Lofty Endeavors, or My Debut in Four-Inch Heels.

I went to my first gala this weekend. It's been a lot of fun to think about dresses, shoes, jewelry, hair, nail color and other gala-related fashion details. I found my dress a month or so ago at a thrift store for $10. Don't panic on my behalf though: I know you are probably picturing the scary 1980s prom dresses that populate most thrift stores, but somehow I found two excellent formal dresses on the same day, plus some other non-formal finds.

August and Everything After...Is Unknown.

Somehow the months since mid-March have passed in a blur. A good blur. Like bokeh. The day I last wrote, I did indeed end up making madeleines that I gave to a friend for her 51st birthday. That evening at her party, I had a long conversation with her son. He seemed to be enjoying our talk, and I wondered if he might be interested in me. No, I told myself, he's younger...of course he wouldn't be interested in that way! But several weeks later, his mom put us in touch with an email, and we started emailing. Some weeks after that, he asked me on a date.

3 months.

It's been three months since my husband left me for another woman. Completely out of the blue. In those first stunned weeks, I couldn't see how I would survive. I felt like I was dying. I am certain that I've cried more tears since July than I've cried during my entire life before that. Which is really weird because this was the surprise ending to the most wonderful and happy five-and-a-half years of my entire life. (The time I was with my husband, during our dating and marriage...up until the day he came home from that trip where he fell in love with her.) It's mind-boggling. And devastating. And I just don't have the ability to get my head around it. Time hasn't really helped yet with that.

With that I think I will just list some thoughts as they occur because that's about all I can muster right now:

• Last weekend I went to a free open house two-hour life drawing session. It's something I've wanted to do for over two and a half years. I used to do visual art in high school, and have only done it sporadically since getting into theatre. It was fun. I want to draw and paint more.
  

Boxed In and Other States of Being



Credit: Adventures Along the Way

Ah, Booboo. This is Booboo's favorite spot. He has several preferred spots, but he spends more time here than in the other ones. It cracks me up when he squeezes all the way in like this.

In other news, spring seems to be here. By that I mean that the snow has stopped (well, our last snow was a week or so ago) and they have just today cleaned all the rocks and dirt out of the streets in our neighborhood. Now there are only a few patches where the snow/ice has yet to melt. It is lighter coat weather (which, by the way, is what I used to consider a "winter coat" until I moved out of the south). Cafés are starting to prepare their outdoor seating areas.

I find myself thinking about planting some herbs and flowers on the back porch, but it is still too soon to actually get started. I am interested in sewing some hanging bags to attempt to get them off the ground so that they will stay cat-poop-free. I am inspired by these (scroll down to see the "smart wall pouch"), but have a different design in mind.

I made the best lasagana I have ever made on Saturday, using a former college roommate's recipe. And on Sunday I made the worst muffins I have ever made. I was trying to salvage some not-very-good cream cheese icing by mixing it into the batter, and the muffins were a disaster too.

As for pursuing dreams, my continued efforts to pursue my artistic career have had some return. I've had a couple of opportunities so far and have two more lined up. Life is feeling less splintery. I am ready to welcome spring.

An update of sorts.

• Earlier this summer I was fired up to write a post about how I was seeing a lot of rudeness in society these days. But....eh. I decided not to.
• This is partially because we escaped away from it all and spent a month in Australia. A month in Australia can do remarkable things, including reducing levels of annoyance.

Photo credit: S

Photo credit: S

• See? It does wonders.
• The jet lag I had after coming back was the worst I've ever had. It took me ten days to get back on our Canadian time zone. But hey, it was fun staying up to dawn again; it had been an unbelievably long time since I'd done that.

Patching things up.

Over the last few years I have been focusing on being more eco-responsible and really incorporating the reduce-reuse-recycle thing into my daily life. When we moved to this apartment almost two years ago, we tried to look for things we needed at second hand shops first, and that preference has continued, though we don't really need much these days.

I've started re-purposing old things we have to meet new needs. It's been a fun challenge. Learning to sew has opened up so many more possibilities of modifying my clothes or making stuff out of repurposed t-shirts. When I patch up a hole in my favorite shirt or in my most comfy jeans, I get a thrill from the pioneer feeling of it all. I love feeling resourceful and making stuff last longer.

