chocolate chip walnut bread

i was in the mood for some sugar...

happy st. patrick's day!!

for my march garment, i used colette patterns' "sorbetto tank top" to make emily, mom, and i st. patrick's day tops. (yes, mommy, you get one too!!) the shape is a simple boxy tank with a single 2" wide box pleat down the middle. i lowered the neckline a bit, as it was way too high.

i decorated the box pleat by adding a single strip of cream lace, which helped to add to the irish-ness of the top. emily and i wore them today with shiny green nails, stylin' skinny jeans, and chuck taylors (mine are shiny silver of course heheheh). justin bieber wanted "in" on the photoshoot. he's a huge champion of math. hehehhehe

happy valentine's day!!

i finished em's shirt in time for valentine's day. (em loves her holidays!!) in honor of her love for festivities, i wore purple tights with this ensemble!!

happy valentine's day!!

aloha!

my february garment shall be dubbed the aloha shirt! so as you may recall, i work across the street from a very extensive and inexpensive fabric store, gaffney's. they were having a huge president's day sale, additional 50% off all items in the clearance basement! i found this cute aloha-ish thin cotton for super cheap ($1.99/yd i believe), so i bought 2 yds (way more than necessary, but it was so cute and cheap). i had bought this butterick5450 pattern a while back (during joann's $1 pattern sale!) and figured i'd make myself a modest, yet pretty dressy top. you know, for going on dates, i mean going to work! hehehe.

the top on the far left was really simple to make and it fit like a GLOVE, even without any major alterations! the only change i made was that the original neckline seemed extremely high, and even though i have a really long neck, i wanted the line to sit lower. thus i lowered the neckline by an extra 1/8 of an inch (BOLD, i know heheh). the front was pretty visually interesting. long pleat down the middle with 2 smaller ones along the neckline. the back had the same 2 smaller pleats, also along the neckline. david modeled it at work with me again. this time, on his knees, stooping to my level. hehehe. em was our photographer of course. she loved the fabric so much that i'm gonna make her the same top!!

em's velvet pouch!

i had just the tiniest bit of eggplant velvet left, enough to make em a velvet pouch. perfect for her, as she loves purple more than anyone else i know. the pouch was SO easy to make. 2 hrs? (this is amazingly fast for me... i usually spend a weekend making a simple skirt. sorry, but my ocd pays off in good sewing!)

i stitched little beaded tassles at the bottom to help anchor the pouch lining. the black beads are from a hawaiian anklet that broke (em used to live in hawaii!!!) and i ended the tassle with a blue bead to match the randomly blue zipper.the zipper is from a conference tote bag (i hate those free tote bags... however, their zippers are sooo useful!) the lining is a scrap from madeleine's baby's bloomers, a baby shower gift i made 2 years ago! the pouch is big enough to fit em's wallet, keys, and phone. (it's not actually THAT small.)

happy new year!!

today is chinese new year! year of the dragon. bunks' year of glory is over.

we still love you, of course.

martha's pillowcases

i have a friend named martha. no, not martha stewart, thank goodness! she has a very brown couch that she wanted to spruce up. she picked up some fabric a WHILE ago (sorry martha) and i finally had time to design 2 pillowcases for her.

since the fabric is so busy, the only fancy touch i added was thick piping along the edges so that they would look professionally done. not bad, eh? the bottom has a contrasting blue zipper to match the blue in the fabric's pattern. stellar installation, if i do say so myself. and of course, since martha's been feeling under the weather, i wrapped it all nice and pretty. one of my best presentations, as we all know i don't wrap things well!

purple velvet pleated kilt!

whew. one of my toughest projects has been completed. i used "simplicity 7130," a pattern for wool pleated kilts, a pattern from 1967!

and this super plush eggplant purple cotton velvet, leftover from a velvet bible cover i once made for an ex's mom years ago. i JUST had enough velvet to lay out the pattern pieces!! (usually i have way too much extra, which ends up in the scrap pile for ages!) bunks was a huge fan of this velvet. here he is roaming on it while i'm trying to sketch out pleat lines. "scoot, bunks, scoot!"
here's a close up of the pleats. i used gold thread... meaning i had to sew neatly! unfortunately, the velvet was so thick that in making the pleats, more material was used up than anticipated and thus the skirt didn't really have enough material to fold completely across the front... so, i decided to make this a high-waisted kilt, so that at least i could fold it 3/4 of the way across the front (if i had kept it normal, it would hardly have overlapped in the front. EEK!)
the pattern called for leather belt tabs for the sides. 1) i doubted i could find gold leather belt tabs and 2) i wanted something less conspicuous. so, i bought tiny gold d-rings and designed 2 simple belts for the sides. here's the first. not bad, right?here's a pic of both.
ages ago, i bought something from anthropologie that had the tags attached with this big gold safety pin (isn't that rather fancy for just securing the tags?). i'd actually been saving it to use either as a simple brooch or, once i picked up sewing as a hobby, to use on a kilt! perfect isn't it? i sewed down the pin way at the bottom of the skirt, as you can see in the next pic. the skirt didn't need the pin to keep it shut, so i just made it a permanent decoration piece. i initially wanted to make the skirt for a broadway outing with mom in nyc. however, we all know i'm slow, so i didn't finish it until after. i wore it to work this tuesday and colleagues joined in on the photoshoot. this is david. he is REALLY tall. and also in purple. em is the photographer. and around back hehehehhehehe! kristin is dying of laughter.em zoomed in so you could see the pleats. david got tired of modeling and went back to work hehe.

ironing that many skinny pleats was SOOOOO frustrating, yet the result looks pretty neat. not my favorite style of skirts, but i like the unexpectedness of the velvet!

