Holy Goodness I'm Out of Control

So, my plan to take a picture every few days of things I've been sewing all last week didn't exactly go according to plan.  Therefore, pictures out the wazoo on this post.  Honestly, besides working and musical practices 3 times a week, all I have been doing is sew sew sew.  Sometimes, I even get on the ball in sewing and don't even realize the time and before I know it, it is 2 A.M. and I have to get up for work at 8.  Needless to say, my body hates me and curses me in the morning.  Yikes! I need  to stop doing that.  I only have a few more things I want to make before we leave for Michigan on Friday, but I'm not sure if I will have time with all the baking I have planned as well.  I need to start doing some of those 5 hour shot thingies and work straight through the nights.  Also, tonight was my grandmother's 90th birthday and tomorrow is my grandfather's 89th birthday.  They had a big dinner party tonight for family and some friends. I appointed myself official picture taker since I have my nifty new totally awesome camera.  However, at one point during the night my mother mentioned she still didn't think it took that true to life pictures like I wanted.  And I scoffed.  And I told her she was quite mistaken. And I told her no more of her blasphemy.  She was quiet about it for the rest of the night.   And, yep, that's all I am going to say.  Short and sweet for once, lol.

Oh my goodness, is this picture not priceless.  I couldn't resist putting it on here because it just pure joy for everyone in it:D

This was the first 1930's dress I have made/owned.  I absolutely love the detailing and the pleating, though it did give me some difficulties.  I finished it about 10 minutes before we left for dinner.  Talk about cutting it close. Yikes!

Jeez louise.  This is becoming a habit of mine, having a token picture of Dexter in every picture.  But, honestly, could you resist that face?

And now on to my sewing adventures for the past week:

1960's sheath dress.  I don't wear or make 1960's outfits very often because, to be quite blunt, they are very very boring with nothing special about them at all. 

I love love love how this came out.  It was my first adventuring using vintage fabric, which was difficult to cut out because there were various holes I had to work around.  But all that hassle was worth it in the end.

I am pretty much in love with high waisted shorts.  I think they do wonders for one's figure and they are so flattering and stylish.  The crop top is made with reproduction feedsack fabric.  Cute, yes?

I actually made this 60's sailor top awhile ago but never got around to taking a picture of it.  I made it out of linen so it is perfect for a cooler summer day. 

My super cool 1940's pajamas made with vintage kitty fabric.  Yay for kitties.  I don't like cats at all in real life, but on fabric they are quite nice and adorable.  I altered this pattern quite a bit, like adding 3 tucks instead of 2 pleats, and short sleeves instead of long sleeves.  Also, imagine 4 buttons closing the shirt... I just haven't gotten to that yet. Darn that darn hand sewing.  The bane of my existence.  The pebble in my shoe. 

Again, this is a blouse that you have to imagine the mother of pearl buttons being there.  They will be soon, I promise.  This blouse took quite a while because of the detailed rows of stitching it had all over the place, but I am quite pleased with how it turned out.  Also, the shorts are another pair of high waisted ones.  These are a lightweight khaki, and I made the same pattern in white as well...which are not quite done with. 

Tada.  That's it.  For now at least.  I'm not sure if I will get to another post before we leave, but hopefully I will be able to blog a bit while in Michigan.  It's with my mom's side of the family at my uncle's house so expect lots of beautiful family pictures with pretty ponds, trees, campfires...oh my I can't wait.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!  Today was a pretty low key day actually, for it being a "holiday".  We went to church.  I wore an outfit I made a while ago but hadn't worn yet.  I also was determined to wear a hat, so I did, all day.  I knew I was going to get stares from that one, though one lovely lady at Kroger told me she loved my whole ensemble...yay, someone has taste at least:D  I just think its funny, because women used to never leave the house without hat on, especially to go to church.  But now, when I wear just a dress to our church, I feel overdressed, let alone when I wear a hat too.

  1940's Picture Credit

My family told me they thought I looked Amish, but I liked the hat with dress.  What say you blog readers?  I think they should just be glad I didn't wear the sailory looking hat I have that sits straight up on top of the head:D I'm still getting used to wearing my nice clothes while I cook.  I used to never wear anything nicer than a pair of pajama bottoms and tank top because I was so messy.  Well, I still am pretty messy, but an apron does wonders.  Duh!  Who would have thought?

After church, there was a strawberry festival so we went to that for lunch.  We had a cookout for Father's Day at my cousin's, so I made this flourless brownie with strawberry cool whip on top and raspberries and strawberries.  Basically the only good thing about this dessert concoction were the fruits and cool whip.  I can honestly say I would be okay if I never had a flourless brownie again.  It had the most god-awful texture and taste...bleh.  Not ever again, no sir, thank you very much...though others in my family did like it...However, we have a lot of left overs, so I think they may have been lying to me.  I also don't think they appreciate me taking pictures, but honestly, I love to document everything, even if it is just a simple dinner.  Taking family pictures once a year at Christmas just doesn't cut it for me.  Nope.

