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? ;)

The Dress

My morning's work (and half the afternoon, too!):


I'm very pleased with how the dress turned out! Although, I'm pretty sure my hands are going to permanently smell of metal if I continue to crochet at this pace.

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.

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

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.