Project Rewear: September edition

Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry, folks. I started grad school in August, and quickly learned that a full time job + part time school is waaay harder than full time school alone. For about a month it seemed like all I did was work all day, come home, cook dinner, study all evening, go to sleep, and repeat. I think I'm getting the swing of things, now, though, because it's getting easier. School is still a lot of work, but I don't feel like I'm drowning anymore.

Anyway, enough about me! Onto the clothes . . . or lack thereof. I haven't posted anything about project rewear yet this month because there hasn't been anything to post. I was too busy to go thrift shopping or ebay hunting or sew anything, and well, I didn't need a thing. But this weekend I did my part to help the economy, and, using a gift card my fabulous mother-in-law gave me for my birthday, I hit up Hancock Fabrics and loaded up on sewing supplies. I bought several beginners patterns, some fabric, and various sewing accoutrement. I plan to try my hand at a skirt first, and bought some really soft flannel make it out of. It doesn't have a zipper, so it should be pretty easy. I'll post pictures once I get around to sewing it.

I also bought some boots on ebay this weekend! Technically, shoes aren't included in the project rewear, and I could buy retail if I wanted to, but who would want to when you can buy these puppies?



And for 20 bucks!

Now that fall is creeping in, I'm excited to wear these to work with a skirt or dress. Because I've really decided that I don't like pants. Dresses are far superior, but can get chilly.

Which reminds me of that flannel skirt I need to make. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Project Rewear: August edition

The end of July was a very satisfying time for Project Rewear, mainly due to a kick-ass clothes-swapping party I held at my house. I invited a bunch of friends to clean out their closets and come over to have dessert and trade clothes. We were so busy digging through the mounds of clothes, however, that we never really had time for dessert, nor did we have time to take pictures. So the only photos I have to show you are of the loot I ended up with.



The dress on the left is the super cute strapless number from J.Crew that I found on ebay for $14. Then, we have my clothes swap finds: a black cashmere sweater, a brown leather purse, a stretchy and silky dress (new with tags!!) for fall, and a sleeveless purple button-down. And I completely forgot to take pictures of the two pairs of summer-y dress sandals I ended up with. May I remind you this was all free?

Everyone that came to the swap ended up going home with something, which made me really happy. And afterwords, I took seven or eight bags of clothes and shoes to the Northside Neighborhood House thrift shop, and organization that is doing awesome things for our neighborhood. It was certainly a win/win, and I think the clothes swap might become a yearly event. You should host one, too!

On another fashion note, I will leave you with a bit of eye candy. I made this corsage belt with a couple of silk flowers, a few scraps of chiffon, and an old sash, and I love it. I might make one in every color family.

Stories of a life well lived

I attended a funeral visitation yesterday to be with a longtime friend whose father passed away this week. He had suffered from pancreatic cancer for several years, so it wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but it was still heart-wrenching for those left behind to mingle memories and tears. I think the hardest part for me was dealing with the fact that he missed getting to meet his newest grandson by three weeks – my friend is 8 ½ months pregnant with her first child.

As I sat on a rather ornate settee waiting for the visitation to begin, a chatty, heavily-bearded gentleman began to tell me stories of my friend’s father. They had worked together, fished together, hunted together. The stories were all humorous and lighthearted, and all were told with a smile and twinkling eye. I don’t think he was trying to make light of a sad and serious situation, rather, he was communicating the only way he knew how that this man had lived. He had lived, and was to be celebrated.

And whether he knew it or not, this kind gentleman was making sense of his friend’s death – or more so of his life – by telling stories, and helping me make a bit of sense of it all, too.

Thank you, sir. May you live well.

Project Rewear: July edition

If you happen to be swearing off retail clothes for a year, ebay can be your best friend.

I've been keeping an eye out for a J. Crew strapless sundress for, well, forever. And a couple of weeks ago I found one on ebay. $100? nope. $50? nope. $14.99? You betcha.

I've scoured the internet trying to find a picture of the dress to show you, but I don't think J. Crew is making them this season, so I'll have to take a pic of the dress on me soon and post that. Stay tuned.