This coming week, we finally start acting rehearsals for Godspell.  So far, we have only had singing practices once a week, but now we have 2 days of acting practices as well.  Whew, I am going to be super busy.  Plus, I only have 2 weeks before my family goes on a week long trip to Michigan to visit my Uncle and a lot of my mom's side of the family.  I superly love family vacations, I don't even care where the vacation is at, as long as family is there it is fine with me.  So, I have a buttload of clothes I want to get made before then, so look for clothing posts multiple times the week.  Cheers, until next time

First Estate Sale Experience

Well, I am on an email list for estate sales in my area, and I finally got a notice about one that had vintage clothes...yay!  Needless to say, I was super excited and determined to go, however, it was 2 hours away in a town I have never even driven through before.  I actually talked my mom and dad into going with.  I didn't think that they would but they did, thank goodness, or else I probably would have been either a. lost, or b. too shy to go in by myself...if you know me, you understand why I say that.  But we got there and it was this tiny little modular home, and I was thinking, "oh great.  we wasted all this time driving just to be disappointed."  However, when we finally got in, I was pleasantly surprised.  They didn't have a super ton of vintage clothing, but they did have a nice selection of 50's-60's coats (my favorite was the 100% cashmere coat with mink collar for $25.00) and a few 1930's sewing patterns.  When we were leaving, we were talking to the lady who was running the sale about how I love vintage clothing and sewing, and she told us about a flea market that was in the same city going on today too....we had to go!  It was mandatory.  So we did.  She also told us about a few estate sales coming up that are going to have huge quantities of vintage clothing, but they are even further away, so my mother and I are already making plans to take off work and go up for the friday it starts.  We are both becoming serious vintage shoppers and I would love for this to be a permanent part of my life...as in jobwise- so yeah, stay tuned for a post about what I have been thinking about doing with my life lately, coming up soon...and please forgive the following pictures for lack of makeup, lack of cute hair, and over all frumpy look.  I started out the day looking fresh, with perfect makeup and bouncy hair, but by the end of the day walking outside in the dust  and sun...well, you can see the results.

Men's Pendleton shirt...I plan on altering it since it was too cute to pass up

Also a man's hat...(1940's)I tried to get my dad to buy this for himself because, wouldn't he look just dapper and handsome in it? But sadly, it was too small, so I had to buy it.  Wouldn't you?

One of two 1950's/60's coat...I don't know how to pinpoint eras for coats yet, so if anyone knows more than me, please comment!  I love the buttons on this one.

My favorite cashmere coat.  Isn't the detailing in it just fabulous?  It is super soft.

A 1940's tailor jacket.  I believe this jacket is demanding a skirt, and I think it prefers a 6 Gore skirt...so look for that soon:D

Random jewelery...they had a good selection of screw back earrings and clip on ones.  Does anyone know which type are older, or does it really just depend.  Comment if you know:D  The two compacts I got at the flea market.

2 patterns that are not in my size at all, but they were from the 1930's so I couldn't pass them up.  They look pretty straightforward and streamline, so hopefully they are not too hard to alter...I hope

So, we went to the flea market, and it was almost as big as the one we go to normally each month, but I felt severely overdressed.  I know from pictures I've seen from other bloggers, it doesn't matter where you go, you wear vintage....and I'm still getting used to this.  Like, for example, there are certain places I will always wear vintage, and other places where I usually don't.  Well, I wore vintage today (specifically, my suspender skirt I made and talked about in this post) to go to the estate sale, but obviously the flea market wasn't in the original plans, so I felt super over dressed.  And, boy oh boy, did people stare at me.  I don't think I went down one aisle where somebody in a booth didn't stare at me...and I wasn't the only one who noticed.  My mom did too, and there was a couple of girls who started laughing and my mom wanted to go over there and punch them...not literally, she would never ever do something like that (I feel like I had to clarify that for those that don't know us).  But still, it made me really self conscience and then I just got mad.  I don't think I have ever been around a group of ruder people before  Still not as bad as girl at dinner during my birthday, but still.  I would have thought they had better things to do than worry about what I was wearing.  Ohio obviously isn't as forgiving with what people wear as they are in like Oregon, or Washington.  But honestly isn't it better that I am over dressed than say, for example, wear my dang pajamas to the grocery store.  Whoever said that was okay and acceptable needs to be shot.  Grrr... We didn't find very much since it didn't have the super nice quality things that our flea market has, but I did find a few hats and vintage compacts.

Welp, that's it for now. Until next time,

1950's Walkaway Dress

So, I started this pattern last summer...that's right, last summer.  And I just now finished it a few days ago.  What did it need done to it, you might ask.  Well, it needed the two sets of snaps sewed on and the button sewed on.  Yep, that's it.  Can we say lazy...or more likely...can we say a severe hate of hand sewing.  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  I hate hand sewing with a passion.  I'm not good at it, and it just wastes so much time.  That's not to say I don't do it on almost everything I make, but things do tend to pile up when you wait a few days-weeks to finish the hand sewing on things.

I think it is super cute, easy pattern.  It is very flattering almost every figure a girl could have.  However, I think it is definitely geared towards people who are a little bigger on top that I am.  When I sit, sometimes the top blouses out a little more than I like.

Well, I finally had motivation to finish the dress so I could wear it to our family dinner tonight.  We went to the Olive Garden with my entire dad's side of the family.  Thank God for the creation of reservations or we would probably still be waiting to eat:D  It was fabulous.  I'm always impressed by Olive Garden's quality for being a chain restaurant.  And I brought my new camera to take pictures of dinner, and what did I do.  I forgot to grab the SD card.  So, yeah...no pictures.  I was not happy.

Right after dinner, I had musical practice.  I still have not sung my song yet from the music we have.  I know the movie version, but there are slight variations that I am not used to, and I fear that if I don't get the version we are doing in my head I am going to be singing the wrong thing, lol.  After practice, I came right home and had my mother take pictures of me and my puppy.  I think I may love my dog way too much.  She still needs some camera lessons apparently, as if you couldn't tell from all the blurry wonder.  Jeez Louise.  Enjoy