Just had a little bit of an "ah ha" moment.
Dale and I had been talking about Allison's college acceptances this week, and when I said I didn't think she'd fit in that well in Santa Cruz, he said "why not, she dresses the part." Set me to thinking a little about the way we dress versus who we are. Then this morning in my email, I got my Brenda Kinsel [bkinsel@brendakinsel.com] newsletter, and she's talking about knowing your personal style before you go shopping to avoid those purchases of "loved it in the store, but it's not me."
Her suggestion is to pick something that you love, and describe it in detail, using descriptive words. Then either write down what you've said, or have someone else write it down as you describe it. Look at the descriptors and decide whether or not that describes how you think of yourself, and if that is your style. Voila, you will know what type of garments you should be purchasing to maintain your personal style, which will always make you feel good about how you look and what you're wearing.
So now I'm sitting here thinking about what I own, and what I love, and the two don't match up very well. I don't have much in my closet right now that I love because I think I am mostly dressing either to 1. cover my body, or 2. hide the weight. So I never feel all that great. Need to do this exercise with a lot of thoughtfulness to determine what it is I love and what it says about what I should be sewing instead of what I am sewing.
As I'm thinking about garments I have loved dearly, two spring to mind. One a wild tropical print silk shirt that always made me feel fabulous. It was in dark forest-ey colors of browns, greens, and had some purple tropical flowers that were about the size of my palm. Although I didn't wear it when I needed to feel professional, whenever I put it on, I was happy. Second was another floral print shirt that I wore as a light weight jacket. So obviously floral is my style. Need to determine what that says about me and where I go from there! :P}}
Just got a call from Nicole. She's home for the weekend, and is coming over for a visit, so I need to move my day forward! Off to the showers!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Time flies
Busy week again. I love having the work, hate that it takes all of my personal time away.
I did get to put together one of the jacket muslins for Allison's prom outfit. She came by and tried it on yesterday (spring break!) and liked it, so that's good. Although the dress may be morphing into something totally different. She's decided that seniors wear short dresses and not gowns, but will talk to her friends and see what they are all wearing. Sara brought me a dress she bought at a thrift store to hem for her, so that needs to be done too. She's very much liking vintage clothing circa 50's to 60's and it suits her long, lanky frame quite well.
Today will give me a little time to work on some other projects besides the prom gown. Today is Sunday and I've decided that other than doing bills and paperwork, the day is mine. Dale is now working super long hours in Stockton, so will pretty much sleep all day. Last week started at 2:30 am on Monday as he had to be in Stockton by 7, and ended about 9:30 Friday night. We did get to take a ride yesterday out to one of my jobs to verify position of well and septic tank, then had lunch, but that's pretty much it for him on a weekend like this. He'll be getting up at 2:30 am again tomorrow, so is planning to sleep most of today to be ready for tomorrow.
I have french bread rising and a pork roast in a slow oven so he'll have food for a couple of days. We've been doing this for a couple of weeks and it seems to be working pretty well. I cook a big meal on Sunday with plenty of left overs and make bread, then he'll take a couple of days worth of food in a cooler so he doesn't have to eat at Denny's for three meals a day for a week. Seems like he's feeling a bit better and has lost a few pounds, so I guess it's better for him too. Do need to run out to Whole Foods and get something to go with the pork roast for dinner. For him, probably roasted potatoes, for me, maybe the same, or maybe polenta, which I love. Then I'm make a cabbage-carrot-apple slaw and we should be good for several days. :P}}
I also need to figure out what I'm doing for Sara for her birthday. Perhaps just a pair of sweat pants, but perhaps a dress. Need to see what I have that would be suitable.
Fun day for me, so I better get moving!
I did get to put together one of the jacket muslins for Allison's prom outfit. She came by and tried it on yesterday (spring break!) and liked it, so that's good. Although the dress may be morphing into something totally different. She's decided that seniors wear short dresses and not gowns, but will talk to her friends and see what they are all wearing. Sara brought me a dress she bought at a thrift store to hem for her, so that needs to be done too. She's very much liking vintage clothing circa 50's to 60's and it suits her long, lanky frame quite well.
Today will give me a little time to work on some other projects besides the prom gown. Today is Sunday and I've decided that other than doing bills and paperwork, the day is mine. Dale is now working super long hours in Stockton, so will pretty much sleep all day. Last week started at 2:30 am on Monday as he had to be in Stockton by 7, and ended about 9:30 Friday night. We did get to take a ride yesterday out to one of my jobs to verify position of well and septic tank, then had lunch, but that's pretty much it for him on a weekend like this. He'll be getting up at 2:30 am again tomorrow, so is planning to sleep most of today to be ready for tomorrow.
