In the Red

I took a chance when I ordered my first Lularoe and got a dress that is super comfortable but more red than I was expecting, a little outside of my comfort zone. But this dress should not be relegated to only Pentecost and Reformation Sunday. After some googling, here's what I've come up with for regular "around the office" wear.

pop of color belt

Neutral navy (I'm kind of in love with this outfit -
I have a feeling it's going to be in heavy rotation) 

Neutral jacket and metallic necklace 

Aaaaaaand looks great with the collar
(Janie from Womenspirit)
on Reformation Sunday!

Make Pockets Great Again

Pockets. Women's clothing often lacks them. It can be hard to find a pair of pants with a decent set. Dresses, a challenge. Jackets? Fah-gedda-bout-it (as they say in NYC). It's very frustrating. Women need to carry things on their person too. Especially on a Sunday morning! But the fashion industry has decided that pockets ruin the silhouette, or something, because women's clothes are created for looks, not function. So we have to get a little creative...

I scored some nice, cat-hair resistant $8 straight leg trousers at Burlington Coat Factory sometime in early summer during the sales to make way for summer. They had some fun zipper detailing, though most of the time my shirts would cover that up (see bottom pic). A little impractical for pants pockets, but was I going to argue for $8? Nope. Until I realized, that while these are functional zippers, there was NO POCKETS. Like, what? Why would you put in function zippers that zip NOTHING? Time to fix this situation.







With the help of my mom, I've added an interior pocket to a suit jacket, so I thought I could do something a little similar with these pants. I took some extra knit fabric scraps, folded it in half, sewed up the sides......













Here I pinned the pocket around the wrong side of the side of the inside of the zipper, matching it as best as I could. It didn't have to be perfect, but just completely closed around it. I hand-stitched the edges that didn't quite match up.
















Here is the finished pocket. After I sewed the pocket to the zipper, I took a seam ripper and spit the middle of the fabric between the two halves of the zipper, then snipped the edges clean. I only made one, because that was enough for one day!













Not a very big pocket, but that's better than nothing!! It probably would just barely take a mic pack.





Take that, patriarchy! 

Altar-rations

What do you do when you want to wear a dress you can move around in for a wedding, but the neckline is wide and shows some strap? Stitch in a little holder! For the ceremony, I wore a "Janie" from Women Spirit, so straps showing wouldn't be an issue, but I wanted to fix this for later in the evening when the collar was off.

Some ribbon, snaps, and thread are all that's needed. Stitch one part of snap to dress, thread ribbon though other half to make a flap, stitch end to dress, and voila. No more slipping straps. 

Going from sad strap to wedding ready in no time! They stayed strong through some serious dancing! 

Belt it Out!

Belts are so expensive! And yet, I have recently learned that they give variety to my already existing wardrobe and outfits by adding different colors and styles. Many belts, like at Target, run $12.99 or more, and that's just for a "skinny" belt. But occasionally they go on sale or clearance - though finding a clearance belt I like in my size can be hard. My sister and I were walking around the mall when I was back in WI and we spotted some clearance belts -  I got 4 belts for $5! What a great deal!!! One problem - the only belts left that were a size to big for me. And none of these had that extra little flap to tuck in the extra. No problem! I had an idea...

What I needed was a way to keep the extra belt bit from flapping away. I could use a small black hair tie, but that would only work on the black belt, really. I needed something clear or transparent, at least.

I bought some of these clear plastic hair ties from Walmart for around $2.50, and put it around a colored belt to make it easier to see... not quite clear, but less noticeable than black!

I tried it out today on the black patterned belt from the picture above. It worked! It helped that for most of the day I wore a lightweight layer. But there was no flapping or flopping around!

This is what I did. I wrapped the band twice around, like on the yellow belt, then I rolled the band about three quarters of the way around, till it was almost to the buckle. After I buckled the belt (since this are big, usually the very last hole) and pulled one of the loops over the extra belt, near the end. You can just barely see it on the middle and bottom picture.Just one, not both, was sufficient, since wrapping it twice around was a bit tight, though just once around would have been too loose. It hits right on the side, where the arms rest, so not in an obvious place. And there you have it!

"First Day of Fall Schedule" Pic!

Everyone in my Facebook news feed is sharing "first day of school" pictures, so I decided to share my own "first day" picture, since our fall programming started on September 11th, that was as close to a "First Day" as I was going to be! And it sort of felt like being thrown into a first day of school, since it was the first day of our seminary student, and our second official Sunday for our minister of music, AND I had just gotten back from vacation, leaving right after the senior pastor had gotten back from HIS vacation!

As you can see, my cats are so proud that this is my 4th Rally Day at St. Paul Lutheran!

Sorry for the poor quality - it's a cell phone, and it's SO EARLY IN THE MORNING! 

I'm Snow Crafty, Part 2.5

The little project that I did during the snow day was altering this sleeveless purple shirt I found on clearance. The side seam was open a third of the way up, which at first I didn't mind since it didn't reveal anything and I would tuck it in anyway. But it made tucking hard and added some awkward looking volume on the bottom. So I sew up the side seem, which posed a challenge, since the seam was curved. But after I did it, it tucked so much better, as seen here. I unfortunately don't have a before picture. I'm also wearing the same skirt I made which I posted about earlier. 

The high neckline makes it look good with a collar too!

Somehow the pic ended up upside down... anyway, the seam ripper shows where the original slit started that I sewed until the two rounded sides separated. Nice work, no? 

I'm Snow Crafty, Part 2

....aaaaaaand we have elastic! 

So I was able to put the elastic in the casing and attach it to each headband, and viola! We have headbands! See Part 1 for pattern information. I'm not normally a headband person, but that may just have to change in the near future. 

Please excuse the sneaky little pink thread

I'm Snow Crafty, Part 1

Snow day!

No church today, we got 2 feet of snow or more! So this was a great time to try out a new pattern I got from home. While at the shop where my mom sells her bags and purses, my sister bought an adorable headband. We found the pattern and I decided to try it. Unfortunately I hadn't gotten any of the right size elastic, so I will have to finish them later. I'm making view "C" without the flowers. I even made one of them to be reversible! 

Here is an idea of what the finished product will look like. So stay tuned for part 2 after a fabric run!

What else did I do on my snow days? I also altered a top that I got on clearance a while ago, didn't take any before photos, but maybe I'll post it the next time I wear it.