orange juicy couture jacket: COMPLETE!

i finished my orange juicy couture military jacket this weekend and even wore it to work yesterday with my white jeans! i ended up taking in the side seams too, as i started to look very boxy without them! here's the jacket buttoned up.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!

almost almost done!

my orange jacket is almost complete! i've sewed shut the back pleat because the swingy shape that it created was way too wide for me. bottom hem has been sewed up! sleeves hems have been sewed up with a fairly straight double seam!! all that's left are the buttons in the front. i want to create those loop closures for these buttons instead of a typical button hole because i HATE making buttonholes (sewphie won't make them unfortunately) and i want to make this military-inspired but not straight military-styled. i may take in the sides a little to add a slight curve, as i currently look like a straight beanpole when i wear the jacket right now. 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!

progress report on the me project

here are 2 pics of my progress so far, with the jackets inside out. sleeves have been slimmed (i chopped off 4 inches from the circumference of the bottoms of each sleeve!) and i have marked the length i want for each sleeve (look how much extra fabric i have! i think there's only supposed to be 2 inches of material left in the cuff, but i probably had 5... 1 inch i scrapped completely so that the cuffs don't turn out really long!) 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...

a me project and a new oven!

since i have about a month between mother's day and father's day, i figured i'd sneak in a little me project or 2 before it was time to start dad's father's day gift! i've started sewing together my military jacket with the juicy couture orange quilted 3-ply jersey, and i love love love this material. unfortunately i forgot to take pics last night, so here are some from the night before. 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!

hilariously appropriate quote

"for me, fabric shopping is like riding to disney land on a unicorn on my birthday..."
- 21days21dresses.tumblr.com

she's going to make 21 dresses in 21 days. sigh. i wish i were that innovative!

"the patience of a mother might be likened to a tube of toothpaste...

it's never quite all gone." -anonymous

why am i likening my mother to a tube of toothpaste? because... on may 9th, i finally finished her chinese new year socks, nearly 3 months after chinese year!! however, this wait was well worth it: her 2 socks ended up coming out exactly the same! this was totally by chance, as each ball of yarn i bought for the socks knit out into a striping pattern. after i finished each sock, i would immediately start the next one, and thus i had no control over the striping result of each sock. if i were to force the socks to be the same by starting the 2nd sock at the same point in the repeated pattern as the first one, i could potentially waste a ton of yarn. forget that! i'm chinese and we're thrifty!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!

my little dishwasher

my little dishwasher turns 3 years old this july (although i celebrate his bday on aug 10)! hehehehe. whew, job well done, love, job well done.

happy mother's day!

3 days early, guys! i finished 3 days early! mom and dad arrived last night because today, a new oven is being installed into the condo! YIPPEE! it'll be black and sleek and produced in 2010!! (versus 1964!) i couldn't wait until mother's day to watch mom open her gift, which was decorated with leftover bits from my last encounter with washi paper masking tape... 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.

happy mother's day!

secret project nearly complete!

so, continuing from yesterday, i solved my cut vs. trim issue by basting the material as if there still were .5" of a seam left on the edge, and then sewing my usual 5/8" seam! yes, if you did your math correctly, i had 1/8" or .125" of space with which to work. harrowing experience, let me just say. you may recall from dad's 2 dress shirts that one of my fav sewing activities is to fall off the edge while edge sewing... i did well, no? never fell off once! luckily, after sewing these edges, i then was required to trim them! so, essentially i just did the trimming before the sewing. hehethe 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!

happy mother's day mom! stay tuned for a cute pic of her in it! the rents are coming to visit this week! i'm getting a new oven!! say goodbye to the oven from 1964!

my secret work in progress

(mom has been removed from my email updates temporarily, so keep this secret from her... shhh)

so, as we all know, sunday is mother's day. mom had seen this orange quilted 3 ply juicy couture jersey (that's right! it's from the juicy couture fabric line!) that i got from g street for $2.97/yd (clearance!!) lying around and had remarked all too many times how luxurious it felt. the fabric was purchased for these 2 jackets that lan and i were intending to make: hers had a tucked peter pan collar, mine was military-style. (no shocker there!) however, because the fabric had quilted squares which are symmetrical vertically and horizontally, i broke all rules and instead of cutting along the grain, i also cut perpendicular to the grain, in order to get the most mileage out of the 5 yards that i had bought (each jacket called for 2.25 yards). as a result, i was able to squeak out enough fabric for one tucked peter pan collar jacket for mom! 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!

has anyone seen bunks?

oh, there he is! helping himself to the last of the hay!

more cross-stitching and washi paper masking tape!

abigail and i are having dinner at the former headmaster's house tomorrow night, as his passion for education is contagious, even after all these years! bruce is a friendly giant, standing at 6'2" (or taller? i'm not a good judge of height), and he was super supportive of me during my search for a teaching job. he started a public school for math and science in durham (right across the street from erin!), taught way back when, was a provost of a quaker college, was headmaster at 2 different quaker schools, and is a trustee for numerous educational organizations. i am thrilled to have worked with him and wanted to thank him for all that i have learned from him in my years at this school and for his help in my job hunt. right after i accepted my new position in philly, i quickly started a cross-stitch project.this took 6 days. just six! (i cross-stitch fast, but do everything else slowly.) the bottom has a chinese wish: "fu ru dong hai su bi nan shan" which translates into "may your fortune be as vast as the eastern sea and your life be more eternal than the southern mountain." i had learned of the phrase from chinese class, back in my days at brown university. however, i must admit to having whipped out the chinese dictionary to retranslate the characters, as my ability to read chinese has declined drastically! i custom cut a mat from artist paper again, like with lan and robert's christmas gift, although this time the paper had a woven texture to it. i pasted a pinyin version of the quote with a translation underneath onto the back of the frame, in case bruce and his wife andra ever forgot what the quote said. then came the wrapping part. of course i had to use brown craft paper because the only other option was christmas paper (thus, not an option). i'd been wanting to use the washi paper masking tape (pic is from the moma store's website) that julia got me as a christmas gift, but hadn't found a good use for them. that is, until now. last night at 11 pm, i decided bruce and andra MUST have a gift wrapped with washi paper masking tape woven in a sort of plaid print. yes, that's right. MUST. also, i decided that this plaid MUST be woven last night. at 11 pm. little did i know that weaving sticky strips of tape would be so difficult.
but worry not! at 2 am, my masterpiece was complete!