I have french bread rising and a pork roast in a slow oven so he'll have food for a couple of days. We've been doing this for a couple of weeks and it seems to be working pretty well. I cook a big meal on Sunday with plenty of left overs and make bread, then he'll take a couple of days worth of food in a cooler so he doesn't have to eat at Denny's for three meals a day for a week. Seems like he's feeling a bit better and has lost a few pounds, so I guess it's better for him too. Do need to run out to Whole Foods and get something to go with the pork roast for dinner. For him, probably roasted potatoes, for me, maybe the same, or maybe polenta, which I love. Then I'm make a cabbage-carrot-apple slaw and we should be good for several days. :P}}
I also need to figure out what I'm doing for Sara for her birthday. Perhaps just a pair of sweat pants, but perhaps a dress. Need to see what I have that would be suitable.
Fun day for me, so I better get moving!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Moving right along
Hooray. Got the sweatsuit done and it looks kinda cute if I do say so myself. I'm not good in black near my face, but I think the royal blue balances it out. I'm glad that's done and I can move on to more fun things. Pictures will follow!
Which brings up the next major project. I had decided that I wanted to do a prom dress for Allison. Junior prom she wore Nicole's dress from a prior prom, and she is like 5'1" and Nicole is like 5'7"... she looked beautiful but I figured she needed one of her own. I just happened to find some hammered gold silk on one of the web sites clearance items, so got that, and have several options here to make a jacket to go over the dress for dinner, etc. I've been toying with my ideas for several months, and VOILA... just like that it's time to get out of my head and start DOING!
Prom is April 30, and I want to be sure everything is exactly right. BUT of course, I'm adapting a pattern I found, and I had just organized everything into bags with pattern, fabric, etc., and Martha, our German Shorthair found the pattern for the dress and ate half of it. For whatever reason, way beyond my comprehension, she loves eating paper, and tissue paper is like the prize. So now I have to go find another copy of the pattern in her size, a Vogue that costs $15!
I've given her several jacket options, but she needs to pick one, and can't visualize the way it will look so I'm going to do a musline for each. That way I can check size at the same time she's seeing what it will look like. Now all I need is a bit of time to make this happen! LOL
So tomorrow I think I'm sewing all day. This morning I got the first jacket muslin cut out, and then had to head to a continuing education class. That took the rest of the day. Tomorrow I hope to put this one together and get the next one cut out. We'll see how things go!
Pictures will come soon, I promise!
Which brings up the next major project. I had decided that I wanted to do a prom dress for Allison. Junior prom she wore Nicole's dress from a prior prom, and she is like 5'1" and Nicole is like 5'7"... she looked beautiful but I figured she needed one of her own. I just happened to find some hammered gold silk on one of the web sites clearance items, so got that, and have several options here to make a jacket to go over the dress for dinner, etc. I've been toying with my ideas for several months, and VOILA... just like that it's time to get out of my head and start DOING!
Prom is April 30, and I want to be sure everything is exactly right. BUT of course, I'm adapting a pattern I found, and I had just organized everything into bags with pattern, fabric, etc., and Martha, our German Shorthair found the pattern for the dress and ate half of it. For whatever reason, way beyond my comprehension, she loves eating paper, and tissue paper is like the prize. So now I have to go find another copy of the pattern in her size, a Vogue that costs $15!
I've given her several jacket options, but she needs to pick one, and can't visualize the way it will look so I'm going to do a musline for each. That way I can check size at the same time she's seeing what it will look like. Now all I need is a bit of time to make this happen! LOL
So tomorrow I think I'm sewing all day. This morning I got the first jacket muslin cut out, and then had to head to a continuing education class. That took the rest of the day. Tomorrow I hope to put this one together and get the next one cut out. We'll see how things go!
Pictures will come soon, I promise!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
A little behind myself
Haven't been doing much blogging lately looks like. But I have been getting in a minor amount of sewing here and there.
Cathy took me and the girls to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for a birthday present surprise, but we had to wait a bit because everyone was sick off and on and trading around. I'm pretty sure either one or both of us posted pictures on Facebook. It was truly a wonderful day.
Moving right along, my February outfit got done, but I don't have pictures yet. After the last one Dale took, I'll be asking someone else to take my photos for my blog in the future. I don't like looking twice as huge as I already am!
