Date Lunch!

Two weeks ago, I took half a day off of work on a Wednesday to go to Madrid NM with the hubby for a lunch date.  It was such a great day!

I wore my green crazy high-heals that I got from my bestie for my birthday, a white blouse that I made, and a pair of amazing high waisted pants from Modcloth!  I LOVE these pants!!!  I wish I could buy several back-up pairs (my usual thing when I find a pair of jeans that fits well),  but they were $80 bucks, so that is probably not happening.  Maybe not.  Okay, I might do it. 

I really love how this outfit turned out.  The blouse was a completely modified pattern from Gertie's New Book For Better Sewing.  The fabric is so pretty and light.  I bought it to be a lining, but he girl who cut it for me at the fabric store said, "don't you dare!  This fabric is too pretty to be on the inside of anything!" so I decided she was right and made this instead.

I have been making a lot of blouses from my adapted pattern (I made it so you can pull it over your head-no buttons required!) and I plan on making a lot more.  I have never had much luck making tops that I actually want to wear, so I am pretty proud of this one.  I want to get better at making tops so that I can wear jeans a bit more often next fall.  I still love dresses, but there is something just a bit sexier about jeans with heals, in my opinion. 

Jacket: Anthropologie, top by me, pants: Modcloth, shoes were a gift. 

Elizalex #4- A day at the zoo!

We went to the zoo last weekend (there was a new baby rhino AND a one day old baby giraffe!) and I wore my newest Elizalex which I finished only the night before!  I really love this dress, especially because it is the only one that fits me perfectly in the chest.

Baby rhino and its mom.

Okay, so here is the lazy girls guide to a full bust adjustment:  If you are between sizes, start from the size larger bust measurements, add a bit more, and then size down at the waist.  Those are pretty useless directions I know, but that is what I finally did that worked for me.  I figured out what would work for this pattern so that my boobs wouldn't get squished at all.  A-mazing.  Hopefully this technique works on my next pattern because I am for sure going to try to make it work again. 

Anyways, here is my last (for a while) Elizalex, this time with a long skirt.  I also added some length at the the waist for a slightly different fit. 

Man oh man, this is my favorite Elizalex yet.  AND it has pockets!  Yay for me, I am so awesome I can hardly stand it. 

I got this fabric for my birthday form my friend Kimmi, and the wheels in my head immediately started turning towards a long Elizalex. I am so glad I went for it!

So there you have it- the Elizalex is a great, easily adaptable pattern, that I highly recommend.  I still want to make one with the skirt provided one of these days, but I have to get up the nerve to try that again. 

It might not be for a while though because I have several new patterns that I am just itching to try!  I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait!  Ahhhh!!!!  I love sewing so so much!!!!!

Outfit post: Lady in Red

I LOVE wearing red.  It is just such a flattering color on me, and really, I think, most people.  I got this dress at Downtown Disney this February, and have worn it a lot since then. I wore it most recently this last Monday to the office, then to a local restaurant called Cool Water Fusion, that I would also like to recommend if you are ever in Albuquerque. Great food, and a nice atmosphere.  :)    

 I love how this dress looks paired with these thrifted vintage heals because the color match of the white and red is so perfect. 

Dinner out with the hubby, and a cute dress.  What could be better? 

New Patterns and Fabric!

Last weekend, I got these three lovely fabrics in the mail:



And I also recently bought a handful of new patterns, so I can hardly think about anything other than sewing right now!  This is the cover art from the new patterns:

 

The first pattern that I really wanted to try was Butterick B5813, but I was a bit nervous to get started. It is a pretty complicated pattern, and I really didn't want to waste my beautiful fabric! 


I LOVE the drawings on the cover, but, as I have intestines, my waist doesn't look quite like the one pictured.  This makes it hard to tell what the pattern will really look like on a real girl. 

Also, patterns are sized with so much vanity sizing, it is a frustrating process trying to get an accurate measurement without a lot of trial and error.  This pattern took a lot of adjusting, also considering the fact that there is a 12 inch difference between my hips and my waist, and I generally need to size up in the bust too.  Yes folks, I have my work cut out for me on this one.  BUT, miraculously, so far it is coming out so so well!  here is what it looks like thus far:

The pattern I am second most excited about is this one:

It is intended to be a 1940's/ 1950's style robe, but I am going to make it a bit shorter, use cotton or rayon, and turn it into a wrap dress.

