MY FINGER!!

Two weeks ago I was at a baby shower chatting with some friends. It turned to Project Runway, and one of them asked if I've ever sewed my finger, like some of the contestants have on the show. I thought about it and answered, "no matter how much pressure I'm under or if I'm in a rush I've never ever sewn my finger." And then I think I go on about how that would never EVER happen to me. So if any of you know me well enough, you can guess what happens to me a 1 week after this conversation.


That's right I sewed my finger on my sewing machine for the first time in my life.

Summer Dress Alterations

I've been randomly doing alterations for Sailor Venus. She doesn't really like me to reference her as such but as a good friend I feel that it is my place to go against her wishes.

This knit dress was one of such alterations. What she liked about the dress was the floral embroidery at the chest and the decorative knit hem.

You can't tell because my dressfrom is skinny, so most everything looks good on her. But in reality this dress is shapeless and baggy. It's unflattering and ill-fitting on Sailor Venus, to the point of ugly. But she had gotten this dress for free, don't ask, and I for one hate to waste.





I raised the neckline and changed it to a halter top. I also raised the waistline to an empire waist so that it wouldn't look so baggy. I also shortened the hem, since Sailor Venus looks better in knee length dresses as opposed to ankle length.

I'm not sure if it's readily apparent how much better it looks, since the pictures are yet again on my dressfrom, but on Sailor Venus it's no longer a relic of unflattering bagginess. Now it's cute and sweet summer dress.

Nerdy Art

I'm a pack rat. I have a hard time throwing things away. I always see potential in an object, I just need the proper time, motivation, or inspiration to follow through. I'm pretty sure all pack rats say that same line. But it also falls under waste. I don't want to feel like I'm wasting or creating excess trash for a landfill. So that is the excuse I have for rescuing this out of the rubbish bin at work last week.

It's a little roughed up in the center. Looks like something decorative used to be attached. I thought it would be fun to do something decorative to distract from the slight blemish. I wanted try string art in the center. It's simple and full of math type fun. I saw some fun and intricate patterns, but I thought I should keep it simple on my first attempt.

It's a rough draft of what I'm planning. I might take it all out and change the string color. I was thinking of adding black to the mix. I haven't really decided what I like best.

By the way, I apologize for the bad fuzzy pictures. I took it on my camera phone.

Hemming Jeans

This may sound strange but I don't like to do any projects for myself. I've been told that I'm quite odd and peculiar. I'm sure there are people out there like me, but all the people I know, who do sew, like to make clothes for themselves or at least they don't disdain it like I do. I have no desire whatsoever to EVER sew for myself. If I had to sew clothes for myself I might never have the desire to actually sew. There are several legitimate reasons for this.

Reasons:

1. I can be anal retentive about my sewing. I cringe when I look at old projects. When someone is wearing one of my projects I sit there and try to fix the mistakes in my mind or I sit there hating it the whole time for the mistakes that only I can see. Can you imagine what I would be like wearing my own projects. I'd be miserable and self-conscious the whole day.
2. Fitting yourself is a pain in the behind. It can be one of the most frustrating and discouraging aspects of sewing for yourself. It's so much easier to see the mistakes when you don't have to wear the garment. And most people don't have a bevy of competent sewers at their disposal. Fortunately I do. Unfortunately, most of them aren't on call because when the whim strikes me, it needs to be done immediately before it flits away.
3. It's really hard to be so intimate with your own body measurements. Do I even have to explain this to anyone?

So imagine my surprise when I actually wanted to hem my own jeans tonight, and that I actually completed the task. This pair jeans I've owned for a little under a year now. It's beyond long for me. I've hemmed many a pair of pants for other people and never had the desire the fix mine, even though they're so ripped at the hem it looks like a small animal attacked it. In addition to hemming my jeans I also patched two other pants that had holes in places that aren't proper for the polite company. Just because they had holes didn't stop me from wearing them and I don't know any polite company anyways. So maybe this is a move in a the right direction. First my own alternations, next I might want to sew something for myself.

Multiplying Penguins

I just realized that they've multiplied. For those of you who've never noticed, my side bar has penguins you can play with. I started out with two: Bucket and Pail. But I just noticed that there are FIVE of them in there. FIVE!!!!!! What happened?!?!? Do they multiply? I thought they were both boys!! Where did these other penguins come from? Do I even want to know?

Qi Pao

I just finished a project this week for Sailor Venus. She needed a Chinese qi pao for a wedding. It wasn't a Chinese wedding, in fact it was completely opposite. The wedding was culturally diverse and the bride asked guests to come dressed in the clothing of their culture.

I don't have pictures because we were in a rush, but I'll give you some fun tidbits.

Here is the fabric I choose. The right side and it's reverse is equally beautiful. I had a hard time choosing, but I finally decided on the gray side with black flowers. Since she was going to a wedding I didn't want her to go in black. I also really liked the design since it isn't overtly Asian even if the design is a qi pao. Nor was the fabric shimmery and glittery which was one of Sailor Venus' requirements. I guess she didn't want to be the gaudy Asian with a fully sequin dress. I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to be gaudy, I guess there's no accounting for taste.



Sailor Venus didn't have time to do a fitting so I only had one chance to get this dress right. It's my first time taking measurements of a person and taking it to a pattern. For class, we usually fit a dressfrom and whoever fit the dress would model it. But then how did I fit Grip N Flip in her dresses you ask. She is dressfrom size so I don't have to do major measurements or alternations to fit her in any of my patterns.

It was exciting and scary to do it this way. Of course I can always take things or let things out. But she was flying out right away and I wouldn't have much time. It would be easier if I was able to fit her perfectly the first time.

It was a slow and tedious process, since I don't have very much experience. But the good news is that it fit her EXACTLY. It was very flattering and extremely tight. She said that it's corset like. But who needs to breathe when you look beautiful. And if you know me, you'll know how ironic that phrase is coming from me.

I also got to try my hand at Chinese Frog Buttons again. I don't know if they're considered Frog Buttons, feel free to correct me. I had a better idea of what I needed to do this time around. It also helped that I wasn't using a limpy wimpy fabric like silk. If you don't know what I'm taking about please refer to Chinese Empire Gown.

Parts of the button design are taken from several other buttons that I admire and other parts of it were free handed, letting the button tell me where it wanted to go. I'm thinking of making some themed buttons, for example clouds, butterflies, flowers, or even animals. I'll have to see where the wind of inspiration takes before I say anything else.

I have a lot of fabric left over. I bought extra just in case, but I have more than I anticipated. I bought 3 yards but I only used 1 1/2 yards. I guess it also helps that the fabric is 60" wide, More bang for my buck. I'm thinking of making a boustie with the left overs using both sides of the fabric. But yet again I better let the wind of inspiration take me there before I make any plans.

Promised Pictures You Ask

So a while ago I promised to post pictures of my projects. Well my computer blew up. Not literally but it wouldn't turn on. I think the motherboard is fried. And for some reason this past year I stopped being super paranoid about my computer and data lose, hence I didn't back up any of my data. I used to back up my data monthly of not weekly (and at my most paranoid everyday).

So it's been down for a few months and I had to purchase a laptop. I'm not sure if I can still recover any for my files from the old hard drive. I'm still sort of in denial, I want to pretend that it's possible to recover everything, but I'm too scared to find out the truth. More or less I'm in a state of limbo on this matter.

Luckily some of my projects involve Grip N Flip, so she has pictures at least. But as for everything else, I have my fingers crossed and awaiting my heart and mind to be ready for the worst case scenario.