sew late for a Christmas update

Actually, I gotta update again after we celebrate Christmas with my dad's side of the family tomorrow.

But here's what I have pics for so far:

Pencil bags with pretty silk remnants from my mom and checkered lining from the extra flannel that I always buy too much of. (See my tutorial)

Hair clip/bobby pin clothesline.

A new friend for my pincushion--a real dressform! Now the only problem will be finding a place in my dorm to fit her. I hope that this means clothes-making will be easier and less messy.

A purple shirt that I finished for Sarah, just a day late!

This break (so far) has been filled with a lot of hanging out with family, sleeping in, meeting up with old friends from high school and new friends from college, knowing that there is an abundance of home cooked food in the fridge, showering without flip flops on, painting my nails lavender, and tons of relaxing. Also, tons of space! I spread out sewing stuff upstairs and it's very nice. There's room everywhere for everything! I love home.

By the way, these pictures are large. Are they too much? They feel like they're a little much. But I love big pictures.

And my siblings and I have decided to start a collaborative etsy for us to sell knitted, sewn, and paper crafted goods!

Another update to come soon :)

And I guess college has made me girlier or something. I used to be very against smileys, because they are a little cutesy for my taste. But now they aite.

All I want for Christmas is a machine that will turn pandas into gnomes.

like urban renewal, but not. urban renewally.

In the costume shop, we get to bring in random clothes that don't fit us anymore. or that are too ugly or boring or whatever to wear. We take them apart and transform them into beautiful things. I thought this would be a really good idea for a non-profit, or just a clothing line. but then Sarah told me that Urban Renewal already does this. Oh poo.

For my first project, I used:

- the bottom of my grey t-shirt from dodgeball tournament (we got slaughtered don't ask)

- one of brother's plain black t-shirts

braided strips of grey t-shirt + pleated black t-shirt (minus sleeves and neck) =

Because I have a sewing machine snuggly stationed on a corner of my desk, and because the only fabric I have to sew with (at least for this semester) will be from clothes I don't want to wear anymore, I will probably do a lot more of this stuff.

I promised myself I would start working at 11:30, so this blog post will have to do for now.

Oh but I have to add somewhere here that yesterday I woke up at 2:30 and missed all my classes and now I'm so traumatized I'm pretty sure I will not miss another class ever. Or at least for the rest of the semester. Okay 11:30. Good bye blogging world I will be back soon!

this day was sew productive

Today I spent fifteen minutes just sitting at my desk, wondering if I had enough room for my sewing machine in my cozy corner of the triple that I live in.

I decided I did.

Stay tuned for more interesting updates that actually have to do with sewing!

I think this is my new favorite website.

That is correct. You can make fonts! It's really fun and so I'm going to make like 10 more fonts that don't look like they were created by a five year old girl. I'm going to make sophisticated, womanly fonts. And then I will update this blog again.

fontcapture.com

GO!

secret treasures in unit 1

I like it here.

Yesterday, I skipped class!

I know, right? What kind of college student have I become?!

I promise that I didn’t do this on purpose. I really wanted to stay ahead and be a gooood college student. I made lots of lists of To-Do’s and To-Read’s. They are color coded and written in pretty markers. I even like my classes! I open my eyes really big even though it dries out my contacts just so my professors think I am being very attentive. I nod in agreement sometimes. I use ACT and it makes my teeth feel good. I also go to an abs and back workout on Fridays to try be healthy and stuff! But I woke up too late and I missed class. And none of my efforts to stay ahead, not my lists, my markers, my big eyes, my ACT, or my abs and back class could help me.

The good news is that I missed Music27, and the lectures are about very basic things in music. 

The bad news is that Music27 starts at 11:00AM. And I accidentally slept in until noon. This is just embarrassing. But when I think about it, if anyone were to sleep through an 11AM class, it would be me.

OMAH. 

It’s times like this that I miss having parents to drag me out of bed when I can’t get up. Even when I get rug burns because my dad pulls my 5’7” body across the carpet in my room, through in the hallway, and into the kitchen. Man, I had it so good...

On Thursday, I woke up, looked at the time, and the first thing I thought was, “Aw man.. well at least I have something to blog about!”

So I am not as organized or put together as I thought I’d be at this point. I try really hard, but I’ll still make ridiculous mistakes. And I don’t need to set up everything perfectly in my new little college life. And when I do try, I will still miss my 11AM class. 

OH MAN. Can you imagine if my classes started at 8AM today?!