Project Rewear: June edition

One of the stipulations of Project Rewear is that I can wear any new clothes that I sew myself. A talented seamstress I most certainly am not - curtains and pillowcovers are about as far as I can go. One Saturday, though, I decided to practice my skills (or lack thereof) on an old bedsheet, so I took a simple tunic/dress out of my closet and tried to copy it. I turned it inside out, marked the outlines on some thick paper we have leftover from one of our remodeling projects, and called it a pattern.

Here are a few long-overdue pictures from my pattern-less dress-making adventure:

First, I cut out my tracing.





Then, I cut the fabric to match.





Whoops. I think I got a little spray bottle-happy while ironing.




I basically just sewed the sides together, gave it a hem, and sewed the fabric under at the neck and sleeves. The neckline was the hardest part. It didn't turn out so great.




And, ta-da! Please excuse the lack of makeup and the rediculous pose. While I wouldn't leave the house in it, my bedsheet housedress is pretty comfortable. Hey, it's practice people. Everyone has to start somewhere -- do you think Martha was born with a perfect slipstich? Well, probably, but not all of us are that lucky.

Next time, I think I'll use a real pattern.

Pretty Things

In the category of "Odd things I would collect, if I had the room."

Cake stands.

Like these:

(source)

Or these:

(source)

Or these gorgeous stackables:

(source)


Don't they make the cake look even yummier? Lovely.

Yada Yada Yada, spring edition

Sorry, folks, it's been a while. The semester has been drawing to an end, work got busy, and yada yada yada, the usual excuses.

I never posted an April edition of Project Rewear, but I'm not really sure that I bought or made anything. I'll wrap up a May edition soon after I finally remember to get pictures off of my camera, but here's a teaser - it involves a bed sheet and a showing machine, and a successful consignment shopping trip.

Apart from swooning over each J.Crew catalog that comes in the mail (mmm. . . beautiful and soft vintage prints . . .drool), my year of non-retail shopping has been easier than I'd imagined it would be. I think I'm going to throw a fashion swap party sometime this summer, where everyone is invited to clean out their closets and bring clothes, purses, shoes & accessories to swap. We can donate whatever isn't claimed at the end of the evening. So ladies, start digging through the back of your closests - if you're anything like me, there's a ton of stuff in there that either hasn't fit in 5 years or you've just never really liked anyway. . .

In other life news, one more week until summer hours begin - woo hoo! While I'm still jealous of my teacher friends that get the entire summer off (seriously, what was I thinking majoring in journalism??), it is really, really nice to get an extra hour and a half to each weekday during the summer. That extra time makes a big difference when it comes to walking the dog in the morning, and getting dinner ready at night. It's nice.

I booked a ticket to LA this week! I'm going to go see a dear, dear friend in June, and I'm so excited! I've never been to LA (ok, I went to Disneyland when I was 6, but that doesn't count), and I probably wouldn't choose it as a vacation destination if my friend didn't live there, but she's a local I'm hoping she'll know all the cool places to visit, eat, etc. Maybe I'll have to look up some cool consignment shops while I'm there. . .

I like eplipses . . . :)

My summer projects are going to include art (I hope to work on some more pastel drawings, at least), learning Illustrator (I found some good tutorials online, I just need to make the time to do it), and . . . applying to grad school! Well, at least getting ready to apply to grad school. If I can get my thoughts gathered enough to write a kick-ass statement of purpose and application, I may apply for the fall semester, but otherwise it might have to wait 'till spring. I'm hoping for fall - I want to get started as soon as I can, since Im just going to try to take one class at a time (online) while I continue to work. I took the GRE about two years ago and I'm trying to avoid taking it again. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but I'm not a very good test taker. I studied for the stupid thing for months, but the longer I studied, the most anxious I got. When I finally went to take the test, I didn't do nearly as well as I should have because it just freaked me out. So, I'm not sure it's worth it to put myself through that all over again. I hope the admissions people understand, and my GPA helps make up for it.

Sorry for the stream-of-consiousness post, kids. I just had to get something out there in the bloggosphere, before I gave it up all together.