A Christmas New Look 6223 in Winter Cardinals Fabric

Happy holidays, readers! 

Over Black Friday, I shopped a bit online, including at Modcloth, which so helpfully let me know it was having a sale.

Now, we all know that nearly all 100 percent cotton dresses at Modcloth are made from easily attainable quilting cotton, right?

I saw a dress made from this winter cardinals fabric and just had to have it. I found the fabric online at Hancock's of Paducah (which had the best price -- $5! -- but did trigger a fraud warning on my credit card since it's apparently a local store in another state!) The fabric is Timeless Treasures Season's Greetings Winter Cardinals in ivory.

It's a lovely drapey quilting cotton.

The bodice is lined in plain white lawn, which I buy at least 5 yards at a time. I line nearly everything with white cotton lawn!

All in all, the fabrics were perfect for a structured dress like New Look 6223.

New Look 6223 is a favorite basic pattern of mine -- though I may need to buy a second copy the next time New Look patterns are on sale, because I seem to have misplaced the sleeve piece. Originally I wanted to do this dress up with cap sleeves, similar to my Oscar de la Renta dress, but I went without after I couldn't find the sleeve piece. (I know, I know, Frankenpattern, etc., but as I've said before, homegirl ain't got time for all that! it's just not fun for me.)

The pattern is exceedingly simple. It's a six-dart bodice with a pleated skirt. In this case, I gathered the skirt instead of pleating. I also forgot to put in the pockets (I now have two white lining-fabric pockets on my cutting table). Woops. 

I cut an 8 at the bust and graded to a 10-12 at the waist. I left a bit of extra ease in the waist since I wanted to wear this dress dancing. 

I didn't bother pattern-matching in the back or at the waist (I am of the opinion that matching a pattern like this across the waist just looks wrong and I just didn't feel like matching on the back seam and wasting fabric). The only pattern adjustment I made was to be sure I wouldn't have two red cardinals placed in, shall we say, compromising positions on my chest. 

This dress was an easy make -- I spent my afternoon in my sewing room on Saturday and worked on it while watching "Rehab Addict" on Netflix and I was finished in no time. 

In fact, I wore this dress for the first time Saturday night to a ballroom dance. We have monthly social ballroom dances at the place we take classes. With my small cotton crinoline underneath, it was perfect for an evening of dancing. (I know it probably seems strange to wear a sleeveless dress with no stockings in the middle of winter, but trust me when I say that after a couple hours of dancing in a well-lit art gallery, you'll be sweating!)

I plan to wear this again with black tights and a cardigan for a Christmas Eve showing of The Nutcracker as well.

When I wear it, with the red, green and gold colors, I feel festive!

Even when it's cold outside!

Do you have Christmas sewing plans? I'd love to hear about them!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all. <3

A Wintry Owls Sweater and Sewaholic Hollyburn Skirt

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 

I hope all my American pals had a fantastic Turkey Day. (And I hope my international friends had a lovely Thursday!) 

Mine was super low-key and relaxing, which was just fine by me. My Black Friday, though, was slightly more exciting. 

Greg and I have been taking ballroom dance classes for the last few months and the place we take classes, Workhouse Arts Center, is insanely awesome.

The arts center, which has everything from yoga, to glassblowing to comedy shows, was a prison until 2001. It's called the Workhouse because it's a prisoner-built prison. Is it a bit creepy that we take dance lessons in cell block 11? Possibly. Is it also cool as hell? Most definitely. I'm a super nerd for old buildings with interesting history and the Workhouse complex certainly fits the bill! 

Anyway, the Workhouse had an open house on Black Friday, which included an hour-long ballroom dance practice session/exhibition thing. (I swear they don't pay me -- I just think this place is super cool.) So I convinced my dad that he should come with Greg and I. 

Of course, I had to wear a new outfit for the event and have Greg photograph it at the Workhouse. A change of venue is always nice, right? I'm sure you all get sick of seeing my front yard. 

