Colette Patterns Rooibos Sewalong

The Colette Patterns Rooibos Sewalong was announced today, and I am definitely participating!  I hope they address how to pronounce the name...

Monday Morning

Does anyone else look around on a Monday morning and think, Where did the weekend go?  Did I even sit down?  Oh my god, did I really build a bookshelf?  (Why yes, yes I did.)

I know this isn't a rare thing to think about.  When I was a kid, I knew weekends were precious to adults, but they were just an extension of boredom to me.  Oh, it's too hot to do pretty much anything?  Wonderful, gives me more time to watch Daria.  (Thanks, 1996.)  Now, I find myself thinking on Sunday nights, Is everything really done?  Am I a bad person because I didn't have time to vacuum?  I hope not.

We don't often have time to do anything truly fun on weekends.  We both work long hours with pretty hefty commutes, so weekends are spent catching up on whatever we didn't have time for during the weekend.  Over-ripe bananas are turned into muffins and full hampers are cleaned and put away.  The refrigerator is stocked and the paperwork is completed.  Anything that has been waiting is neatly filed away.  But where does this leave us?  On Monday morning, my coworkers and I do the general smalltalk of weekends, and they always undoubtedly have fun stories of a new restaurant or a trip to Hains Point.  When I say, oh, I made pulled pork Friday and enchiladas Sunday, and spent 45 minutes in line at Wal-Mart Saturday night, I feel like I'm failing as a twentysomething.  I know we all have different lifestyles--I'm the only one with a live-in partner--but sometimes I think they view me as boring, conservative or scared.  I just don't have the time, is all.  I'd love to go out to dinner each night and linger over drinks, but that takes both hours and dollars that just aren't there.

Does anyone else feel like this?  When I was in college, my friends were older, so we all worked forty hours a week and had secondary responsibilities, whether that was kids, college or husbands.  It wasn't rare to hear someone say that all she did over the weekend was write papers or hand out cold medicine every four hours.  This is the first time I've worked with people my age and basic social group (no hippies who described houses and trees as "magical") and I feel like I'm woefully behind.  I know as long as I'm trucking along I'm doing fine, but is fine acceptable? 

I'd go into talking about my birthday plans (none!), but I feel like that's a tearful post to be scheduled in September, simply because I have a while to dwell on how I'm not doing anything.

Okay, let's shut up with the negativity.  Here are a couple pictures from the weekend:

Yes, that would be my brand-spanking-new iPad with the chewed cord.  Eleanor is really outdoing herself with the level of sabotage she's performing. 

Oh hey, I built that!  Nick was pickling peppers and I was building a bookshelf.  This is how we work.  However, right after this we went to Ikea and the fabric now lives in neat green boxes.  The tops don't close, but oh well, they're there.

Back to work!  It's another week, getting closer to the holidays all the time.  I'm so ready for fall and, subsequently, Christmas I could scream.

The Monique Dress

I don't know about you guys, but it's sending me into a deep depressing knowing I won't have another day off until September.  I know, we all got through winter without anything (for three months!), but I think the combination of no summer vacation and complete boredom is doing me in.  I'd love to take a few days off to just sleep and sew, but until my parents figure out where they'll be and what they'll be doing for the holidays, I can't afford to risk it.  So for now, it's work work work all the time.

I'm just having a weird week in general.  Yesterday felt like I was a kid with ADHD.  I was at work by 7:30 and just couldn't focus.  I'd sit down to work on something, and instead, I'd peel off my nailpolish, or look at the pictures in my cube, or check my phone.  Whatever.  All damn day.  I went to Starbucks (I was exhausted yesterday, which didn't help my focus) and didn't have enough money on my gift card, nor did I take anything but said gift card with me.  The manager covered the $1.18 difference, but have you any idea how embarrassing that is?  Good lord.  By the time we got home from grocery shopping last night (after 8:00), I still hadn't eaten dinner, so I settled for some deli ham and cheese and Nick's leftover Sam Adams. 

Today, while I'm wearing the dress I'm detailing below, I've also dealt with an overdrawn bank account and incessant construction overhead.  I know people overdraw their bank accounts--shit happens, you need to both pay your bills and buy groceries--but I hold myself to such high standards that this is the ultimate failure in my mind.  I can't even handle my money?  How can I handle living on my own and being responsible for other people?  Ugh.

So anyway, let's get into it.  While Nick was gone over the weekend, I sewed, and cut, and bought, and planned, and washed...pretty much everything involved with sewing.

I've had the Serendipity Studios Monique Dress in my stash since I first started thinking about sewing.  The Laura Gunn giant poppies on the front were enough to reel me in.  While I didn't choose that for my dress--it's enough being on my work bag--I still decided to make the dress.

