devil with the blue dress

Stop the presses, hold the phone, and all that jazz! You guys... I took these pictures in the morning. That's right. I'm packing my woolies for the afterlife,  because hell just froze over.

You see, I am not a morning person. Like, I've been known to breathe fire, speak in tongues, and spew green shit if I'm addressed directly before 8am. It should also be known that I'm not a night person either (person of the night? lady of the night?) rather, I think of myself as a day  person.  Between the hours of 9am and 9pm I'm golden, an utter joy to behold - anywhere beyond that and it's really a gamble.  But for some inexplicable reason, today I was literally champing at the bit to get out of bed! I made myself wait until 6am, for the sake of decency and so I wasn't blowing too many minds, but once 6 rolled around I was up and at 'em as they say.

So I made it my business to take some blog photos! Everyone knows that the best times to take photos outdoors is when the sun is at an oblique angle (late afternoon/early evening - or, as the case may be, morning).  So I did my morning routine, ate my breakfast, got myself gussied up and tramped out with camera in tote to pose in someone else's garden. And here I am! Home before 9am! Is this what it feels like to be an adult...?

This dress was one of those makes that sort of happened a bit unexpectedly.  Lately I've been trying to take care of some projects for other people, and as every selfish seamstress knows, there's only so much of this one can take before ohmygodihavtamakesomethingforMEEE happens. This also happens to be the time of year when I can often be found crawling on all fours, sweat pouring from my brow, my trembling hand reaching out for my sewing machine, gasping to no one in particular (but usually the cat) "need.... more.... summer... dresses...." And it was in this frenzied, heat stroke induced state that I made this dress.

This is V8810 that I purchased during one of the awesome $1.99 sales, not really all that sure what I'd do with it, but thinking it might make a nice basic summer dress. I haven't really seen this dress around on the sewing blogs, and while I know there are plenty of people out there that sew and don't choose to parade around on the internet for all the world to see, something about this dress' absence in blogland tells me that it's not particularly popular.  And I can kind of get why. It's a little meh. I mean, a drawstring waist dress...? It sort of says "potato sack". But I've also been known to be a sucker for a tie waist, and the gathered shoulders were definitely my thing, and I liked the skirt options, so I went for it! 

The fabric is some weird rayon that I think is trying to imitate a summer-weight wool.  It's slightly scratchy, but not uncomfortable, it has a nice drape and is lightweight but still opaque.  And I love the color. Like really really love it.  I used those Dritz fabric covered buttons, which I've had so-so luck with.  I actually think they look quite nice, and are surprisingly easy to make, but I've found that they don't last very well. The tops tend to pop off after a wear or two.  But since this is really such a plain dress I wanted to make sure the buttons were immaculate so this time I pulled out one of my favorite sewing tricks - some glue and a hammer! I glued the top and base together and then pounded the shit outta them with the hammer.  I'll let you know how they hold up...

After I finished the dress and put it on I felt a wee bit lackluster about it. I was kind of expecting this, but it was still a bummer to actually see it. Something was just off. I loved the color,  but I felt like the shoulders were just too wide, despite the gathering.  So I decided to make these shoulder tabs for it to pull up the excess fabric and make the sleeve sit at a more flattering place on me.  I could have just gathered the sleeve more, but after trying on the dress I felt that it had a sort of uniform-y feel to it (not quite sure what kind of uniform... waitress? airflight attendant? armed forces...?) so I decided to kind of play up whatever utilitarian vibes I was getting from it by adding the little shoulder tab touch. Now I feel like the whole bodice is more flattering.  

All in all, this dress has been a pleasant surprise! I don't feel like the pattern envelope or drawings do the collar justice - it really has a lovely, almost mandarin-type, stand to it which I find really elegant and becoming as a neckline (necks can just be so lovely, can't they?) It was quick and easy to make, and while it may not be the most amazing thing I've ever made - I think it will serve me well as a great casual dress for work during the long hot summers.

