6 Weeks Left!

Holiday Mocktail Dress & Tutorial

 I'm now 32 weeks preggo (only 8 weeks left - the final stretch!) and with the holiday season fast approaching, I needed a nice bump-friendly dress to wear to office Christmas parties and New Years celebrations.  Taking inspiration from this lovely number by ASOS, I used Simplicity 3835 to make a lacy cocktail dress (well, mocktails in my case).  This turned out to be a relatively simple pattern to modify to become maternity friendly and I've provided some steps below.

UFOs and Minor DIYs

My apologies for my lack of productivity in blog-land!  In all fairness, I've been working quite a lot lately between my two jobs (one contract is finishing at the end of November though - phew!).  We also bought a new (to us) car - a 2007 Honda Fit and sold my old car (a 1996 Honda Accord ; man I love them Hondas).  The Fit is a standard (aka manual transmission), so I've been busy in the evenings learning to drive it.  It took a few weeks, and a lot of tears, but I'm now zipping around Squamish in my new wheels!  I'm still not super confident, and it will probably be awhile before I take it into Vancouver, but that will come I'm sure.  Learning to drive a standard was one of my goals for 2011, so I can now tick that off my list - Yippee!

Maternity Capris

Summer finally arrived in late August and continued until mid-September here in Sea-to-Sky country.  I was pretty much at a loss for summery bottoms to wear... no skirts, no capris, and only 2 pairs of yoga shorts that fit.  And I can't wear yoga shorts to my office job.

Moving Adventures 2011 and the Musings of a Consumer

Well, we're nearly finished unpacking everything in our new home in Squamish.  Thanks to a couple of our friends who helped N load everything into the house last Sunday while I was frolicking in Kelowna on a wine tour and stagette, ha ha!   They commented (and both N and I agree completely) that we have a lot of stuff!!!  To be fair, a lot of the boxes contained books - both of our combined textbooks from 4+ years of uni as well as just normal reading books.  And we have a lot of kitchen gadgets and small appliances (mixers, blenders, griddles, etc) but I like to cook and entertain at home.  It's so easy for hoarders to make excuses though, isn't it?

Kitchen disaster!

Spring Wardrobe Challenge Underway!

Ahhh springtime!  Days are getting longer, people are walking around town in shorts paired with a puffy vest, dust is flying up off the road from vehicles, and I'm getting a sudden craving for pastel-hued clothing!  I made this office-appropriate dress based on the 9 to 5 dress from the Built By Wendy Dresses book (so awesome).  The book suggested making this dress out of an orange linen, but I ended up using a cheap pastel orange twill that I bought on clearance for $3/m.  I think the twill works alright, but in hindsight I should have not bothered with interfacing on the sleeve facings... it's a bit too stiff for my liking.

I pretty much followed the book exactly, except that I added 2 darts in the back to reduce some of the volume on either side of the zipper.  This is also the first time I've used an actual zipper foot to install an invisible zipper and it looks frigging fantastic!  The book also suggested making a belt out of the same fabric, but for now I've just styled it with a dark brown skinny belt that I already had.  I also ended up making belt loops to keep the belt  from floating randomly around my torso.

I'm still not 100% sure about the colour.  I really like orange a lot, but I think this shade might wash me out.  Luckily I get pretty dark in the summer (hooray for Spanish bloodlines!) so I think it will look better then.  Sorry the pics are kind of blurry... I guess the lighting wasn't too great today (too bright out).

I also finally got some photos of my finished Crepe dress...  It's been done for a few weeks - I swear! 

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, but as I said in an earlier post, I'm not sure if a sew-along is the right process for me...  I prefer to just keep on sewing once I'm in the groove and get the entire project finished!  I did a Pattern Review for the Crepe dress, and plan to make the dress again, but maybe with a few alterations.  I found the bodice to be a bit short for me (I have a long torso) and even though I made the second smallest size, I still had to alter the bust.  I think Colette patterns are meant for curvier gals, and sadly that is not me...

2011 New Year Resolutions

I don't typically make them.
That way I don't feel bad about myself for breaking them.
But then again, there's not really anything that I want to change.  I don't smoke, I don't eat that much junk food, I exercise regularly, and I don't drink that often.  I don't even go shopping very often (anymore that is).
So I've decided....  that I will not buy any new clothing in 2011!!!!  I will buy second-hand or make all of my clothes for the next 364 days!  The only possible exception to this might be if I need to buy a bridesmaid dress / shoes for my cousin's wedding in August.