There was one big scary thing involved with this dress: an invisible zipper.  I went in with trepidation, not even knowing how to sew a regular zipper, and came out wtih a fully functional dress!  Now, how do you like that?

Also, all fabric choices were greatly influenced by this post on Patty the Snug Bug.  I bought the shown City Weekend fabrics forever ago and knew that I didn't want to waste them on some future snot-nosed kid, so I better use them now while I have the chance.

I never take good pictures of myself.  I'm just not meant to be a fashion blogger.

The dress, pre-ironing.  I promise I ironed it this morning.  It even still smells like linen water!

Pay no attention to the mismatched waistbands!  Nick thinks they're hilarious; I'm slightly embarrassed but happy to wear a cardigan to cover them up.

Could that be...an invisible zipper?!  Yes it is!  And a hook and eye above it.

It was an okay dress.  I'm used to more professionally-written instructions, so that was hard to get used to.  Also, the waistbands.  What's wrong with me?!  I'm guessing the darts on the bodice just threw it all off, but if I had matched up the waist, the shoulders wouldn't have met.  It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Some other pictures from my weekend:

My outfit for picking up Nick on Sunday.  We were also going to District Taco.  Again, not a great fashion blogger.

My first four cuts of Children at Play.  Now, what to do with them?

Does anyone have any ideas for the Children at Play yardage?  Again, not holding out for any lameo kids, so how do I use them in a non-cutesy way?  I don't want to be a sexy baby.

My sewing list is stocked up for a while.  I've cut out Simplicity 2154  in the constellation fabric I bought a while ago.  I also bought the new Lisette brown chambray from the fall line and am making the Lisette Traveler dress (view B) in it.  ALSO on the Colette blog yesterday she explained how to create pintucks in the Violet blouse...so I plan on doing that too. 

I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Sigh.

This post should contain pictures of the Serendipity Studio Monique Dress I made over the weekend.

However, as I was topstitching the hem last night, the power went out, and didn't come back on until we were in bed.

So that'll be tomorrow's post, I suppose.  Sigh.  How irritating!

Gingham Shirts

Let's just say, it's been a day already.  My zipper in my new (only worn once!) skirt broke, it took me over an hour to get to work, and, well, I just don't want to deal with it today.  I want to be at home, sewing, or shopping, or something.  I'm just not into it.

Is this a generational thing?  Maybe we all look back on the '40s and '50s with rose-colored glasses, but you never hear about old people saying they weren't "into" work.  They knew they had to work.  End of story.  Maybe I'm reading too far into things?

Anyway, I sewed a blouse yesterday.  I feel like it's been forever since I've sewn something!  I did make that Modern Marigold Pretty Shirt.  What a nightmare that was.  It's huge!  I look pregnant in it.  So I have to go to JoAnns this weekend and get some white grosgrain ribbon.  I don't normally like belts because I'm so short-waisted (and not wasp-waisted either), but sometimes, you gotta cinch it.  (Gap Girls for the win) (Not the correct link but I couldn't find the one I was looking for.  You get it!)

So I sewed this top with some dotted Swiss my momma gave me.  I have a ton of it.  I'm thinking of also making an Oliver + S Puppet Show tunic out of it, because I've been dying to make one and also because I have a ton of it.

God, could I take worse pictures?  This is a Simplicity Threads pattern, and it seems to have dropped off the pattern planet because it's not on the Simplicity website or Google.  Weird.  It's a pullover and there were separate bodice pieces for different cup sizes.  I love that!  All patterns should have that.  I don't know why the industry standard is a B but it shouldn't be.

Yes, that is me in my office bathroom.  I wanted to show off the J. Crew shirt I bought Saturday.  Gingham!  And it fits perfectly!  I had planned to wear it with the terrible skirt that broke, but instead I had to go with this white skirt, which is too tight but thankfully still zips up.  It's J. Crew, so who knows if I'll be able to afford another one, but I love it and plan on wearing it forever.

This is the skirt that broke.  As you can see, the zipper pull is clearly at the top, but the zipper is pulling apart.  Interesting.  My mom suggested zipping it up and down to get it back on track, which I had Nick do, but it pulled apart as soon as I moved.  And then we couldn't get it off.  It's been a stressful morning.  I've contacted Loft because I bought it with my Loft card last month, but is there anything I can do?  It's an invisible zipper and there's a skirt lining.  How much do seamstresses charge to fix this?

Oh, also, I have a giant zit on my face (right under my nose) and my hair is looking...crunchy.  I should've just stayed in bed.