Anyway. Yesterday morning was a good reminder for me that I am not perfect, and even when I try to make everything work out perfectly, I’m me and I will still make mistakes. And that is okay because I will learn lots while I am here in Berkeley. wow I’m so excited to learn like a lotttt of new things. That’s what people do in college.

I live here.

Even though I missed Music27, I made it to my costume lab on time, later that day! I am in a stagecraft class and so I get to do costume labs twice a week. It’s fun! But mostly menial labor… like sewing on labels, sewing on buttons, and hemming.  Oh well. It’s not that boring. I'm learning a lot. Especially since I have always been really sloppy at sewing. And people say that costume lab will make me more meticulous and better at hand sewing. And it will make me care about small things that nobody else notices. I think I will like this!

hello, i'm going to college!!!

laptop case. let me know if you want one!

flannel lining. pretty mac.

Moving to Berkeley in five days!

This ugly yellow broom makes the dress work.

You need to feel this fabric. 

I saw it at Fabrix in the 99 cent/yard section, and after one touch, I went ahead and bought three yards without thinking. It was so soft! Anyway, when I went home, I completely regretted it. I didn't know what I would do with three yards of soft, flannel fabric, except make many identical pajama pants/shorts. Or make lots of little matching outfits like Maria did for the Von Trapp children. Neither of these ideas really appealed to me. I still have a lot of leftovers from the last time I went out and bought flannel. Flannel is not as useful as you would think it would be. 

So last night, I googled flannel dress and decided to try something similar to what the image results gave me. It's a little sloppy and uneven, but it feels soft and I like it. I feel like a mom when I wear it. And the broom only adds to the matronliness (A word, I looked it up.) of this dress. Ah! It makes me feel old. Like a college student! I can imagine myself wearing this dress in college. Carrying a broom. I am excited. I move in on August 22nd!

Pencil Bags for Everybody!

Hello!

I have not blogged in a long, long time. I have not sewn in a long, long time. But I did get to...

fly to Hawaii with friends for six days!

hang out at day camp with twenty two ghetto and now not-so-cliquey eighth graders that really grew on me and the messiest and nicest group of counselors ever!

celebrate my cousin's wedding!

schedule for my first semester at Berkeley!

go on the annual lam fam camping trip!

and now I get to relax, reunite with friends, sleep... and SEW!

Here is today's project:

and now, for the first time ever-- a tutorial! So now we can all have identical pencil bags. I like these because you can make them out of small scraps of fabric that aren't big enough for anything else. Also, if you go out and buy a yard, you could make a million of these pencil bags with just that one yard.  There's very little sewing involved, so you could probably make this by hand relatively fast. And they're really easy to make tutorials on...

--------------------

(1) Cut out 2 rectangles from the fabric you want on the outside of the bag (thicker fabric is better for keeping the shape of the bag) and 2 more rectangles from the fabric you want to line the inside of the bag. For a small bag, use 6"x8", for a large one, use 6"x12".

(2) Stack each lining rectangle (checkered) on top of the outer fabric rectangle (leafy.) Hem one long side in about 1/4" for both stacks.

(3) Sew the hemmed side onto the zipper like so!

(4) Flip over.

(5) Fold in half, sew along the side opposite the zipper, about 1/4" from the edge.

(6) Match up the part you just sewed with the zipper so that it lays flat like this.

(7) Flip over. Sew along the two open sides. Try to get the lines you sew to go perpendicular to the zipper at the zipper's endpoints. Yeah.

(8) Cut off the extra fabric from the sides you just sewed so it'll be less bulky inside.

(9) Unzip the bag, reach inside, and fold each corner flat (into a triangle.) Sew along the base of each of the four triangles. The length of the base will be the height of the pencil bag.

(10) Flip inside out and fill the bag with all sorts of little trinkets.

And the pencil bag I have been holding onto since 8th grade broke, so this one will replace it!

okay go make pencil bags for all your friends now.

Three graduations and two graduation dresses later...

(I used pipe cleaners in this dress! teehee)

I'm leaving for Hawaii tomorrow for a senior trip with friends! Maybe I will get fabric there. Hawaiian fabric! Or maybe I will just get the shortbread cookies. We'll see. I'm excited to spend one last week with school buddies, stay up late talking and playing games, snorkel, play in the sand, and eat shave ice. I do not know how dark I will get. The first time time I went to Hawaii, I accidentally used tanning lotion instead of sun screen. No good. This time will be better--I have lots of sunscreen.

