Estate Sale Loot featuring Vintage Clothes!

These are from last Saturday's estate sale-ing. I have been on summer break/laid off, so I do very little during the week. So on Saturday, I wanted to go to estate sales. Andrew, on the other hand, worked all week and wanted to chill. So with the help of my handy, talking Google maps app lady, I set off alone to three sales in N/NW Chicago. And I wasn't even murdered. Wow.

This is everything from all three and I think I spent 5/3/7 for a total of 15 dollars. I love estate sales because it combines many things I enjoy: snooping through people's stuff and homes, judging people, buying old crap I don't really need, and being very cheap. Yay!

I have been trying to drink more liquids, so I wanted some small glasses that actually show me what 8 oz is. And a tiny llama mom and baby wooden figurine, cause why not?

 I also bought a set of rainbow striped sheets, or as we call them, "dead people sheets." Also a nice drink shaker with a little screw off spout, for really violent shanking shaking.

 Now to follow are some very taken-with-a-potato quality pictures of me modeling my new 70s clothes. There was a trunk in the basement of one of the houses of a woman who was clearly my size in the 70s. The clothes all fit, even the pants are the right length. So nice. Andrew and my brother were drying some of their hops and said it was disgusting that I didn't wash them first. So prissy. I showered afterwards because they did have that old house stank, which transferred to my skin, but I couldn't wait to model them.

I plan on wearing this sexy muumuu all winter long!

 A scarf blouse that is also a bodysuit? Shazam!

 Like a diaper. So sexy. I actually really like the blouse, so I think I will just give it a new hem and take off the diaper part, which was very obvious under pants. Aren't you glad I shared this dumpy picture of my butt with you? Heh.

 The full ensemble with green polyester pants. They are a bit snug right now, as I have gained 9 lbs (ek) but I will save them and wear them in the future. No wrinkles! Don't need to hem them!

 Same pants, but in white. Oh la la! Je suis tres a la mode!

 I call this picture Ebony and Ivory. T-Rex really loves being picked up in the air, lol.

 My final polyester blouse. Andrew and Luke's groans and cringes could not phase me, look at my smile! It is really a conversation starter! I said I will wear i when we go bowling next time. It seems like a great bowling shirt!

 Wow, those cuffs!

Now that you are uncontrollably jealous of my awesome new clothes, have a great Labor Day weekend!

My Rae skirt goes to Rome

I was a pattern tester for the Sewaholic Rae skirt several months ago. I kept forgetting to take pictures, so I threw it in my suitcase to take some pictures of it in Europe. We drove from the Amalfi coast up to Rome and spent a day in Rome. This was due to flights: all the flights from Naples to Corsica were around 700 euros, and if we flew from Rome to Corsica, it was something like 77 euros total. Plus we already had a rental car, and Andrew loves driving, so that was an easy decision. 

Sewing the skirt is super easy, as it meant to be a very very beginner's pattern. It is just an easy skirt to make and took me an afternoon. My fabric is some random knit from JoAnn. Probably the worst part of pattern testing is due to the time constraints, I always end up using some less-than-ideal, shit fabric from Jo-Ann. I don't think the pattern suggested knits, but all of the other prints were hideous. 

My crappy knit fabric

From our hotel room balcony on the Amalfi coast. 

 Later that day at the Coliseum:

 If I had actually made it for vacation, I would have chosen a brighter and more fun print. And maybe hem it a little shorter too. It's kind of a frumpy length, I think. For me and my short legs.

While in Corsica, it rained and then we got to see a double rainbow!!

 I also surprised Andrew with a pig pastry from the patisserie! So cute and it was chocolate on the inside and cake.

Any suggestions for online photo albums? I think I had a flickr account many moons ago. I would be very happy to never put anything on facebook ever again, but my mom wants to see our vacation pictures. Ideas? :)

Casual sundress for Italy

I bought some random clothes at Target right before we left for our trip to France and Italy. I bought the blue/green print dress and really liked it. It is super simple, as it is strapless with an elastic waist and neckline. On a whim, I made a twin for it out of 1 1/2 yards of a black and white knit print I bought at Jo-Ann sometime last summer. 

It was very easy to make, I just measured the top, waist and hem with the elastic stretched out and then traced the shape onto my black fabric with chalk. I cut it out, put in the elastics, and hemmed it. The only difference is that I only had 1/4 elastic and the original has more like 1/2 in elastic. Also the original has a useless drawstring tie over the waist elastic, so I eliminated that to save some time.

Cost: I think the fabric was about $15. I already had thread and elastic on hand.

Time: Probably around 2-3 hours.

We went to France to visit Andrew's family. We flew from Chicago to Paris, stayed in Paris for 2-3 days, flew to Florence and visited Pompeii, then drove to the Amalfi Coast for 3 days. All of these pictures were taken in Positano and Amalfi.

Positano:

Original dress

 Near our hotel in Priano:

A very simple dress, but it still looks nice.

 In Amalfi at the church:

Black and white dress for the black and white stone. The wind was blowing it up a little on the right.

Simple, but very comfortable and perfect for vacation. 

This was a simple make, but I am very happy with it. It doesn't wrinkle, and it is lightweight and comfortable; it was perfect for vacation.


In other news, I finally found out that my former school decided to eliminate the French program, and a teacher with more seniority will finish up the last French II classes this year. That was sad to hear, but it is better to know for sure than to keep hoping. Tomorrow I'm going to school to pack up all of my stuff.

On a positive note, I am going to take the two classes for my middle school endorsement, and take two science classes to get both my Social Studies and Science middle school endorsements. I really loved teaching middle school and science is in fairly high demand. So hopefully next spring, I will be in a more successful place in the job market! It's nice to feel like I have some direction, too.

I have some other things I have made, and I will try to post more of them this week!