when wardrobe disaster strikes

So, as anyone around the mid-Atlantic/northeastern region of the US knows at this point, a big stormy mess of doom is coming straight for us. (Particularly my area, if the fact that the Weather Channel is hanging out at the beach I visit every summer is any indication. It's rather weird to see a beach and boardwalk I'm actually familiar with on tv!) So, since the big concern is power outages and water, one of the main preparations today was catching up on my laundry. No big deal, right?

Except that somehow, despite the fact that I NEVER keep pens in my pockets, a pen somehow got stuck in with one of my loads and ran through the dryer. (Since I'm living at my parents' until after the wedding, my dad is the most likely culprit--we're guessing it must have somehow gotten left in the washer and then lost amidst my clothes.) The result is that the entire load basically got ruined.

Some of it wasn't so bad--the clothes I wore to paint at my fiance's house last night, for instance. A pair of pajamas that I got for Christmas last year got it pretty bad, but at least I just wear those to sleep in. The bigger problems were that nearly all of the t-shirts, the hoodie sweatshirt, and several pairs of the jeans I wear to work also got it pretty bad. (All thrifted, and most I only wear to work because they just don't fit right, but I did have one pair that fit well enough that I wear them outside of work, too. So now I'm just down to 3 pairs of "real" jeans, and I can only wear the skinny jeans with a limited number of tops. Boo.) My one brown pair of pants that I wear at least once a week, even though they're too short (I've been holding out until I have time to make some), also seem to have gotten a little, though it's not quite as noticeable. And aside from those cute pjs that I've had less than a year, this is what's making me the saddest...
This was one of my outfit pics from this past week--all me-made except the boots. The top was safe because that was from a different load, but my teal microfiber skirt, which has become a staple this fall, did get some ink splatters. Another me-made that I wore yesterday met the same fate. I'm trying soaking those and the work t-shirt that got it the worst in a combination of detergent and oxy-clean to see if it will help. The two me-mades might be salvageable, because the skirt is dark enough that the ink just looks like a smudge instead of an obvious stain, and the top has a kind of splotchy (on purpose) dye job to begin with. The black ink is an obvious difference, but unless I missed a spot, it looks like both splatters are on the back, and so I might be able to hide it by leaving my hair down. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but it's rather upsetting to consider that these two things might be ruined, when they're both still actively involved in my wardrobe!

But this also leaves me with a dilemma--as much as I wanted to avoid buying clothes this fall, I do wonder if I should just replace the brown trousers and the one pair of jeans. I know I could sew them, and I have the fabric to do so, but I just don't have the time until the wedding dress is done. And that does put a dent in my wardrobe.

To leave this on a happier note, because I'm still way more upset about this than I probably have a right to be--after all, they're just clothes and it's not like I don't have more, I just get emotionally attached to the ones I spent time sewing in particular--here's my other fun outfit from last week. Again, both pieces of clothing are me-mades (the green Vogue dress from last fall and the Junior Mints jacket, again. Thankfully, this particular challenging-to-make dress was NOT in this load of laundry!)

To the bat-cave!

Ok, not really.....but looking at this picture does make me think of Batman's signal...

What this actually is is my Camille shrug, which I hastily wet and blocked before work this morning (and added a few extra pins when I got home.) I finished knitting and binding off the second sleeve last night. So all I have left to do on this, after it dries, is to sew up the sleeves and then knit some ribbing around the non-sleeved edges of that square. And weave in the ends, of course.

 I've really enjoyed making this one, actually--the lace chart was actually kind of fun to knit. And after the whole nightmare with a similar diamond-like pattern on my Cadence sweater, that really surprised me.

And I think this is the first knitting project where I've stepped back and thought to myself that this actually looks really good. I can't stop staring at this picture of the back. It looks exactly the way it's supposed to, and so intricate, and wow, I can't believe that I essentially made that out of string. That's the sort of thing I never thought I'd be able to do. I'm getting really excited to get this done and be able to wear it!

To change topics....there's been a lot of hate going around the blogs I've been reading lately over Blogger's highly annoying change in word verification. I'm not a fan either--if they wanted to make it harder to fake, fine. But did they really have to make all of the letters fuzzy and illegible, too? And cram things so closely together that you can't tell if something is an l or an i or what? I actually went ahead and turned the word verification on here off so I can stop annoying people. Only problem is, then I got hit by 3 anonymous spam comments within the first 36 hours. So I have a favor to ask...I tried switching it again to the open ID comment with the verification still off, to block those anonymous comments. If you happen to comment on this, would you be so kind as to let me know if that worked to get the word verification off? I know I don't have the most popular blog out there, and I'm ok with that....but when you regularly average in the single digits for number of comments, it's a really big disappointment to have one of those comments be a spam ad for some awful website that you could never look at while at work or around small children or without riddling your computer with viruses. (So in other words, the kinds of websites I don't want to go to anyway.) Thanks in advance for the help!

