The Plaid Shirt

So here is the finished shirt! All ready for fall. I rolled the sleeves, but I didn't make that permanent because I wanted to be able to scrunch them up if I wanted to. While that's a nice, trendy idea, I don't think I ever will, because it's such a bother. But it's a possibility. I put three gathers down each side on the front to make it more fitted. Since it's plaid it just looks neat anyways. I also removed the pocket flaps and buttons. It was very easy, and now it doesn't look like a sack anymore! It would also look cute belted. I couldn't think of anything else to do to it, so I stopped there.

Of course I'm scrunched over in most of these pictures, I realised, so it's hard to tell the difference.

There is an interesting story here. . .my sisters and I went out in the woods to do this, and my nine-year-old sister Grace took the pictures. Now, there's a little girl who may give me a run for my money! I was very surprised, she seemed to know exactly what she was doing, like she'd done clothing shoots a million times before. ;-) She was like:

"Okay, turn a little bit--lift your head up more--and move your arm, move it a little to the right--okay, hold that. *flash* Okay, now I'm going to take a vertical one. Very good! Okay, now we'll do one next to the tree. . ."

I told her I felt like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face!

After a while she just started taking random pictures, all of which turned out great. She centered them, adjusted the zoom, etc. I take about five pictures before I get one I'm happy with, but she's very conscious of all the picture-taking steps. For instance, we were actually "done" picture-taking when I started finding mushrooms. . .I dug the one in the picture above out of the leaves, and she snapped that one.

The pleats. . .

The Old Plaid Shirt

So this is my trusty old plaid shirt. I've had it ever since I was ten. I believe my aunt gave it to me--it was hers before that, so I don't know how old it is. The arms are a bit short, and as you can see, it is truly horrible in its sloppiness. (Okay, so pairing it with an orange shirt and plaid skirt did nothing to make it more attractive, but you get the idea). It makes me look like I've raided the closet of a lumberjack, and I don't think I've worn it in public since I was eleven or twelve.

But I love this shirt! It's so soft and comfy. I always wear it as a jacket around the house, and a few times when I've been really desperate in winter (our house is big and old, and subsequently gets really cold, we don't have central heat) I've worn it as one layer out of many. All last winter I always put it on over my pajamas when I woke up in the morning for added heat after leaving my warm bed.

But it's always been a great regret that it's too sloppy to wear in public! However, upon receiving the newest Anthropologie magazine, I was a bit inspired. The setting was very artistic and interesting, telling a story, which I liked a lot, and the setting they used--autumn woods and weekend cabin, as well as some small-town/general store settings--seemed very North Carolinian to me. And of course, since it's their fall mag, there was a lot of inspiring plaid clothing!

As you can see in the above picture, the shirt has pocket flaps and buttons. I didn't put it on all the way because I had already started altering one side before I thought to take before pictures. ;-) You can sort of see the pleats on the side that I'm holding out.

Here are some good befores--I hadn't done anything to it at this point. The cloth is good, even after many years of wear. It's 100% cotton, and Faded Glory, which I'm pretty sure is a Wal-Mart brand.As you can see, the torso is very roomy, the arms strangely short, the pocket flaps persistently wrinkled and the whole thing just rather frumpy, lifeless, and limp. I believe a good shirt should look attractive all by itself on the hanger--if it doesn't, it probably won't look much better on the wearer.

So with that philosophy in mind, I decided to renovate my old shirt and make it wearable for this fall.

So, these are the befores. . .afters to follow. . .

This Summer

Well, I haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I'd just write a thing or two about what I've been doing lately. I have this nagging feeling that I need to hold my blogging claim down.

Hanging out in the woods . . .It makes me feel all Pathfinder-y. :-)

...Writing a lot. Although not in the picturesque manner depicted below. It's more like this:

Sit at the computer. Get distracted because I left the French dictionary on my desk open. (Who knew that 'être perdus' means 'get lost' in French? C'mon, that's useful knowledge right there. You never know when you may get harassed by some confused French tourist).

Settle down to write again...hear suspicious activity in the hallway...leap up to help my sleepwalking brother to the bathroom before anything unsanitary happens...sit down to write again, wondering how I can use the previous experience to help me feel what I'm writing better...start humming and thinking about what I'm going to wear tomorrow--and then rattle off ten pages of what is now probably watered-down, pulp-fiction-writer-on-a-bad-day (the remnants of my creativity). Then I realise it's one o'clock. [Who reset my clock?!?! Who reset all the clocks?!?!] Yeah. And then I go to bed.

I just sort posed that picture because I thought it looked so pretty and romantic. I'm sure writers in Oz have set-ups like that, anyways.

I'm assuming that since I write for pleasure (or at least, that's what I tell myself), people who write as a job have it really rough. Gosh, they might actually have to write straight through twenty minutes, without stopping once to play a game of thought-provoking solitaire!

So, back on topic:

Sewing...this is something I'm making for my sister's Civil War doll. Actually I've done a lot more to it since this picture was taken. I've some other projects to, all of which I had honest intentions of posting about. I'm sure I will. . . soon . . .

. . .Getting very excited about two movies: Where the Wild Things Are;

and Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. I've watched both movie trailers about five times.

I've also been waiting for the Holmes movie for well over a year now, which does a lot to increase the suspense and make one prepared to be happy with anything. (By anything I mean Mr. Downey). Anyways, I don't want anything for Christmas except tickets to see the Holmes film! And I really want to take my little brother Josiah to see Wild Things--it's his favorite book ever. I think I've probably read it at least sixty times in the past month. I can actually recite the whole book in its entirety.

