Yellow and Grey

What I Wore: 

Dress: Thrifted (Talize)

Cardi: Thrifted (Talize)

Tights: Walmart 

Belt: Ardene

Shoes: Ardene

I really like the combination of grey and yellow. I don't know what it is, maybe something to do with a more muted colour paired with something bright, but I think it looks really nice. I was wearing a brooch with this cardigan, a little white flower with two green leaves on either side, but you can't really see it in the pictures. Come to think of it I don't remember it being on the sweater when I was putting it away in my closet, I hope I didn't lose it especially since it was Colin's grandma's. I have been having really bad luck with brooches lately. I want to expand my collection, but I keep losing them. For instance, on Boxing day I was wearing this lovely silver bow brooch to my aunt's house. When I got out of the car the metal pin fell out on the ground, but the bow was nowhere to be found. I still have no idea what happened to it. This one is embarrassing, but on Monday night I went to see Les Miserables with my family, and the brooch on my coat fell off and into the toilet. Lucky it was clean and the staff were kind enough to give me some cleaning gloves so I could retrieve it. I proceeded to put it into an extra glove and sterilized the heck out of it when I got home. And now the flower one is missing, I guess I am just not meant to have a nice collection. Have any of you had any jewellery related horror stories?

January Sew-Along Update I

Here's an update on my January Sew-Along project. In case you missed what I was working on this month, or wanted a recap you find the first post here.   

1. The first step was to cut out all of my pattern pieces. I looked through the instructions and figured out which pieces I would need for shirt C. Then I cut them out of the tissue paper. Then I folded the edges down to the size that I was making (I like the keep all sizes of a pattern in case I need to use it again from someone else), and ironed them out. That's right, I iron my pattern pieces. They tend to get all wrinkled in the envelope and that can mess you up when you are cutting your pieces out. 

2. I ironed my fabric (both colours) and laid it out on the floor. I like to cut things out in the living room because there is more space than in my sewing room.

3. I pinned the bodice pieces onto the red fabric, making sure that they were on the straight of grain. That means that they line up with the grain of the fabric (the direction it was woven in) so that the pieces won't pull/stretch when the garment is complete. I like to use straight pins with no heads when I am cutting out pattern pieces. It makes it less likely for me to accidentally catch a pin in my scissors, which would make them have a bur and mean that they would have to e sharpened. 

4. I repeated step #3 with the pattern pieces I was cutting out of the yellow fabric. Most of the tine I only use one colour of fabric so I only have to do step #3 once.

(I only needed to cut one of this piece that is why the fabric isn't folded over in this picture, in case you were wondering.)

5. Here are all of the pieces laid out after they were cut out. Next I went into the sewing room and marked all of my notches and darts. This is a pretty time consuming process and my probably my least favourite part of sewing. Sadly it is necessary or else you won't know what piece lines up where and what size to make darts/tucks etc. I also cut out the interfacing pieces and applied them to the fabric. Then I surged around the edges of the pieces with my serger. 

6. Once the pieces had been serged, I consulted the instructions and sewed the darts on the front and back of the bodice. 

7. Last but not least I sewed the shoulder seams together, and placed the partially constructed bodice onto my manequin.

That's as far as I have gotten for now. I have a little more time this week to work on this project so I might move ahead and post another update next week. I haven't decided if I should do another one or wait until the "big reveal" so to speak. Since this is a sew-along project though I think it makes the most sense to do another progress post with some more steps.

Ahoy Mateys!

What I Wore: 

Dress: Made by me

Cardi: Smart Set

Tights: Ardene

Shoes: Blowfish

Head Scarf: Made by me 

Earrings: Gift from a friend (they're little scissors!)  

I made this dress out of some fabric I bought from my work when I first started there a few month  ago. As soon as I saw it I immediately had a design in mind, but I debated about buying it for a few weeks. I finally bit the bullet and bought it, I just couldn't resist. I draped the dress on my mannequin sometime in November and had all the pieces ready to go, and then Christmas happened. I made a lot of my presents this year so this dress kind of got put on the back burner until all the madness had subsided. I finally got a chance to work on it last week (after I was feeling better from my monster cold) and finished it up on the weekend. I wore it to work on Sunday and it was a big hit. Even my mum said something, which is really rare. I absolutely love the anchor buttons on the shoulders, I think they are my favourite part. I actually bought them a while ago and had no particular use for them until I thought up the design for this dress. I still have a few of them left since I bought a bunch in different sizes, but I am glad I was able to use some of them for this project. 

