Rip and Redo: Sewing Challenge

With Me Made May in its final lap, I'm struck more by what I didn't wear than by what I did.  If my closet is anything like yours, I can sort my garments in to three sections: bought, sewn, and sad.  

The first and second of these are pretty self explanatory.  The last category, the sad clothes, encompasses those clothes that you bought with the intention of fixing, and things that you've sewn but are unhappy with; the items that Meg dubbed "closet orphans".  Maybe the armholes are too small, or the fit is just slightly off; maybe it's itchy, or the lining rides up.  Whatever the reason is, it hangs in your closet, unworn and unloved.  

This is a chance to remedy that, to usher the sad clothes in to one of the other categories; all the closet orphan wants is to be worn, to be appreciated, to end up someday on the other side of the laundry line, where all your favorite pieces end up: washed and ready to go again.  

Therefore, I present a new sewing challenge: Rip and Redo.  Widen the armholes, fix the fit, remake the item completely.  Do whatever it is that needs doing to make a garment move from wearable-but-not-worn to I-want-to-wear-that.  

This challenge isn't time specific; it's meant to be a motivator.  Tomorrow I'll post buttons that you can use to announce to the world that you'd done it, you've given those closet orphans a loving home in the laundry hamper.  

Happy Thoughts for Thursday

Emails from previous teachers.  I received an email earlier this week from a teacher I had in high school, saying that she enjoyed my travel blog.  It made me feel all warm and fuzzy.  

Scrapbooking.  I've spent the last few days covered in glue and paper scraps, but my scrapbook for the past semester is finished.  Normally my scrapbooks aren't very good; this one was more along the lines of an art journal than a scrapbook.  I made a playlist of songs that meant something to me during the last semester, and incorporated the lyrics in to the book, inspired by this and this.  I'm really happy with how most of it turned out, and I'd like to share it.  However, I don't know if it would be more appropriate to share on the study abroad blog, since it's all about study abroad, or if I should put it here, since it's a Crafty Thing. 

Catching up with old friends.  People are starting to come home from school, and it's nice to see people that I haven't seen in a while.

Employment.  This summer I'm babysitting and working at the pool.  I started babysitting last weekend, and had fun running after my four year old charge.  The pool opens this weekend, and I'm excited to start working again.  It's nice to not have to do anything, to be able to create when I want to and not stop to go work, but I need some sort of routine.  

Email interactions.  I just love the internet.  It lets me talk to cool people.

Exciting plans.  I've been dreaming up a sewing challenge for the last few months, and this week I gave myself a posting deadline for making it public.  It's going up tomorrow, and I'm really excited about it!  I'll be spending today working out some kinks in the graphics, but I'm hopeful that all will go well.  

Me Made May Week 3

Tuesday: refashioned shirt

Wednesday: Favorite shirt

Thursday: dress

Friday: Skirt

Saturday: shorts

Sunday: dress

Monday: heart cutout dress

This month is going to quickly!  I've been doing a lot of sitting around, waiting for it to feel like summer before I jump in to doing any of my summer projects.  I realized this week that if I keep that up, the summer will be over before I start anything. 

 While I was sitting around this week I redesigned my blog layout.  I'd been wanting to do so for a while.  I won't say that I'm completely happy with it yet; the side buttons were supposed to look like knit stitches, and instead look like sloppy hearts.  However, I've promised myself that I'm going to keep this layout for at least a year.  No more of this changing every 3 months.  

Trekkin' out, man

Last night a friend and I went to see the new star trek movie.  Normally I don't really have a preference about seeing a movie in a theater or at home once it's out.  For some reason, I really enjoyed this movie.  I don't think I've enjoyed a movie in a theater so much since the last Harry Potter came out.  Maybe that has something to do with dressing up.  Or, it could just be the killer soundtrack.  Anyway, go see that movie, it's really good.  

I've never seen any of the original star trek episodes, but I suppose I'm now an obligatory trekkie, since I have a star trek dress.  That's how that works, right?  We bought men's 4XL t-shirts from walmart, and generally followed this tutorial to make dresses.  Mine is a little different, since I'm not such a fan of super fitted dresses.  I only trimmed mine to the waist, and then sewed the extra material in to a box pleat from there.  My sister made us badges out of duck tape.  She's twelve and a genius.  

This also happens.  The quality of this picture is pretty weird, because my brother doesn't know how to use my camera, but that's all right.  

