Wardrobe Refashion - First Refashion of Sept/Oct

So I have signed up for another 2 month stint at Wardrobe Refashion. When this is done, I'll have been a member for 6 months. Why don't I just sign up for life? Well, because I'm going to Japan next year to teach English as a second language (gotta pay off my student loans somehow). Now, you can't expect me to live in Japan and not spend money. That's like leaving a kid in a candy shoppe. It'll probably be mostly fabrics and folk art stuff, but hey, I still want the option of opting out of WR without having to rescind a lifetime commitment.

Anyways, my first refashion of this stint was made from a shirt Mumsie got at Value Village for her brother, Wally:



Too bad for Uncle Wally that it didn't fit :( So Mum gave it to me, saying that she knew I could "do something with it." Hehe, she was right!



Toddalicious now has RAWR undies :D There was just barely enough fabric (Todd has a 34 inch waist, 36 inch low waist, and the shirt is "asian" XL, meaning it runs small). I've since adjusted the pattern I made from his old undies, as the original is a little snug. These are actually undies #2. I made the first ones out of that gorgeous blue patterned stretch satin in my Fall Fashion post. He is actually very happy with them, even though they are slightly snug. He IS disappointed that he has no air vent in the front, though. I guess I need to learn button plackets for undies...

Camping Swap is Good to Go! Plus Iraqi Bundles of Love (IBOL)

YAYYYYYYY!
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I sent my package to my partner and 6 of the other 8 camping cards. Somehow, 2 of my camping cards lost pieces in transit, so I'll fix them and send them off tomorrow. I can't WAIT to post what I sent my partner!!!! I'm really proud of one of the things I sent her, so much so that I wish I could have kept it :P We never do these awesome things for ourselves, though, do we? Hehe!
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If you want to check out the swap gallery, where we'll be posting our goodies as they're recieved, go HERE. The link in the first post is to our discussion thread.
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In other news, check out Iraqi Bundles of Love. I thought it was a scam until I read his blog. I wish I could participate, but I won't make the September 7th send-out date due to lack of funds. I just spent 20 bucks on sending envelopes and a bubble mailer :P
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I Finally attached the photos to the post below.
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Fall Fashion to Look Forward To! And Why I'm Excited :D

Well, guess what? I took the last year off from school because I was burned out and actually managed to fail a few classes (including my thesis because I totally lost interest in doing research). The goal was to get my life in order by pondering my priorities, motivations and goals. I did alot of that. I also did alot of nothing :P Ok, well, not NOTHING, but not much.

So here I sit, less than 2 weeks away from my fifth year of university! Click the logo above if you want to check out my school's website. I'll be re-taking the math class I failed, and instead of doing a thesis or other full-year research project, I'm taking a half-year research project and a course called Applied Anthropology. Those three things are all I need to get my Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology (Honours Program, which is 4 years instead of 3). I'm rounding out my course-load with 5 Native Studies classes, which I've already taken... 4 of? Maybe 5. Or 6. I'd have to check my transcript. I'm wondering if it's enough credits to count as a minor. I have to take all 8 courses to qualify for yet another student loan. I'm already up to my eyeballs, but it's either that or give up on an education.

Naturally, going back to school necessitates a discussion of fashion! Having been out of the public eye for the last 16 months, my fashion choices were usually dictated by comfort and wearability. I chose a hoodie over a chic cashmere sweater, for example. Not to say that ALL of my "everyday" wardrobe is un-fashionable. I've been wearing my fringed black leather motorcycle jacket now that the evenings are getting distinctly cooler, and I've been wearing my purple wool/mohair overcoat at night almost all summer. Most of my tops are casual but generally "nice," like my sailor-striped tank tops with lingerie lace at the hems, or my extra-long tanks in hip colours like yellow, orange, olive and coral. I'm more upset about bottoms, which is why I have added the "angry face" tag to this post. Most of my nicer jeans are too small. Or rather, my butt is too big :( I hate to say it, but I've definitely put on weight. Ten pounds is NOT insignificant. Two of the pairs that fit are shredded at the knees. One of those pairs is getting scarily thin at the thighs and could fall apart any day now, (they ARE over a decade old, after all). My Calvin's are getting really worn at the hems. My bellbottoms shrank, so they're only barely of respectable length and get worn only when my other pants are dirty or when I don't care. Then there's my skirts! AGH! I bought *3* short skirts during spring of fourth-year (brand spanking new, so they were NOT cheap). I didn't even get to wear one of them. Now my butt is so large that they are OBSCENELY short!

