high | low

hey! remember this top? i drafted and sewed this high/low hem silk tee at the end of may and gave a quick glimpse of it during the final days of mmmay. and now here we are at the end of june and i'm finally getting it properly documented on the old blog. but thats just how it goes sometimes, isn't it?

i had bought a small amount of yardage of this tessuti silk georgette (no longer listed online) and knew i wanted to make something loose and flowy with it. i decided to try out the mullet hem trend on this top to see if i liked it, and after wearing it a few times now, both backwards (like in these pictures) and forwards, i have to admit that it definitely has its appeal. for my part - i'm much more comfortable with the length in the front and wear it backwards more often than not.

the neckline is faced with a bias strip - a technique that was used a lot with those vogue/rachel comey patterns i'm so fond of and that i found gave a nice finish for thin fabrics.

i'm also wearing some ikat shorts that i made from the leftover fabric from my dress. these were also a quick sort of "in between projects" project. i drafted the pattern using the built by wendy pants pattern i used to make my jeans and compared measurements to my one and only other pair of shorts - a blue rtw pair bought from urban outfitters many many many moons ago now.

i'm not even going to tell you how many mosquito bites i got while taking these pictures. just know that i got some of them too - so long suckers!!!!

some of you intimated that you might like a tutorial on drafting this top. let me tell you - it was so darn easy that a tutorial seems kind of silly. but ask and you shall receive! i took this as an opportunity to learn me some adobe illustrator skillzzzzzzzzz which, if we're being perfectly honest (and i'm always honest amos on this blog... pppfffttt!) was really the delay in getting this top posted in a timely fashion. but you know... its all for the sake of furthering my edumucation!! please excuse my less than smooth curves...

i used a random t-shirt pattern i happened to have to start with, but you can use a sloper, or some other basic bodice pattern that you may have on hand. since there are no darts or anything in this shirt you can just ignore them if your pattern has them.

step 1: lay your bodice block front on a table and trace the neckline and center front line. if you want you can change the shape/depth of the neckline. also determine the length you want the CF to be. i did this super low tech - just grabbed a tape measure and measured over the fullest part of my bust to where i thought i might want the hem.

step 2: put a pin at the corner where the neckline and shoulder meet. this will be your pivot point. now pivot your bodice block front out until it looks good. no really. thats what i did. okay well actually i pivoted it out until my shoulder seam was at a right angle. 

step 3: trace the new side angle and shoulder seam. extend the side seam. extend the sleeve until it looks good. you can use a measuring tape to make sure your sleeve (plus hem allowance) will be long/short enough. make sure it will be wide enough. then use your eyeballs or a french curve to connect the CF and the new extended side seam.

step 4: do the same thing for your bodice block back. make sure your shoulder, armhole, underarm and side seams are the same length as the front. extend the CB line and use your french curve or your trusty eyeballs to draw a curve for the lower hem.

step 5: lay your new shirt front and shirt back pattern side by side matching up the side seam. depending on the angle of your curved hem you may need to smooth out the curve at the side seam (mine was oddly pointy) and true all your seams.

and voila!! a high/low hem shirt pattern!! wear backwards and forwards for two fun looks!

xx

unselfish sewing

hey there, handsome...

we just came back from a long weekend on the east coast where we attended a friends wedding in long island, ny.

but let's flash back to the sunday before our thursday flight, shall we?? there i am, contemplating what to wear - my birthday dress? my bombshell dress? do i try and make something new?? do i wear one of the few rtw dresses i own? hmm hmm hmmmmm. decisions decisions decisions. (i ended up with my ikat dress - packs well and is oh so accommodating to buffets...)

i'm roused from my self-absorption for just long enough to realize that my husband is staring into the portents of his side of the closet (which curiously keeps getting smaller and smaller... weird...) with a furrowed brow. i ask him what he's going to wear. he responds that he's thinking of wearing a short sleeve collared shirt i made him last year (never blogged) with a tie. hmmm....

readers, i'm not a big fan of fashion rules, and i am definitely no expert in men's dressing, but i just wasn't convinced that a short sleeve shirt and a tie was appropriate for an evening wedding. turns out my husband wasn't totally convinced either.

and that was how i convinced him to take me fabric shopping.

