Anniversary Dress

Every year on our anniversary, my husband and I take photos together. I had the idea just a few months into our marriage, and he has begrudgingly gone along with it since. I have a photo from each year framed on our wall, and I think it is the beautiful journey of love and growth.

Anyways, our fourth anniversary was in September. I started thinking about the photos back in July, and I started thinking about what to wear. Every year, that question is the bane of my existence. I try to find outfits for my husband and I that are both flattering, and coordinate somehow. This year, I decided we should both wear blue. Since I have been sewing so much, I thought I could make my own dress to wear. Easy, right?

I ordered a pattern online on August 19th. Our anniversary is September 16th. So with less than a month to spare, I had to wait for the pattern to arrive, I had to find the perfect fabric to go with it, and I had to make it. And make it perfectly.

I made Simplicity 1354, which is a sleeveless dress with back interest, and it's part of Simplicity's Amazing Fit line. I decided not to make a muslin of it first, because I had so little time, so I bought enough fabric to almost make two dresses just in case. I didn't need it though. This dress came out perfectly the first time around.

I absolutely love it. It fits well, is flattering, and is very comfortable. Oh! And it has pockets!! I love the back detail. The little band at the top of my back is closed with three little buttons. The only thing I don't love about this dress is the hem. I think it hangs a little bit funny. Perhaps a hand stitched blind hem would have worked better, but I hemmed this dress about 2 hours before we were supposed to meet our photographer. Whoops...

I had also thought about sewing a shirt for my husband. If I had found two coordinating fabrics, I probably would have, but instead I found a fabric that worked well with a shirt he already had. Less stress for me!

Baby Gifts

Sewing baby items is perfect instant gratification. I like to keep some cute colours in different materials on hand for those days where nothing is going right. When my seams aren't lining up, when I accidentally cut the fabric wrong, when my machine doesn't want to stitch a certain fabric, when I finish an extra long seam, only to find mistakes (when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad!). It's days like those that I need something to go my way. So I pull out a bit of cotton, and a bib pattern, or a bit of fleece and a baby hat pattern, or whatever. Baby items are small, quick to make, hard to mess up, and adorable. In less than half an hour, you can have that "I made this!" feeling all over again, and go back to your project refreshed.

The only problem is: I don't have kids. And I don't plan on having kids anytime soon, so I'm not about to sew a bunch for a non-existent baby. However, I know plenty of existent babies! More than a few of my friends have kids, and about half a dozen have had a baby this year, or are pregnant right now. So I sew for them. A couple of months ago, I posted about the baby shower gift I made for my brother. I would have (and probably still will) make more for his little girl, but other friends are having kids, so this gift was for somebody else.

First, I made a handy little roll-up change pad again. The backing is cotton, the front is minky (chenille, cuddle fleece, what-have-you), and inside is a layer of flannel. This one was about 18" x 27", and then I added a cotton border. I also added bias tape ties to keep it rolled up.

Then I made two bibs. These ones close with velcro, and have backing. One is back with flannel, and the other is backed with minky, so they're both absorbent and soft.

The last thing in this particular gift package is a pair of burb cloths. I know there is some disagreement on the best size of burb cloths. Some prefer the really big almost-blanket-sized ones, and some people prefer the skinny curved ones for their shoulder. I decided to make these ones long and skinny, because every new mom needs variety. I also reverse appliqued an "A" for the baby's name onto the bottom corner.

I mailed this whole little package off earlier this week, and I am so excited for the new mom to open it! I love sewing baby things, I love giving gifts, and I love sending mail.

I'm thinking about sewing more baby gifts for Christmas - some cozy fleece hats, some Christmas themed bibs, maybe even a tutu. We'll see. ;)

Refashion

We all have clothes that we don't wear, right? Whether we changed sizes and the clothes no longer fit, or we bought them when we shouldn't have, we all have a few garments we just plain don't wear. I like to go through my closet a couple times a year and purge all the stuff I don't wear. If it's in good condition, but doesn't fit, it goes in a bag for my sister. If it's torn or stained and I was stubbornly holding on to it, I force myself to throw it out. If I have discovered that it doesn't flatter me, or I hate wearing it, then I donate it (or send it to my sister). But what about those garments that I just really really really want to wear?

I have more than one of them. Things that are fun, exciting, and trendy. I want so badly to wear them, but I don't. Maybe I can't find outfits to go with them. Maybe they're a little too much, and I feel insecure in them. This skirt falls into both of those categories. I spotted it in a store a year or two ago, and fell in love. I was smitten. The bright pink colour, the gathers and drape, the hi-lo hem, the way it flowed and flared out behind me. I loved wearing it and walking down stairs. I loved the way it moved when I spun. I really really loved it.

