Waves of history

Timey-wimey Tiramsisu.


The DC and I went to the ROM today. I'm supposed to be wearing a totally different dress, but that hasn't happened. Yet. Instead, I'm wearing a dress I made in June.

I mentioned I had planned to take part in the Sewaholic Belcarra sewalong; similarly, the Monthly Stitch had an indie pattern month sewalong which I was officially going to join because of prizes. The official part never took place, but I did do three of the challenges, mostly. My Gatsby dress was my quasi-Franken-Indie outfit, and I made up some New-To-Me Measure Twice Cut Once Mary knickers (although there's a fit issue that I'd like to sort out before I blog them). This Cake Tiramisu, made with the last of the mystery fabric I got from Fabricmart, would have fit either the New-To-Me or Dresses categories.

Sheerly Oonatastic: killer (in more than one sense) clothing

If meeting people online is great (and it is), meeting online people offline is even better. Gillian of Crafting a Rainbow proposed that we have another Toronto meetup at the Bata Shoe Museum, where one of the exhibitions is "Fashion Victims", followed by a swap at Ewe Knit on Markham St.

An event! A sewist event! Which requires an outfit! Of Oona-like proportions! To recap: the fabulour Oonaballoona is having a birthday, as one does, and we are celebrating with Oonapalooza, as one does. The idea is to make something Oona-esque. Gillian and I sewing-dared each other to have our makes done for the meetup, and so we did. The outfit details are further along in the post. First? Meetup!

Love's Labour... found

Another timey-wimey post

Assist me some extemporal god of rime, for I am sure I shall turn sonneter.
Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
-- Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost

Last year, one of the Fringe shows I kept not getting to see was Much Ado About Nothing. I was disappointed, so when the same group put on Love's Labour's Lost at the Victory Cafe, I made sure to get tickets in advance. Good thing, too, since every show sold out.

You with the stars in your Anna top

I really like the By Hand London Anna, specifically its bodice, so when the DC gave me a bunch of white linen, I automatically thought Dîner en Blanc maxi. Except... I really do not need another white dress. They're not hugely practical.

Still. I couldn't get that thought of a white linen Anna out of my head. Then I thought... separates. Maybe I could make the dress into a top and skirt? The idea grew on me as the months went on. I eventually decided to make the skirt a Sewaholic Gabriola, but the top was going to be Anna all the way. And here she is, just in time to meet the DC for mexican food before Ari's Planetarium talk Friday night.

The major construction changes are lengthening the bodice, flaring it out at the bottom, and moving the zipper to the side seam. I also turned the back darts into fisheye darts so it would fit around the hips.



I put in an invisible zipper, upside down, although it's not especially invisible right now. The hem doesn't look even, but I swear that it is.



I probably should have done a neck binding thing instead of the facings, since the linen is sheer enough to be seen through, but I don't know how much it bothers me. I do need to adjust the front pleats, as usual - one of these days I will fix that on the pattern - and make the invisible zipper... more invisible, but I'm really pleased with how this turned out.

Ari's talk was about likely locations for habitable planets in the universe. He's a very good speaker, but you don't have to take my word for it. All hail YouTube!

Belcaree, Belcarra!*

*I do not know why "The Happy Wanderer" always gets into my head when I think of this name. It just does.

You're welcome.

I bought the Sewaholic Belcarra pattern when she released it (on sale) as a pdf. It's probably the best deal I've had in a non-free pattern, since I have now made four of them, with a fifth in the offing.

I made the first one at the beginning of June, hoping to post it as part of the Sewaholic Belcarra sewalong. I did finish it on deadline, but didn't have time to take any photos then. We got these outside the mural at Dundas and Brock after the Provincial vote. This is view A, size 4, lengthening the waist by an inch (and then forgetting to subtract length from the hem, which meant I had a lot to cut off when I hemmed it).

Better late: MMM14 summary and another summer sewing challenge

Well, here it is, July, and thanks to Too Much Marking and General Laziness I'm just now getting around to reflecting on my Me-Made May and making future plans. This post is stupid long, so if you're not interested number-crunching but want to see what I'm going to sew this summer, skip a bit.

Previously, on PGOTLMMM14: (The answers to the Where in Toronto is PhysicsGirl game are in the mouse-overs.)





I realized that I forgot to add my geeky stats for the last two weeks, so here is the final tally.

In which PhysicsGirl would like to thank the academy...

Holy cow. I won an award! Twice!

The lovely Nancy from Sewing in Surf City just (ahem, okay, about two months ago) nominated me for a Liebster award. This is an award that is given by bloggers to bloggers. The rules vary a little, depending on who gives you the award, but basically you thank the blogger, linking back to their blog, post the award button on your blog, answer their questions, and pass the award on. I've seen it awarded in various places, and I've always been somewhat hopeful yet terrified that someone would nominate me. Hopeful because it means that someone reads this blog and thinks I'm moderately amusing; terrified because it means that somebody reads this blog. And also because of the obligation to pass on the award. Anyway, I started writing up this post in June, then Things overtook me and I dallied so long that Andie from Sew Pretty in Pink also nominated me for the award. Which is great! Except not, because I was going to nominate her! And now I've got even more questions to answer.

Catching up: Sew for a Change #4 & 5

The end of May and beginning through middle of June were really busy, so I didn't take the time to catch up on my Sew for Change challenge then, but I've been doing quite well.

May was the laundry challenge, and I made it by... basically not doing laundry. Look, I have a lot of small clothes, as Dickens would say, and when I went to do a load, it was going to rain, so I kind of took to washing my undies in the sink and hanging them up. Do dryer for me. Purchase-wise, I was hoping to go the whole month without buying anything, but I wound up buying a nifty straw hat in Kensington Market (along with two thrifted belts) on a very sunny Pedestrian Sunday.

June was food month, and again I passed with flying colours. I already don't eat a lot of beef and mostly vegetarian anyway. Going completely vegetarian for a whole week proved slightly more difficult than I thought only because the week I chose was a week I kept forgetting to bring my lunch to school, and while I will say the veggie burger at Hero Burgers is really tasty, the selection of frozen vegetarian dinners in the convenience store is practically non-existent. However, we muddled through. Clothing-wise? I finally bought nothing! Woo!

So 20 more points for me, minus 3 for the hat. Which is good, because I'm probably going to spend all those points this month. I have sewing plans and need more fabric.

July's challenge is cleaning, and it's going to be no problem for me since I already use only microfibre clothes, baking soda, and vinegar in my cleaning. I have aluminum shakers filled with baking soda next to each of my sinks and a spray-bottle filled with a vinegar-water solution, so I'm good to go. (Alexandra mentioned How Clean is Your House? which I used to watch religiously because it made me feel so. much. better about the state of my apartment, and the guck you can scrub away using nothing more than baking soda and some elbow grease is fairly miraculous.) So let's run down the challenge list: microfibre clothes? check. dish cloths? check. NaHCO₃ and acetic acid? check. Wiping windows with newspaper? Ch... wait... I'm supposed to dust and wash my windows?

Oh, nuts.