So, now I shall discuss what I intend to do about these horrendous gaps in my fall wardrobe. First, I intend to EXERCISE. I have barely exercised in over a year. I have barely walked anywhere. I have been depressed, anxious about my future, and eating only once or twice a day. Hence the fatness. Secondly, I'm going to eat vegetarian as much as possible. Not to say that I'm cutting meat out. Just that I'm going to have alot of meals consisting of heaps and heaps of veggies. That will take care of my too-small jeans and my ultra-short skirts. It's not unusual for me to get results within a month when I actually *TRY* to be healthy.

I have alot of OUTRAGEOUS things that I enjoy wearing that my boyfriend just doesn't appreciate and that I've not even had much opportunity to wear lately. For example? Well, I have 2 waistcoats. Last autumn, I wore one over a sweatshirt with a Victorian-style brooch and Todd thought it was plain-and-simple wierd. Ditto with my fuschia genie-pants (NOT the same as those wretched things with the low crotch that look like you're wearing a diaper that someone for some godawful reason decided to resurrect from their 80s grave). Todd tries to ignore my motorcycle jacket because all that fringe makes his mind boggle. Let me apply the caveat that Todd does indirectly watch various iterations of Project Runway with me and can talk intelligently about fashion. There's just ALOT that he doesn't like. And now that he's seen Project Runway: Phillipines, he's always saying "If Aries was there, they'd be so screwed" or "This is crap compared to Phillipines." Ok, not always. He is slightly impressed with a design on occasion, and there is the rare "Hey, I like that!" Mostly it's "meh" or "too bloody weird" or "that looks stupid." Can't blame him, though, cuz half the time I agree :P

Stuff I really miss wearing? Well, I have an obscene white 80s belt with dangly bits at my pubis that I used to wear with my black corduroy blazer and Silver (the brand) jeans with snaps at the ankles. I used to play hackey-sack in my Steve Madden 4-inch stilleto sneaker boots. I really wish I could fit into my 70s denim catsuit (and by fit, I mean I *can* get into it right now, I just look like a sausage), as it is the pride and joy of my vintage clothing. Here it is almost 4 years ago:

So I have this thing with vintage clothes, for sure. It doesn't have to be vintage, just vintage-style. Retro, if you will. I have been keeping an eye on ModCloth for awhile now and *DROOL* I loooove their clothes! Simple tank dresses with gathered skirts, 40s-style shirtdresses (ok, ANYTHING 40s!), tulip skirts, puff sleeves, rompers, lumberjack shirts, ruffles, lace, a focus on shoulders... Wow, just, OMG! This season, there is just SO MUCH that is fashionable that I happen to *LOVE*!!!!

Like, how simple and cute is this?

Now if only BurdaStyle's JJ actually ends up in usable form instead of baggy and huge.

On an aside, I really really really HATE Blogspot's formatting. HATE IT. If you hadn't noticed before, I use a period in between my paragraphs, otherwise it refuses to preserve the double-return. On other occaisions it does THIS bullshit where I press enter once and it auto-double-returns. Halfway through a bloody post! Not to mention the picture-posting tool is a piece of garbage. It always wrecks my formatting (it adds a return between each paragraph for every effing photo you post!) and why is it that no matter where in the post my cursor is, the picture is posted to the TOP of the post??? I usually post things with the html straight out of photobucket, but when something isn't *IN* my photobucket (for example, I'm linking to a pic on someone else's website), I'm forced to use the picture-poster from hell. And I'm not packing up and leaving for the far more user-friendly TypePad. I'm established with too much info here, boohoo. I'll live. And complain.

Anyways, onwards to my fall fashion intentions! I have that Vogue jacket (view B) to finish up. Not exactly outerwear this far north, but I can leave my over-coat in the Anthro lounge (unless I wanna pony-up 10 bucks for a locker, which I haven't done in all the years I've been there).

