Tie me up! Untie me!

Going with the random song inspiration for this post title...one band that my brother really likes that he introduced me to is called mewithoutYou, and while the song isn't a happy one at all (which is why I'm not linking to it), the title certainly fits this dress. I finished it on Saturday, but didn't have a chance to do the final pressing until today. And since I also didn't have a chance to clean anything and I'm feeling a little under the weather, everything will be modeled by Donna for now. Hopefully I can break this one out for MMM, provided we get some nice warm days.

It doesn't really look like much here. Just a basic tank of a dress. Those funny little protrusions around the hips are the side sashes, which are super loooooooong and drag quite a ways on the floor when standing like this.

And this is all of the various ways of wearing it that I've come up with so far. Going from left-to-right, then top-to-bottom, the first 6 pictures are options that were given in the pattern, minus the second one is off-the-shoulder in the pattern and I can't simulate that too well on an armless dummy. The second half of the pictures were me playing around with other options--row 2 to the right is the front and back of a more asymmetric look, while the last 3 of the bottommost row were me experimenting with another wrap look and doing some different things in the back. I guess I'll have to wait and see how these various looks work on me, but I'm curious to hear what your favorites are!

I didn't have a whole lot of work left to do on this, so I also did some minor reconstruction projects while I was watching tv with my boyfriend that day.

I made this shirt back in college, and it's served me well. But the sleeves were a bit too short to be comfortable for me, since I was constantly having to tug it down over my wrists. I've been thinking for at least a year that I should just hem them shorter, so I finally bit the bullet and did it.

I also had this dress, which I purchased from ModCloth nearly 2 1/2 years ago. I wore it to a friend's wedding, and haven't worn it since. It ended up being shorter on me than I'm comfortable wearing on a regular basis, especially to church (which is where most of my dresses tend to come into play.) But I still liked the style and especially the color.

So, though I felt slightly bad because it was also a bit pricier than I usually go for, I re-hemmed it to a shirt length. And I think I'll get much more use out of it this way. The first picture is as is. For the second, I took the part of the skirt that I'd hemmed off and turned it into a sash, so I have that tied around the waist. And for the lower two pictures, I was experimenting with my elastic belts, both of which were (appropriately enough) also purchased at ModCloth. I think I like the self-tie and brown belt looks the most so far.

As for my Palette Challenge, I haven't really started the jeans yet (saving the handwork for my usual Thursday night dinner/tv time with the boyfriend, since he doesn't mind me doing crafty things while we watch shows), but I did get the blouse traced out of the BurdaStyle book last night. And I did get part of the blouse cut out today. It's just stripe-ish enough of a fabric to slow things down. So hopefully I can find some time to finish that off before the weekend starts.

I'm thinking it's a sign...

I went ahead and ordered the dress from Modcloth this afternoon. The clincher? This T-shirt that was in the sale section. Of course I had to own it! (Can you blame me?)

wedding outfits and sewing phobias

I think I'm caving; I'm 99% settled on buying a dress to wear to my friend Tracey's upcoming January wedding, instead of making one.

This is the dress I've picked out, from modcloth.com. I like the kind of 60s-ish look to it, love the color (though I'm hoping it's not too close to that of the bridesmaid dresses--Cassie, if you're reading this, help me out!), and I think it's a simple enough style that, with the right accessories, I could wear this for both warmer or colder weather (would need to find a sweater and tights to wear with this, and possibly shoes since I'm not sure either my black heels or my ill-fitting brown ones would work--I'm thinking if I can find a pewter-ish colored flat in my size, that would be perfect for both the look and accommodating any chance of icy parking lots!). And therefore I could be justified in paying the $53 for it. (And free shipping if I also get the cardigan that I fell in love with from there!) But still, I'm hesitating....buying a sweater is one thing, because that's something I can't really do myself. But for some odd reason, part of me is feeling like I'm failing a bit or copping out for buying a dress instead of sewing one. Probably from spending so much time on the Wardrobe Refashion bandwagon, where buying new = bad. I'm telling myself that at least I'm supporting a smaller business and independent designers. And I really don't have time to sew a dress, especially with all of the stuff for my room still in the queue. But honestly, after the last several clothing project fails, I think part of me is a little afraid to sew clothes again. Weird, huh? I need to find a way to get over that. (And I also need to go to work! Yikes!)