i realized it was high time i sent a little sewing love to my biggest supporter, and my all around favorite person. it didn't hurt that his birthday was last week either!

with truly record speed (if i do say so myself) i whipped out this modified long sleeve negroni. i bought the negroni pattern last year when i made a short sleeve shirt for nick's (my husband) birthday. i knew that the convertible camp collar style of the negroni wouldn't suit him for, but i felt like i needed the hand-holding that colette patterns is so good at.  so using peter's excellent tutorial i made the necessary changes to the negroni pattern to give it a button placket front, collar stand and regular collar.

the fabric was some unmarked checked stuff that was wonderfully light weight, soft and mysteriously resistant to wrinkles. while pressing the seams i got a whiff of that tell-tale 70's basement smell that told my that there was some polyester lurking in those fibers. but my husband doesn't mind - and really, for a cotton/poly blend (my guess) its pretty darn breathable.

i'm not going to say that its the finest example of men's shirt sewing. there's some awkward turns and pivots and a curiously "off" cuff (but just the underside, so no one sees it). i also made one of those spectacularly idiotic blunders that only i can make when sewing to a deadline - after attaching the collar stand and collar and topstitching the whole thing to boot, i realized that i was sewing the shirt inside-out! at some point - perhaps when attaching the back yolk - i got myself all turned around and the plackets were on the inside of the shirt! head slap!! there was much unpicking of tiny stitches. and cursing. lots and lots of cursing.

but i do feel that next time i do it - without the pressure of a deadline - it will (hopefully) go smoother. and nick likes it. and thats what matters most.

i love you, nick. happy birthday.

xx

mmmmmmarfa

i've been sitting down trying to write this post about our trip countless times over the past couple of days but unfortunately i keep getting distracted! so here we go!

nick (my husband) and i are pretty dismal about documenting our lives. this is funny because i'm quick to snap pictures of a new sewing project and have filled an entire blog with photos of me posing like a weirdo in public places - but when it comes to documenting trips, or life around us we both seem to forget what a camera is for! i always chalk this up to the fact that i'd rather be experiencing the beautiful sunset, rather than staring at it from behind a lens - but in reality i just forget that these are the moments i'm supposed to be capturing.

so thats my excuse for my utter lack of relevant photos from this trip.

last monday we got in our car and drove 11 hours through the state of texas. 11 hours of driving and we're still in this damn, big state! it was pretty incredible watching the landscape change as we went. from the humid, green, almost tropical gulf coast to the hill country in the middle of the state, to grasslands and then desert mountains. i was actually surprised by the mountains. in my head i thought west texas was all flat.

i have to say - its really beautiful out there. marfa is a pretty interesting place. its where the movie giant was filmed, and more recently there will be blood (a favorite of mine). marfa itself is teeny tiny, like a lot of the west tx towns we drove through. one or two main roads. one stoplight sort of thing. quiet and lazy. but its become a bit of a magnet for the art community. for a town with such a small population i think i saw more hipsters there than i would during sunday brunch in williamsburg!

we went out to marfa with the nonprofit i work for (and where my husband is a resident artist) it was maybe 10% a work trip and 90% vacation.  we stayed at the thunderbird hotel where i spent a good amount of time lazing by the pool reading the french lieutenant's woman. really, this is how i spent  most of my time in marfa (another reason for the lack of photos). and it was wonderful. in between pool lounging and lazily biking through the town to get falafel from the one and only food truck, we also paid our respects to the art gods.

the donald judd foundation and the chinati (or chinazi)  foundation (also by donald judd) are in marfa. we did a full tour of chinati (and were scolded on numerous occasions for being late, or drinking coffee, or taking too long to pee...) which is an old army base that judd bought up in the 60's or 70's and slowly renovated. it houses some pretty epic judd sculptures along with the work of some of his friends and other artists he felt were "worthy".

judd was never really a favorite artist of mine - but the metal works housed at chinati were really pretty damn good, and some of the best judd's i've ever seen. the work felt very appropriate for the buildings and the surrounding landscape, and i have to admit that he knew what he was doing by placing them there. some of the other works housed at chinati were not quite so well placed. or maybe i was just getting tired and "arted out" by the end of our 4 hour tour in the 108(F) degree heat. the dan flavins in particular required an extreme force of will to get through, and i think my entire group felt that by the end of the tour we had given more of ourselves to the soul sucking judd than he gave to us. like we made our sacrificial offering to the ghost of judd and somehow we would be exonerated by the art gods.

