Labels

To answer two recent questions:

1. Where did you get the labels?

The labels were from namemaker.com and the style I bought was about 28 bucks for 40. Fanciness and more writing makes the price go up. They have lots of other designs and sayings!

2. How have you been sewing so much?

I have been sewing a lot lately, but don't give me too much credit. Not only did I have a full week off of work for Spring Break, but my boyfriend was in Europe for 2 weeks, and part of those overlapped. So I was lonely and had LOTS of free time. I expect my sewing will slow down for the next 6 weeks, but then it's summer break!!

Bonus made up question: How lazy are you?

I am so lazy, the only thing from preventing me from beginning my next project is that I need to wind the bobbin with black thread (and, yes, I only have one bobbin.)

So far, so good!

Good things:

1. It is standardized testing week, and while that makes the students insane, I have nothing to do or prepare each night. Wonderful! Now I can focus my energies on margaritas!

2. I found out that I officially have a permanent position for next year, although I don't know what subject yet. Hopefully 6th grade, cross your fingers for me!!!!

3. I got my awesome clothing labels in the mail today!

4. My aunt cleaned out her stash of vintage button and now I have 6 billion. I need to think of something red, with lots of buttons!
5. I have cut out all of the pieces of my next dress...
6. My boyfriend is back from his 2 week trip...and he nearly owes me my 100 follower dinner. Yay! (This should be #1, but I don't feel like renumbering...)

7. I just saw the cutest stray cat- I think I will start feeding it. It is tortoiseshell with green eyes and a nub tail.

I hope you all are having a good week too!

Garage Sale Loot!!!

My school's mascot is the pirates, so I am fully authorized to use the word loot, FYI.

I spent a good chunk of the morning driving around Metairie (a suburb of New Orleans), alternately getting lost and getting pissed off.

I think the legislature should pass a law that says "An estate sale can only be promoted as such when the entire contents of the house and adjacent building(s) shall be open to the public and for sale. Heretofore, the punishment will be tarring and feathering." I'm going to write to my Congresspeople! lol.

In all seriousness, if your "estate sale" is a measly pile of junk that makes a regular yard sale look immensely appealing, you don't have an "estate sale."

However, I have found one estate liquidating company that is awesome. I told the woman she had really great, reasonable prices, and she shrugged and said "yeah, it's just a lot of old junk mostly."

I am giggling wildly.

Look at my loot! Please note, it was going to cost me $3.50, but she gave it to me for $3 so she could save her quarters. ;)

A flat sheet. There are two in this pattern.

A nice little future booze pitcher and another flat sheet.

One dinner plate.

All my loot. This includes a Jewel cassette tape (the cd player is also broken on my wondermobile), an old juicer and 2, I REPEAT 2, Le Creuset cast iron enameled frying pans!!!

So in the future, if some snob is like "Well, I have Le Creuset as well, and mine is much nicer and in new, modern colors," I will slap her in the face and say "Well, mine cost 33 cents each, b*%#$!"

They are both harvest orange, one is 9 inches and enameled outside only and the other is 6 inches, with white enamel on the inside. The both could use a scrubbing, but are otherwise great. I just looked them up on Amazon.com and the big one would cost $99.95 and the small one would be $69.95. Ahahahahahahahaha! Awesome!

Also, the juicer is kind of beat up, but it works! and it has all it's parts! So when my lemons ripen (the first word I thought of was "hatch" lol) I can make delicious lemonade with my 33 cent juicer machine. Bet you can't buy a juicer for 33 cents!

Hopefully you are all jealous and will go to some garage sales tomorrow to try to top my finds. Good luck!!

Take Two- Simplicity 4782

This is the same pattern as the Lemon Dress.

The side view shows off its nice A-line shape. I once again did a twice folded under hem to give it more stiffness and body, and hemmed it on the machine.

Front view. I had a half-yard less of this fabric, so I was forced to make this one a bit shorter. It comes to my knees instead of just below.

