everyday because not everything I wear is worth copying :P I'm working on that. I'll warn you now that I prefer skirts and dresses but by no means believe that if you don't own either that you can't be modest and feminine. It just takes a bit more work because nothing says feminine like a skirt.

Cold and Windy

I don't know what it's like in the rest of the world (other than the worst winter weather ever in China) but it's really cold here. I've been putting my scarves up over the top of my head to keep my ears and face from freezing, which means I look like an old-fashioned prairie woman but, hey, I'm warm. I think I've decided that the women of the past must have been much more practical than women today... probably people in general. The more 'old-fashioned' I dress the more comfortable I am, whether that be temperature or not needing to worry about necklines, hemlines, or static.

My advice to all women: wear floor length skirts; yes, in the winter; yes, outside. Wear a heavy over-skirt (corduroy or the like) and then put one of those summer peasant skirts underneath (yes, like a petticoat). It's soooo warm. Not to mention more doors get opened for you :) People seem to think pants are warmer than skirts. In my experience, this is not true. You simply have to wear the right kind of skirt. Also, find a floor vent and stand on it. It'll warm up your skirt and when you sit down it's like having a blanket straight from the dryer wrapped around you.

Dresses

I've been having an odd obsession with dresses lately. It seems I can't get enough of them and I hate everything that's being sold right now. There is no such thing as a modern, modest, pretty dress for under $150. It's that such an odd request? I know that slightly higher neckline (you know, so they can't see your chest) and the slightly lower hemline cost a little extra, but that's all: a little. Not $100.

There is also no such thing as a long skirt that doesn't look frumpy. No wonder our mothers have such trouble not looking the dreaded '40'. (Which I also have an opinion on but that's for another post.) Our clothing makers don't make anything for anyone between 25 and 60. You must look one or the other even if it makes you look like a tramp or 20 years over your age. Or wear unisex clothing, which works fine for work but what about those women who don't want men to have to look twice to figure out what gender they are. Our clothes should address that for us. (Again, another post.)

I'm seriously considering buying a bunch of patterns and making my own clothes. It might take more time but it's much more cost effective and I can have every detail I want without searching a million stores over and getting frustrated with everything modest being ugly and everything attractive not being pretty.