Whirligig Dress

Isn't this dress pretty? Find it here. I don't wear dresses (seriously. I think the last time I wore one was at my fifth grade graduation. Actually no; it was the summer before sixth grade when we went to Hawaii. I think. and my dress thing tutorial doesn't really count, because that was supposed to be a smock thing.), but I'm always looking for things made out of jersey because I have a lot of it. I've been pretty busy, but I do really want to sew and do some crafty stuff.

Slouchy Raglan Tutorial

My newest shirt! It's an oversized raglan with a kangaroo pocket! It's made with a black double-sided knit (is it called a ponte knit?) and a blue spandex-y fabric. I got them from Fabrix in SF. You should go there, prices are very cheap, and though i've seen many complaints in reviews on the organization, I like it and I'm sure real fashion districts just sell bolts of fabric on the sides of the streets. Besides the blue and black fabric, I also got a beautiful purple fabric. It's one of the richest, deepest, wine-y-est purples I've ever seen. Even though blue is my 2nd favorite color (olive green forever), I like the purple better. I don't know why. Here's some pics of the fabric. (the 1st pic color isn't very accurate, the other pics are better, but it's still not the right shade--my lighting's not very good)

This shirt is based on jmorco's raglan here. It is comfy and slouchy and I love that there's a pocket, because I usually have something to put in there, like my glasses case (they are for distance, so it's a hassle to put them on and take them back off to stick in my backpack).

Tutorial

Materials: 1 yd of black knit fabric, 1/2 yd of aqua or contrasting color, sewing machine, thread, scissors, pins, old loose t-shirt, newspaper or pattern paper

1. Get your old t-shirt and cut an off the shoulder neckline.

2. Now fold your shirt in half and mark a line (with pins) a couple inches below the shoulder seam on the neckline down to the armpit. Now fold the sleeve on the line in. This is your 'pattern.'

3. Fold your black fabric in half, line up your 'pattern' on the fold, and cut around it. Cut another. (note: in the pic below i messed up at first and did a fold from the shoulder to the armpit. DON'T DO THIS. fold it a couple inches down from the neckline to the armpit, like in the above picture. and don't forget seam allowances.)

4. Now unfold the sleeve and line up the shoulder seam on the fold of a piece of creased newspaper. Trace around your sleeve and cut out your pattern piece.

5. Now cut out 2 sleeve pieces from contrasting knit. Add seam allowance.

6. Sew sleeves on. I do this by sewing the side of the sleeve to the armhole, and then repeating with the 2nd shirt piece. Here's some pics to help explain this process.

7. Now it's time for a pocket! Cut out a rectangle the size you want the pocket to be. Now fold it in half and cut out 2 quarter-circles from the upper hand corner, opposite to the fold.

8. To sew on the pocket, mark the center of the pocket with a pin. Now fold your shirt in half, and pin half of the pocket to the shirt. Unfold your shirt and pin the rest of the pocket on.

9. This is what you should have now. I hemmed the bottom and added binding to the sleeves, but you don't have to since knit doesn't fray.

10. Now add neck binding. I followed this tutorial (using the last method).

11. Ignore the purple pajama bottoms.

12. Wear with pride!

Have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day (yep, i had to copy and paste that word from google)!

o(^__^o)

(o^__^)o

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

Look how cute... my 5 year old cousin gave me a pokemon cell-phone charm/screen cleaner! It has a fuzzy backing and a stretchy cord so you can rub the dirt off your screen. I think I can make some of these. :)

Oh, I think I am going to go to the fabric store soon! Yay!

On thursday, I went on a field trip to watch the Giants game. i'm not a big baseball fan, but I enjoyed myself! I think I wouldn't have been nearly as happy if I hadn't ordered some garlic fries to share with my friend C (though they were extremely expensive--$7.25!).

A classmate, L, told us she sawBuster Posy at the Coke bottle slide, and about 5 of us went down. Then we realized that all the players had to be in the dugout. We just decided to tell L we saw him, because we assumed she was lying. Then one of our classmates called and we told her we saw him at the Coke slide. When we got back to our seats, our whole class was gone.

Turns out they were all at the Coke slide. Even L, who supposedly saw Buster Posy already...

Anyways, I had a great time. There was a cool asian guy who was dancing really oddly when the Giants scored. Like, he looked like he was driving a very large car with a giant steering wheel. Then he made his arms into a Y and jerked each hand down separately in a short, stiff motion. People were asking for his autograph and stuff (he's not even famous or anything). Then he looked at me and my friend (or at least that's what we liked to think), pointed at us, and said, "Never give up!" I wish I got a video of him... Dang it.

Here's a few stalkerish shots I got of him... he's in the orange shirt. In the 1st pic, that's him starting to lean over and say, "Never give up!"

Look!

Curls! I'm so proud! Well, to be more precise, three curls, and 3 pics of one particularly gorgeous curl that I'm so proud of. It's the best I've ever done. I just wish there's a product that makes your hair not so dry/burnt feeling (i know there is one; i just don't have any brands). I want to curl my hair on some special occasion; maybe 8th grade graduation?

What I've Been Working On

Here's my bag for my mom for mother's day. It's kind of lumpy and odd shaped since I tried to get it to model by sticking all of our apples inside and hanging it on a chair. Yeah, it didn't really work.

I'm also crocheting! I'm a decent crocheter, but I have to use a large bulky hook I carved out of a chopstick because I can't find my other hooks. Yep, that's just me. (the flower is from attic 24)

Mother's Day Present

For mother's day, I'm giving my mommy a t-shirt bag, made with //between the lines// quick fix grocery bag tutorial. Happy mother's day!

Summer's Coming

Blech. Summer. I was born in the summer, but that doesn't mean that I like it. Too hot. Too stuffy. And it makes me grouchy, grouchy, grouchy. It's getting hotter, and the shorts are coming out. At least at my school. Though it's kinda gross when they're wearing super-short shorts that don't fit, and they squeeze their skin like spandex. Even though it's part of the dress code to not wear them shorter than finger-tip length, nobody seems to care (which is unfair to me, because I feel like I have long arms--and a shorter body-- and my fingertips reach right above my knee. So the only shorts I could wear are basketball shorts). The vice principal just walked by some girls, and then she smiled and just said, "Good morning." Curiouser and curiouser.

What I do like about summer is fruit. Some of my favorite fruits (not in any particular order):

1. peaches. hard peaches, like an apple. I don't like it when it dribbles down my chin in a sticky little stream.

2. apples. crunchy, cold apples. Actually, I like all my fruit cold, except when there's something extra on top (i.e., apples with butter and brown sugar, bananas with choco chips and marshmallows [i've never tried it but it sounds good], etc.)

3. nectarines. yummy... shiny, gleaming nectarines...

4. plums. purple plums, slightly tart but more sweet. I love asian plums. they have a brownish, speckled appearance with a yellow-orange inside. I don't know if they're called asian plums; i just call them that because I got them from Chinatown. There's another type of asian plum; they're small and yellow, but those aren't as good. We have some in our backyard, but it was sour--but maybe because they weren't ripe, i don't know...

eh, probably not.

just kidding; they're pretty good when they're ripe.

Anyways, I don't like summer, and I want to sew more. Hope I can get some more tutorials up and take a trip to the fabric store in SF soon. Have a nice day. :)