There are more green changes I'd like to make in the coming months. One goal is trying to find somewhere to buy eggs without packaging. I've heard the market in town sometimes has eggs, so I am going to give that a try in the coming weeks. I'm also working on improvising patterns to make some fun clothes I'll wear out of my large collection of unworn, old t-shirts. And I am really looking forward to growing some some herbs and veggies on our back porch again this year...only this year I'll elevate the containers of edible things so the local outdoor neighbors' cats can't get in them.

Anybody else have any eco-friendly goals to implement this summer?

Advent Bags

This was a Christmas gift I made for someone last year, as I was just beginning to learn to sew. I used old t-shirts from various events during my teenage and college years, and re-vamped them into little Advent bags, each one different. It ended up taking long than I expected to make 25 bags, so my plans of doing another set of these have been set aside for now. Instead, this year I have been busy sewing a couple of different gifts, and I'll post photos of those soon.

Hibou.

And here's the owl I made this week as a part of a gift for a baby niece. I used the same methods as the elephant and made my own pattern for all the pieces based on my original sketch. With this one, I also decided to put batting on all the base fabric of the stuffed animal since it was not as sturdy as I wanted it to be. That seemed to help a lot!

Fun with onesies.

I modified some basic onesies that we gave as baby gifts this summer. And while I was at it, I also modified a pair of my pjs and a shirt with that same stencil in photo 2. Yep...we know a lot of people who have just had or are having babies.

Making a "toutou" (Part 2)

After elephant version 1.0, I made some changes to the pattern and started working with the actual fabric. Because the fabric I had chosen was slippery and thin, I ironed batting on the back of all the pieces, thinking it might make it easier to work with.

Then I trimmed the edges, pinned the "right" sides together, and sewed. S made marks for me of where to sew for the leg sections, since they had to be precisely sewn for the sections to all meet up.

I trimmed the edges, turned the fabric right-side out, and stuffed. Finally, I sewed on the ears and eyes. Here's elephant version 2.0.

And judging from the speed at which the adorable birthday girl grabbed onto the elephant's trunk, she seemed to like it. Fun!

Making a "toutou" (Part 1)

I recently decided out of the blue that I wanted to learn how to make little fabric stuffed animals to give as gifts. So this past week I did some research and planning, and then bought the necessary materials. On Friday, I made my first one: an elephant for a friend's daughter's 1st birthday. Instead of using a pattern, I decided to make my own since I figured it couldn't be that hard. After researching some images of elephants, I began doing some rough sketches and decided to base the pattern on the above drawing.

I was originally just going to wing it with the fabric I bought. I think I must prefer having a bit of a sense of risk when attempting creative projects: When having people over for dinner, I regularly try out new recipes, and I often improvise with various craft projects. But for once, I decided to do a practice version.

I got some pieces of old t-shirt from my "to re-purpose" collection, and cut out my pattern and pinned the "right" sides together.

Then I sewed around the elephant and two ears, leaving an un-sewn space in the elephant's tummy. I trimmed the edges and turned it right-side out.

Then I stuffed and stuffed and stuffed. And noticed the trunk was as long as the legs....and that I forgot to make a tail...oops. As I stuffed, the elephant shape altered as it became three dimensional.

Looking at the stuffed elephant, I realized my pattern needed some adjustments to make it look less....horse-shaped. I also decided that the two-legs design looked funny on a 3-D stuffed elephant. S explained how to alter the pattern to make four legs, and made the new pattern pieces for me. So I made some changes and started elephant version 2.0 with the actual fabric...and hoped this one would come out more elephant-like. (To be continued...)

I made a dress. It was not a hit.

Right after New Year's, with a friend's encouragement, I decided to attempt to sew something with a pattern for the very first time. I decided to make a little dress for S's niece for her birthday. The friend helped me choose a pattern and all the necessary items and showed me how to cut out the fabric pieces with the pattern. We put the interfacing on the top and sewed two pieces together that first day. Then I procrastinated for about a month and before I knew it, it was just two days before the birthday party and I had not done anything else to the dress. What can I say? Zippers and piping are just scary-sounding. Anyhow, the friend came over to help me those two days and guided me through the process, zipper and all. When I finally finished at midnight on the night before the party, I was excited that I actually succeeded in making a real-looking dress! Something that was actually wearable in public!