bad bunny

while i'm at work, he's napping in the sun.

at night, he protests my departure when i go out, climbing onto my worktable (ie my dining table hehe) to rip my patterns and chew my tracing pencils! i was an idiot last weekend and forgot to tuck in my dining chair.as punishment, we have reduced the size of his cage to a birdy cage... hehe. not really. dad and i decided to get him a "carrying cage" for car rides, and it turned out that a birdy cage was JUST the right size to fit his litterbox, leaving another corner for sitting/doing his business, since he tends to nest in his box while in the car. tweet tweet!

see the pretty purple velvet? it's really a more reddish purple, and it has been sewn up as a pleated kilt! almost done, pics soon!

sweet potatoes

since the pumpkin goodies were such a success, mom pawned off a can of sweet potatoes on me. first up, sweet potato muffins with raisins.

then, with a massive tub of crisco from costco, i made sweet potato pie with homemade crust! i slashed it to match the burn i got on my forearm from the oven!!! (jk, i was just testing if it was done... although i do have an oven burn on my arm!)(no worries, i didn't put ALL of the crisco in just this one pie. hehehe)

off to nyc when i wake up!!!!! i'm taking mom to "wicked" for xmas and then meeting up with friends! wheeeee!

happy new year!!

after about 3 weeks of sewing, every day, many hours a day, i FINALLLLLLLY finished my december garment (i'm doing a garment a month until i hit 30, a challenge which i made for myself starting on my 29th bday! ack, 8 more to go!). it's a party dress from this vintage teal silk sari that one of my former students gifted me (along with a huge bucket of other vintage fabric- like that ridiculous teal cheong-sam fabric and the light blue lining that i used on this dress). there are beautiful gold flowers embroidered throughout and the edges have a long border of gold. the end has this amazing panel of gold embroidery as well! i saved the border and gold panel, hopefully to be used for another project some day!

originally i was just going to use vogue pattern 1227.

however, when the bustier cups come out like this (i tested things out by doing the lining 1st, not even cutting out the pieces for the top from the silk yet. smartest decision ever!),

i knew i had to find another option for the top (i actually hate bustier tops anyway, so this was all for the better). it was just too hard to sew something on a curve on a structure that ended up so 3d. i knew i'd completely botch it on the slippery silk. So, here comes vogue 1174 to save the day! this bodice is super fancy and has more of a sweetheart neckline. much more demure, much classier.

there's lining, of which i forgot to take a photo, and this "foundation" piece,

which is more like a floating boning structure that is attached to the bodice, yet is loose at the bottom. it requires strapping in! here's the foundation before it was boned. there's even facing at the top so that you can't see the light blue lining!

i'm super narrow up top and my waist doesn't go in like most people's (i'm built like a pole, a muscular pole), so i had to make major adjustments. the exterior of the bodice required me to make my own piping. 1st time i've ever made any and it was sooo cool! instead of buying piping cord, i just filled mine with acrylic yarn, since i have oodles of it lying around.

i just love vogue 1174's bodice. so much detail. it came out beautifully! i made sure there were no gold flowers in the bodice, but couldn't avoid it when making the piping. however, i like how the random peeps of gold from the piping came out!

after the bodice was complete, then i had to mcguiver the bodice's seams to match the skirt's yoke's seams. can we say nuisance? i had to completely redraft a pattern for the skirt yoke so that the top matched the bodice and the bottom matched the skirt portions. i'm crafty like that, and it worked. i added piping to the skirt yoke and at the waistline to continue the piped look from the top. whew. lots of work. the skirts (yes, there are two!) came out soo cool. super flouncy. of course i had to hack off 2 inches from each, because i wanted a really short dress for new years... i mean because i'm really short...

i was super afraid that the dress looked too '80s, as i'm not a fan of this '80s comeback as the rest of the fashion world is, but paired with a sharp fitted black blazer, i think it worked. i forgot to take a pic of the back, so use your imagination. it added a lot of junk in the trunk. hehehehe

and here i am wearing it on nye while out with grace, a friend from swim team starting back in 2nd grade! she also went to brown, so lucky us, we kinda grew up together. aren't we cute? (my eyes ARE open, i'm just really smiley and the pic is small!) after wearing the dress all night, i grew to LOVE it. '80s? psshhh. i spent 3 weeks on this baby! i better love it!

here's a little secret: i styled grace's nye outfit, and made her wear a dress tucked into a pencil skirt. how hilarious is that? she thought it was so weird. all night. she wouldn't stop talking about it. i think she rocked the look!

happy new year!

merry christmas!

it should come as no surprise that everyone gets a pair of flannel pj pants from me every christmas. honestly, how could i turn down $1.29/yd for flannel from joann's black friday sale each year? for myself, i used owl flannel! (unfortunately i've already split the booty, as i forgot that the pattern is sized for mom and not me hehehehe. no worries. the stitching has been fixed and reinforced!)

next up, sarah is getting her 1st pair of my flannel pjs. red-scarfed penguins! aren't they so ridiculously cute?i was a huge dope when cutting out mom's pjs, and forgot to point the pattern ALONG the cherry trees. so, unfortunately, mom looks like she's wrapped in barbed wire. oops. at least the tie is cute, isn't it?and lastly, jimmy got his 1st full-length pair this year! (he was the recipient of the space jams pj shorts from 2 years ago.) his flannel says woof and ruff, and has dogs and bones on it (in honor of mia of course)! here he is, displaying the pants hehe. that's him underneath: finally, i brought home a pumpkin pie that i made from scratch, for the fam. i tried to make a scalloped crust, but it looks hideous!! alright, i'm off to finish up a dress that i'm making for my new year's outing in nyc!! wish me luck!