Birthday Dress Completed

You all were right, BWOF 05-2008-127 was the right call for my fabric. I did some fit alterations on the flat pattern and probably should have done some more (like shortening the bodice more than the one inch I did), but I'm really happy with it and it has, er, room to grow into. I definitely prefer to have the ties in the front to the back, they look so Laverne and Shirley in the front.



I'm wearing this to work today with a little silver shrug I got at Charlotte Russe in some mall in the middle of nowhere where Cidell and I met to see Juno. I really like the shrug. It's all lacy looking and also sparkly. Lace and sparkles cannot be beat. The rest of the photos are here, though I haven't edited/posted the construction photos.

I need to do a post on shoes soon. The ones I'm wearing today and in the pic are part of my Fall planning. They're from Naturalizer and reasonably comfortable with my orthotic inserts in them. They are navy blue and were $20 at 6pm.com. Twenty dollars! You can't expect me to have passed them up, especially in the navy color. I can't wear ballet flats because of my accursedly narrow heels but these are cut far out toward the toe like ballet flats and are about as close as I can get.

We are having the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay here in DC today. It's about a mile and a half walk to work; it seems longer in the pouring rain but on the bright side I had the sidewalk to myself. I arrived looking like I had swum there, soaked to the waist. The shoes held up well in the rain--not slippery--though I hope they're not too stiff when they dry. The fabric is a gorgeous polished cotton from Dreyfus in Paris and is drying quite well, no stiffness or water-spotting. With all the rain it's a little cool, but this is my birthday dress and I will wear it today for birthday drinks! Weather appropriate clothing? pfft. I want to be cute.

More posts on birthday goodies to come over the weekend or next week!

Show and Tell

Well, without further ado, I should show off my Mondrian Dress! It's Simplicity 2922 with the pockets from Simplicity 2927. I tried to be all groovy in the photos. I finished it on my long weekend and wore it to drinks that Friday and then last Friday to work (with matching red shrug) and a party after.



Now it is sad because at the party last Frieday a little kid threw a ball at me and joggled red wine all down the front. I got the red wine out, but the red and yellow twills both ran even though I prewashed them. Argh! The red I was able to deal with but the yellow is still a problem. I think I'm going to have to resort to a bleach pen.

This dress involved hours and hours of hand-sewing and I am so annoyed about the little kid. He threw the ball at us once without incident and we made it clear we weren't interested. At that point the parents should have gently told him to ask before throwing the ball at people. Had he joggled me with the first throw I wouldn't have been so angry because that kind of thing happens. It's that he threw it at us a second time that makes me mad, because the parents were not paying attention. Then they made the kid come apologize to us, but were too cowardly to apologize themselves. Gah! Hopefully I can restore the dress to good condition eventually.

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This is what I'm wearing today. The blouse is McCall 4922 and the skirt is a modified version of Simplicity 4881. I made the skirt of the leftover lining fabric from my green coat, BWOF 08-2007-115. Simplicity 4881 is just a simple elastic waist bias skirt. Unfortunately, with the limited fabric when I cut it out as is it was a little short. I was making it the night before my trip to Vietnam so I lived with it, but when I saw this picture I decided it was just too short. So I made a yoke and sewed it on. It's quite inelegant, but still serviceable and I love the colors.



There's a flickr pool called Wardrobe Remix, where people can post what they're wearing to offer fashion inspiration. The rules are that it has to be an outfit you actually wore outside the house. In the photo description, you list the source for everything you're wearing. I love the idea of it and there are some great outfits on display...but sometimes it seems more about shopping than about expressing yourself. There are other ways to show who you are than buying things. So I joined the pool to offer a little bit of an alternative to buying things--making them yourself. Not that sewing isn't consumerist in its way (my giant stash shows that up), I'm not trying to pretend I'm virtuous, but I just want to make sure people understand there's an alternative to buying the same sweatshop goods everyone else is wearing. It's fun to look through all the outfits I've posted. I see stuff in there I've forgotten about!

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Next pattern review will be the much-loved yoke front blouse, BWOF 01-2008-108. You can read the review here.



This was instantly my favorite blouse pattern from that issue but it took me a while to get around to it. I had the idea of using a plaid (?-is that what it's called in this kind of shirting?--not like a traditional plaid wool or flannel but small scale) or striped shirting and cutting the yoke on the bias. Cidell gave me the fabric; she ordered it from Kashi and he sent her the wrong one. I figured it would work for the blouse, although the plaid design is not square, which would have been best. This kind of traditional shirting is not exactly my style so I nearly didn't finish this blouse because I was finding it so ho hum. But Cidell was on the phone with me and made me finish it and once it was finally done I loved it.

I am always amused that in "how to make things less homemade looking" discussions one of the things that is often mentioned is that larger buttons make things look homemade. I assume this is because it is quicker to make small buttonholes and cheaper to buy small buttons and both time and money are of the essence in RTW factories, so the tinier buttons are used. One of the (many) things I love about sewing is that I can use outrageous buttons. I don't want bitty buttons that blend into the fabric and serve their utilitarian purpose; I want sensational statement buttons that proudly proclaim I'm not afraid to be a little kooky. The big navy buttons on this one add the necessary dose of whimsy so that I still feel like myself in it. Cidell took the photos of this one.

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Birthday dress is made according to original plan and adorable. I plan to wear it to work Thursday. Will try to take pictures then.

Carrot Cake Mini Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

The beautiful cross-stitched napkin was a gift from Karen.