Have you ever gone into a project with low expectations, only to be pleasantly surprised? I love it when it happens!

xx

stargazer

This was my last make of 2012. I don't know why it took me so long to get it photographed and on the blog... actually I do know, but I'm too embarrassed to say! 

Sigh... you guys, I can't keep secrets from you! So this is what happened: I made two of these dresses right before Christmas - one for me and one for a friend. Only I seemed to miscalculate my yardage and I didn't have enough fabric to make one of the belts. No biggee, I thought, I'll just give my friend the belt and then dye some fabric to match for mine. So off her dress went in the mail (I gave a little sneakery peekery in this post) and there mine sat, un-hemmed and belt-less (and dare I say sad and forlorn?) until... oh... this weekend. Guys, I am not big on having UFO's hanging about my sewing room. I'm much more of the "finish what you started" type of sewer - for better or worse - so it was killing me that this dress was just sitting there, gathering cat hair. You see I did dye fabric but somehow it came out a crazy color, and I was genuinely stumped! So finally I gathered every last teensy scrap of this fabric I had lying around and cut out as many rectangular pieces from it as I could and made a belt out of it! I think there's something like nine sections to this belt. It actually turned out to be quite long! Wraps around twice... who woulda thought...? Lesson learned: never underestimate your scraps!

This is my second time making Victory Pattern's Satsuki Dress. My friend saw the black one I made last fall and said she liked it so I thought I'd give her one as a gift. But since I'm not a totally selfless seamstress I also made one for me. This time I lowered both the front and back neckline and added about an inch of length (to make it bike-riding-appropriate... sorta). I lowered the back neckline at my friend's suggestion, so now you can wear it as a v-neck or backwards as a boat-neck. I lowered the front "v" based on my own preferences, and also confirmed my suspicions that, even given the opportunity to wear a different neckline on the same dress, I'll always choose a v-neck! It's just more comfortable and, I think, flattering on me!

The fabric is hand dyed and painted by yours truly. It's a silk noil from Dharma Trading Co. I worked the same way I did the last time I hand painted fabric, laying out the continuous yardage and working directly on it. Unfortunately (or fortunately...? or just totally unpredictably...?) this created little bit of a variance in color and design throughout the length of fabric. Like the good person I am, I cut my friend's dress from the parts of fabric that I deemed the "prettiest" and made mine from the leftover, slightly odd parts. Not that you can really tell in these pictures, but the back has a totally different feel from the front. One of the good things about letting a project sit for as long as I did is that you can start to see it in a new light. I felt like my friend's dress had a very pretty sort of Japanese floral feel to it, almost landscape-y. Mine, however, I felt looked a bit more like I was about to go to a Grateful Dead concert. Nothing against DeadHeads, but it's not really my look.  However, give me few weeks and a bit of critical distance and now I feel like the dress is more celestial than stoner. 

This was the first time I worked with silk noil and I'm really pleased with it. After the first washing it was a bit stiff - and smelled oddly of fish - but in the second wash I used a fabric softener which brought back some it's drape, and the fish smell... well... I think it's faded...? It sewed up really really easily and pressed like a dream. The texture is kind of nubby and rough, but also somehow really comfy against the skin. I feel like this dress is as comfortable as a sweatshirt dress!

I actually set out to take these photos twice. As usual with me, I get a pretty strong idea of how I want my photos to look and I just knew that this dress would look amazing photographed at the South Jetty - a concrete path that juts out from the East end of the island into the Gulf. The day was overcast and the colors were perfect. And best of all - no one was there!! 

Yeah, but my camera battery was dead. Foiled by the blogger's worst enemy!! So round one was a bust.  But! I was not about to be dissuaded so easily. I went home and recharged and set out again later in the day. Unfortunately in the time I was away some fishermen found the jetty, too. We only gave each other a few dirty looks before we decided to just ignore each other. However, while I was taking pictures I became a bit distracted because quite nearby, this started happening:

Dudes, that is someone getting their life saved!!! No joke, the helicopter rolls up, lowers down, then I see one figure descending into the water in a rope, and when they pull him back up again he's got a second person with him, flailing around in his flippers! I'm assuming since the be-flippered person was flailing that they were still alive... dead people don't flail do they?