Those are the fabrics. The green stretch-satin is the lining, the brown denim is the shell, and the bronze pleather is the accent fabric (piping and buttons), and all the exterior detail stitching is the same green as the lining. Like I said a couple posts ago, it's almost done. Just a matter of gittin'er done.

I bought some fabrics last time I was in Timmins, because Fabricland is having a moving-sale. Half-price, oooooh YEAH! I spent about $70 on well over $140 worth of supplies. I mentioned this a couple posts ago, so I'd better get to talking about it.

Here's the knits I bought, enough for at least three shirts with various combos of fabric as accents. The patterned fabric is like a bright olive green with white, 2 metres. The purple is more of a plum colour (it's pretty reddish), 2 metres. I bought only a half-metre of the pink with dots so that I wouldn't be tempted to use too much of it.

I might make something like this McCall's dress out of this GORGEOUS purple plaid wool suiting that I've been eyeballing since it was first released 2 winters ago. It went from 18 bucks per metre down to 12 per metre, down to 8 per metre in the discount area, and then with the moving sale, it became a whole 4 bucks per metre :D I bought 3 metres because I don't know precisely what I'll do with it.

There was this fabulous buttery-gold garment-vinyl in the remnant bin that my BF pounced on, thinking it'd be perfect to redo the driver's seat of his dad's Eddie Bauer Bronco. There was a total of 3.3 metres for $9.08 + tax. Too bad it's the wrong colour! It's too light, and they DID carry a slightly darker wheat colour that would match better, but it was only half-off, not remnant-bin. So I'm pondering making a short trench coat for myself out of it.

This isn't fall, but I promised I'd talk about the stuff I bought at the sale, didn't I? Todd found this gorgeous border-print fabric the previous time we'd been there (to get hunter-orange fleece for his dad's hunting shirt). I snapped it up for half-off (I think it was $5 per metre) simply because Todd liked it so much. The colours didn't quite turn out in the picture; it's lighter and not so FUSCHIA. I also got a pattern to use for it. I'll be changing the skirt to reflect ACTUAL 50s gathering techniques (at the sides or all the way around; it looks so dumb with it at the front and back). I'm doing either view A or B (sleeves or not), because I like that bateau neckline that was so popular at the time. *EDIT* I found out there's pockets on the sides made from panels that extend below the waistline from the bodice. Now I'm not sure how I'm going to alter the gathering. I'll jerry-rig something, I'm sure.

The other non-fall thing is going to be pretty cute and casual, but DEFINITELY summer, unless I visit the Phillipines or something. I figured I have one retro pattern with a full skirt, so here's a retro pattern with a straight skirt. I like view B the most, the yellow dress in the middle, as it is nice and simple for such a busy print.

An just cuz I'm at it, I'll show off the fabric I got for boyfriend-stuff. Todd is getting a pair of undies in the blue patterned stretch-satin and a long-sleeve button-down out of the fabulous plaid seersucker. Is it called seersucker? Puckery cotton, anyway.

There's some crafty things I may or may not try. I'm seriously loving the slashed top tutorial that got second place on ThreadBanger's Generation-T recon contest. The creator calls it a "fringe halter top," but it's not completely fringe, just the bottom is. You can see the photo-tute on the ThreadBanger forum. I would do it differently, though. I'd make it from scratch using a seperate collar and waistband because I want the waist part to sit at my actual waist by being tighter than the rest of the shirt. I'll figure it out.

The other thing I may or may not do involves psychotic shoulder pads. Do you read OutsaPop Trashion? Well here's all the posts about shoulder pads, and the third one down (DIY AnyWho Shoulder Decor) will lead you to AnyWho's tutorial for making removal shoulder decorations. It's weird, and it's gonna be out of style by this time next year or sooner (just like those godawful atrocities known as "hammer pants" *SHUDDER*), so I'm not sure if I'm willing to do something so wacky in a city that's not exactly known for it's fashion scene. But hey, I wandered around campus with dangly things at my crotch, and in a wool cocktail skirt and Steve Madden sneaker boots, and a 70s denim catsuit, and a pink polyester 80s neo-Victorian blouse. I went to the gay bar in denim short-shorts with silver sparkley tights under them (some people loved it, some thought it was way too hoochy). Then there's the matter of my baby-pink fur-trimmed down-filled parka. Yeah. I've worn some wierd things. Maybe I CAN handle the shoulder pads :P (Hunting down the original source of the photo below, all the way to Facehunter through Style Copycat, took some effort!!! Click it to go there).

