Manicure Mardi and Q&As

I cut my hair recently (well, my stylist did) in the same short 'do I had last summer. My hair is not really naturally curly and must be coaxed into a reasonable facsimile thereof with lots of mousse and a diffuser. In the mornings I need to mist it with water to get it in the proper frame of mind and go from there and you would be surprised how hard it is to find a decent spray bottle! After the one I bought last year not only malfunctioned repeatedly but also rusted, spraying ick everywhere, I decided a trip to the beauty supply store was in order to get a stylist quality spray bottle.

I headed to the nearest Sally where I was lured in by the wall of nail polish and cosmetics. While I wear only lipstick (but unfailingly lipstick, as my lips are a rather unattractive shade of blue naturally) 99% of the time, I just looooove makeup. It's the little girl in me, I think. I remember how badly I wanted to wear makeup when I was younger. I was allowed to start in 7th grade. I might have managed to make it all the way that school year keeping up the routine, but it didn't last much longer.



Anyway, I picked out a few bottles but then got to the register and saw these tiny Sally Girl nail polishes for 99 cents each, Big Three Free (the talk of Big Three was very confusing to me at first, because I was like, "What do McCall's, Butterick, and Simplicity have to do with nail polish?"). I love tiny things and I really like tiny nail polishes because I never manage to use up a whole bottle. So I put everything back except "For Audrey" and picked out a bunch of the Sally Girls.

The matte colors--hot pink and turquoise--are great. The color goes on true to the bottle and gives almost full coverage in two coats. I have the hot pink on my toes and the turqouise on my fingernails, as demonstrated at right. I took a picture after I finished the manicure last Friday, but then it turned out it was blurry. So I did a crappy touch up and took another picture this morning. You can see the chips and pits of time. I didn't use a bottomcoat but I did put a topcoat on and it was two full days before it started showing tip wear and a small amount of chipping. My toes are farther away so I can't give an assessment except to say they look good from here. Both of these needed a shiny topcoat to make the colors pop. The turquoise pictured here, "Surfs Up" (the lack of apostrophe bothers me), is pretty much my favorite color in the world, so I'm pleased to find it in nail polish form.

Unfortunately, the glitter colors are pretty terrible. The darkest blue gave a nice color in three coats and dried fine, but the two lighter glitter colors just don't dry. After about 30 minutes, I was able to just wipe them off my nails (two coats) like that kiddie peel nail polish. Perhaps if I let them dry fully after one coat it would work, but who has time to wait around for that. I love the sheer hint of color and sparkle, but they appear to be useless for the purpose for which they are intended. I will report further if I have better luck in the future.

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An Anonymous commenter asks:
Could you please share information about the paper you use to trace out the BWOF patterns? Also, is it available nationwide? Thanking you in advance.

First of all, there is no One True Paper for tracing BWOF. Don't feel like if you get The Wrong Paper your project will be ruined. It's just what you can find that's acceptable to you in price and quality. Cidell and I ordered a box of exam table paper as used at the doctor's office (I can't remember who our supplier was, but here are google's results). It comes in conveniently large rolls and the width is good. However, it is a somewhat large initial investment (I recall our box of 12 rolls was around $60 plus shipping). Before we ordered the exam paper, I bought tissue paper from CVS--Hallmark has some special 99 cent packs that are all white and larger than normal tissue paper. The packs are in a yellow/orange wrapping with no plastic and were stacked on the shelf below the hanging baggies of tissue paper. Other people like to use plastic sheeting, or non-woven interfacing-like tracing textile. Go to an office supply store and see what you can find in rolls; some art supply stores also have large rolls of paper thin enough to trace through.

Of my Pretty Parisian Blouse, BWOF 02-2009-129, Jenny asks
Are your sleeve hems gathered? They look much flatter than in the design drawing. I've been wanting to make this in white cotton/linen but just haven't gotten around to it

I should have mentioned this. So my shoulders are narrow across, but my shoulders around the armscye and my biceps are apparently gigantor in relation to the normal population! BWOF's armscye fits me well, but Simplicity and McCall are so tight I can barely get them on, much less wear them in any comfort. When it comes to biceps, even BWOF is too tight sometimes. I didn't think to add any width to the sleeve (and probably couldn't have, given my limited fabric) and needed longer elastic than recommended so it wouldn't be too tight across the arm, so the sleeves appear less gathered at the bottom than the line drawing and on others who have made the blouse. It's not the pattern, it's just all that strength training.

Sherrill cuts to the chase
But I love those shoes. What do they look like in the front?

This photo shows the front of the shoes, and this one the side view. I think the brand is Madden Girl but as with all my shoes it is no help because I bought them a year ago from Ross, so they are long out of stores. If it's any consolation, the straps across the foot are held to the shoe by elastic, and the elastic popped on one of the shoes the first time I wore them. I did a funky fix, but I'm afraid to actually wear the shoes now beyond carrying them with me and changing at the destination. They are surprisingly comfortable, though.