To be honest, by this point there was quite a crowd gathering around and I didn't stick around to see what happened. You see, I generally think that if I'm being pulled out of the sea by the coast guard and I may have just survived a near-death experience, the last thing I would want is a crowd of people around to witness it! 

Okay, true story time - so I grew up going to the beach every summer (Wildwood, NJ woot woot!!) and am generally a pretty strong swimmer. My parents and grandparents made sure we all knew how to be safe in the ocean. Before I could swim I knew how to do the dead man's float and what to do if I was caught in a riptide (you swim parallel to the shore people!) Anyways, you get the idea! So one summer I go out into the water by myself and start swimming for a sand bar a bit out in the distance. As I'm swimming I hear lifeguard whistles, but I figure it's no biggee, probably for people that were swimming too far out. I make it to the sand bar, climb out, turn around and see a lifeguard hurtling at me through the water! Apparently I had been caught in a current that had pulled me way far off from the point I entered the water! (P.S. I would've figured this out when I decided to make my way back to shore, and could've like, you know, walked back to where my towel was...) The lifeguard insisted I hold on to his red-hot-doggie-looking-flotation-thingy and he made me come back in to shore, right then, where - wouldn't ya know - a huge crowd had gathered! You guys... I was mortified!! I was, like, 20 when this happened!  And the lifeguard was cute, of course! I mean, maybe I really was in real danger and I didn't know it, but mostly I was embarrassed! 

By the way, I don't think my story has anything to do with this guy getting saved by a helicopter - just maybe tangentially related...? You know... water saving stories and all that...? Yeah? No? Maybe... just a little?

Alright, folks, I'm out!!! Have a good Sew Grateful Week! And know that I am sew grateful to all you readers and for this lovely sewing community I've found myself a part of. 

xx

easy/facile | dress/robe

I'll be the first to admit that my handmade garments tend to lean towards the drape-y and shapeless. It's kind of my thing. But even I had to give pause before making this Vogue8827 up. This was one of those patterns that when I saw the line drawings (it's allll about the line drawings, you guys!) I said to myself:

"Self, that would look really good on you."

"You know, Self, I think you're probably right - but don't I already have something like this in my closet?"

"Yes. Yes, you do. And you wear it all the damn time."

"You speak the truth. Hmmm but, Self, doesn't it kind of look like a bathrobe...?"

"Why yes, yes it does. And your point is....?"

"Ah! I see where you're going here, Self..."

And so the internal battle was won (or lost, depending on which side of myself you were on) and I bought the stinking pattern and made it - in all it's bathrobe-y goodness. I am, after all, the same gal that on a particularly dreary day likes to eye up my comforter and thinks, "You know, with a belt and the right pair of shoes and lipstick..."

So this is View B of V8827, made up in a size 6 (for reference, my measurements put me more in the size 12/14 range). I used a super soft and slinky mystery jersey that I bought at this place in Houston that I swear takes delight in driving me insane by not marking their fabric content. I'm pretty sure by the feel and smell of it (is it weird that I rely on my nose to tell me fabric content? Does anyone else do this? It's just that poly has such a distinctive odor to me...) that it's a rayon jersey, but it has a really beautiful sheen to it which makes it look and feel very elegant. Eh, who am I kidding? It's probably some crazy blend...It's only a two-way stretch which made it pretty stable to work with. I thought this would be ideal since this is a pattern for wovens or knits. But more on that later...

I made zero changes to this pattern while making it up. I guess I was relying on the fact that I was using jersey and the draping throughout the bodice to make up for any fitting issues I might encounter. And that worked out just fine, because I don't really notice any fitting issues! Oh, besides the uneven hem. Ignore that, please! I swear it changes every time I put it on. Sometimes it's straight, sometimes it's uneven - that's just the nature of a bathrobe/dress such as this!