i'm joking of course.

sort of.

another highlight of the trip was our visit to the macdonald observatory on tuesday night where we attended an event celebrating the transit of venus. we had an excellent view of venus as she eclipsed the setting sun - the last time it will happen for another 150 years. did anyone else get a chance to check this out? you would have needed special glasses to see it with your naked eye - but nasa had a live feed of it too. it wasn't that exciting - just a tiny dot traveling over the surface of the sun, but i always get pretty geekily excited about that sort of stuff. driving out to the observatory also afforded us a glimpse at some of the surrounding land. the mountains and scrubby desert vegetation. and one of the most breathtaking sunsets i've ever witnessed.

we're planning on making the marfa trip a yearly excursion for the artist residency (maybe someday i'll tell you about what i do for a living - its pretty radical - in the 80's sense of the word) so hopefully next spring i'll be making the trek again. next time i (hopefully) won't have an oozing toe and will be able to do some hiking in the surrounding land. and of course i'll return to cleanse myself in the sacrificial waters of mid to late 20th century art...

this photo has absolutely nothing to do with marfa. but it was just too good to pass up!

things have been pretty quiet on the sewing front lately. i'm having trouble starting some of the bigger projects i had planned for this summer, and i keep getting distracted by all the inspiring things i'm seeing on everyone else's blog! might be time for me to buckle down and get focused...

in the meantime, i have a few "life" and non-sewing related posts i've been wanting to get up on this here blog, so i might turn my attention to those while i wait for my sewing intuition to kick back into gear!

hope you're all having a great june - its freaking hot down here!

xx

guest post up at madalynne

hey guys! sorry for my blog silence over the last week. we were in marfa, tx last week for some desert action and i've been in a bit of a lazey-haze since we got back. so this is just a quick note to tell you that i've got a guest post up over on maddie's awesome blog. i'm sure you all know maddie and just what a stylish, sweet lady she is - not to mention the wealth of information she brings to us sewing bloggers.  so it goes without saying that i was excited beyond belief when she asked me do a guest post for her while she's out of town.

and then i got really nervous! what could i possibly have to contribute that would be worthy of madalynne?! lucky for me maddie was super sweet and we knocked around a few ideas. its no surprise that the one that stuck was about jeans, since i'm still wearing my handmade jeans like its my business. so if you'd like to check out some of my tips for sewing jeans, head on over to madalynne!

i'll be back later with a post about some of my recent (non-sewing) escapades. but now i have to get ready for work (blergh!)

xx (or zzzz)

the final days of me-made-may

well its been a fun ride. i've never done a wardrobe-challenge-month and i was really curious to see if i would stick with it or not. and i did! even the weekends - though i have no photographic evidence so you'll just have to take my word for it that i pulled off at least one me-made article of clothing every day, including weekends, for the 31 days of may.

5/29



top: american apparel
skirt: self-made silk midi-skirt, blogged here
shoes: frye
belt: jcrew
check out mister muscles' new collar! he hates loves it! and now i can hear him coming so he can no longer sneak attack and destroy my ankles!! sallie = 1, mister muscles = 549....

5/30



i'll be honest, i almost forgot to take a picture this day. it wasn't until we were almost about to go to bed that my husband asked if i had taken my picture for mmmay and i realized i forgot, so he quick snapped this one while i was working on some hand sewing. its hard to tell but i'm wearing this dress.

5/31



top: self-made (proof in the picture above) more info to come, promise!
jeans: i had to end my me-made-may with my champions, the stovepipe skinnies.
so the pictures this week kind of devolved. but hey! it lasted up until the last two days! thats pretty good! this picture gives you a wonderful profile of the lovely lucille, and also a glimpse of my bum toe (and our very wire-y and um... old... sound system)

a huge thank you to zoe for hosting and organizing and conceiving of such a fabulous month-long celebration of our me-made wardrobes. and a huge thank you, blog readers, and flickr pool for all your kind words of encouragement.