We wrapped it in a cute color-coordinated pink pastel striped bag with pink tissue paper for S's adorable pink-princess-loving niece. She opened it and was underwhelmed.* Maybe I should have stitched a Disney princess appliqué on it? Sigh.**

*As in, she covered her face with her hands, about to cry, when we helped her try it on over what she was wearing for me to measure where the straps needed to be stitched into place to properly fit her.
**At least I accomplished my goal of learning how to sew with a pattern and to make inverted box pleats, put in zippers, do top-stitching, etc. The next project will be something for myself. Less stressful since it won't be a gift for somebody, and I already have some fabric S's aunt gave me that I think will make a cute dress.

Tutu

The tulle Booboo was attacking in the previous post was tulle I bought to make a no-sew tutu for S's niece for Christmas. I had found a video guide on YouTube that I liked and went to Fabricville to get the supplies (I used pink grosgrain ribbon and pink tulle).

Basically, you roll the tulle up, cut it in 3 inch strips, and tie it to the grosgrain ribbon. Super easy and it didn't take very long to put together.

And that is the finished result. (And his niece seems to really like wearing it!)

Booboo meets Tulle.

Booboo was quickly enamored.

Learning.

As I mentioned before, I am learning to sew. What is particularly exciting for me about this is that I can now alter all those clothes I have that don't fit quite right, which is quite a fabulous thing since I buy most of my clothes at thrift stores, often without even trying them on. (Yes, I know that sounds crazy, but I have gotten quite accurate at choosing things that fit and are flattering.) The problem is...sometimes they just need minor adjustments....like that dress I have had a couple years that would have been perfect shorter, but I didn't know how to hem t-shirt material. But now I do because I learned to sew by modifying and re-purposing old t-shirts. And I have the courage now to just try sewing things. Here's what I have done so far:

• Hemmed the aforementioned too long black jersey dress to a cute length to go with leggings
• Re-hemmed two skirts whose hems I had ripped out this summer
• Put darts (for the first time ever) in a full skirt that was just a little to big in the waist
• Altered four tank tops to fit more narrowly (they were too wide and looked sloppy)
• Hemmed a pair of sweat pants that I had gotten at camp long ago and had always been tripping over (since I am short...)
• Made an elaborate Christmas-y project out of re-purposed t-shirts which I will later post on
• Shortened the dress in the above photo. I still need to narrow it though because the skirt is wide/poofy enough to look rather circus-appropriate
• Almost finished making a skirt out of re-purposed t-shirts
• Altered a pair of shorts to have the waistband in a permanently "turned down" position, since this is how I prefer to wear this pair of old college logo shorts
• Attempted to alter a pair of old scrub pants to fit better. This project has not yet been successful.

There are many more projects I am eager to attempt, but I have been ordering them so that I can build my skills up to the level to attack more complicated alterations. I feel I am ready to begin with slightly more challenging things, and it's pretty exciting to think about narrowing a blazer I bought, even though I knew it was a little too big, because I loved it so much. And of course, then there is always the Swiss sheep herder dress that is going to hopefully become a little edgier looking after I shorten it.

Sewing 101

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been learning how to sew on a sewing machine. Not the one in the photo, though that is one of ours. We have three actually, which we acquired all for free over a couple of months last winter. Our first one is a Singer. This is the one I am learning on, given to us by a friend. The Stitchmaster in the photo is our second sewing machine. One trash day last winter in Montréal, S found it on the curb with somebody's trash and carried it home. It came in its own sewing table (which it can collapse into when not in use) and we love its funky retro teal color. It got damaged in this summer's move though, so S is fixing it so it will be usable. The third one is another Montréal trash day find from last winter. It's a Brother and rather run-down, but S brought it home in hopes that it might be useful for spare parts for our little teal one. Amazingly, he has been able to use numerous parts which have happened to fit.

Anyhow, I have enjoyed learning on our little Singer. S taught me how to do the basics and I have learned a few things off YouTube sewing videos, so now I am just experimenting with several projects. I have been learning on some old t-shirts I have been wanting to upcycle, and it is great to be doing fun things with them and giving them a second life doing something useful. My first project was a double-sided scarf made from two t-shirts (one red, one grey). It turned out quite well and I have been wearing it around the house this fall when I get cold. The t-shirt material makes it really soft and cozy. My next projects will be some alterations of some of my thrift store clothes (shortening things that are too long, adding darts, etc.). I am excited to finally be able to modify these clothes so they will fit properly and I can wear them.  I am also thinking ahead to Christmas and wondering if I might be able to create anything fun for gifts this year. I have a few ideas in mind, but am still brainstorming and looking for new and simple projects. Any suggestions?