I only have one complaint about this pattern, and it's that while they do recommend jerseys as a suitable fabric, the instructions are really for wovens. It calls for a lot of hand stitching, which I thought was a bit odd for a jersey and I was a bit reticent to do it, but I did because I couldn't really come up with any better ideas. So the yoke facing is attached at the yoke/upper back with slip stitches and I used a length of skinny black ribbon and a catch stitch to do the hem. I felt like this would work because the hem doesn't need to stretch at all, and really it makes for a much neater finish than I would usually get with a twin needle. 

The place I had the biggest problem with the instructions was in setting the sleeves. Really, V8827? Do I really need to ease stitch my jersey?? Although I'm not really sure what I expected. Two sets of instructions? Pfff!!! Please, that's definitely asking too much from a big four pattern company!

I made this dress to wear to an opening at the gallery this past weekend (If you follow me on instagram you may have got a sneak peek!) I had originally thought I'd make it in black - you know, so it could be classic and versatile or something... But I don't really know what happened... Somewhere in the jersey aisle my plan went awry and I decided that a shocking fuchsia was really way more fun, and frankly just as versatile! 

I'd also like to take a little moment to do a PSA for wrap dresses. No really! Hear me out! Ladies of the World, Wrap Dresses are Your Friend!! Real or faux, wrap dresses are magically figure flattering and yet curve revealing. They look effortlessly sexy, and yet you, quite literally, feel as if you're wearing a bathrobe. Their wrap ties visually create a waist if, ahem, like me, you happen to be lacking in that department, and they accentuate the hell out of my tiny waisted sisters! I know some women bemoan the potential for boob-spillage that can occur with wrap dresses, but to them I say "Lighten up! That's part of the wraps charm! What? You wanna buy your own drinks at the bar?!" Just kidding, I don't say that. But I do say that's one of the beautiful things about a stretchy jersey wrap dress. Conforms to the curves, and all that...

Okay. End PSA.

I hope you all have a beautiful week! I'll be taking it easy for awhile as I adjust to the little emotional let-down that always happens after finishing a big project. Lot's of tea and comfort food and catching up on bad TV and good books are in order. And of course blog reading. Lots and lots of blog reading!

And, yes, I took these photos because the flowers matched my dress. I'm easily amused...

xx

color story

leeeeaaaattthhhhheeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

well here she is! (definitely a she) my draped leather jacket. this may be one of my favorite garments i've ever made. it just feels so good to wear! i wanted to wait to take these pictures until i finished this skirt (one of my "bonus" projects from my spring wardrobe). sometimes i get the outfit and the blog pictures in my mind and that alone dictates what i sew. for example: this exact outfit combination had to be paired with this particular abandoned-easter-egg-building with creepy blacked-out windows (once a strip club?). please tell me i'm not the only one that does this (the outfit/blog/picture planning - not posing like a dorkasaurus in front of sketchy abandoned buildings in shady parts of town. i know i'm not the only one that does that!)...

so...i figured a simple gathered dirndl skirt... should be able to whip it out one evening after work, right? no. no thats not right at all. because apparently i can tackle leather and hand tailoring and boning and all those things people think are "advanced" like it ain't no thang - but when it comes to the most basic skirt construction i'm totally flummoxed. flummoxed people!

i won't bore you with the details. just know that there were broken needles involved, a lot of swearing, and i kinda want to cry if i look at the waistband for too long. but no matter, thats what belts are for, amiright?! when its all said and done i actually don't particularly care that i've got a crooked waistband because really, this skirt is so fun to wear!!! all swishy and light. plus i really love the color. the entire time i was sewing it i was trying to place what the color reminded me of. well the entire time that wasn't consumed with shouting expletives! anyway, i kept conjuring up some flavor that i've linked to summer as a kid. and finally i placed it - its the exact color of watermelon bubblegum (bubblicious brand)! it may not look like it in the pictures, but trust me, watermelon bubblegum. these sensory associations don't lie. memories are so weird... now i think i can smell it...