I love these shoes. I got them at an estate sale towards the end of high school, when I was starting to get over my desperately-caring-about-what-everyone-thinks phase. My mom and I went and the house was just stuffed. I bought a fur and these shoes. The people running the sale said it was the third or fourth straight weekend, and they had only emptied the downstairs and one room upstairs. "Hoarder" was not a common tern (at least in my vocabulary) in 2000, but that had to have been the case. Too bad we didn't go back...

They are made out of some kind of plastic-like substance, and have rounded toes and very high heels, which is why they don't get much play. I think they are super cute, and are navy blue, it's kind of hard to tell in the photos.

I just googled the brand "Salon Debs" but got nothing. It also says "designed exclusively for Block's." I searched for Block's department store, and there was one in Indianapolis from 1896 to 1987. It would be kind of amazing if they had traveled from there to Oregon, but it's possible!

Here's the baby T-Rex being adorable!

Have a good weekend everyone! I know I will- we don't have to turn in lesson plans next week because of state testing, so it's like I was given three more hours of weekend! Yay!!

Shopping Online!

I love shopping for pretty dresses, and then not buying them. I also enjoy looking at the prices and thinking about how much less it would cost to sew it.

I think that for most of these you would need less than 3 yards of fabric and maybe a burda style pattern, or even just adjust pattern pieces you already own!

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Banana Republic: $130

This would be a snap to make!

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Nordstrom's: $158

I think this dress is adorable, and would be easy to make with some small ajdustments on 60's patterns I already own.

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Nordstrom's: $248

Obviously, I like this style. It is boob-maximizing and waist-minimizing- certainly something I could appreciate!

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Nordstrom: $445

This dress is adorable! Even if the fabric is $20/yard, how could this dress cost you more than 60-70 bucks? $445? Sure, if you're giving me a trust fund! Ha ha!

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Banana Republic: $110

Now I don't really like this style- it is very shapeless. However, I would just like to point out, since I saw it in person, that it is ok fabric. However, the stitching on the neckline was white, over the dark blue part. It was terribly obvious and made it look really cheap, which it is not at $110!

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Does anyone else just shop to poach ideas and/or criticize clothes? I find I do!

Procrastinating....

I am procrastinating doing work for school tomorrow... so here are the fruits of my labors:

Look at my lemons! I am glad re-potting it didn't make it angry. You can also see my car down below. Can you see the yellow spot where the paint fell off? That was my latest car surprise when I went through the car wash. lol. I love you, Oldsmobile!

My tiny dills are sprouting.

My asparagus shot up about 3 inches overnight. The lighting is bad, it IS green, I swear!

I finished my blue dress! It's the same pattern as the lemon dress, but tweaked a little to fit better. I shortened the skirt pieces because I had less fabric and because I ended up cutting off several inches last time. I also took about 1/2" on the fold from the front and back (bodice and skirt) to make up for the inches I had to take in on the other finished version.

Overall, I am satisfied!

My week off is winding down...

Here's how my dress is progressing:

All it needs now is a zipper and a hem...

I bought this interfacing at Jo-Ann. I have given up on thinking I will buy hair canvas; it is too expensive and I don't like buying fabric online. Fabric is tactile, the internet is not. This is designed to be a lightweight iron-on interfacing for light tailoring, which I think matches the needs of my cape. See the cape inspiration here: http://mollysews.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-progress-cape.html

Here is the cape pattern: I started this over a year ago, if I remember correctly, I am making the blue/beige version.

I bought this fabric to make a new version of this Advance pattern: see the original here!

The print is very large, and that seems like what I am liking lately. It's not terribly summery, but I like it!

Anyways, now I have to start writing lesson plans and making up activities for this next week- we are reviewing for the big LEAP test in a week. I bought a big tub of candy and am making up team games to review. Hopefully, the week will be fun, and they will all do well on the tests!