But I hardly ever wore it. And to be honest, I used to wear it more. But I moved, changed jobs, developed a new friend group, and found my personal style changed. This skirt hung in my closet feeling dejected. I pulled it out a few times, tried it on with something, examined my reflection, and hung it back up in the closet. I went through that routine half a dozen times, before the skirt ended up shoved in the very back of the closet.

I pulled out a few weeks ago, and lovingly fondled it. I was still smitten with it. Since I was short on fabric (I don't keep much of a stash), and I wanted to sew something, I decided to refashion my skirt. I put on a Netflix show, and curled out on the couch with my seam ripper and this skirt. About six hours of Netflix later, I had two pieces of pink polyester knit, an elastic waist band, and a pile of pink serger thread. I pulled out the patterns I had, and tried to squeeze a couple different ones onto it, but that front skirt piece was just so short that I couldn't get much onto it.

Until I tried my Seamwork Aurora tank. I managed to squeeze the front and back of the tank onto the back panel of the skirt, and I cut the yoke out of the front of the skirt.

Let me just say - I'm completely in love with this tank. The front gathers and back pleat offer just enough shaping to be flattering, while still subtle. I love the options for colour blocking, and I love the length and hem line. I didn't even have to lengthen this pattern! Mind you, I couldn't for this version, because I barely had enough fabric as it was. But I don't think I will next time, either.

Skirts & Pockets

Oh hey there. I've been busy lately at my sewing machine, and I thought I should share some of the fruits of my labour with you.

Do you know what I love? Skirts. I freaking love skirts. I live in Saskatchewan, and suffer through -30 winters, and yet I will happily wear skirts all through January (Mind you, I wear tights and leggings with them - frostburn is not for me).

Do you know what else I love? Pockets. Seriously. All clothes should have pockets. I've bought dresses in years past simply because they had pockets. I'm not even kidding. I had this one dress that was too short for me to feel comfortable in and too tight through the thighs to wear tights with. It also had strange shaping that I never thought flattered me. The neckline was too low, and the sleeves were too tight to lift my arms up. But that dress had pockets. So not only did I buy it, but I stubbornly wore it multiple times.

Now that I'm sewing my own clothes, I've set a couple of goals. One of those goals is to add pockets to almost everything. To be fair, I haven't really gotten there yet. I've made a few garments that could have pockets, but I'd have to draft my own, and that's scary.

However, I made this skirt! And look! It has pockets! I made the skirt using this tutorial.

However, I have happily dumped this skirt into my mental Still-Learning bucket. There's a few things I don't like about it, and I did those things on purpose. But, I learned my lessons, I learned what I do and don't like about clothes, and I won't be making those mistakes again.

1. The pockets. I had to draft my own, so I drew the shape shown, pretended to put my hand in, and cut them out. But they're just too small all over, The opening isn't big enough for my hand to slide into comfortable and the inside isn't deep enough for even my phone. Lesson learned - Make pockets bigger.
2. I didn't draft the waist band large enough to actually go over my hips. I'm not completely sure how I made that mistake, but it means I have to put the skirt on over my head. Lesson learned - Double check sizes when self-drafting.
3. I didn't have 1 1/2" elastic, but I did have 3/4", so I decided to use two lengths of that, one on top of the other. Lesson learned - Just buy waistband elastic.
4. I did a mock fitting to see how the waist band would fit, and cut the elastic from that. Then I zig-zag-stitched the length of the elastic down to the inside of the back waistband. But I don't really like how that makes the back of the waist band look. 
5. During my mock fitting, I decided I wanted to skirt to sit on my high hips, rather than my natural waist. Lesson learned - I prefer shapes that hit my natural waist, and I want skirts to sit that high.

 I still like the skirt, and have worn it on occasion. I still love the fun polka dot print, and the fullness of it. But most of all, I appreciate the many lessons this skirt taught me. I know this isn't my last Still-Learning garment, and that's okay. It's okay to make mistakes, as long as I keep learning from them.

Sew Fancy

Mmm, hey! I'm gonna do a little bragging if that's alright with you. As I touched on last time, I tend to do things cyclically, and my latest phase has been sewing! It started in March, when I went away to a weekend retreat and had lots of time to finish sewing a project I'd starts months before, and to start (and nearly finish) another whole project.

Then a couple months later, I'm not sure what started it, but I suddenly felt the desire to make another dress. I did so, and then I sewed a bunch of baby hats, and then I decided to make a baby shower present for my brother, and sew on.

It might go away soon, and it might be something I stick to for a little while, but either way, I want to brag, so I'm posting pictures of all of my projects below!

I bought the material for this skirt in July, and made 90% of it within a week, but then I ran into a problem, and then I moved... I pulled it back out in March and had my aunt help me hem it, and finished in about an hour. [Self-drafted panel skirt] PS, it looks a little better when I'm not wearing jeans underneath, and I have a blouse tucked in, but this is the only picture I have.