i decided to take a page out of my sister's book and paired my leather jacket and silk skirt with a simple white t-shirt. well, my version of a white t-shirt. i made this about a year ago, its one of the patterns from the japanese drape drape books. not sure which one and frankly i'm too lazy to get up, walk over to my bookshelf, and thumb through them to find out (its friday, guys). so if anyone is burning of curiosity just shout it out in the comments and i guess i can take the five steps to figure it out for you...

regardless, its obviously a drapey t-shirt. i made it out of some slubby linen knit type stuff. and thats my bra underneath it. i'm probably wearing underpants underneath my skirt too. i think...

edit: haha!! i just realized it looks like i'm wearing a teeny purple hat in this picture... good god, what was i thinking...

okay, i'm obviously in a bit of a goofy mood and should probably cut it off here before this really starts going down the toilet (pffft! toilets!) i've already typed more random sentences about my underwear and i want to quit while i still have the good sense to delete them.

truthfully, i think i'm out of things to say since i already covered so much of the construction stuff in my last post. have no fear though, i have some up close detail shots of the jacket innards and stitchery and such coming, but i gotta space out the good stuff!

xx

life lately

sometimes i get surprised by how sewing-centric my blog is. when i started it my intention was to have it be far more well rounded, however perhaps thats just an example of how sewing obsessed my thoughts are! its true that much of my free time is spent behind my sewing machines - or else on the internet devouring everyone else's sewing creations. but like everyone else, i have a life (sorta). so this post is dedicated to all those other little things that have been meaning so much to me lately.

the daily bread:

while i enjoy cooking a good meal, my heart really belongs to baking. recently i've started baking our bread for the week. i use this recipe which, while more time consuming than some bread recipes, yields two large, lofty loaves that have a great yeasty flavor and a nice chewy consistency with a crunchy crust. we eat a lot of bread in our house (atkins be damned!) and we had gotten into the habit of buying our bread from a local bakery, which while utterly delicious, was sort of expensive for a loaf of bread. and as often happens with me i tend to get a bit rammy (i am an aries, afterall) about that sort of stuff and declare " i could make that!" then i jump in blindly, guns a blazin....

should you imagine me as some sort of baking goddess - i assure you, i am not. i spend most of my time in the kitchen with my hands covered in flour darting about like a mad woman and occasionally exclaiming "good god! the loooaaaavvveess!!!"

care for that skin:

for the past several months i've been experimenting with my skincare, trying to weed out chemicals and in the process heal my hormonal skin. i decided to give the oil cleansing method a try, and after much trial and error (and pimples) i think i've finally found a formula that works for me. i use this in the evenings as its perfect for removing makeup. i use rose geranium or just plain rosewater as a toner and concocted an oil serum specifically geared towards healing scars. my husband jokes that the bathroom is my favorite room in the house - and truthfully he's not too far off! I get some sort of witchy satisfaction from playing apothecary and blending my oils and essential oils and flower waters and clays and whatnot into my little concoctions, storing all in my lovely jars and vials. in the mornings i still use good ol' cetaphil, but after reading this blog post i'm very seriously considering trying to find a new, mostly chemical free alternative. if anyone out there knows of a nice, mild, non-sudsing cleanser of the more natural variety, i'm all ears.

in which we draw each other:

when my husband (then boyfriend) and i first moved to TX a few years ago we used to while away our evening hours drawing each other. we've recently picked up this past time again. its a lovely way to reconnect at the end of a day. one of us will assume a comfortable position and sit still while the other one sketches away. sometimes we chat - but most often we sit quietly this way, and then we switch.

*note* i'm only posting the pictures i've drawn of him since i don't know how my husband would feel about me posting his drawings. i suppose i could ask him but he's not home right now and i don't really feel like waiting...

contrary to what this drawing suggests, my husband is not a winking cyborg. but he did keep falling asleep while i was drawing him so one eye got drawn open, the other closed!

we have very different drawing styles, but i think we both enjoy seeing ourselves rendered by the other person - its sort of like reading and writing love letters for two un-eloquent people! ha! it has been such a long while since i've drawn anything i was a bit worried that i had "lost it". while i felt a bit rusty at first, i think its starting to come back to me. i love to draw, and i've always thought of it as my secret friend, always there for me whenever i should need it.