I have a love/hate relationship with pineapple. I love the way it tastes, but the acid burns my mouth *and* water tastes gross for like 30 minutes after I eat it. Does this happen to everyone? On the flip side, water tastes sweet after I eat (fresh) artichoke hearts, so that's a plus. I hear that doesn't happen to everyone. And while we're on the subject, I hear that eating too much wasabe doesn't give everyone a sudden fierce pain at the top of their head? At least according to some friends of mine. This really floored me. I assumed my reaction was normal. Now I'm kind of afraid to eat wasabe.

Anyway, so I had my book club over and we read Salt by Mark Kurlansky. It's a really long book about...salt and the location, extraction, refinement, transportation, and taxation thereof throughout the millenia of recorded history (and some pre-history). It is both as interesting and not nearly as interesting as it sounds. I enjoyed it, but I'm a huge nerd. Anyway, the hostess supplies appetizers and then everyone chips in for pizza.

I like trying to tailor the food to the book and this one was an obvious candidate. One of the things the book mentioned was the chili salt that is used in Asia for dipping fruit. I had actually had this in Vietnam and it was surprisingly good. I couldn't find such a mix at the store or a recipe online, so I ground up some red pepper flakes with coarse sea salt in my trusty mortar and pestle (of course), and squeezed a lime over it before serving. I later asked my Vietnamese neighbor what is in it, and he said that they crush a fresh chili pepper into the salt and then dehydrate it. Pineapple is particularly good this way, so I bought a pineapple and cut it up (also served mango, strawberry, and peach).

The fruit was a big hit, but I still had like a quarter of a pineapple left. Due to the aforementioned mouth-burning and water-grossness I couldn't eat it all plain. When life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie, or in this case, when life gives you pineapple, make mini carrot cake cupcakes. Both of these recipes are adapted from allrecipes.com. If you're not overly generous with the frosting the result is vaguely in the realm of healthy.

Carrot Cake

Mix
3 Cups carrots, grated (I used the fine side of the grater; more trouble but it's worth it)
1/2 Cup brown sugar
2 ripe bananas, mashed or 1/4 Cup applesauce
Let sit for 1 hour (or up the four hours, depending on your schedule--I grated my carrots and then got distracted by my bed for a couple hours while I took a nap.)

Add:
2 eggs
1/3 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 Cup crushed pineapple, drained (you can use canned, but I hand-shredded fresh)

Stir in:
1 Cup flour
1/2 Cup Whole Wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp ground ginger (or fresh grated, if you have it)

Bake at 350 about 18 minutes for mini cupcakes, about 22 minutes for full-size cupcakes, or 45-50 minutes as a sheet cake; check doneness with a toothpick. Let cool before frosting. This is a very moist cake so don't be alarmed if your cupcakes lose some loft as they cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream:
4 oz neufchatel cheese--that's the 1/3 less fat cream cheese(half an 8 oz package; there are ounce lines marked on the package)
2 Tbsp butter

Add and beat until well blended:
2 1/4 Cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Frost the cupcakes. Eat.

The Duchess of Windsor

Do I not look regal? This is my favorite picture from my trip to Vietnam, though I was quite reluctant to take it. The motorbike taxi guy who had been taking me around that day to see the Marble Mountains and Da Nang insisted we stop by the old American base with its hangars still standing to take a picture. Apparently, most tourists are eager for this shot, but it seemed a little distasteful to me. Reliving America's involvement in another country's affairs was not my priority there. I have to say, though, I'm glad he insisted because it is an awesome shot, especially with the green helmet and big sunglasses.

I'm also partial to this shot of the Hong Kong skyline in the same dress, with shrug. The sun never came out while I was in Hong Kong (and precious little while in Vietnam); I was told there were storms fairly close by but it seemed like pollution to me. So I fade into the background a bit in my blues and grays, but the French girl who took it ("Entiere?" she asked, "Oui," I said) really did an excellent job framing the shot. Here is a girl who understands that you want the whole outfit in the picture, not just your face!

The pattern review is finally up for this project from March (BWOF 03-2008-116)!

Birthday Dress!

My birthday is August 31, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend--coming up in a week and a half! I always make myself a new dress for my birthday. For a long time it was an unbroken line of pink dresses, but last year I broke tradition to use the black and white wax print fabric Cidell got me in Ghana to make a wrap dress of McCall 5314. I earmarked my polka-dotted Paris fabric for this year's dress.

I originally had the idea of making BWOF 05-2008-127, the exclusive design from May. I love the retro styling and it is perfect for the retro print. Then I began to second guess myself. It's not a dress I can should wear to work, though I have a shrug that will go well with the fabric to cover my shoulders and it would be an excuse to make a little short sleeved jacket. Also, it's clearly a summer dress what with the cutout shoulders but that scarf around the neck will be hot so you can't wear it in high summer. It's very distinctive, so how often will I wear it? I don't want to "waste" the fabric.

So then I thought of maybe making a shirtdress or something more utilitarian so I'd get more use out of the fabric, which I love. But now I think I'm leaning back to the BWOF design. It is very birthday celebratory and while I won't wear it often within a year that retro style is firmly entrenched in the collective unconscious and will always be wearable. Of course, as I age I am all too acutely aware of the weight gain that comes with it so who knows for how many years it will fit (though all my weight gain is, alas, below the bust so that helps with empire/full skirt styles like this). But still, I think I'm going to do it. I traced out the pattern last night. At any rate, I have to make a decision before this weekend, because I'll need to sew it then. Am I making a grave mistake? Am I missing any patterns that are both highly festive and office-workable?

And here is an amusing article, which states that 34 is the most expensive year of your life. It appears that this is just an average and that 34 is the median age at which people get married, buy property, etc. Well, I already own property and it seems that I'll never get married (you have to go on a third date before that happens, I hear; I accept any and all donations of blind dates) so hopefully 34 will not be my most expensive year. I guess I should stop buying shoes and start saving, just in case.