I made this whole dress in about four days! It was started and nearly finished during a weekend retreat. I could have finished it at the retreat, but I ran out of green thread before the skirt was hemmed! So I had to pause, wait until I could buy more, and hem it at home! I call it my "watermelon dress" but some people have said it doesn't look like a watermelon. I guess that's up to you! [New Look 6910 View A]

I made this circle skirt infinity dress in two evenings. It took my a few hours one night to cut it all out, and then about an hour to sew it all together the next night. I guess leaving edges raw really speeds up a project! I didn't like the colour of the material originally, but now that I've worn it, I love how neutral it is. The style is also called a convertible dress, and it's very easy to take from work to an evening out. [Self-drafted infinity dress]

These are three different sizes of infant and toddler fleece hats. No, I don't have an infant or toddler, nor do I plan on it anytime soon. But I had some leftover fleece (from two years ago!) and I found this pattern, so I whipped a bunch up. I've made a few more since, and I plan on making more and stockpiling them for the colder weather. It's satisfying to make something that takes so little time. I love the feeling of finishing a project. [Pattern from fleecefun.com]

The next hats I sewed were the beginning of my baby shower gift. My brother loves cow print, so I made him father-daughter fleece cow hats. It took me awhile to figure out the ears, but by the third hat I had it down! (First hat not pictured. Thank goodness.) [Self-drafted ears, hat from fleecefun.com]

This is the rest of my baby shower gift! I made four burp cloths, two reversible bibs, and a roll-up changing pad. I loved making all of them, and I know they'll get lots of use! If you're looking for something to sew for a baby gift, I would suggest any of these. They didn't take much time or material, and I actually enjoyed planning them out. [Instructions from various websites]

That's all for now folks! Let's see what I sew in the coming months.

The Desire to Change

I desire change.
Not on a daily basis. I very much like my life to be static and for my day to go pretty much the same way every day. I like familiarity.

But at the same time, I occasionally desire change. I call it my itch. It'll hang out in the back of my brain, nagging away at my subconscious until I start to talk about various things I want to change. Then it'll become a mental itch. If I don't do something drastic, I can't ignore it, I can't make it go away.

And then I do something drastic, and just like that, I'm satisfied and happy with my life the way it is again.

When I say I desire change, it'll start small. I start by browsing the hair dye aisles, and eying up women with funky-coloured hair. Then I'll start thinking about chopping my hair off. If it's grown out long and I'm not loving it, I get it cut really short. But if my hair is already short or I am loving the long hair, I'll think about piercings. This has obviously only happened so many times, but a couple of times a year I tell my husband I want my belly button pierced. He laughs and talks me down (thank God for him), and then, naturally, I start thinking about tattoos. I'm careful with this one, because I can't undo that. My mom always said "It's not illegal, it's not immoral, and it will grow back." and I try to use that as a motto for my "itch". So if I'm not 100% sure about a tattoo, my brain wanders elsewhere.

That's when I start thinking about painting the house (when I could) or I'll start browsing houses for sale. Sometimes I'll pick up a new hobby, but if it's not drastic enough, the itch is still there.

I always find something to satisfy that itch, and sometimes it's really not all that drastic. But whenever people ask why I dyed my hair or cut it all off, I usually shrug and say, "I was bored." They laugh, but I don't really understand why. I was bored, and that is why I cut my hair.

Perhaps it's not healthy to become so "bored with my life", but it's not usually my life that's boring. I love my job, my relationships, my spare time. I just get bored. My hubby says I don't like being stagnant. I need something to constantly be new. I'll admit that this desire to change has led me to move once, and has made temp jobs seem rather inviting. A few years ago, I worked several temp jobs in a row, and I loved how it kept me on my toes.

Typically, I really just keep it to my hair, like I did this time. It's not totally drastic, but I'm loving it.

Wedding Jitters

I'm dreaming. I must be dreaming. This is all just a dream, I told myself. I don't know why I bothered - it wouldn't work anyways. I knew that until I woke up, everything would feel very real, and after I woke up, it would take me some time to sort out reality from imaginary. It was like that every time.

Okay, try again. Wake yourself up. Come on, you can do it! Nope. Nothing. I sighed. Maybe I should just give up and go with it until something else woke me up.

Another sigh, and I approached the park. There were at least a hundred people milling about, some sitting down in the carefully-arranged chairs, some standing and mingling. No one had looked my way, no one had spotted me, and I thought that was for the best. I hurried behind a stand of trees, where I knew some out-of-sight benches were. I was looking down at the cobblestone path when I heard a noise. I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks.

There I was, sitting on the bench, not ten feet in front of me. Okay, so things just got weird. Like, really weird.

The other me was sitting with her arms extended, hands bracing herself on either side. She was leaning forward and staring at her feet. Or, at least, where her feet would be under her giant white dress.

