but no more! i convinced lori that i was capable of hemming her newly acquired jeans, even reusing the original hem. i mean sure, i've paid for this for 3 pairs of my jeans in my lifetime, and at $18 a pop, that's a whole lot of money. but once i got them back and inspected the legs, i realized, heck, that's so easy! but maybe i hadn't actually tried this before. but maybe my sewing machine couldn't sew something so thick... hehe but, but, but... so lori trusted me. brave soul! and guess what! i did an even better job than the tailors did on my jeans!!! here's theirs:
notice the side seam through the middle of the leg doesn't necessarily match up with the side seam of the hem. come on! for $18?!? here's the worst of the 2 legs that i did:
hey, at least it's close! and here's the better leg:
booyah! almost exactly matched. that's the last time i get my jeans professionally hemmed! i'm even more professional! don't pity me for my height. i'll still be carded when i'm 40 and you won't!
and the batting is basted in! the quilt bottom is just a sheet of the gold and silver stripe fabric that make up the zigzags. i used 4 ply of thin quilt batting because laptop sleeves have to be padded! 
and might i note that quilting safety pins are an amazing invention. they are really just very bent safety pins. however, when you try to force a pin through that much batting, it is amazing to have the pin direct itself back up to the surface effortlessly!
even the grey/black spaces consist of squares with 2 triangles of fabric. a closeup:
ok, maybe one day i will make a giant bed quilt. just maybe.
here's a closeup of the herringbone pattern. the coloring is more like in the 1st photo though. the white, gold, and silver fabric will be for the 2 zig zag stripes travelling up the length of the sleeve.
i'm thinking of using this zig zag pattern from 
tonight i cut lots of squares! on my tiny purple self-healing cutting mat. attempting to use my roller cutter that maureen gifted to my sewing club back when i taught ages ago. this could be interesting...
for this jacket, i decided to do 4 buttons instead of 3, but i put them closer together so that the range of the buttons remains the same. the left panel is a little longer than the right. GAH! unfortunately there's not much I can do. oh well. it's not really all that noticeable. the side has an even worse problem: puckering at the bottom hem. DOUBLE GAH! people at work to whom i showed the finished product claim it's not noticeable at all. however, i may bite the bullet tonight and take out the bottom part of the hem just at the side to redo it. (and thus i'll have to do the same to the other side... TRIPLE GAH!) do note the perfect cross at the armpits. *victory dance, victory dance*
on the back, i sewed down the box pleat, as mom's jacket ended up being too wide on her. lan and her are similarly built, so i figured lan's jacket would have to be slimmed down too. 
i took in the sleeves lengthwise and widthwise so they wouldn't be so baggy. mom is going to bring hers back to me when she's in town for father's day so that i can take in her sleeves and sides as well! 
the back:
and here's the front unbuttoned and casual. my friend nikki took the pics and was making me laugh. ignore my ridiculous hair...
yippee! 1st project made for me from scratch!
i'm off to philtastic tonight to scope hoods and so i can sign paperwork at my new school tomorrow! abigail is coming for the ride and will be my 2nd pair of eyes in the apartment hunt. so, last night i baked cheesecake brownies in the new oven for our travels! 
and here's the back.
note: the jacket is currently inside out, so the pleat doesn't stick out, but rather is tucked on the inside of the jacket. i'm really not a fan of how loose the back is. i may sew the pleat down at the bottom hem instead of leaving it loose and swingy. or, i may take in some material at the sides so that there is a closer fit. sigh. decisions, decisions...
as of right now, the body is sewn together along with the lining, and the sleeves are attached. i just have to slim down the sleeves a bit, take in the bodice at the sides, hem up the sleeve length, hem up the bottom of the body, sew on bottons, and make buttonholes! yippee! the biggest nuisance was the welt pockets. they were 10 folds of fabric thick, and since the fabric is already 3-ply, this means i was sewing 30-ply of fabric! 
and the new oven is in!
hello, beautiful!
so, after 7 pairs of socks that i knit this year for bdays and chinese new year, the 8th pair came out with identical socks. 8 is the chinese lucky number (it's why i have an 8 at the end of my email address)! even bunks was so excited that he insisted on being in the picture. good things come to those who wait!
whew, job well done, love, job well done.
so i made her open it last night right after she arrived. (i know, i'm impatient!) she was thrilled! beaming! "you made one for ME too?!?!" why of course! 
it fit perfectly! ok maybe not perfectly. but very well! sleeves were a smidge long, (they were much longer on me, so thankfully mom's taller than me!) but not noticeably so.
the collar was awesome, although very thick! there were 9 tucks in the peter pan collar, which were each 1/4" wide. i love the detail it provides in contrast with the jacket's quilted material! the straight lines also provided a nice juxtaposition with the rounded collar. 
the fabric for the yoke (upper chest part) is positioned at a 90 degree angle to the main body, so the lines of the fabric also contrast each other! i hit up g street fabrics during their notions sale and scored 18k gold toned buttons for 75c each! (if you think that's pricy, regular price was easily $3+!) the buttons have some swirly motif on them. again, good contrast to the boxy quilting of the fabric!
here's the front of the whole thing. i have yet to whipstitch the top and bottom buttonholes and to sew on the corresponding buttons. that'll be for tonight! (along with the baking of some treats for mom!) yippee!
the jacket is a bit wider than i had hoped. i guess it was supposed to be a swing jacket. mom tends to be cold all the time, so i'm assuming she's probably going to wear a long sleeve shirt under. she's also a little bigger than me (and 3 inches taller!), so it'll hopefully fit her better than me. i guess i'll always be her "little" girl! 
i used a simplicity pattern that had 5 different jacket styles. this quilted jersey was fairly thick, so when it came time to do the cuffs, it was an absolute nightmare. basting helped hold the pleats in the sleeves together while i sewed on the thick cuffs. the green basting with the orange fabric made me think of pumpkins! 
here's a cuff that's complete: 
before gossip girl came on at 9 pm last night, i had finished sewing the sleeves onto the body and then connected the yoke (top sweeping quarter of the body) onto the bottom of the garment. my fantastic dressform helped display this beauty! the dressfrom is a skinny minnie, so in reality, this jacket is not as gigantic as it looks!
the back had a nice box pleat. while it is tough to make pleats look symmetrical, i do love the detail it brings to a garment! 
the greatest lesson from last night: cut is not the same as trim! i accidentally trimmed an edge down to the stay-stitching i had put in instead of cutting notches up to it! there's no fixing the mistake since what's been snipped is snipped. we'll see how i manage this issue tonight!