I am going to admit that the head scarf was not entirely my own idea. I saw a customer wearing one while I was at work (made out of the same fabric and everything) and I thought it would go perfectly with the dress. First I measured around my head and figured out what length the scarf would need to be to tie nicely. Then I just cut out a strip of fabric that length and made the ends pointed. Next I chose a decorative stitch on my sewing machine and sewed around the edge so that it wouldn't fray too much. Eh voila! instant head scarf. Overall I am quite pleased with how the dress/scarf turned out. Now onto my next project! 

Looks Like Spring

Supplies Used:

Sally Hanson: Thicken-Up!

Sally Hansen Salon Manicure: Grass Slipper 430

Quo: Steel Heart 59334

Sally Hansen Hard As Nails: Blue Me Away! 130 

Revlon: Extra Life Top Coat

Prep School Chic

What I Wore:

Blazer: Zellers

Shirt: Winners

Tank: Suzy Shier

Pants: Zellers

Shoes: Spring

I absolutely love this blazer. It makes me feel like I am a student at a private school or that I should be sailing the ocean on a schooner or something. I took a picture where I was doing a salute, but it looked silly so I decided to omit it this time. Where the decal is there is actually a little pocket and I think it would be cool to put a pocket square in there, alas I do not own any. I should have stolen one from Colin, maybe next time. 

I apologize for my absence over the last few days. I was really sick with a bad cold all of last week and I only had enough of a stockpile built up to do two posts. But I am glad that I have started doing that and was able to at least do those posts or else there would have been zero posts last week. So far things have been going really well with me pre-planning posts and scheduling them etc. I am really proud of my progress actually, my blog has grown a lot since I started it in the summer, so woot! Thanks to everyone who actually reads this, you have helped make the last few months really great. 

January Sew-Along

Hello everyone. I would like to introduce you to my first "sew-along" project of 2013! 

I have decided to use pattern 6081 from New Look. I am going to be doing option C. If you click on the this link it will take you to the New Look website with a close up of the pattern envelope. I plan on using the red fabric for the main body and the beige for the contrast of the bow and center front. I thought it would be neat if other people decided to work on the same project and posted their results on here at the end. If you are planning on participating, please let me know I am excited to hear from you! If you have any questions or get stuck feel free to contact me and I will help you out. This is my first attempt at this project so I am not sure how well it will work out, but I wanted to give it a try for a few months and see how it goes. Happy sewing!   

Tiger Stripes

What I Wore: 

Shirt: Smart Set

Tank top: Zellers

Cardi: Smart Set

Skirt: Smart Set

Tight: Value Village (new)

Shoes: Ardene

Belt: Reitmans

Wow, typing up the list of what I wore I just realised how many items were from Smart Set. It's weird how often I combine items into an outfit and they end up being from the same place. I didn't even purchase any of these items at the same time, how weird is that? 

This outfit is my first serious attempt at mixing patterns. It wasn't even an intentional effort, it kind of happened by mistake. I liked the grey of the shirt with the grey of the tights. The teal of the belt and cardi really make the two greys pop. Overall I think it actually worked out pretty well. The shirt has a bold pattern and the tights are more subtle so they mesh well together in my opinion. 

So far I have been keeping up with my new years goals pretty well. I have been taking outfit pictures in advance and I am liking how much time that it freeing up. I also have a "sew along" project lined up that I will post about later this week. So far so good :) 

Ode to the 1940s

What I Wore:

Dress: Made by me

Sweater: Walmart

Belt: Reitmans

Tights: Ardenes

Shoes: Blowfish

Necklace: Zellers

I made this dress for my university honours thesis project. I was researching the effect of WWII on women's dress, and I draped this dress based off of an image I found to go along with my paper. This is what the original looked like (the one in the middle):

Source: Forties Fashion and the New Look

I ended up removing the shoulder pads in order to wear this dress as a regular piece of clothing because they made me look like a linebacker, but that is the only thing I altered.This project made me fall in love with the fashion of that time period. Before I did the research I kind of lumped the 40s and 50s together in my head, but I learned so much and am able to differentiate the two really well now. The look was practical, yet still elegant. It really is a fascinating period in women's fashion, with such a marked change in style from the 30s to the 40s. If you couldn't tell already, I am a bit of a fashion history nerd. Looking at this picture makes me want to make the green dress too, I love the pleats and collar. Ahh the 40s, how I love you so. 