i definitely feel like this challenge made me more aware of my own wardrobe and my dressing habits than i ever have been before. i think separates really serve me well in the day to day and i seem to have a fondness for red, white and blue (hmm... perhaps i should remedy that...)

but really, i need to give a huge thank you to three darlings who, hands down, made my me-made-may:

the draped leather jacket (worn 4 times), the stovepipe skinnies (worn 9 times), and the red midi-skirt (worn 4 times).

without you three i don't know where i would be. probably posting pictures of my stark naked self on the internet. but not in a sexy way, you know? it was through this powerhouse trio that i really found the full potential of my me-made wardrobe, and it will be with this triumphant triumvirate in mind that i consider my future makes. 

in other words: i really gotta make myself another leather jacket, pair of jeans and midi-skirt, already!! sheesh!

congratulations to everyone who participated in me-made-may! you're a rockstar!! pop open your poison of choice (me? i'll be clinking some ice around in my campari and soda, squeeze of orange, please) throw on some (non-me-made) sweatpants and contemplate just how awesome you are!

cheers!

xx

a (toe)tally awesome mmmay...

warning: this post gets a bit gory at the end...

and another mmmay week comes to a close. it began with me rocking some me-made outfits, and ended with a trip to urgent care. lets begin at the beginning.

5/22

top: anthropologie, a beautiful gift from my beautiful mom. just cuz she loves me.

jeans: these ones here that i've been wearing nonstop. seriously. are you sick of them yet? because clearly i'm not...

shoes: shoemint

earrings: old old old...

5/23



dress: my ikat blanket dress - blogged here
shoes: frye
beach: beautiful, isn't it?


5/24

jacket: draped leather jacket - are you sick of seeing this one yet, too? blogged here

shirt: silk colette sencha - made (very poorly) in the early days of sewing. actually i think this was the first real pattern i ever made. it never fit quite right and i keep thinking i'll remake it, but it looked pretty cute in this outfit.

shorts: old. urban outfitters, possibly? these are actually the only pair of shorts i own. which needs to be remedied...

belt: jcrew

shoes: shoemint

5/25

top: vogue 1247 - blogged here

jeans: same as always - blogged here

shoes: falling apart and yet i keep wearing them.

this top always gets worn the same way. i wish i could get more creative with it - but this always seems so perfect!

and its all down hill from here...

5/26




top: stripey knit from burdastyle - blogged here
jeans: same as always...
icepack: loaned from a friend...

so today started out like a normal saturday. i got up, got ready (a bit tired so i just threw some clothes on, thinking about how i'm going to have to justify wearing these jeans as much as i do on the blog, and lie about how i swear i'm washing them...) went to work. we had a small event the night before so i wanted to try and clean up from that and in one of those weird accidents where the action doesn't really seem to justify the outcome, i opened a door on my foot, experienced a shooting pain, and looked down to see my big toenail had come off!!!

... thats only a mild exaggeration, it came almost all the way off - but thats what it looked like to me at the time. i remember thinking how that seemed like cruel punishment just for opening a door on one's foot. then i saw blood. lots and lots of blood. 

now, if there is one thing about me that becomes crystal clear in situations like this it is that a) i have a low tolerance for pain, b) the sight of blood (or really even the mention of it) in general, but especially my own makes me queasy and c) i rely very heavily on the people who love me to care for me when faced with an injury.

but i was alone. so i limped and dragged my seriously injured foot over to the neighboring building where my husband has his studio, knowing that he had a first aid kit in there (my husband is a valiant prince of a man who laughs in the face of pain and is no stranger to gruesome injuries) then i dragged myself, leaving a very dramatic trail of blood behind me, to a large sink where i cleaned my (truly disgusting) toe, wrapped it in gauze and stuck a band aid around it. 

then i limped back to my office - leaving one lone bloody shoe and a manic scattering of first aid supplies behind me, so they'll know what happened to me when they found the body...

and i called my husband. i was certain that i hadn't done a good job cleaning the toe because i couldn't even bear to look at, let alone touch it to clean the nail bed. as i waited for him to come find me in my pathetic state i sensed that i was feeling very nauseous, and i was having trouble breathing.

my prince came to my rescue. then he told me he was going to have to remove the rest of the nail. and the room went white and i felt like vomiting and my husband told me to elevate my foot. this part was just so traumatic its all a blur (wink).

