A Dress Per Day, Day 2

40% off lowest ticket price on all fabrics at Joanne's? Be still my beating heart!

I went a little crazy the other day at Joanne's going-out-of-business sale, and here's the pattern for the first new project I have to show for it.

Purchased at $1.99! Yay sales!

I've never been a big fan of maxidresses, but I just could not resist in this case. I found some gorgeous patterned satin for about $4 a yard, and purchased far more than I needed. I ended up choosing a navy blue georgette to make a contrast for the straps and waistbands, which turned out quite well if I do say so myself.

I plan on going back to Joanne's soon, since it's not fully closing until August 13th and the sales will only get more discounted until then. Plus I forgot to buy various necessaries like zippers and interfacing and have found myself at a point where I cannot proceed much farther without another shopping trip.

In the meantime, there's only one word to describe my progress:

Huzzah!

A Dress Per Day, Day 1

Here we go...

It wasn't a real project until it turned into one.

You see, I decided I needed more summer dresses. And I was coming up with these gorgeous ideas in my mind until I couldn't think straight in class anymore. So I waited. Until last Thursday, after which I had finished my first exam for Organic Chemistry II, and figured I had the whole weekend to sew to my heart's content.

First day's work: I found this pattern I had tucked away from forever ago:

I usually eschew "New Look" patterns, since they're lower quality than I usually pay for $3 (since I mostly wait until more expensive patterns are on sale for $1-2 before buying them), but there's no guessing what I was thinking at the time I bought this dinosaur.

So, digging deep, I happened to find a single piece of calico cotton fabric that was simultaneously 1). Suitable for a summer dress, 2). Had sufficient yardage to support the pattern, and most importantly, 3). Still matched my style and sensibility. Let's just say that I have a lot of random fabric left over from random projects like ... this one, I guess!

Fact: this fabric is left over from the plethora of extravagant togae I made for my high school's chapter of the Junior Classical League's annual state convention in State College, PA circa 2000. If my memory serves, it was purchased on Fabric Row in Philadelphia, PA, a location of eminent influence in my design development.

The vision of this dress did not fully come into play until it was almost fully realized. Now, behold: the Pin-up girl dress. Sexy, yet demure, red, black, white, and marvelous alllllll over.

You see?

And the detail I added just for fun:

This was finished on Friday, so I used more than one calendar day, and even though I call this "Dress per Day," I always seem to resort to finishing the last little bits for after certin deadlines. Less than 24 hours, though, so I suppose it counts!

In other news: by then a ridiculous thing had happened: I stopped by my local Joanne's Fabrics, only to find out that it was going out of business and had instituted a store-wide clearance sale. I proceeded to purchase more than a year's worth of fabric and spend the rest of the weekend enjoying the fruits of my purchases...

To be continued...

Christmas in July

Procrastination, anyone?

Here are some Christmas presents I made this year, that I guess have taken a while to post about. Yeah, that's how I roll.

I decided to do sets of crocheted coasters as gifts last year, with varying color schemes personalized for each recipient. Each coaster would have a solid color base and a crocheted lace doily applique of a unique pattern which were adapted from various snowflakes I found around books and the internet; adapted enough to not look too seasonal. The yarn I purchased was acrylic for the base and cotton for the applique, so entirely machine washable, and heat tested to make sure they had no problems with hot mugs. Then I found little metal tins which would hold each set.

White on beige for my father and stepmother, since it's a classical color scheme she prefers.

White on blue for my aunt and uncle, since blue is her favorite color.

Red on black for my grandparents. I inherited my preference of red from my grandmother, who takes her love to a marvelous degree. These would fit right in with her decor.

A marvelous success! They turned out just as I had hoped.

It's Raining Rainbows

Congratulations Boston, on a wonderful Pride 2011! I did my part volunteering in the parade: getting soaked in the rain and hoarse from all the shouting. It was a total blast, and to cap off the end of the festivities, I needed to be sure to have a dress to drool for.

Enter this glorious pattern from Vogue:

It's soooo 80's. I just can't stand how marvelous it is.

The next step was the fabric. I ended up choosing a striped calico from Joanne's, about as close to a rainbow as a national chain store can get. I suppose I could have considered attempting that craziness that is "matching of obvious stripes" but the fabric was expensive enough -- I wasn't going to go overboard.

Then came the cutting.