And now it's time for a (highly exclusive) BDC (Banquet Decorations Committee) meeting! Steph is not here. She is not working on this with us.

Dress like a graduate

Hello!

I've been looking forward to this entire month for so long! Senior activities, orientation, and now I have graduation, Hawaii, and day camp. I can't wait. Also, I had some free time after graduation rehearsal, so I picked up some fabric to make dresses for my graduation and my cousin's wedding(!!!) coming up soon.

Graduation's on Monday, so I worked on that one on Thursday. My original intent was to create a tutorial, with pretty pictures that explain how I created my dress, but I didn't get very far. I didn't know exactly what I was doing until I was almost done. While I was walking around Fabrix, thinking of what my dress should look like and what kind of fabric I should choose, my only requirement was that I had to be able to put pockets in my dress (to hold phone/camera under my graduation gown.) But I didn't even think that through very much, because the dress I ended up making could never have pockets. There were also a lot of times where I would just stick the fabric under my sewing machine and really hope that things would turn out okay. I even broke a sewing machine needle!!!! because I was getting sloppy, trying to finish the dress in time for me to prepare for orientation, the next day. So those are all my excuses. No tutorial. At least not yet. All I have photographed is the first step, above, and the final product, here:

More pictures of the dress after graduation, I guess!

And I just came back from orientation a little while ago, so I'm exhausted and going to take a little nap now. But I will update again later this week!

PROM!

This past month, I have neglected my blog in anticipation for this post- the hustle and bustle of everything I have to do to get all girly and prepare for prom!

Starting with.. nails!

My amazingly artistic friend, Jasmine, painted nails for my friends and me!! 

from top, clockwise: Erika, me, Lorriane

more of me.

She also made my earrings into clip-ons, for my unpierced little lobes:

on my ear.

Two days before prom, I realized that I didn't have a nice bag to hold money/camera/cell, etc. So I made one out of a hat that doesn't fit my head anymore. It is only a hat, folded in half, with one pleat on each side, and a button/clasp to keep the rim of the hat down. I also put a little pocket inside the bag, for moneys and things. It's very easy. I would make a tutorial, but you don't even need one. It will take you all of five minutes. Here's the bag:

and now, about the DRESS!

It began with a very spontaneous trip my mom and I took to Fabrix. Fabrix pros: the suspiciously low prices. The cons: the strange quality of most of their fabrics. And the dirty, messy, hard-to-find-anything sense that you get immediately after stepping inside. [I did, however, discover that the woman buying fabric behind me was working on costumes/tech stuff for WICKED, which I will be seeing in a week!!! So I feel like I can trust Fabrix with my prom. If it's good enough for Elphaba, it is definitely good enough for me.]

With that said, it was hard to find anything prom-y. All the satin/silk fabrics were shades of blue or green, but most of my friends already picked out dresses that were those colors. I ended up going with black slacks-like fabric and white canvas (also useful for a Mother's Day tote bag). 

I found a thin, pretty, silver trim too, which I knew I wanted to use for the straps. I am almost ashamed (but not) to say, I learned from About.com that black and white can look good on anyone. So if you want to make this dress, you can. Go to Fabrix.

I bought:

3 yards of black fabric, 1 yard of white fabric, 1 black invisible zipper, and 1 yard of silver trim.

All for $13, which my mom paid.

Even after I bought the fabric, I wasn't completely sure what my dress would look like. I only knew I wanted it to be long and mostly black, with silver straps. Plus some white embellishments, to keep the dress from looking too plain. I ended up with this sketch:

After many hours spent in the back of my house, laying out fabric in the hallway (the only place long enough,) poking myself with too many pins, putting on and taking off the dress, sitting in front of the sewing machine, and standing in front of my mirror, holding seemingly endless amounts of black fabric around me while thinking (spent at least an hour doing that...) 

I ended up with this:

Sarah and her friends did hair and make up for my friends and me.

Our hair looks very good in this picture.

Group picture!

And... yes. I think that covers all of me getting ready for prom. Pictures from the actual prom will be on Facebook later, I guess. And prom itself was a lot of fun! in case you were wondering.

callysewn

Hello!

Because I haven't updated in about a month, this entry will be filled with little updates of the things I remember happening since my last update:

• Went to LA for a track meet. Got owned, but that's okay, they won't remember me...
• Went to San Diego with family
• Made banana bread
• Got better at ping pong!!!
• Just got on spring break! I stayed up late yesterday night sewing this:

And in this picture I am petting a glass bear because...

I'm going to Berkeley!