after a quick call to my mother in law, who's a nurse practitioner, we were advised to go see a doctor, who could clean the toe and - possibly - cut the nail away. insert shuddering, heaving breath and room-spinning sensations here.

and thats how my saturday ended up at the urgent care! we waited for about 3 and a half hours till we saw a doctor, who was very nice, but told me he wasn't going to do anything. nothing! that the nail will come off by itself in good time and that i should soak it in epsom salts to keep it clean. thats it!!! no scary scissors, no me having to bite down on a wooden spoon while a doctor hovers above me with a saw and yells "nurse! bring me more laudanum! for god sake woman!" while the nurse vomits quietly into her apron. in other words, it wasn't the hospital scene from gone with the wind. go figure. just some free gauze and instructions to keep it clean, massage the nail bed so it regrows, and...

STAY OUT OF THE OCEAN!!

say what?!!? apparently salt water is great for disinfecting, just not the salt water in the gulf of mexico.  blast!! there goes my weekend (and next weekend, and possibly the weekend after that) plans!!

and here ends the gruesome story of sallie and her toe(nail). its tragic, i know. 

now, dear readers (those of you who aren't as delicate as i and actually made it to the end of my sad tale) i have a question for you. what does one wear when you have a zombie toe?? (zombie because of its blue-ish, purple-ish, black-ish coloring. like a zombie. duh.)

do you hide your toe under wrappings and closed toed shoes so the people at the table next to you at the restaurant don't lose their appetite at the site of your ghastly digit? or do you let your zombie toe breathe?

inquiring minds want to know...

xx

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

mmmay week three!!

high five for the weekend! i plan on spending my two free days thusly: 

spend one day at the beach. spend one day sewing. mix and match. mornings and evenings for cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping et cetera, et cetera, and so forth, and so on.

will you support me in this? good. i thought so.

i kind of felt like i was kicking this me-made-may's butt this week - until today. something happened and every single thing i put on this morning felt like someone else's clothes. i think this was because it was sunshine-y and warm and the only thing that would have felt comfortable was a bathing suit, wide-brimmed hat, and sunscreen. accessorize with sandy feet and salty hair. but apparently thats not appropriate work attire. or so they tell me. jk. i've never shown up to work in my swimmies. yet.

okay! enough chit chat - let the me-made-may week three parade begin!

5/13 and 5/14 not pictured but i wore some combination of my new(ish) stove-pipe skinny jeans, that mint green t-shirt, or some other t-shirt and blue shorts. mix and match. match and mix.

5/15

lets go from the top down, shall we?

hat: random beach store here in galveston

necklace: so old i don't remember

bra strap: you really don't want to know

top: self-made burdastyle, blogged here but i cut the sleeves off (the ties never laid right and i just felt i'd get more wear out of it this way)

jeans: emersonmade

clogs: frye

where: to work. obviously.

5/16

topknot: so silly with my short hair

braided thingamabobby: american apparel from many moons ago

jacket: draped leather jacket - blogged here - i've seriously been getting my money's worth out of this jacket!

shirt: self-made from the drape-drape 2 book, never blogged

jeans: emersonmade

shoes: shoemint - not gonna lie, i didn't wear these all day. i just got them in the mail this day and thought they might spruce up my look

where: i might stop doing this, because i don't go anywhere other than work and home! so there. done. not doing this anymore!

5/17

sunnies: rayban!

necklace: madewell from last year

dress: self-made, self-drafted, super soft nani-iro double gauze fabric. made about a year ago, never blogged

shoes: shoemint

5/18

necklace: same old one from 5/15

tshirt: altered built-by-wendy pattern from sew u home stretch, blogged here

belt: jcrew

skirt: self-made, blogged here - this skirt has also been another all-star in my spring wardrobe...

shoes: shoemint, and this time i actually wore them all day

i felt totally awesome in this outfit! i suppose this is me taking part in the "colorblocking" trend but i sort of hate that word and i'd much rather prefer to think of it as "three differently colored things that i happen to be loving right now and i'm gonna wear them all together just for shits"! i gave a little talk in the morning to some middle school kids and one of the girls came up to me and said "i'm loving all of (waves her hand around in the air) this" yeah. thats right, my look was 12 year old girl approved!