I just got the Built By Wendy Dresses book, and talk about jump-starting the creative juices!  I can't wait to make any of the dresses from it.  Here is a little sneak peek of some of the projects.  (Note: I totally don't mean to infringe on any copyrights, but I know that I like to be able to see a little bit of what's in a book before I buy it.  So I'm hoping it does the same for you!).

There are 3 different basic dress styles: the sheath, the shift and the dirndl.  From these 3 styles, there are several different projects that can be made by altering the patterns.  This is definitely NOT for folks new to sewing, but I now consider myself to be intermediate level advanced beginner, so I think I might be able to tackle some of these projects.

First up: an altered Sheath Dress, with fluttery sleeves and a wide band at the neckline.  I've got some ivory satin in my stash that I'm thinking would be perfect for this dress.  I've got a wedding to go to in May that is formal dress code, so this would be perfect.

I want to make this one out of some lightweight cotton fabric for spring.  Love the bright tights they styled this look with.  I'm a big fan of mini-dresses and could totally imagine prancing around town in this little number.

 I love the simplicity of this dress and it would be perfect to wear to staff Christmas parties or a winter wedding.

I found a bright royal blue jersey-knit fitted sheet when my hubby cleaned out our linen closet the other week.  I'm not sure where it came from, but it's for a double bed and we have a king-sized bed.  So it's free fabric for me!  I want to make this comfy looking wrap dress, but I think I will put sleeves on it to make it more versatile so I can wear it all year round, rather than just summer.

I have a vintage bedsheet from the 1970's that is super bright and funky.  It would look perfect as a tunic to wear over my bikini when we go boating on Shuswap Lake in the summers.

I love bib-front tops and dresses so I think I will make myself something from this pattern.  Although I might make a blouse rather than a dress...

I had to laugh when I was first flipping through the book at the descriptions for each of the projects.  Half of them say stuff like "high rolling on the French Riviera", "tres Parisian", and "Parisian ingenue", which reminded me of Stuff White People Like (I received the book as a Christmas gift a few years ago, I literally laughed out loud for most of it), which basically states that white people (North Americans) are obsessed with French language and culture and try to emulate their style.  Who might try and copy this style you might ask?  This kid right here!  I am a bona fide francophile, having spent a summer in rural Quebec when I was 17 learning the language, backpacking through France in 2008, cooking from my favourite cookbook: Laura Calder's French Food at Home; in fact, my husband even proposed on the second tier of la tour Eiffel!!!  We have coasters with the Eiffel Tower on them commemorating this event.

Speaking of French-style, have you seen the Chanel commercial with Audrey Tautou?

When I first saw it on TV a few weeks ago (... apparently it's a few years old, but I don't have a tv... See Stuff White People Like #28) and my first thought was "yeah right, night trains are NOT that sexy....  I would NEVER wear lingerie on the train", but then again my experiences with sleeping on night trains in Europe usually involved a co-ed sleeping compartment (not in Spain however, in fact even though we were engaged to be married, they insisted that N and I sleep in different compartments!), often with an overweight Scandinavian man listening to heavy metal on an ipod while drinking / spilling beer in his bunk.  Definitely NOT as sexy as Ms. Tautou makes it seem.  However, check out that super sexy catsuit she is wearing in the train station at the end of the ad - so great, right?  I have a few patterns that I want to combine to come up with something similar.  Oh and I want to make it out of jersey so it will be nice and comfy.  Who knows, perhaps I will wear it on my next trip to Europe!

Fabricland was/is having a 2-day sale Jan 1st and 2nd with all fabric in store 50 - 70% off, and 50% off notions, as well as discounts on all patterns.  I need some new patterns like I need a hole in the head, but I came home with a few gems.  Two dress patterns for myself, as well as a few home decor ones.  We've decided not to buy a house right away for a number of reasons (we were looking for over a year), so now I hope to fix up the furniture we have now (in our rental) rather than waiting until we found a house.  Yay!

A few months ago, my friend gave me a bunch of old In Style magazines from her stash.  I'm totally in love with this totally amazing Louis Vuitton skirt on Jennifer Garner (May 2007 issue).

I have a cute white and green striped halter dress from H&M that I never wear because the halter straps dig into my armpit fat and it's super uncomfortable.  I want to upcycle it into a paper-bag waisted circle skirt like this and maybe make a petticoat for underneath to give it some extra volume.  So cute!

Here's a photo of me on New Year's Eve at a friends' house.  Yep, it happened!  I was in serious need of a can of Irn Bru the next day to get rid of the wine/beer hangover...
Hope you all had a safe and happy New Years everyone!  Are you making any resolutions?  How likely do you think you are to keep them?  I'm hoping that by sharing mine, I will be held accountable to stick to it!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!