And cutting.

And more cutting

You see, Vogue patterns turn out gorgeously. They hang like a dream. They're also really complicated and involve multiple pieces. This particular pattern required 17 individual pieces, most of which required 2 pieces of outer fabric, 2 pieces of liner, and 4! Count them, 4! pieces of interfacing (note: the exclamation point is just for exclamation, not the mathematical operator of factorial)

But I persevered. And then, of course, despite the fact that I confirmed my measurements ahead of time and was careful to use the right seam allowance, the dress didn't fit. Good thing for corset-style, however, it was relatively simple to alter.

And boning! Did I mention the boning? I don't think I've had the patience to put up with boning since 2004. Yikes.

But you know, it does hug the bosoms quite flatteringly

All that hard work turned out spectacularly, if I do say so myself. I wore it to the final night of Pride, and got so many compliments from random strangers to put a smile on my face till same time next year!

Happy Pride, everyone!

A brand new person to make stuff for!

Congratulations Susan and Eric! My nephew James Kelley Laird was born on Monday, May 9th at 7:14 am, and was 7 lbs 9 oz.

Now I know you must be thinking, "Holly, you must have been working on making baby things for MONTHS by now! There's no way they'll all fit in this blog!!" Well, unfortunately you are incorrect. I've been crazy-busy with studying for finals and rehearsing for the opening of the most amazing musical ever, so I arrived in New Jersey for my first visit with James without a stitch to show for him.

A mistake which was quickly remedied.

Eric had wanted to do a plaster impression of his tiny little baby feet, so we got to work on that.

Now James isn't much of a complainer, but he certainly squirmed a fair amount, and even with his big brother Greg's help, the footprints got a bit smudged.

We poured the plaster of paris over the gel mold of his tiny-winy-wibby-wubby feet (I couldn't resist just one ridiculous baby-talk-extravaganza), and then we waited. And then my materials engineer brother realized that plaster and ceramic are far too similar to enable an easy separation of their interface. Whoops.

So after many, many hours of Eric scouring the edge of the plaster with toothpicks, we were able to extract the mold, and enjoyed the results! Huzzah!

Eric has decided to tell James, when he's old enough to wonder why his left foot looks weird, that he had a club foot and required extensive surgery to look like a normal human being. This strangely enough reminded me of stories my dad would tell me when I asked him probing questions. Clearly Eric is already showing signs of great paternal aptitude.

Then I proceeded to crochet James a monkey hat and a pair of baby boxing gloves. You know, I never really played with dolls when I was a kid. I have decided that this is probably because dolls don't make the incredible squirms and grimacing faces when you wake them up from their nap to play dress-up and do photo shoots.

I love you, James!!!

Christmas Wreath

I was suuuuper excited about Christmas this year, and was fantasizing about decorations weeks ahead of time. This is not a particularly unique thing for me, for those who have read last year's Christmas entry in my oil rig blog.

Over my Thanksgiving visit, I perused a book my stepmother had lying around, Christmas Decorations from Williamsburg's Folk Art Collection. In it was instructions for creating a wreath decorated with seashells, and I knew it was a perfect beginning to start the decorating bonanza!

I made it in honor of my grandmother, Louise Kelley Rochester who passed away this past January. This is our first Christmas without her, and it was especially meaningful to me to be able to use seashells from her collection for the wreath.

She had THOUSANDS of seashells.

I ended up only using the idea from the book, and basically making up the rest as I went along. I bought an overpriced styrofoam wreath base (with a coupon), and wrapped it in ribbon left over from my brother's wedding.

Then I used a hot glue gun and just went to town!

As I was just about finished, I started to panic. Absolutely panic. It looked like a crappy wall hanging you might see at a beachside drugstore for $4.99 or on the wall of a rented condo in Ocean City. All of a sudden I was filled with remorse for not predicting and preventing this.

Dejected, I took my mom's advice and just finished the darn thing and hung it up.

And then something magical happened...

It looked absolutely perfect hanging from our front door with a sprig of holly (natch) and a bow. It didn't look kitchy it all. Instead it looked absolutely at home and utterly lovely.

It didn't quite match the rest of the Duxbury wreaths of green pine branches and red velvet ribbons (I'm not kidding. EVERY house has them) but then our door doesn't face the street so I don't have to worry about offending the neighbors with my uniqueness, haha!