5/19

sunnies: rayban

top: urban outfitters, self-altered

tank top: jcrew

jeans: stovepipe skinnies, blogged here

shoes: frye

and i think i used up all my good-outfit mojo on friday because today it just wasn't working. i don't usually do the whole thing where i change outfits 50 times in the morning, but this was one of those mornings. nothing seemed to be working, so i just kind of defaulted to my jeans. it seems almost like cheating, but hey - they are the most wearable self-made article of clothing i've ever made!

and thats it for this week! now if you'll excuse me, i have about 4 yards of beautiful ikat fabric that needs my attention

jealous?

xx

when do you buy?

                                                                           
                                                                           Source: shopanaise.com via Sallie on Pinterest

i think this is a question for both sewists and non-sewists alike, but it becomes particularly more complicated and convoluted for those of us who have an interest in creating a handmade wardrobe.

lately i've been bit by the shopping bug. perhaps its a reaction to us buying a new car and adding a monthly payment into our budget that has me (ashamedly) whining "but but but... thats less money to spend on me".  or maybe its just that my sewing machines have been a bit quiet the last week or so, but i've been finding myself wandering onto ready-to-wear clothing sites and eyeing up the wares a bit greedily while a sneaky little voice in my head is whispering "buy it". some of these things are affordable and i could easily slip them into this months paycheck without hurting, others are so outrageously outside of my "fun" budget that i can't believe i'm even entertaining the thought! (p.s. all of these images fall into the latter category)

                                                                 Source: shop.emersonfry.com via Sallie on Pinterest

generally i enter into a ridiculous song and dance where i weigh my desire vs. need vs. can i make it? vs. do i want to make it? vs. will it make me happy? vs. will i secretly feel guilty? vs. will my husband disapprove? vs. do i need it? do i need it? huh? huh huh huh????!!!

you get the picture. it gets exhausting. usually this mental two-step is enough to tucker me out and dissuade me from buying anything and the crisis is averted and my credit card stays safely tucked in my wallet. but sometimes... its just not that easy.


                                                                   

                                                                        Source: theclothes.blogspot.com via Sallie on Pinterest

i do try to stick to some sort of priority scale when i buy things - it goes a little something like this (sewing related stuff excluded, of course, because that takes priority over everything!!):

1. beauty products - my number one weakness. whether its some diy ingredients to make an oatmeal and aloe mask or a miracle cream that i'm certain will turn me into a glowing botticelli venus, or a new lippy from the drugstore, this is the first thing that i'll break down on and buy.

                                                              Source: funkis.com via Sallie on Pinterest

2.  shoes - because i haven't yet (yet!) figured out how to make shoes, i usually find purchasing them pretty justified. plus i just love shoes. but i do already own a crapload of them, so that gives me some pause.

3.  jewelry and accessories - see above. at this point i'd be hard pressed to get into jewelry making. same thing goes for things like belts and scarves. i know i could make them, but i'd just rather buy them. also, i don't wear a ton of accessories on a day to day basis so i'm usually pretty cool recycling what i have over and over (and over) again.

                                                                            Source: neimanmarcus.com via Sallie on Pinterest

4.  sweaters - i've knocked around the idea of learning how to knit just to avoid this one, but i get dissuaded every time i imagine all the scarves and boring rectangles i'll have to knit first before i'm competent enough to tackle something like a cardigan. plus, its so slow!! and thats coming from someone who likes to work slow!

                                                                  Source: images.anthropologie.com via Sallie on Pinterest

5.  swimwear and underwear - i have a hard time with this one. because i really know that i can make them. but my desire to make them is pretty low. my desire to buy them is pretty low too, which is why i'm still romping around in an old bikini that no longer fits and every time i get hit by a wave i lose my drawers. and i won't even tell you about the state of my underwear. just know that its amazing my husband is still attracted to me - despite the fact that he's threatened to go through my underwear and burn things...

and there you have it! way low on that list are things like dresses and blouses and t-shirts and jeans, because i feel pretty competent at making all those things - but every now and then i see something, like a beautiful dress with knife pleats all over, or a ridiculous design that i can't find a pattern to replicate, and is beyond my drafting skills, and, oh! the song and dance starts again...