There's a few other things I'd like to talk about, but this post is already pretty long! Holy crap, my brain vomited all this out and now I think I should go eat something :P Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments :D

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"Etsy Treasure Chest" Giveaway! Courtesy of "Geek Details"

Amanda of Geek Details is offering up a print out of her shop to 3 lucky people! I, however, ADORE her buttons! My faves?
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It's okay, Pluto. I'm not a planet either.
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I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of the ninjas that hide in the dark.
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If you can read this, you're in my AGGRO RANGE.
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If you want in on this giveaway, go to Etsy Treasure Chest's post about it.
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Not so FAIL! How I saved some stuff, and things that turned out :D

Let me introduce you to "Mo" the mohawked teddy bear:
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I saved his little nubby mohawk by picking it apart with a darning needle, then stitched on dark blue sparkle buttons for his little eyes, embroidered his little nose, and cut a piece off the felting-disaster of the mohawk hat for his cute little tail. My brother was in absolute awe to recieve his un-birthday gift! He was especially fond of the little Xs in his eyes and laughed at his little nub of a tail, and promptly dubbed him Mo. Mikey will be getting the new-and-improved mohawk hat for Christmas so he can match Mo.
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The other unbirthday presents were Mom's 8 foot purple wool/acrylic/mohair/whatever scarf that I posted quite awhile ago, which of course blew her away, and a crocheted balaclava for dad that I somehow managed to not take pictures of. I wasn't happy with the patterns I found online, so I ended up making it up as I went. It is a bit snug to shove over his head because of the neck area, but once it's on, it fits PERFECT! Hehe, when I called him up a couple weeks ago and asked him to take some measurements of his head he was a bit confuzzled but went and took them whilst I was on "hold." I'll see if I can get pix of it soon.
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On the sewing front, I haven't been idle! Just haven't gotten the photos onto my computer, which I'll hopefully do later today.
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I butchered a Kirkland Lake Northern College shirt by tearing off the neckline and sleeves, taking in the sides, and doing that cool weaving thing on the lower back. I got it free from a friend who can't even remember how he ended up with 3 men's smalls (which fit NO ONE in his family :P), so when I saw them sitting on his cabinet I was like, coooooool, a woofie! The KLNC emblem is a wolf (actually I think Northern College in general uses the wolf), and despite the horrid cheapness of the print (bloody iron-ons), I saw the potential right away! I only took one off him, though. I didn't want to seem greedy :P
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I also tore into my "Gimme My Timmies" shirt and turned it into a very cute little top that sadly looks a bit like a cheerleader outfit! The shirt is brown and I took apart a beige longsleeve top that is the same colour as the printing for the waistband and the second ruffle, the first ruffle being more of the brown shirt. I'm not happy with the neckline because I had to seriously fudge this pleated... THING... into some semblance of a collar due to lack of fabric. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do about it yet, but at least the OVERALL effect is very cute. Todd, who is actually becoming more interested in my crafting adventures, was slightly disappointed that I didn't do the weaving thing, because he thinks the KLNC shirt is bloody hawt. Now every time I wear a tight shirt he says "you should do that slitted woven thing to this shirt," LOL!
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After that, I did something I had planned way back in February! I had been wandering around St. Vinnie's in Timmins and found myself in the crafting section (like usual), and though I don't usually find much (omg it's so hard to look through 4 boxes of patterns), I came across a poly-cotton knit that was AWESOME!!! It's definitely old-school ugly :D I don't know if it's 50s or 60s because it has an ugly floral print on beige in brown, mustard, burnt orange, burgundy, and sage, (sooo typical of 50s living rooms, hahaha!) but it's a knit and I don't know when knits became popular for CLOTHING and not just stockings. So anyways, there seemed to be a meter of it or perhaps a smidge more, so I snatched it up and went looking through the longsleeve shirts, because I IMMEDIATELY knew I wanted it for the skirt of a dress! I found a burgundy top and a burnt orange top with which to work my evil :D Since then I have done much fashion sketching, and TWICE I have sketched what I wanted to do with that stuff. Well I FINALLY did it! It's a little off, in that the skirt turned out a smidge narrow (arg my butt is too wide, hurrah for pear-ness), but overall I LOVE it! I think I'll go back and see what I can do to widen the skirt, like making it a four-panel skirt as I do have a little of the floral fabric left over. Anyways, I gave the burgundy top an inset ruffled bib and open turtle neck out of floral fabric, and the turtle neck has a tie thingie that is super adorable :D The only thing I used the burnt orange shirt for so far is the waistband, and I don't know if I'll go any further with it. In actual fact, I may take the waistband out, cuz I'm not sure I like it.
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Right now on my table is most of a shirt. You'd think I woulda figured out how to do bibs, but seriously, this one is HARDER than the first one! The fabrics are chocolate brown cotton lycra for the body and fuschia cotton lycra for accents, so they're very slick and slippery. I did finally get the bib in and it looks... ok... Not professional quality, but not OH DEAR GOD I should rip it out. It's getting puffed short sleeves (gathered this time, not pleated like the green polka dots shirt), and I'm debating putting a fuschia band around each sleeve, but definitely the collar will be fuschia.
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I just finished a hat for Mumsie, out of purplish variegated acrylic I got super cheap at WalMarx. Bought two balls, only needed one (but hey, they came in a package together). I learned double crochet (treble crochet to the Brits) for the lower edge and it looks really good :D This is her Christmas gift. I have quite a few people to make stuff for, so I'm getting a head start. It just needs the enormous pompom I have yet to make and c'est fini. I've got this fabulously soft yarn for Dad's gift, and I wanted to make him a Euro scarf (super long and somewhat skinny) but, because I have 6 effing balls of it, I may make him a little sweater vest lined in flannel. He doesn't often wear scarves, and now that he has a new balaclava, I'm not sure he'd even need one.
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What's next? Arg, I guess I'll do that mending I got shanghaid into, and then perhaps finish my fabulous mystery skirt that is STILL half-done in my storage box. Next post, I'll discuss what I got from Fabricland's awesome moving sale (although I want to go back for more! ACK!).
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EPIC FAIL!

