Monday 7 May 2007

In Which I Make A Dress

Digging through the piles of fabric reminded me of all the projects I had planned-a lot of it had been bought for specific pieces. One was a cheapo flowery clearance fabric I had bought to make this dress. Since it's finally getting warm enough to wear something like that, and the fabric once again has come to see the light of day, I figured I might as well make it.

When I sewed it together, I discovered the bodice was too big. Lessons learned-if you are going to make a muslin, don't wait until a year afterwards to make the actual dress as you will likely forget what alterations you had to do. I still have the muslin version I made last summer...heh.
Here is what it looked like after the first fitting-the muslin is behind me (black flowered fabric) :

I think this is an excellent picture of my tongue. The prints are due to the fact that I am always walking into this mirror (as you can see they are about nose height).

ETA-with access to photoshop (which is on my computer and not on mama's) I fixed the pictures-a little anyway.

So had to hack a bit of the bodice off, widen the seams and move the straps. Ultimately it worked out not bad. Then I had to find the zipper, which diabolical forces hid for a few hours before placing it in plain view on my desk. This happens to me often, and I know it's either boggarts or employees of Monsanto doing it. As Dad would say, "CATTLE PROD."

Certainly if we do have brownies, they have long since turned to boggarts, because they sure DON'T CLEAN ANYTHING.

Now where was I...Try as I might I couldn't get a picture that was actually in focus, maybe that's because the glasses I have on are from two prescriptions ago as I broke my regular ones at work last week-I hate those old glasses! they just accentuate the sausageyness of my already sausagy nose. Anyway-this is the best one (ignore the glasses please).


I notice that the state of my room is quite distracting-you can see the frickin floor!! But the bed and the desk are covered with crap so that's alright.

Here is a better picture of it, though wrinkly and unhemmed as of yet.


Now all I need is the fates to quit conspiring against me and my need for blue shoes to go with it.

Hemming it would probably be a good idea too.

I hate that I can't sew at four in the morning anymore. Richard says he is going to come down and we can convert the one room back into two, so Grandma can sleep and I can sew and dicker around on the computer. Of course Grandma is usually awake at that time anyway.

10 comments:

Sarah said...

That dress is totally cute and it fits so well! Great job.

I have those pesky boggarts too. You have to look and look for stuff and then poof there it is in front of your face. Grrrrr.

mem said...

The pictures might come into better focus if your camera wasn't focusing on the prints on the mirror. ;) Cleaning it may help. (I know you have this thing against cleaning, but...) I have this problem when taking pictures from upstairs—the glass is not very clean, and the camera occasionally focuses there instead of on the intended subject.

All that said, it is a wonderful picture of your tongue, and I actually laughed. You look rather impudent, which seems entirely consistent. And you look good in the dress. The glasses are not so bad, either, your nasal discomfort notwithstanding. I had a pair that was rather worse. During a particularly nasty few weeks at school I had to wear them. I occasionally wear contacts (usually to the gym; otherwise I fight blind), but they do not correct my vision as well as my glasses, and so work is hard with them.

Is the zipper the reason you were up so late working on the dress? ;)


There are many ways of not being nice. For example, I am not a very tolerant person, especially while driving. (The right foot does tend to be the last sanctified part of the body.) In fact, I suspect if I knew myself better and were able to subject myself to the same withering criticism I level on others, I would probably curl into a little ball.

I hope you and your grandmother don't come to blows. Do you see the irony in the fact that you're having her throw things out while you're surrounded by piles of stuff? (That said, I did notice that the area around your feet—the white shoes aren't bad, btw—was clear. The background behind you is intriguing, though, and I have spent some time looking at that also.)

mem said...

You could always invest, I don't know, in a tripod, just maybe? It may reduce motion blur from your hand. ;)

I actually figured out what was behind you when I reversed the image. I'm a little slow sometimes.

The reason your Geocities site is always down is because they cap your bandwidth/hour or some such nonsense. As I was browsing, it screamed hideous things at me.

SLOTHGUY sounds highly amusing, and looks as though he can take quite a pounding. My velveteen rabbit took the same, but mostly because I thought he would come alive when I plucked out his fur. Mom sewed patches on his body after a little while. He is actually probably older than you are, since he was a gift to my brother (who never took to him quite like I did). He doesn't help quell road rage, however.

And yes, the Bambi Brigade is hilarious. How did McSorley get on that team? A sketch of Emelio Estevez (quite possibly the least-looking hockey type since Martin St Louis or Scott Gomez) would have also been hilarious.

I am glad you and your grandmother are not beating each other over clothes. You should turn them into toys for WMRC, whose cuteness will force your grandma to submit to your will while simulatneously diverting the art-devourer from consuming your incomestibles.