so i'm wondering - when do you take the plunge and buy something? am i the only one that does a mental mambo every time i come across a cute pair of shorts? do you have any weaknesses when it comes to rtw clothes? 

please share...

all images are just some things that have made my breath catch in my throat recently. if i could own them all i would...

xx

mmmay week two

phwew! i'm running a bit behind schedule this week. i was talking to my dad this weekend and he said that since he didn't see a new post up he assumed i was no longer participating in me-made-may! well! how wrong you are daddy-oh! my wearing of me-made clothes is still going strong - and i've got photographic evidence to prove it (except for the weekends...a girl needs a break...)

my camera batteries died on saturday leaving me a bit slow in recharging them and getting these pictures posted. but the greater contributor to my mmmay tardiness was.... drumroll pleeeaassseee ...

this weekend my husband and i decided to do our part as young americans and stimulate the economy by buying a new car. like a real car. not one off of craig's list.  at least this is what i've been telling myself we were doing to avoid the all-consuming anxiety that grips me every time i think about taking on more debt! i think i'm just hardwired to hyperventilate when faced with this kind of purchase, despite the fact that the numbers keep telling me that we can afford this.  there was also a serious need factor involved here. our poor little car was on its last legs - quite literally wheezing and burning its oil - and (perhaps the biggest strike against it) we were facing our third texas summer without air conditioning. we just. couldn't. do it. again.

so my mind has been a bit preoccupied with paperwork and numbers and budgets and the anxiety and exhilaration of our brand spanking new car!!!  you guys, she's so purdy. she even has power windows and locks (apparently thats become standard in the past 20 years...) so yeah. big weekend in the sallieoh house!

oh. you didn't want to hear about my new car?? well fine then - without further ado, my mmmay week two in review:

5/6 and 5/7: not pictured. wore a self-made, self-drafted blue polka dot dress. it'll be worn again, no worries. and yes i wore it both days. don't judge me.

5/8:

top: urban outfitters, from many moons ago, self-altered (i shortened the hem)

skirt: watermelon silk midi/maxi skirt - blogged here

shoes: frye

where: to work. same old same old. weirdly enough this has been one of my favorite outfits to wear this spring. i'm not really sure why since the silhouette isn't the most flattering. i think i just really like the way it billows in the breeze. i'm a sucker for some billowing...

5/9:

blazer: christmas gift, several years old by now. from urban outfitters i think.
top: rachel comey for vogue in tessuti silk, blogged here
pants: new stove-pipe skinnies, blogged here
shoes: shoemint
where: work. so much for this top being a special occasion top...


5/10:

dress: self-made, self-drafted red wrap dress. never blogged. made about a year ago in a post-flu delirium where i began maniacally serging this red modal knit. despite the fact that the hem is uneven and the ties are oddly, like, 6 feet long each - this has got to be my most loved self-made garment to date. and this is because when i put it on i feel like the lovechild offspring of marilyn monroe and sophia loren. bam! bombshell...

shoes: shoemint. 

bod: all mine, baby, alllllll mine

where: yeah. just to work.

5/11:

sexy rain jacket: not sure what brand, but i got it at the sporting goods store

tshirt: self made just recently. incredibly unremarkable so it won't get blogged.

pants: self-made stove-pipe skinnies, blogged here

shoes: my trusty (and oh so sexy) old lady worifshofers. 

where: to work. the internet told me to expect thunderstorms all day so i dressed appropriately (i even had some awesome galoshes on earlier) only for it to be stupidly sunny. allll freaking day. go figure.

5/12:

jacket: self-drafted draped leather jacket, blogged here

dress: the second dress i ever made! it also happens to be self-drafted (yeah, i worked backwards...) made a few years ago now and never blogged. its made from some fun poly (!!) knit from the 70's. 

shoes: frye

where: to work. duh. sorry about my stupid face in this picture. my camera battery was dying so this was the only one i snapped before it quit on me. no time to preview and try and arrange my facial features in some way that doesn't look like i'm possessed by the devil...

and thats week two!! i didn't really get any sewing done this week because my mind has been elsewhere. perhaps inspiration will strike this week and i'll have something glorious to post later, but i'm not going to force it!

have a great week, ya'll!

xxoo