This is the Owls sweater by Kate Davies and the Hollyburn skirt by Sewaholic. 

I'll talk a bit about the Owls first. 

I knitted the majority of this on a train trip Greg and I took from Washington, D.C., to Seattle in August for his sister's wedding.

We were on the train for four days and I knitted the entire body and one sleeve on the train trip.

(Funny story about how the day of the trip I sent Greg to the yarn store with a list because I finished my previous project and wanted to start this one but didn't have the correct size needles! I swear to god my husband is the best sport ever.)

This sweater is made with bulky yarn, so it is an incredibly quick knit. I used Billow from KnitPicks, which is a 100 percent cotton and it is SO soft. Sadly it doesn't do a great job holding its shape, but its softness totally makes up for that.

This was also my first experience with cables, and I found them surprisingly simple! I opted not to sew on the button eyes, though, to make the design seem a bit subtler so the sweater would go with more outfits.

I also left the body short so I could wear it with my high-waisted skirts. I don't really wear pants that often, so I usually want my sweaters to go well with skirts.

The most difficult part of this sweater for me was trying to figure out how to connect the body to the sleeves in order to knit the yoke.

I'd never knit a bottom-up sweater before, so I was a bit at sea. I ended up first getting everything set up backward. Ravelry sorted me out though: I posted a thread asking why I couldn't use the instructions for the yoke (I was set to knit in the wrong direction.)

The eventual solution?

I was reading the directions and thinking about MY left and not the SWEATER'S left. Oy.

After that, though, it was fairly easy to finish! Ha!

This past week, I decided to whip up a quick Hollyburn from black twill I got from Mood. It's a Theory fabric and it is lovely. 

These pictures were taken on second wearing -- I wear most of my full skirts with a very minimal cotton petticoat and tights for warmth, so there's no point to washing after every wear -- and despite the twill's slight stretch factor, the skirt still looks great. The recovery is great.  

I also put in my very first centered zipper on this skirt. I don't know how I've never done one before, but I hadn't. Surprisingly simple! I usually put invisible zippers in everything, but since I've made this skirt several times already, I decided to challenge myself a tiny bit. 

 Here's a pic Greg snapped of the outfit in action, as I was trying to waltz with my dad.

And an outtake my dad snapped of Greg taking pictures of me. So meta.

What did you do for Black Friday? Hit the stores? Hit the dancefloor? Something else entirely?

Ringing in the New Year

The second the ball dropped in Times Square, marking the beginning of 2011, he kissed me for the first time.

Now, two years later, we live together.

Crazy how those things work, right?

So many wonderful things have happened since then. That year I made one resolution: to carry cash. (I've renewed that particular resolution every year since then with mixed success.)

I never made resolutions until 2011. I never wanted to be the type of person who resolves every Jan. 1 to "get fit" or "find love." Mainly because I know I'm not the type of person to follow that sort of resolution. (Many kudos to those of you who manage it!)

I try to keep my resolutions to things that I want to be mindful of in the new year. And frequently they're things I've started doing before the new year. But writing my resolutions on paper helps me to remember them. I've always kept a journal -- a book of lists and appointments and recipes and calorie counts.

This year, I'm ordering a new book (I've only got two pages left in my old one!) and I'll copy this list onto the first page.

For 2013, I am hoping to follow these goals and be mindful of my desire to achieve them:

• Work: Use all of my vacation and better track my comp time. 
• Fitness: Run once a week and do yoga twice a week.
• Health: Drink more water, visit the dermatologist, wear glasses more frequently.
• As always: CARRY CASH. 

I'm sure I'll have varying success with these. For instance, I tend to get stuck in fitness ruts. Lately, I've been going to yoga  all the time and somehow, now that it's cold out, I've conveniently forgotten about running. Oops! So I want to attempt to give myself a goal of running once a week. I can do that, right? 

Mostly, I just want to make a good effort at all of these. But I won't hate myself -- or give up completely -- if I mess up a few times. 

So here's to a successful 2013 -- I hope it's wonderful for all of us!