So anyway, the February outfit was a black jacket (Version 3 of the pattern) and pants out of a twill from Joanns. Won't use that type of fabric anymore as it was awful to work with, and it was off grain and I never did get it totally right. The jacket is getting close. I forgot that I need to add extra length to the front sections for the fleshy mounds in addition to the width. So next try will add about an inch in length to the center front, and narrow down to nothing at the side seam. I also added a little too much to the width, so need to take the next one in a bit, and will add about 1/4" at the shoulders for shoulder pads. I need those to balance out the rest of me even if they are little ones with current styles. I also did a tee in a pattern of reds, black, grey, magenta, pink, and brown that will go with tons of stuff. I have some other black and various blue prints to make up too, but those are waiting for now. Version 4 of the jacket is coming soon!
Right now I'm playing with something I haven't done in a long time. This may be my March outfit if I don't get anything done before the month is up. I need some sweatshirts and thought I could sew up a few quickly with sweat pants to match. Then maybe if I have a cute outfit, I'll feel more like walking every day...ROFLOL! So this sweatshirt is a vintage Kwik Sew Pattern 2133... judging from the date on the back, if my Roman Numerals are correct, it's from 1991. Hmmm... a 20 year old pattern I'm still using. What does that say about me? Or maybe that sweatshirts just don't change THAT much! It's a raglan sleeve pattern which is what I wanted for this sweatshirt.
I had some royal blue sweatshirt fabric I bought for exactly this purpose. But evidently I didn't buy matching ribbing, or I used it for something else, because I don't have it anywhere I can find it. So I figured I'd just use black ribbing. But then I want it to look like it was planned, and not used just because I didn't have the blue, even though that's the reason. So I've been letting this stew in the back of my brain for several days, and VOILA! I thought about doing some decorative flat locking across the front of the sweatshirt in black, and doing a stripe of black down the legs. Easy to do, and it'll look a little more polished and like it's a design feature instead of an error.
So off to put my sweatshirt together and get the stripes cut for the legs of the pants. I'm a happy camper now!
Hopefully pictures of both outfits before the week is over!
February Flowered Top:
Cathy took me and the girls to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for a birthday present surprise, but we had to wait a bit because everyone was sick off and on and trading around. I'm pretty sure either one or both of us posted pictures on Facebook. It was truly a wonderful day.
Moving right along, my February outfit got done, but I don't have pictures yet. After the last one Dale took, I'll be asking someone else to take my photos for my blog in the future. I don't like looking twice as huge as I already am!
So anyway, the February outfit was a black jacket (Version 3 of the pattern) and pants out of a twill from Joanns. Won't use that type of fabric anymore as it was awful to work with, and it was off grain and I never did get it totally right. The jacket is getting close. I forgot that I need to add extra length to the front sections for the fleshy mounds in addition to the width. So next try will add about an inch in length to the center front, and narrow down to nothing at the side seam. I also added a little too much to the width, so need to take the next one in a bit, and will add about 1/4" at the shoulders for shoulder pads. I need those to balance out the rest of me even if they are little ones with current styles. I also did a tee in a pattern of reds, black, grey, magenta, pink, and brown that will go with tons of stuff. I have some other black and various blue prints to make up too, but those are waiting for now. Version 4 of the jacket is coming soon!
Right now I'm playing with something I haven't done in a long time. This may be my March outfit if I don't get anything done before the month is up. I need some sweatshirts and thought I could sew up a few quickly with sweat pants to match. Then maybe if I have a cute outfit, I'll feel more like walking every day...ROFLOL! So this sweatshirt is a vintage Kwik Sew Pattern 2133... judging from the date on the back, if my Roman Numerals are correct, it's from 1991. Hmmm... a 20 year old pattern I'm still using. What does that say about me? Or maybe that sweatshirts just don't change THAT much! It's a raglan sleeve pattern which is what I wanted for this sweatshirt.
I had some royal blue sweatshirt fabric I bought for exactly this purpose. But evidently I didn't buy matching ribbing, or I used it for something else, because I don't have it anywhere I can find it. So I figured I'd just use black ribbing. But then I want it to look like it was planned, and not used just because I didn't have the blue, even though that's the reason. So I've been letting this stew in the back of my brain for several days, and VOILA! I thought about doing some decorative flat locking across the front of the sweatshirt in black, and doing a stripe of black down the legs. Easy to do, and it'll look a little more polished and like it's a design feature instead of an error.
So off to put my sweatshirt together and get the stripes cut for the legs of the pants. I'm a happy camper now!
Hopefully pictures of both outfits before the week is over!
February Flowered Top:
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