13 New Years Resolutions for 2013

Normally I don't really do New Years resolutions. Sometimes I think they are silly, and I never really accomplish them. But this year I am taking a different approach. Most of the items on this list are things I have been meaning to do for a while, and a lot of them have to do with this blog. I am going to make a serious effort to accomplish most, if not all of these things and I will keep you guys posted about it of course. 

This Year I Want To...

1. Take more pictures. I will try to achieve this by doing a “photo an hour” post every per month. I am a little hesitant about this one because I get up late some days (total night owl here) but this might motivate me to get up earlier. I have seen this on other blogs and it is really cool so I want to give it a try.

2. Do a sewing project per month (at least) and post about it. Now that I have some more free time thanks to the Christmas madness being over I think this is a very obtainable goal.

3. Try new craft projects. I have been slacking on my crafting (haha) and want to get back into that. University kind of ate my creativity, but I am done school and have a lot more freedom to have fun now.

4. Create more in general.

5. Spend less. A pretty standard goal, but I feel like I got a bit out of control at the end of the year so I need to reign it in. Save more also goes along with this. If I want to move out any time soon I need to start saving.

6. Advertise on other blogs. I haven't at all since I started this blog and I want to get my name out there some more.

7. Post more and plan more posts in advance so that there isn't a mad dash to put something up. This would also entail taking more outfit post pictures in advance (off days and weekends) to build up a stockpile.

8. Take more outfit pictures outside. The few times I have done this I have had so much fun, I have no idea why I haven't gotten around to doing it more often.

9. Read more for fun. I have already made a good start on this goal, and I intend to keep it up. I finally finished the 5th Game of Thrones, and have moved on the The Girl Who Played With Fire.

10. Watch more movies on my “to watch” list. I find we end up watching the same movies all the time, so I need to work on trying new ones instead of  re-watching the same few over and over. This goes for TV shows too. There is a huge list that we need to get through. 

11. Get up earlier on days off. I like to stay up late and sleep in, but I usually end up feeling groggy, grumpy and unproductive. I know I need time to relax, but I also like to get some things done in my free time. This kind of goes with the first resolution.

12. Become more of a fat activist. I became really interested in this movement when I first started blogging and I really want to become more involved with it.

13. Volunteer somewhere. I have been thinking about a few local museum/archives that would be really cool to help out at.

There are a few other things that I want to work towards as well, like getting my drivers licence finally, cooking more, etc. The goals listed above are more so the blog related top priorities for the year.

Holiday Roundup

What I Wore (Dec. 25th):

Sweater Dress: Thrifted (Black Market)

Leggings: Suzy Shier

Socks: Ardene

Boots: Chocolate Craving Boot from ModCloth

Belt: Fairweather

What I Wore (Dec. 26th):

Dress: Thrifted (Guy's Fenchys)

Sweater: Thrifted (Talize)

Tights: Walmart

Socks: Spring

Belt: Reitman's 

So I intended to do an outfit picture for each day of the holidays, but it was just so hectic I didn't get a chance to take more than the ones from the 24th and these two sets. I even meant to do New Years, but obviously that did not happen. We had a great time this year and we were booked every single day from the 22nd until the 2nd. Some days we even had two or three things to do, it was pretty crazy. I got to see most of my family, my friends that were home from school, and most of Colin's family too. Some things had to get re-arranged, but it all worked out in the end. 

Even though I had a lot of fun seeing everyone, I am introvert at heart and I am really glad to be back into a routine and have some time to myself. The holidays can be really draining when all you want to do is sit on your butt and read a book or watch t.v. Sometimes I think it is hard for people to understand this. It doesn't mean I don't want to hang out with them, it just means I need a break every once and a while to re-charge. 

I have been cooking up a lot of fun stuff for the next few months on the blog. I have been working on a few New Year's resolutions that I want to share on here within the next few days. I also have some projects in the works (now that I have time to work on them) that I am really excited about. So please stick around if you are ready for some more fun!