She looked up and her panic-stricken expression changed to confusion. "Who are you?"

I was caught so off-guard that I stumbled for an explanation. "Umm, I think I'm you. Or are you me?"

She shook her head in confusion and before she could ask anything else, she covered her mouth and looked away.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I-I think I'm gonna be sick."

Me too, I thought, although for different reasons. I sat down next to her, being careful not to sit on any of the fluffy skirt. "It's gonna be okay."

She met my eyes, and I realized her complexion was actually a little green. Her eyes were wide, but I wasn't sure if it was confusion still, or fear. "I think I'm making a mistake." Her breathing quickened, and I realized it was panic.

Before she could start hyper-ventilating, I put my hand on top of hers. "You're not making a mistake. Trust me. Everything is going to be a-okay."

She gently pulled her hand away and shook her head. She was still taking rapid, shallow breaths, and I started to worry.

"Listen, I'm you, okay? Only, like several years down the road. I don't know how or why, but I know that I've been here and done all this-" I motioned towards the park that was out of sight, "-and I've lived the next few years. I remember it all. Come on, it's gonna be okay, just try to breath."

She took a few forcefully slow breaths, then one big deep breath. As she let it out, she said, "Okay, so if that's true, then you'd know stuff, right?" I nodded. "What's my middle name? And! How do you spell it?"

I chuckled. "Merry Ann." I spelled it out for her, and as I said the last N, she took another deep breath.

"Well, shit. Nobody but my parents know that. Okay, so let's say you're future me. What are you doing here?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. But I do remember how much I panicked today, so maybe I'm here to calm you down?"

"I'm not panicking!" 

I raised my eyebrows.

"Okay, maybe I'm a little panicked. I just - I don't know. What if this is all a mistake?"

"It's not. Trust me. I've been there. It's scary, and it's hard, but it gets better and believe me, it is the best decision you've ever made."

"Are you sure? I'm not too young?"

I laughed. How many times had I asked myself that? "Yeah, okay, you're young. And this is a little crazy, but why not?"

"What?"

"Why not? What's it gonna hurt?" She opened her mouth, but I cut her off. "No, don't answer that. Not today. Just know that the benefits outweigh the risks."

She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, thinking something over. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Am I gonna regret this?"

I sucked at my teeth. Man, past me got straight to the big questions. "Honestly, yeah. For a little while, not forever. There will be days, maybe weeks, that you're angry and you wish you'd never gotten married, but the anger will pass, and eventually you will be so thankful for the amazing man that is standing out there right now. And then eventually, you'll regret regretting it." I laughed sharply. "By the time you're my age, you'll know - without a shadow of a doubt - that this is the best decision you've ever made."

A pregnant pause followed, as she studied me. I felt like she was sizing me up, but perhaps she was just rehearsing my words.

"Okay," she hadn't realized she had been holding her breath, and now she let it all out with the single word. "Is there anything else I should know?"

I thought back to my wedding day, thinking about all the little things that went wrong, all the things I would do differently if I could. I thought about the first few months following my wedding, and all the things I'd wished I'd known. I laughed, realizing there wasn't a single thing I could say to make things go smoother, and that if I honestly had a chance to redo it all, I'd want everything to turn out the same. "Nah, you got this."

The younger version of myself rolled her eyes. She smiled a little, as she lightened up and stopped freaking out. Then an idea popped into her head and she leaned a little closer to me. "So, can you tell me something? About the future, I mean? Like, what happens?"

I thought for a brief moment and smiled wistfully. "You know-" I cut myself off as someone else came around the wall of trees.

A young woman was standing there in a blue dress, holding two bouquets of flowers. She didn't even glance at me, while asking, "Are you ready?"

The bride looked at me, and then up at her bridesmaid and nodded. "Yeah, I think so. Is everyone else ready?"

The other girl held out the larger bouquet. "Yep, we're all just waiting on you. I, uh, heard you talking a moment ago. What was that?"

"Oh, I was just talking to myself," My younger self laughed. She looked at me, and I got the joke. 

The bridesmaid raised her eyebrows and gently waved the bouquet around. "Alright, let's go."

Myself and I exchanged glances, as I clued in. Nobody else could see me.

The bride stood up, and took her bouquet. "Can't be late to my own wedding, can I?"

My father came around the corner next and grinned at the bride. Since he didn't look at me either, I took the moment to escape. 

Although people were looking in my direction, no one seemed to notice as I walked down the aisle and slipped into an empty chair near the back. Well, I guess I'll just observe my own wedding.

My husband stood at the front, looking incredibly young, as well as dapper in his suit. He looked towards me, but even the love of my life looked straight through me.

Wait. If no one can see me but myself, who's really dreaming here? Am I just a byproduct of my own wedding jitters?