wildcat

mee. yow.

so i may have spent a good chunk of this past weekend watching cleopatra on netflix instant. which is basically like spending four hours of your life being seduced by elizabeth taylor. not a bad way to spend a sunday, i'd say. her eyes are largely responsible for the seducing in that film. okay, well her eyes are, like, 5% responsible and the rest goes to her cleavage - which is outstanding! i mean, all perviness aside, her cleavage deserves a mention... as does the costuming which did such a fabulous job enhancing her... assets.

so minus the cleavage, my look today was somewhat influenced by liz taylor circa cleopatra. i may have achieved more of a mrs. robinson look, but oh well... must be something in the air...

you probably wouldn't believe it from looking at it, but this little box dress took me the better part of two weeks to make. two weeks?!? good god, sallie, what did you do? weave the damn fabric?! no. no i did not. in fact if you think you saw this fabric before on this blog - you did. this is the same rayon challis i used to line my red jacket. i liked it so much i bought extra yardage to make a dress. actually, now might be a good time to tell you that this print is not actually leopard print (gasp!! the lies!!) according to the roll at the fabric store, its jaguar print... duh.

okay, so why did it take me so long to sew three seams and stick some sleeves on 'em? because this was the result of my first experimentation in drafting a pattern based off of my sloper (which is still a work in progress, but more on that later). really, it was the sleeves that was the major hold up. my first draft revealed some unforeseen problems with the armholes of my bodice. the second go around had too much sleeve cap ease. i'd like to say that i was just having a case of the goldilocks and that the third try was just right, but thats not the case. i went from too much ease, to too little ease, to a forward thrusting sleeve, to a tight bicep, to not enough cap height... i am so sick of sleeves!

the version that finally made it onto this dress is still far from perfect. the armholes are a bit tight and, though you can't see it in the pictures, the sleeves swing forward a bit and there is an annoying little "puff" right at the shoulder line. between the sleeves and the fact that the muslin for this dress was so very very unflattering (think amish) its amazing this dress even got made! but i had a hunch that the busyness of the jaguar print and the drapey quality of the rayon challis would cure most evils. and lo and behold - it did!

pattern drafting = fail!

fabric choice = win!

here i am with my trusty steed. believe it or not, but this little dress passed the biking test. meaning i can physically bike in this dress. whether or not it passed the public decency test is another story...

i had a lot of fun with the camera today. we've been getting these crazy fogs that roll in around 4pm that are so thick and heavy and give such an ominous feeling to the place. i tried playing around with my depth of focus and settings, trying to capture that. mostly i just ended up with some blurry pictures, but hey, i'll take what i can get!

i was particularly fond of this picture. it looks like a still from some b horror film! something bad is definitely about to happen! what do you think? abducted by aliens? i seem kind of okay with that...

well, friends, this was my last and final hurrah for winter-ish sewing. from here on out i will have my nose to the grindstone with one thing in mind: spring!

xx