Happy Thoughts for Thursday

Beautiful weather.

Music making.  A couple friends and I are attempting to do some acoustic covers of pop songs this summer.  We started practicing this week.  We have a lot of work to do, but it's fun.

Politics.  I spent last summer canvassing for a comprehensive sex education bill in Illinois, and according to this article, it might actually happen!  It's passed through the house, at any rate.  I really hope it goes through.  So many people have worked hard to get it this far, and it's so important.

Friends coming home.  It's getting to be the time of year when people are coming home from colleges.  I can't wait to see my friends!

Summer music.  The list of summer concerts and festivals is growing, and soon we're all going to have to make some tough decisions on what we want to see.  

Knitting plans.  I cleaned out both my yarn stash and my needle collection yesterday.  By getting rid of the things that I will never use, I can see more clearly what I do have to work with.  I have so many ideas of what I want to make, and only two hands to make them with.  

Old television shows.  I've been watching sailor moon while I knit.  On one hand, I don't remember it being so simple.  There are so many little loops in the plot that don't quite make sense.  I don't really care that much, though.  It's still a good show.  If I finish sailor moon, I might start thundercats or cardcaptors, or one of those shows that I used to love.  

Summer Reading Update

Since I posted my summer reading list I've finished four of the books in my book stack.  Of these, three were new to me.  The first, Backlash, I've been working on for a couple of months.  It's a really large book, but well worth the read.  Backlast is a report on the reaction of the 80's to the feminism of the 70's.  Not having lived through either of those decades, this book was an eye opener to me.  I asked my mom about whether some of the allegations of this book were true, and she said absolutely.  I can't imagine a world where I would actually be expected to stay at home instead of work, and I never realized that those views carried well through the 80's and onwards.  This book is a great read for anyone who wants to read more about the historical reality of feminism, beyond the change from 50's housewife to 70's radical that is presented in the media.  

Next, I read The White Forest, which was a gift from my grandparents for Christmas.  Originally it didn't seem that interesting, and I wasn't going to read it.  Then, I stacked my to-read list with so many non-fiction books that I knew I would need some more mindless reads to balance it out.  I won't say that I loved this book.  It was good.  I can't quite figure out how to describe the plot without giving something away.  Basically, there's a group of friends in victorian England  and one of them disappears.  The other two try to find him, and discover that their world is not what they thought it was.. The idea behind the book is interesting, even if it wasn't as griping as I like my fiction books to be.  

Lastly, I finished Feminism is for Everybody.  I bought this book because when you sign up for the newsletter for Everyday Feminism you get a coupon for their store, and I'd heard of bell hooks and wanted to read something of her's for myself.  I'm a little conflicted about this book, although my feelings have nothing to do with the message, and more with the presentation and what I was hoping for with this book.  It's a small book, and much of the book talks about the need for feminism to move away from academic jargon, to make itself more accessible to the average person.  In this book I was hoping to find that release, to find a book that clearly stated the goals and tenets of feminism, that I could hand to people and have them read, in the hope that they would understand better.  Instead, hooks' voice is closely tied in with that very academic jargon that she claims we need to stray away from.  I've done a decent amount of reading about the patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, and the like; the people who I had hoped could use this book to learn about feminism in my life haven't, though.  Hooks doesn't clearly explain the link between capitalism  imperialism, and other isms that modern feminists are fighting against.  It's a great little reminder of what we're fighting for, but it isn't the clearly written textbook that I was hoping for when I bought it.  

Staple

I saw a tutorial on Cotton and Curls on refashioning a button up blouse.  I loved the idea, and got to work.  Of course, I didn't actually read the tutorial, but when do I ever follow directions while sewing? That's right, never.  I don't think this turned out too badly.  I wanted to keep the collar as part of the shirt, and that ended up being that most difficult part of this project.  Aside from my slightly sloppy stitching on the collar, it didn't turn out too badly.  I ended up having to unstitch and restitch a lot of the collar before I could attach it, to take the epaulets and tags off.  

Originally I bought this shirt at goodwill for a halloween costume (I was a crayon).  The other material is a piece of a curtain that my aunt gave me.  It's a little itchy, which I should have thought of before I began sewing. 

In case anyone is counting, this is the 4th collared, sleeveless blouse that I've made.  I guess I have a bit of a thing for them.  Is that a thing?  Can it by my thing?   My mom said that my great grandma used to wear them all the time.  I guess I could share my thing with her.