dad's bday shirt- complete! and a strawberry pie!

this weekend mom and dad were in town, so i figured it was high time i finished up dad's bday shirt, seeing as his bday was march 4! i was dreading the redoing of the cuffs, since i sewed one of the cuffs on crookedly. however, it wasn't difficult at all, and mom even showed me her secret on how she figures out where to sew in the darts on the back! this shirt is so much better than last time's. for his next shirt, i am aiming to pay attention to the striping on the shoulders so that they line up with the stripes on the sleeves. (and yes, dad still models his nice dress shirts that i make while wearing sweatpants!)to finish up the strawberries left over from abigail's cake, i baked a strawberry pie! it was very quick and easy to make and the pie didn't leak in the oven as my pies usually do!hurray for finished projects! now i just have to knit one more sock to finish this year's batch of chinese new year socks (haha, yes the new year was feb 14!)

farewell, abigail!

abigail, a wonderful friend from work, is off to grad school to pursue an mfa in creative writing and poetry! we had a farewell party last thursday to celebrate her wonderfulness and to wish her luck on her new adventures. i wanted to make her something that took into account her personality and yet prepped her for her return to school. (girly yet tough, as she is a whimsical dancer, pianist, and poet, yet a hard core athlete!! yay soccer and hockey!) i hoped to make a pencil bag with the "weekend-away travel bag" pattern in "weekend sewing." i got to test out the zipper foot for my sewing machine on this project, and i must report that it was shockingly simple to use! unfortunately, this pattern was for something as large as a makeup bag, so i decided i needed to fill this "pencil bag" with goodies so that it wouldn't seem so ridiculously large. and thus her pink, cream, and navy themed gifts were born.i'm sure you've noticed that this fabric is of the same pattern as the flip side of robert's bday apron. to make it, i sewed strips of alternating solid navy and pink and cream striped fabrics together. notice i'm ocd to the point where my pink and cream stripes are equidistant apart (in terms of their stripes)! here's the backside of the sheet i made for the cover of abigail's notebook:the lining is made from my high school graduation gown! i, then, sewed the cover onto the cover of the notebook itself. sewing on paper is so thrilling!!! notice the pages are of pressed paper matter and not of normal paper itself (the best feature of this notebook!!):i sewed ribbons to both the back and front covers so that she could tie the notebook shut.abigail is particularly glamourous, but certainly not vain, so it was of the utmost importance that she have a little pocket mirror to keep in this pencil bag! pier 1 had the cutest little mirrors, but they had the most hideous cases. so, i took it upon myself to make the mirror its own navy, pink and cream case!it even has a mini velcro closure in front (unfortunately this velcro is not that sticky!):i then filled the bag with an assortment of office supply goodies, including an eraser, a spiffy hot pink highlighter, 2 pens, 2 RED pens (for all those vicious corrections), 2 pencils (i'm a math teacher, remember, and all students need pencils!), white-out, and the cutest mini stapler!then, i wrapped all the office goodies in themes, with witty sayings on the wrappers: "to help you get started on all that writing... (pens, pencils, highlighter)", "to help keep everything together... (stapler)", "watch out for all of those mistakes! (white-out, eraser)", "to help you get started on all that writing that you will be doing, creatively... (notebook)", "every glam gal needs one of these in her pencil bag... (mirror)"for the party, i baked a double tier chocolate cake with strawberry jam in the middle and powdered sugar and sliced strawberries on top. it was super moist and rather pretty. unfortunately the cake was too big for mom and dad's cake carrier, so i had to carry it without the lid down the street!the waiter at the restaurant kept asking for a slice, so we obliged at the end. isn't that a huge "no-no" to ask for food from restaurant diners?? i was flattered though, so no biggie.bye, abigail! we'll miss you!! (although i'll still be seeing her around philly hopefully, when she visits!)

a fish party!

last sunday, our soccer team threw a party to thank aaron for working so hard to organize our team and also to congratulate him on his recent wedding! i took it upon myself to fold 50+ beef and onion dumplings for the party (mom's secret recipe!). here's the meat, marinating:and here are the dumplings folded and fried. mom's always look beautiful, but mine look sketchy at best:avé, a friend from my teaching days who is also friends with aaron, noted that aaron's fav dessert is rice pudding. sorry, but not about to make rice pudding. i remembered that aaron liked the new orleans bourbon bread pudding that i made for an fc ceviche barbecue last year, so i decided to make that again. it's a very easy recipe from "joy of cooking," and my secret touch is that i use challah instead of italian bread (why not, since challah is already a little sweet)!! here's the bread soaking in deliciousness:and here it is partially eaten, with the bourbon sauce on top. note that the dumplings tupperware to the right is completely empty!also at the party was marcus, the nearly 1 year old son of my friends jeremy and amy. marcus came out rocking the jersey i made him as a gift to his parents when he was born! it's a little big on him, so he'll have time to grow into it!see you on the pitch, marcus, and congrats aaron!