Sunday, August 28, 2011

Old projects, new pictures

Hi everyone!  I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I posted! Very lame of me.  But this will be a nice big post with pictures.

What have I been up to the last 3 weeks?

1. I had an interview on Friday and wore my hopefully lucky skirt (blogged here):
Don't I look professional, responsible, and cute?  You should hire me!

I don't have much to say about it, this is the fourth version of this skirt!  I loved the fabric, a poly poplin from fabric.com.  I had to drive an hour to my interview and this baby didn't wrinkle at all.

2. I went to the High Desert to visit  my friend Sydney and wow, I bought a lot of clothes.  And I mean a lot. But it was all cheap, so there you go! I averaged like $6/item.  The teal shirt above is one of such finds.  While visiting Sydney, I also knit 2 American Girl doll hats and a baby hat for her new niece.  I wish I had the foresight to take pictures of all those hats!

3.  I finally photographed a dress I made earlier in the summer.  The top is from McCalls 6083, a jumpsuit pattern.  I started off thinking I wanted a romper, but decided I wanted a dress instead.  I didn't do anything fancy at all to change from romper to dress, I just cut two trapezoids such that the waist was roughly the size of the waist of the shorts pattern pieces.  I didn't measure anything and just eyeballed it all.
Off to some Sunday Dim Sum. Over 90 degrees today, that's hot for being just two miles from the Pacific!

This picture doesn't do the dress justice.  We all know I can't be photographed (examples here and here) plus I left all my make up at Gary's parents' house and I should've put some shoes on.  Anyways, I like this dress, it's more or less a sack.  There's elastic at the waist, but it really does need the belt.  However, it's a super comfy just throw on dress that makes it look like you tried a lot harder than you really did.  The fabric is weird though.  I got it for like a $1/yard at Walmart (Hey- I am unemployed you know!).  I guess it's cotton, but it feels soft, but not in a good way, like in a "its crumbling apart" way.  It comes apart at the seams a lot, I had to super reinforce my seams, and I still don't think this dress will last long.  Oh well, maybe I'll make it again in a sturdier fabric.  And really, this was cheaper than making a muslin.

4. I finished my yellow shirt (blogged about at the bottom of this post).  I don't have a picture, mainly because I don't love it.  If I tried it on in a store, I probably wouldn't have bought it.  I measured the tissue pieces and got a really good fit in the waist and hips.  But the bust is gathered, so I didn't know how to measure that and plan accordingly.  As a result, it came out too big in the bust and makes the whole thing look dowdy in my opinion.  I'm sure it's fixable, but I don't feel motivated to fix it because I just gave up hope on the whole thing.  I guess I'll get around to it sometime soon.

5.  I made a delicious dinner for Gary:


Eggplant stuffed with qunioa, ground beef, and sauteed veggies with a side of yogurt sauce.  So yummy!

6.  I've been working out a LOT.  I gained 20 lbs over the last 3 years of my last job (told you it was a good thing that I got let go!)  The last five pounds was in the last few months there, when the monkey poo really hit the fan.  Now that my knees are feeling better, I bought a 24 hour fitness gym membership at costco and I've been making good use of it.  No excuses since I'm unemployed and have so much time!  I already lost 4 pounds, and I'm feeling motivated to keep it up!

However, one bad thing about this is I hesitate to sew a lot of clothes for myself.  If I'm losing weight, I don't want to waste time making clothes that won't fit in a few months.  So to solve this, I'm planning to make things where fit isn't such an issue, like the drapey cardigans, and I'm also....

7.  Sewing for Gare Bear!


 In knitting circles, there's an urban legend known as the Boyfriend Curse.  It says that if you spend the months knitting your boyfriend a sweater, it's guaranteed you'll break up right afterwards.  Hopefully that isn't a thing in sewing!  I'm working on a gray dress shirt made from stretch shirting from fabric.com.  I've having some issues with the ease of the sleeves, but to be honest I only tried once and then was too tired to mess with it again. But other than that, I'm surprised how nicely it's coming together.  I also ordered some seersucker to make him a short sleeve more casual shirt.



So that's what I've been up to in this radio silence!  If anybody knows of a job for a former teacher in the SoCal area let me know!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Rethinking...

After yesterday's post, I took my little purple jacket to my mom's house to show her, and she absolutely loved it!   She said it'd look good with jeans and a white shirt, which is what I was going for. I think that my lack of photogenic skills influenced my own thoughts about the jacket.  I saw the bad pictures and thought the jacket was bad.  But now my mom's comment makes me think that the jacket isn't bad, it's the pictures that are bad.

I looked up some tips on being photogenic:
http://www.weddingandpartynetwork.com/blog/etiquette/how-to-be-photogenic/
http://www.doedeereblogazine.com/articles/how-to-be-photogenic-take-great-pictures
http://doesnt-hurt-to-be-beautiful.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-be-photogenic.html

I only looked at 3, because they seem to be pretty similar.  I wish I had a tripod, I would just practice over and over and over!  But as it is, I might practice in the mirror.  I really need to learn to take decent pictures!