ikat, youkat

okay, so this one may not be for everyone. but i'm okay with that.

internet, meet my blanket dress. this is the dress i'm not really sure how i've lived without for this long. blanket dress, you complete me...

i'm sure i've mentioned on here before how much i love a dramatic silhouette. i'm not especially shy of volume. once when i was at a coffee shop in philly wearing a particularly voluminous skirt, a fabulous grey haired lady, herself draped in copious amounts of fabric, came up to me and told me how much she loved my volume. thats what she said, "honey, i love all your volume".  i've long been convinced that the woman was my future self, come back to encourage me to pump up the volume...

note taken, future self. note taken.

this is mccalls 6553 made up in a lovely ikat fabric from b&j fabrics online.  the pattern was ridiculously easy to sew. the sizing is very generous - i made the smallest size, and i'm pretty sure it could accommodate a wide range of figures in its generous folds. i even think it could double as a maternity dress, should i ever decide to go that route (no, mom, don't get your hope up!)

i used leftover silk from the lining of my birthday dress to make the facings and pockets. and rather than try to fiddle with gathering the fabric for the assymetric hem i just serged it and left it raw. i rather like the way it looks. it adds to its overall blankety-ness.  it also closes in the back with a single button. i made a covered button with one of those dritz kits. it looked like it would fall apart in two seconds, but surprisingly it held quite nicely, and adds an extra little upholstery flair.

the pattern came with a wide sash which would help to reign it in, but, call me crazy, i rather liked it billowing free!

also, i can't believe that its been almost 10 months since we've been living in galveston and i've been blogging regularly and this is the first time i moseyed on down to the beach to take pictures! what took me so long?

i don't have too much more to say about this dress! i might be a kook - but i love it and i'm 100% positive that it will be getting lots of love and wear. i'm also pretty happy with this pattern, so I think I'll make it up again.  maybe in a drapey jersey...

xx

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