Oh the Cuteness!

Aaah, I took a nice little week-long vacation from being chained to the sewing machine, and it feels so good. But the gears have been a-turning and I am back with a crazy new idea I will detail in the next post. Anywho, Me-Made-May is over, and it feels weird to be sitting here in something I did not make with my own two hands (although I did wear the sweater today). I feel like this month-long challenge has taught me an awful lot about myself, my style, and my ability to complete challenges. For one, I went into this not knowing anything about clothing construction, and now I have the confidence to sew anything I need to. I learned how to sew with knits and even shared what I learned in a tutorial, and I am now a master of the buttonhole setting on my machine as well. Granted I did not finish every project I set out to, but I am so happy with the way everything turned out that I am not going to stop making clothes any time soon. The sweater was my biggest challenge, and my biggest acc...

I wove in the ends last night... Booyaaaa!

Wondering what is going on with my Me-Made-May progress? Well, that makes two of us. I cannot believe it is almost the end of the month! The first week just went so slowly and then everything went into hyper drive. I have been wearing the same few outfits almost every day except laundry day. I find that the jeans, sweater, car shirt, and first shirt do not get as much wear as everything else, and no, the cape and bag remain in their unfinished state even as I use them every day. Yes, I am still staying committed to my challenge, but progress on new items has slowed on making new pieces mostly because of this: I am attempting to make a fitted button down shirt... Oy Vay. I am using Butterick pattern number 6085 and this is the first thing I have sewn from a pattern in who knows how long, and I think I am a bit rusty. Not to mention the fact that I HATE sewing patterns. They take so long, and I am much more of an instant-gratification kind of person, obviously. First you have to cut the ...

Alrighty, so here is my picture for today, but I must confess I did not make any of it: Bum bum bum!!! But I have a very valid excuse for this behavior: Confused yet? Don't worry, nothing bad has happened to me! Quite to the contrary actually... At the beginning of the week Dennis sent me an e-mail about a call for people in the bay area to come to San Francisco and be background zombies in a trailer for a new, unnamed, video game. I decided to submit my photo and a bit of info like height and age just for fun to see if I would be picked. Now, for those of you who don't know, I am kind of obsessed with zombies. I have seen nearly every zombie movie ever made, and I just plain cannot get enough of the stuff. Resident Evil was the first PlayStation game I bought and I am playing number five and the Umbrella Chronicles simultaneously with Dennis at the moment. On the top of my list of reasons to go to the gym and get in shape is to be able to outrun zombies when the apocalypse hap...

Well, I wore the exact same outfits as days eleven and twelve for days thirteen and fourteen, and then I wore the same outfit from day seven for day fifteen. So instead of boring you with more of the same, I thought this would be a good time for a sweater update! I am making really good progress on my sweater, and as you can see I have finished increasing for the shoulders and am now working on the sleeves. I mostly only work on it during my commute and at S&B. With the amount of knitting I have done right now, I think it is very possible I will meet my goal of finishing it by the end of the month. The color is weird in these pictures, but I really am loving the way this yarn looks knit up. I hope this will fit the way I envision so I will wear it a lot. I dig the diagonal raglan shoulder seams, which appeared magically as I knitted along. I also love my funny stitch - a lot of people tell me I knit differently than most, and my stitches get an interesting twist because of the wa...

Ta da! Check out my awesome new creation: Lol, just kidding. This is just the crappy tank top I made out of one of Dennis' old shirts, this being the back, which I wore with my weird sweater in homage to the eighties. I like it but it is not what I came here to show off today. I have some truly neat things to show off: I call this skirt the "Victorian Cupcake". I am in love with this skirt, it is so flirty and feminine! I adore this fabric, which I got at the CVS Pharmacy by my house a while back. I love toille but it is always too busy for me to buy much of it, but the understated pink bows and scalloped ribbons are just enough for me. I made it using the same method as the Twirly Turnip skirt , but since I only had one yard of the bow fabric I cut it longways into thirds and then joined the panels for a very full and short version. I was thinking about edging it in some giant rickrack in a pink similar to the bows but Dennis kind of vetoed the idea. Plus the skirt was...

Alrighty! Since no one has guessed it spot-on yet, I will tell you... I was looking for the words "sun hat" but I suppose "hat" will have to do, but mom said she did not think she would need the fabric to sew a t-shirt. I will send her a runner-up prize that she will like instead *wink*. So the pretty blue and green leafy fabric will go to See Jane Sew , who got as close as anyone could with her answer of "My guess? Sunbonnet/hat of some sort..."! And for her enthusiasm and for also guessing rightish, I will send some jersey fabric of a different kind to Mama G so she can make a shirt too! Everyone wins!!! Lol. Thanks to everyone who played, and I will keep you informed as to the progress of the sun hat. Anywho... Sorry for the little hiatus, but we had a big event at work that has kept me pretty well tied up lately. But to play catchup, here is: Day Seven My new favorite skirt makes yet another appearance. I think I need to sew a few more of these in oth...

Whew! I was just about to change into my pj's when I realized that I forgot to take a picture of my outfit today! So, sorry for the bad pic, but this is me in poor lighting after a long day of work and then a few hours digging in the garden, which is now finally finished! The mushroom skirt and the first shirt I ever sewed. See how the collar kind of sticks up? Oh yeah, I totally meant to do that... Riiiight... Anywho, I am really enjoying this whole challenge and I cannot wait till Sunday so I can spend the entire day sewing more clothes! Woot! Now for the giveaway: I have a big piece of jersey knit fabric in a fun blue and green leafy stripe that I have no idea what to do with, it is just not fitting in with my current wardrobe plans. In celebration of the new t-shirt tutorial , I will gladly send it to the first person who can guess what this is going to eventually become: Be sure to leave me some way to contact you! Good luck and see you tomorrow!

I wore the exact same outfit for today as I did yesterday because I loved it so darn much. I wore it with my unfinished cape to work in the morning and everyone seemed to notice me, which was actually kind of nice since most days I feel like I am invisible. So instead of boring you with another picture of the same outfit, I will give you my method for making t-shirts instead! Since I posted about the three slap-dash t-shirts I have had a lot of people ask me how I make them because they all seem to think you need an overlock or surger to make it work. No sir - all you need is a regular old sewing machine and a little confidence. I just dove into making shirts with no idea what I was doing, except for the fact that I read somewhere online years ago that all you had to do was trace the shirt and sew it. But there are a couple little tips that make the process go much smoother and give you a nicer finished product that I learned from trial-and-error on my first three shirts. This is a tu...