This post is gonna be all about my fails :P
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First up, faux-hawk hat! DISASTER! I put it in the wash and it is felted into a little nub that extends the whole of 3/4 inch from the hat :( The little matching teddy bear that I gave a mohawk was likewise a felting-fail. I got some more blue wool, so I'm going to cut off both mohawks and try again without the picking-apart of the yarns. I'm going to "follow the instructions" this time :P
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That waves dress from months ago? FAIL! Using my modified 60s dress pattern, it was not how I wanted it at all. So I decided I would modify it into a halter-type dress, like a pillowcase dress. It ended up too small :( I can get it on, but it's reeeeeally tight. It would look better on someone with no boobs or perhaps a young teen. I've been occasionally wracking my brain as to how I might salvage the fabric, at least. I'm kinda clueless.
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How bout the Lakeport Honey Lager tee-into-blouse? Sorta-FAIL! LOL :P I put it away because I was getting way too effing frustrated. The pattern itself was too large, so I kept having to undo stuff and take it in. This is not easy with knits. The neckline facing turned out pretty shitty, so I redid that, and now it looks only slightly shitty. I did some embroidery on the print, though. The girl's hair is chain-stitched with three colours and it looks FAB, and the bee's butt is satin stitched. I'll finish it eventually :P For the pattern itself, I'm really not impressed. I need to figure out how to make the back of the neck not all gape-y. I think it's cuz my shoulders are very square and broad. My stance is more erect than average, so I guess I need to move the armholes back like I had to for a jacket that's half-done in my supplies box.
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OMG, the jacket... Vogue 8301 (view B) is a PAIN IN THE ASS! It's labelled as easy, which is UTTER POPPYCOCK! If I didn't have to make so many bloody alterations to the damn thing, sure, maybe it would have been easy. I had to move the shoulder line rearward, broaden the back AND move the armhole rearward to compensate, shorten the waist, lengthen the peplum, draft an inside shoulder yoke and front facing, draft the lining... Ok, I think was it. The reason it's not done? Figuring out how to put piping and a zipper into the front at the same time. I think I know how to, now, but I was awfully fed up! And because I had to shorten the waist, the front panel thingies are shorter than the buttonhole guide, so I think I'll just sew the buttons right onto it, no undo-age! Screw that! Want to know when I started it? LAST AUGUST! Ya. It's been sitting in my bin for 11 months.
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So there ya have it. My great big sewing FAILs.
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What am I up to?