Looking at mushrooms, and being prevented from eating them by my mother...

Watching airplanes take off and land, which was surprisingly fun--every time they go down that runway, you think: it's impossible. How can something like that lift off the ground and fly? But it always does. ;-D (Kudos to the Wright brothers).

Also, I've watched Into the West. Wonderful series! Very realistic and historically accurate, as far as I could tell. Of course I have a thing or two to say about their erratic character follow-up. Advice to Steven Spielberg: if you're going to put your name on something, make sure their plot development is flawless! Really, we've come to expect better from you!

But other than that, it was wonderful. ;-)

And also, I'm reading Jane Austen and vintage science fiction simultaneously; an activity I highly recommend to everybody.

So, there you have it.

Current Project

So. . .I was inspired by Grosgrain to try to make my own clothing. I thought to myself, what an easy, sensible, relaxing way to add to one's wardrobe! Without the stress of shopping! (I love shopping, until I realize I've been at the mall two hours, tried on five dozen things and bought nothing, either because it doesn't fit right or because I'm a hopeless miser, and the lights and the noise make my ears buzz until I can't think--and I flee to the car (skipping the bookstore in exasperation and exhaustion) with nothing to show for a whole day spent in the city).

I chose a pattern rated easy--a little sundressy, 1947 number (same year as my car. . .so I had to get it). I thought I'd fly through the thing in a day or two, after cutting-out, of course.

Ha. Ha ha. Clearly I need a lot of practice. Here's my chosen pattern and fabric:

I'll skip the trauma and heartbreak of the cutting-out. Well, actually it wasn't that bad, I managed quite fine by myself, except for a few small glitches I won't bother to elaborate on--but I suppose that was only because you don't have to read the directions to cut out a pattern. The direction page is a real tear-jerker, albeit in an unconventional way.

Well, in defense of Butterick and Co:

I am an incompetent beginner. At least, I've never sewn clothing on my own before. I don't understand their sewing-circle lingo, which is so familiar to Butterick's steady, regular customers. However . . .

Things would have been a whole lot easier if the instructions had been put clearly and understandably. However, with the evidence given I could only assume that their main interests lie in preserving ink and paper, because directions were sparse and not that helpful to people who actually need guidance. It makes me wonder what a "hard" pattern is. Don't save trees! Make things easy on us!

The top is self-lined. So you cut out two of everything (four fabric pieces in all). I assumed this meant "just sew everything together like normal, only with twice the thickness you would usually deal with." My mother expressed some doubts, but after reading the incomprehensible directions left looking dazed and confused, now unsure what I was supposed to be doing, and what a "self-lined" garment was at all.

Well, it soon became apparent that I was doing everything quite wrong. . .apparently I needed to act as if I was making two bodices. Then later I would sew them together, so there would be no raw edges. Hence the word 'lining.'

Well, this called for me taking everything apart after I'd sewn the whole bodice together. I probably just should have plugged along and done things my way, but I'm trying to actually learn how to sew.

Somewhere in this time I went outside and threw sticks at the basketball hoop. Hard. (It was the easy alternative to bursting into tears and throwing a Scarlett O'Hara fit on the floor). However, I have notoriously bad aim when angry, so one stick sort of missed and dented my dad's truck/experiment. I think it was the one he wants only for spare parts. . .but afterwards I was almost reconciled to the fact of ripping apart everything I'd spent the best part of a lovely day doing.

I suppose it's enough to say that after three and a half hours I'd almost gotten past step one.

And then of course, today brought more drama. We forgot to get a zipper, so that will halt progress for a little while, but reading the instructions as to how to put the zipper in left me wondering if I shouldn't arrange some sort of protest outside the Butterick building. Not only are their directions unfathomable, but their "helpful" illustrations only serve to confuse things more.

Now I wish I'd never read it--I think I knew how to put a zipper in, before, and now I'm only filled with doubts. It's the One Ring of instructions--you want to use it so bad--it seems as if it could be nothing but good to use it--and when you do you're left exhausted and deceived. I now have total sympathy for Boromir. The effects it has on your personality are just unaccountable. (For those of you who are uninitiated, I'm referring to The Lord of the Rings).
So today, after resewing the front of the bodice for the sixth or seventh time--I do not exaggerate, that's probably an understatement--I finally got it right! With some ugly puckers right in front. Then I realized I'd sewn the sides wrong . . .

All in all I haven't learned much more about sewing, but I'm an expert at ripping out seams!

I've been working on this for about a week now. Also, I had (of course) chosen and orchestrated the pieces I wanted in front. Well, a few days ago I'm taking out some seams, ho-humming my way along, when suddenly the (brand-new) sewing scissors (that belong to my sister) jam, for no apparent reason whatsoever. As usual, I used brute force to fix them, without thinking about possible consequences, and--SNIP--it cut out a nice little triangular flap in the very front of the bodice as I made it close properly. I ended up gluing it. I can't sew it, that's for sure. Then I'd have a thread-wrapped cocoon-shaped pucker in the front of my dress, and that would be worse.

So, my "easy" dress is nearly done. However, I'm beginning to think buying clothing is much cheaper and simpler. The money I'll have to pay for counseling in regards to all the anger and depression this dress-making has caused would have justified a Marc Jacobs evening gown.

But never mind that. I'm planning a nice trip to the mall to relax after the whole traumatic experience is over. Wearing my perfectly-fitting, imperfectly-made new dress. Hopefully.