hunter/gatherer:

because i'm not sure i can write a post without mentioning sewing... this weekend we headed up to houston to buy some of those things we can't find on the island. for me this included a visit to the fabric stores (and whole foods to pick up my favorite hippie shampoo!). i'm in the process of gearing up for some spring sewing. as i know i mentioned before, its a bit hard for me to get sewing supplies without ordering it online which can be such a pain when you have to wait for it to ship. so i went to houston with a big fat list of fabrics and notions to carry me through my spring sewing. pictured here are some things i've received in the mail recently too, including my two purchases from tessuti - they're gorgeous!!!

and because no "life" update post is complete without it - here's a gratuitous cat picture for you...

mr. muscles was being a very curious kitty while i was wandering around the apartment snapping pictures, so i figured i'd snap one of him too, and he sat very demurely for me!

well i hope you enjoyed this little peek into the dusty corners of my life - you know, the parts that happen after i turn off the sewing machine!

xx

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

let's hear it for the boy

friends... meet the red jacket.

and prepare for photo overload.

that self-satisfied smirk is totally justified. i finally finished it! to be perfectly frank, i sort of feel like i just gave birth! (i totally reserve the right, should my future self ever actually give birth, to come back and give my present self a good slap for that comment) but really - there were times there when i thought this lovely lady would never be finished!

and she is a beauty, isn't she? this red jacket was just the thing to perk up a chilly, dreary winter day (by texas standards, ya'll).

i spent the past evenings and weekend hand stitching all the finishing touches. the upper collar was fell stitched along the neckline and draw stitched at the gorge line. the lining was fell stitched in place at the shoulders, neckline, armholes and along the front edge - all, of course, as per claire's instructions. sometimes i have serious doubts about wearing a garment hard that has predominate hand stitching, but have you ever tried to rip out fell stitches or back stitches? they are far more resilient than machine stitching! i will be posting some construction shots shortly - it was just far too dark to get decent pictures once we got home from our photo session this afternoon.

and, of course, there is that leopard print lining! the print is a bit louder than what i originally had in mind, but it was also $8 a yard, rather than the (far more tasteful) $36 a yard silks. and truthfully, its kind of grown on me. in fact, i bought extra yardage - so you'll be seeing this print pop up in a, how shall we say, less subtle way in the near future.

i used burda's 07/2011 sweatshirt sports coat for the pattern, however i redrafted the upper collar to get rid of the collar stand. the actual coat is made from wool gabardine. its underlined in white cotton batiste and then interfaced with goat hair canvas along the upper part, lower edge, lapels, collar, and sleeve caps. the lining is rayon challis - not a very typical lining fabric, but it was soo soft, and, as i mentioned - cheap(er)!

i made the executive decision at the last minute to leave out my self-made shoulder pads. while they looked nice, they gave the jacket more of a structured, formal look, and i sort of had a slightly slouchier look in mind. the difference is almost insignificant, but i feel it was the right decision. i did, however, leave the sleeve heads in, to support my dimpled sleeve caps!

here i am testing the fit of the back and shoulders. the ironclad test? weird lunge-y moves on the pier (what? thats not what you do?) there were no popped stitches, so i gave it a gold star, and moved on before i start getting real nit-picky, because, lordy, i could pick and tweak until i'm blue in the face!

my inspiration for this outfit came from one of my favorite style blogs, calivintage, who first introduced me to the term "teddy girls". i was going for a sort of mid-century, boy-meets-girl look (thus the title of this post - and also this song - a favorite from yesterday my youth). my red jacket inspires such things in me.

i would be seriously remiss if i didn't thank my husband for these photos today. and for putting up with my farting about deciding where to take them. and for making the executive decision for me to not reset the sleeves on this jacket for the 10th time, and just let them be. husband, thank you. you are the wisest of them all, and i don't know where i'd be without you.

outfit details:

jacket - self made

shirt - american apparel

jeans - j brand

shoes - urban outfitters from a long long time ago

scarf - not sure. a thrift store perhaps?

xx