Edit, 3/10: New question for any of you who have turned off the word verification--have you been having weird issues with pop-ups since? I've noticed a definite increase in the number of pop-up windows in the last couple of days, since I initially turned it off. I have my computer running a virus scan as I type, but I've also had a lot of  extra notifications about tracking cookies and such. I can't think of anything else I would have done in the last few days that would cause this, which makes me wonder if I should just set it back the way it was with the word verification, but I'm also not sure if it's a case of the damage already being done. Thoughts?

Figures....

Just when I get my computer up and running again, the internet dies! My family was completely internet-less yesterday due to the router crashing. It's amazing how reliant on it I've become. No checking email or craft blogs or Facebook. No printing anything from my computer because the network was down and I don't have my own printer. (Actually, I'm still having that problem...apparently something didn't connect when I hooked it back up.) I'm in the midst of a massive cd/iTunes reorganization spree, and I couldn't even upload cds that hadn't been fully ripped because iTunes needs the internet to find the track listings! But the internet is back, and I can stop twitching now.

Of course, this means no more catching up on posts. But if all goes according to plan, this post will be updated tomorrow afternoon with project pictures and pattern reviews. Just have to take the pics first...

Friday Favorites, Episode 37

Kind of a slow week this time-- now that it's almost the end of January, most of what I've been finding out there in the way of tutorials and such have been for Valentine's Day projects.

I hate Valentine's Day. Always have. Red and pink (especially pink) are two of my least favorite colors, diamonds are not this girl's best friend (especially after watching Blood Diamond-- I don't think I could ever get a piece of new diamond jewelry with a clean conscience now!), hearts are too cutesy for my taste, and most of all, I think real love should be celebrated any and every day of the year, not just because Hallmark tells you to on February 14th. Besides, let's face it, when you've been single for as long as I have, it's just torture. I don't need to be any more aware of my singleness, thank you.

Ok, enough ranting. On with the projects.

Ironically, the first one is for a Valentine's related project, but this is one I can really get behind. You know those candy hearts that taste like chalk and have tacky little messages on them like "U B MINE" and "LUV U" and crap like that? Well, over at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, they decided to improve on these. #1, by making them edible (shortbread cookies instead of chalk) and then by stenciling their own messages on them. These ones were taken from classic LOLCats phrases, and therefore are already far superior to the average candy heart. (Incidentally, they do list some good uses for the regular candy hearts. Such as ammunition for a Lego trebuchet. Or sidewalk chalk on the cheap.)

On to more creatively fun projects. On Crafting a Green World this week, they demonstrated how to recycle the soles of old shoes (I'm guessing the ones that are too beat up for even the thrift store) into fun new rubber stamps. I have made my own stamps before, from the linoleum blocks as part of a printmaking project in my high school art class. It was a lot of fun, and I wouldn't mind trying it again. So I'll have to keep this in mind next time I wear out a pair of shoes. They also featured a link for a by-the-yard fabric made from a blend of hemp and recycled plastic bottles (link to one of the fabrics on their Etsy site.)

Generally, I'm not one drawn to old-fashioned vintagey sort of things that look like they could have come from my grandmother. I'm just not a pearls-and-lace-and-pink sort of girl. (Actually, for the most part, none of those things actually would come from either of my crafty grandmothers.) But I really loved this next project, probably because it can double as a very natural-looking thing (and I do love my nature stuff!) Over at Everyday Beauty, she made flowery twinkle lights using a strand of Christmas lights and....sewing pattern paper! You know that's something all of us sewing-types have a ton of. And this would be a great use for that pattern that was a total flop, or that just wasn't your style anymore. Or maybe even the leftover pieces cut off of the side and such as you're cutting out the pattern.

Since it's been a bit of a quiet week due to the impending holiday, I'm also going to mention some of my favorite things from Wardrobe Refashion as of late. Melynda made a beautiful applique and reverse-applique shirt from a Smirnoff tee. Elizabeth is making a steampunk costume from a thrifted dressing gown. And Veronica made a great 60's style dress from an appropriately-printed curtain.