feeling zen-like

not one of my most inspired haiku's (pfft!! as if i have haiku standards!!) but still... hiya haiku! nice to see ya!

that title is a lie. but ya know, whaddyagonnado? sometimes you just need to tell yourself those little white lies. "feeling globular" just doesn't inspire normal human functioning, does it? but "feeling zen-like" well! now we're talking... see! talking! human function! where was i??

i'm back! i've managed to make it through my stressful april and i'm now seeing the light on the other side which is may! please be good to me may! please oh please oh please!! it was actually a bit of a challenge to stay away from the computer. in the little bouts of free time i've had over the last 2 or 3 weeks i've had to remind myself to limit my computer time. turn the thing off. step away from the mouse. its for your own good. this didn't always work since i was also determined to stay up to date on my blog readers (i don't know what it is, but an overflowing reader makes me more stressed out than an overflowing email inbox!)

but this self-imposed blog break doesn't mean that i haven't been thinking about sewing or blogging. au contraire!! part of the break was to help me organize my thoughts and get some action plans made up for the upcoming months. chief among these was preparing for me-made-may and the colette spring/summer palette challenge.

so where am i with all of this? hmmm. well when i say "organize" i mean "form coherent thoughts" so... don't get your hopes up...

lets start with me-made-may shall we?

my "mmm" oath reads a little sumpin like this:

i, sallie of sallieoh.blogspot.com, sign up as a participant of me-made-may '12. i endeavor to wear one self-made article of clothing, and to mix and match said articles of clothing to the best of my ability, each day for the duration of may 2012.

so here's the tizzy - i have a pretty good self-made wardrobe built up at this point. its not great, but it does get a lot of wear. i plan on building onto this wardrobe (particularly my summer wardrobe) throughout the month. so that should be fun. but what i really want to get out of this challenge is a chance to remix my current wardrobe. i think by setting the boundary of having to wear a self-made article of clothing every stinking day i might be forced to get a wee bit creative. also, this is a chance for me to show off some of the things i've made before i started this blog - which are all generally poorly sewn but for some reason i love them. so that should be fun! stay tuned!

now! the colette spring/summer palette challenge! i approached this a bit different than i did for the fall one. in the fall i picked some images that were inspiring me and then tried to fit my fabric/garment choices around that. this time i tried to pay attention to what fabrics i was being drawn to and edit them to find a coherent theme, curating patterns to go along with them in the process. and this is what i came up with:

what can i say? i'm feeling blue! maybe its my yearning for some beach time - or something else, but i'm really craving cooling hues.  also, as a sort of continuation of my mini spring wardrobe, i'm also really trying to incorporate more prints into my wardrobe along with some classic solids. prints are the spice of a wardrobe's life, in my humblest of opinion, and so far my closet is like the cafeteria at a retirement home...bland.

i'll check back in soon with a more complete rundown of my plans and patterns and such and such! also, i have a newly finished garment to show off that i'm trying to get photographed either today or tomorrow - aaaaand  the me-made-may madness starts this tuesday!! ya'll are gonna get so sick of me...

till then,

xx

champagne tastes : beer budget

clockwise from top left: liberty of london, tessuti, liberty of london, leatherwise, tessuti, tessuti

my poor dad used to always lament that i could walk into a store filled with racks of things that all look the same, and somehow i'd pick out the most expensive item.

this trait didn't really end when i started paying for things myself. in fact for a time it got worse. my money - i buy what i want, right? i admit i may have spent my food money on a new sweater more often than i care to say. or, more accurately, bought the food and the sweater and overdrew my bank account. thankfully, this habit didn't carry itself too far into adulthood. at some point, i learned that for every extravagance there needs to be a sacrifice.

i don't make a lot of money. making a lot of money is not a priority in my life. but that doesn't change the fact that i have an appetite for nice things - namely clothes. this is one of the reasons i began to sew. no. this is the one reason i began to sew. my mother doesn't sew. i didn't grow up around it. my love for sewing is directly and inextricably linked to my love for beautiful clothes. garments that are often outstandingly out of my price range.

but when it comes to sewing - my habits really haven't changed. i have a weakness for expensive fabric. no lie. i have endless amounts of admiration for all the sewing bloggers that pillage their fabric from thrift stores, or swaps. whose total cost for a garment is $2 (sew weekly ladies, i'm looking at you!) and look amazing! but thats just not me! ever wonder why i don't post the total cost of my garments? because most of the time, i'm too embarrassed to say!

full disclosure: i probably spent $150 - 180 total on supplies for my red jacket. the bulk of that was the wool gabardine i used for the shell. $180 dollars is a lot of money to me. but out of those materials i got a jacket, a pair of pants, and now i'm working on a dress from the leftover lining fabric. so three items for $180 doesn't seem so bad anymore! especially three items that could retail for $180 each at a store like jcrew. true, i opted for the rayon lining over the silk, but that wool was... well... gorgeous, and do you know how hard it is to find a good red?

so how do i manage this expensive fabric habit? well for starters - i may be the one and only sewista out there that doesn't have a stash (or has a very very very small, extremely manageable one). i don't really buy fabric without a plan. and i try to be as exact as possible with my yardage. secondly, i sew slow (as we know) so i'm not really making tons of clothes. and finally, i skimp in other areas of my life. i take a savage pleasure in a low grocery bill. i have the bare minimum health insurance. i make, cook, concoct or grow what i can. i'd take low rent over new appliances (or structural soundness) any day. i don't have cable (or own a tv). because for every extravagance - there are sacrifices.

sloper update: i decided i really needed to draft sleeves. if i ever get over my disgust with this whole endeavor perhaps i'll post the results. the title for the post will probably be something like "slopers: the many headed hydra"...

xx

my favorite color is rainbow: grey is so much more than grey

in my ultimate wisdom i have decided that it is time for another "my favorite color is rainbow". the past week and a half really bit the big one. i had big plans (i always have big plans) but then lady life decided to pay me a visit. i really wish she would check my day planner (i don't keep a day planner) and my bank account (i don't keep a bank account. only a loose floorboard. and a shotgun.) before she decides to pull a fast one on me.

so perhaps it is in that spirit that i bring you this "my favorite color is rainbow". gentles and ladymen, please give it up for none other than the humble, the elusive, the overlooked, the misunderstood, the confusing to spell... grey.

i like it with the e not the a.

grey is a color that often gets confused for a non-color, but there is so much hue in grey. just try to find the perfect grey and you'll find yourself stumbling upon purples and blues, browns and greens... i've even spotted yellow in there. grey is an elusive, slippery, complex color. but when its right, its oh so right. welcome to the wonderful, confusing, and rich world of grey.

for more grey images and to see sources, please visit here.

xx

my favorite color is rainbow: i like pink

ladies and gentleman, cats and kittens, theres a new feature on this blog. in "my favorite color is rainbow" i will engage in a genuine lovefest with a certain slice of the chromatic spectrum. and yes, there will be haiku's, because no lovefest is complete without a haiku. i hope this feature will be an inspiration to look at, because it was certainly fun to gather the images.

so without further adieu, please let me introduce.... the color pink.

pink really needs no introduction. it is a fitting first choice for my first "my favorite color is rainbow" feature because i have had a long standing love affair with this color. who doesn't? it is the color of love affairs...








you can find additional pink images, plus all the sources here.


xx

cat. hat.