And, um, Crikey is Australian, not Canadian, right? You speak an astonishing number of dialects for not really caring overmuch for grammar.

mem said...

re: tripod. You have easily one upped me here. I appropriate by association, but you seem to have appropriated outside of time. That is impressive.I think you should be able to find one from El Cheapo Tripod Store.

re: bunny. I sense that you were making some kind of ill-fated bald joke there, to which I say three thing:

First, since you know better than karma, you clearly realize this is a blessing from God, who is graciously permitting me one thing in life that we actually agree on (eventually)—namely, the number of hairs on my head. Such a sign of divine love should not be mocked.

Second, your own Colin Mochrie is follicly challenged, and he has done okay for himself, and actually looks quite dashing (for an old Canadian guy) on his website.

Third, I can get Rogaine. But I don't know what you can do for your nose. ;)

re: the rest. I have to admit I did not quite pick up on the irony of the brigade. I am slow on the uptake again.

And as for language, we all speak some kind of designer language. It's amazing we can understand each other at all. Well, you know what I mean.

Hey, I was thinking once that the zone could use another debate on eternal security, but I figured we would gang up on the opposers, and that just wouldn't be fair. But sometime it'll happen when someone claims that you have to be Republican to be Christian.

mem said...

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be purposefully confusing. Let me try again:

re tripod: I was impressed that you had somehow been able to claim ownership despite the fact that it was broken before your birth. I usually get things by stealing.

re baldness: I thought your joke about my now furless bunny was somehow related to my hair loss, which is the subject of some jokes now and again among myself and friends. (My brother affects blindness around me, actually, though he is also losing his hair.)

Hence karma—me losing hair after having stolen my rabbit's.

I made up the word follicly: adj., having to do with hair follicles.

So, then, have opened my mouth that far, I figured I could then plant my foot squarely in it, by repaying your baldness joke with a nose joke. For whatever it is with, I am not that bald, and your nose, at least in pictures, is not that sausagy. And so I hope I did not offend—the Internet is an easy place to say the wrong thing, and I am generally pretty good at it, even in person.


Is that clear as mud? I am off to bed, so I will be completely unable to clarify any further, but I expect you can interpret it as you will.

...

Toodles! :)

mem said...

Ha. No, it was not simplified Chinese. It was...something else.

You know, if we started doing this in real-time, it would be either hilarious or completely frightening.

Were you doing an imitation of Scooby Doo?

mem said...

So did you run it through Babelfish before or after I explained it?

I think the eternal security debates were before the zone moved to the .net domain. I can't find them, anyway. If we do double-team someone, you'll have to be the bad cop.

And no, I have never imitated a Chinese person, although we did make jokes in school about beating up the Asian Contingent (who made up a very small minority of students). My phone pranks were more along the lines of, "Is your refrigerator broken?" and other typical ones. In my worse days, I graduated to war dialing.


I could never be Shaggy, lumber jacking-ness notwithstanding, as I have already been impressed for parties as Fred. In fact, I purchased a pair of tight (not cool, but actually tight) blue jeans for this exact reason. I could not find an ascot in time, however, so I instead wore an oversized polo shirt which I promptly got rid of. You should be thankful, as it was almost as offensive as the jeans.

I did once have hair almost as long as Shaggy's, however. I got it cut for a wedding and was unrecognizable to several profs thereafter. (Dad would've used it as a handle to my head if I hadn't gotten it removed.)

mem said...

And I can't help but mention that we have suddenly gotten a politics thread about how hard it is to be considered politically liberal and a Christian at the same time. I busted a gut on that post.

mem said...

Your theological persuasions are open to me, the great theology swami. Either that, or I just assumed your reformed perspective would dictate your position in the matter.

And yes, I did get rid of the jeans; they were too tight to wear (which takes some doing for me) and quite ugly. I will wear most things, honestly, but I did not like these jeans. Ceremonial burning wouldn't work, either—do you really think God would accept such an offering? I bet Cain had a better shot with his grain and fruit than I with ugly tight jeans.

mem said...

You have a job? ::duck:: I hope you get pie tonight, or at least on-key singing.


You know, you respond to exactly the opposite of what I expect you to sometimes. For example, I would've predicted that you'd have yelled about "swami." But instead, you told me you're baptist. So was Spurgeon, and I'd consider him more or less reformed too. Technically, I suppose I've been going to Baptist churches most of my life. I went to a reformed baptist church when I lived in Indiana, before I knew what Reformed meant. I'm still not sure what Baptist means.

I hate Michigan because it isn't Ohio. I have relatives who live there, on the edge of Hell, my own dear grandmother among them. I pray for their souls daily. Now I hate New Jersey also, but this is because New Jersey is the crusty Armpit of America. (True story, I was playing Taboo with my brother and my SIL, who is from that accursed state—Satan is doing his best to bring down the family—and my word was armpit. Fastest time ever: "New Jersey is the blank of America.") The mayor of Camden released a report once that said, "Hey, we're not as corrupt as we used to be!" They make Mayor Daley (of Chicago) look saintly.


I just finished yelling at many children and impressing adults into the child slave trade. I am more tired than I would've expected.