I've been doing alot of crochet. I learned how to increase and decrease! I really wanted to make a faux-hawk hat for my little brother. I started crocheting with black acrylic yarn, but I either did something terribly wrong, or the pattern has something wrong with it. More likely it's just me :P It ended up eight-sided instead of six-sided, somehow. That made it parabolic-ish, and it was tres tres wonky. So I undid it all and went on the hunt around the interwebs. I found some hats with flappy bits like I wanted, but I didn't know how to double-crochet (still don't, really; only tried a swatch, and it was ok, but haven't actually made something with dc yet), and most of those patterns wanted dc, tbc, hdc and other wierd stitches. I finally found a simple beanie pattern in single crochet, though. I used the technique suggested by the first tute to make the earflaps.
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After that, I snagged a bunch of gray-blue, light gray and dark gray wool felting yarn from Todd's mum and started the LOOOOOONG process of cutting and weaving little strips into a mohawk. If I ever make this hat again, I'll hold it to 3 or 5 rows, but this one for Mikey has 7 rows. Then I decided I wanted it to felt PERFECTLY. So I picked apart each and every single piece of mohawk yarn. Then I combed every row. It's now a wonderfully fuzzy multicoloured mohawk. I just have to toss it in the wash in a pillow case and c'est fini!
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Project deux is a surprisingly large amigurumi teddy bear (now that I know how to increase and decrease!). A woman on Craftster wanted a few people to test her pattern and I decided to jump on the chance to try something new. I think I shoulda snagged a 3 mm or 3.5 mm from Todd's mum, because the 4 mm must be too big. The teddy is sposed to end up 14 cm tall, but if his head is this huge, he's gonne be ENORMOUS. I'm making him out of black felting yarn, though, so I think I'll just felt him :D Then he'll shrink, and if I comb him, he'll be slightly furry-ish.
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I'm also taking part in a swap! YAY! It's the Camper's Swap on Craftster. This is only my second swap. My first was the March Birthday Swap. Thankfully, I've been partnered wih a fellow Canadian, so no shipping internationally, YAY! It's only a 4 point swap, but it's gonna be pretty intensive anyway because we are making little travel cards featuring a camping location that we like (not telling what location I picked, in case a fellow swapper mosies on over here). I've already got the layout for mine on the computer, though I may change it up. Once I have the layout all decided, I'm printing out seven of them (cuz there's 8 in the swap including me), then papercrafting my little heart out :D I got supplies from the dollar store and some goodies from Canadian Tire to include.
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I also had an AHA moment while at Dollarama. I'm not gonna say what I'm making, but I'm hoping that my swap partner likes it! It's something I've never done before, and I'm pretty excited. I still need to MacGyver a couple things, cuz I'm not going to buy more supplies if I can help it. It's probably more art than craft, because it's something meant for display, rather than use, but it IS camping related.
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On a more personal matter (SKIP THIS PART IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ MY WHINING)
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I've wanted a drink for over two weeks. I haven't been to the LCBO since the second week of June. I'm getting REALLY bloody twitchy about it. Crap with the boyfriend isn't helping matters. HAH, and he's the one who wants me to quit drinking! I can handle being an alcoholic so long as I stay sensible enough not to let it rule my life (I have my father as a perfect example of what alcoholism can do), but how much more of HIM ruling my behaviour can I take? Oh, he's not jealous or anything like that, but he's so bloody MEAN sometimes, which of course influences how I behave. I know he doesn't like me drinking a half bottle of wine at a time while depressed (oh, but it's perfectly ok to get SMASHED off a WHOLE bottle at a party *rolls eyes*), but that doesn't mean he's right to get snippy just because I WANT a drink. I'm not some alky-crazed teenager anymore. And that's just one facet of my problems with him. He's been bloody irrational for two days, and bitchy for weeks prior. He's like me with PMS, minus the hormonal excuse. For once, I think I love him more than he loves me, and if you know our history, that's bloody wierd. And he wonders why I want a drink... .