I would love to get three new dresses and one pencil skirt done by my first trip ever to New York coming up May 6.  Not too ambitious, right?  Yeah right.  I also have some unselfish sewing planed, but it is hard to put down these beautiful shinny new patterns for even a second!  I can't wait to see how they all turn out. 

Elialex # 3- Birthday Tea!

This dress was kind of a nightmare to make, not gonna lie.  I should have given up on it several times, but for some reason, I just couldn't let it go. 

Below we have the first "finished product" with the skirt that came with the book this time.  Admittedly, it had been slightly altered because, for one thing, the skirt was about a foot longer than even pictured.  Yikes!  Still, it looked pretty great from the front, right? 

And then we have the back...WTF, right?  Needless to say, I would not wear this out of the house this way.  I'm sure this was partially the pattern not being right for my big butt, and partially user error.  Either way, this was bad bad bad! 

So, I tried to make it a peplum shirt, but the zipper still made the back poke out horribly. 

 I really didn't want to start over because-just look at the pretty green ribbon I had added as accent!  I didn't want it to get ruined when I took out the zipper, but luckily, it made it through.  Incidentally, I only added this ribbon in the first place because I had messed up on the lining and I wanted something pretty to cover that up. 

SO, eventually I got up the nerve to try again, and used the last scraps of this lovely brocade that I had left, and made a whole new skirt, and added a whole new zipper, and walla!  I fixed it!  Jer (the hubby) also complained that it was too long, so I made it quite a bit shorter.

Ready for it?  Elialex dress number three!  Here I am with my husband at yet another birthday event for me.  Turning 30 means people have to pay attention to you a lot and tell you how great you are.  I highly recommend the experience.  The necklace and earrings that I am wearing in some of the pics was a present form my folks that I got at the tea.  :)

Don’t I look cute in my little fitted version?  Let me tell you, this dress was a pain in the butt!!!  Even in these pictures it hadn’t gone through its final transformation.  I recently added some black lace to the waist to cover up some puckering in the back (yet another mistake!).

  What a success form a total failure, right?  The lesson here- sometimes your mistakes can help you to create something even better than what you expected.  It even looks fairly good on the inside!

My shoes are gold and sparkly! And that beautiful beaded burgundy purse (jealous, right?) was a present from my sis. Also, my husband is the cutest ever.  :)

And now for something completely different!  This is my sis Rachel and her boyfriend Mike, who were also at my birthday tea.  And look!  She wore a Peony dress that I made for her for her birthday last June!  It made me so happy to see her wear it. 

She styled it with these great tights too.  Isn't she beautiful?  Yes, she is. 

Anyway...back to me!  One more Elizalex's to come!  I have actually made two more, but one of them will be a gift so I can't show it yet.  But don't be sad! I'm sure I will make many more in the future (especially considering that I finally got the bust right on the next one!  

Style Inspiration: Yoon Eun-hye

I have a major style crush, and her name is Yoon Eun-hye.  Apparently, she is a very famous pop singer and TV star in Korea, but all I care about is how cute she is on the Korean soap opera, Lie To Me. 

She spends a lot of the show looking very ordinary, like so:

While also humiliating herself in various ways, or at very least, being chased by bees, like so:

 BUT THEN, she eventually gets this cute haircut, and also sometimes gets to dress like so!

 Honestly, she is supper cute no matter if she is entangled in drama of her own creating...


Or all glamed out and ready for romance.



She is adorable, and the show is adorable, and although it is a guilty pleasure, watching her reminds me of how I felt the first time I saw Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, or Audrey Tautou in Amelie.  She is so cute with such cute style, I don't even mind having to read the subtitles! 

I really don't know anything about Korean fashion trends, but if I were to believe what I see on Lie To Me (a bit like people in other cultures believing all Americana's dress like Real Housewives maybe), then I must assume that there is a heavy 1940's meets 1990's influence that is just to die for.  I wish I could get more stills from the actual show, but alas, this is the best I can do.  Still, what I really love is her hair, which I can show you here.  So much cuteness. 

If you are looking for some mindlessly cute entertainment, I really do recommend Lie To Me, which can be found on either the interwebs, or even on Netflix.  Bye bye Yoon Eun-hye.  Be seeing you soon!