Fashion Distraction: Say No to the Dress

Hi folks! Sorry about the lack of updates lately. My sewing machine is on the fritz, and my life has been loopy with figuring out a new potential job and getting back into a lot of creative projects. Anyway, I will hopefully have the machine fixed soon so I can get back to sewing and showing you pictures of it, but for now I just wanted to pop in to comment on a silly little fashion thing I've noticed lately:

On the right, we have Marc Jacobs in a Comme des Garcons dress, some pretty badass black shoes with what appear to be diamond-studded buckles, and for some strange reason big ugly white boxer shorts. On the left, we have Seth Meyers appropriately making fun of this outfit by, you know, wearing it.

I love it when guys wear dresses.

I love it when they get attention for it.

I get it, Andrej, you're the most gorgeous person in the world. Stop lording it over me.

 But yeah, that look is just hideous. The dress is kind of cool, if not particularly flattering to the male figure. The white boxers just make it seem like a joke. Is it a joke? That would disappoint me, Marc Jacobs. Anyway, I guess part of a fashion choice (guys in dresses) becoming more acceptable, at least in the edgiest circles of taste, is that fashion choice being executed pretty poorly from time to time. I just hope that this look is an honest-to-goodness poor decision on the part of Mr. Jacobs, and not some kind of laugh at the expense of fashion freedom. If it's the former, at the very least, we'll have people looking at this hot mess and attempting to do a better job of it in the future!

That's a Wrap Skirt!

Sorry for the brief absence! This weekend was a whirlwind of expected and unexpected adventures. I've got a lot to discuss now, and I bet you're just dying to hear it! First thing's first, though: all of the pajama pants are now DONE! Here is SM, modeling the scorpion pants we all know he needs now:

Now his legs are protected by a swarm of venomous arachnids!

My pants are also done, and I really like them, but I'm not great at taking photos of myself so you will have to wait a bit to see them! In lieu of a finished product, here is a random photo of my pincushion sitting on top of the fabric:

Artsy!

Now, once I was done with those pants, I scurried right along to my next sewing project, that flowery pink wrap skirt from the Sew Everything Workshop. Because I wanted to wear it to a party on Saturday night, this was my first sewing project ON A DEADLINE. I work well under pressure, and I can happily say that this was no exception. I tackled a few major new concepts with this project: darts, easestitching, and a sewn pull-through hole for the waistband ties. I also took a lot of pictures, because I *loved* how the fabric looked in the morning light from the window in my sewing room.

This is my first practice dart on a spare piece of fabric. Gorgeous, no?

I'll happily admit that I fell right in love with this fabric from the moment I saw it. A few weeks ago I got it into my head that I needed a flowy white skirt with a pink floral pattern on it, but I also didn't want it to be too busy. The color on this print was exactly what I wanted, and that unique white silhouette pattern seems like the ideal way to balance fancy with subtle. I adore patterns of all kinds, but they're hard to wear, and I'm always looking for ways to look interesting and unique without smacking people in the face with loudness. Anyway, I was happy to learn to sew darts on a fabric I loved, and here is the final, pressed result in the skirt:

Crisp!

After sewing the skirt's four darts and hemming the sides, it was time to add the waistband. I'll admit that I would've liked the ties to be a little longer, and they don't look perfect on the ends, but overall I think they turned out OK. The most interesting part was sewing a little hole for the ties to go through on the side. I had a little trouble translating the instructions to what was actually going on in the garment, because the hole was stitched at the seam of two pieces that would eventually be folded in half. Once I realized that the stitch that created the hole was the seam between the two pieces, I figured it out pretty quickly, and here is the result:

After this, I had to attach the waistband/ties to the body of the skirt, but the seams didn't quite match up the way they were supposed to:

 I have helpfully illustrated the seams that are supposed to align. Given this little conundrum, I decided to try out a technique that the pattern didn't explicitly call for, but which seemed appropriate: easestitching. I used the method recommended elsewhere in the Sew Everything Workshop, and put a single stitch with a very long thread about 1/2" from the edge of the "longer" piece (the the skirt body). I then tugged on these threads and used them to evenly distribute the wrinkles in the skirt body until the seams roughly lined up:

 I pinned it here and stitched, and... Voila!

Semi-Victory!!!!

The seams... Sort of lined up! Anyway, they are even, and it looks fine in the finished piece, even if it's not picture perfect. I made the very silly mistake of pinning the wrong side of the waistband to the right side of the body the first time around, and I didn't figure it out until halfway through the seam. Aside pulling that out and starting over, the rest of the project was relatively simple. Putting in the VERY LONG stitches along the top and bottom of the skirt and through the waistline was kind of a pain, because the fabric tended to get a little bunched up and wrinkled, and this got worse the longer I sewed continuously. Because of this, the tail end of the stitch, around the end of one of the waist ties, does look a little wonky. Does anyone know how to prevent or alleviate this problem? Pressing the finished product helped a lot, and it looks pretty flat and tidy in the end.

So, all in all, I'm very proud of this garment. It's the first thing that I chose and made completely for myself, and I wore it to that party Saturday night and got a lot of compliments! I'm still sorting through photos of my outfit from Saturday night, but here's a sneak peek to give you an idea of the finished skirt:

Glamorous!

Fashion Distraction: The Prisoner Blazer

Every once in a while, I notice a quirky trend running around that gets my fashion sense tingling. Last week I spotted a woman walking through the Harvard Square subway station in a black blazer with white trim on the lapels. She was also wearing dazzling pumpkin-orange pants, and that's awesome. I noted the similarity between the blazer and a certain iconic look from an old British science fiction show, but didn't think much of it at the time. Then, lo and behold, on Once Upon a Time last weekend, THIS:

Oh, Regina. I could dedicate an entire blog to your hair.

Here's Regina Mills, AKA The Evil Queen (Evil being universal pop culture code for TOTALLY AWESOME). And she's rocking the white-trim blazer! Could there possibly be a better way to inextricably link this fierce look to the concept of powerful femininity?

My English Professor went to school with her. *Swoon*

Oh. I guess *maybe* if the Secretary of State, Former First Lady, and All-Around-Badass Hillary Rodham Clinton wore it, that might help. So yeah, here's to you, Black-Blazer-with-White-Trim(-and-Sometimes-Buttons). You just keep killing it out there. But what should we call this look? Ooh, I know, how about The Prisoner Blazer?

I see what you did there.

So folks, have you seen this particular garment anywhere? Got photos to share? Maybe you've even rocked the look yourself? Something about it tells me I need to make it someday, so look forward to that happening once I've graduated from pajama pants to fitted suits. Can't be too long now, right?

Setting Off On the Path of Pins

Greetings, one and all, and welcome to Gathering Pins, a blog documenting my perilous and strange journey through the world of sewing and fashion. As of the writing of this introductory entry, I am a 25-year-old graduate student at Simmons College, studying English and Education.

This is Me. Hey.

As much as I love English and Education, and still probably want to end up as a teacher someday soon, a little something inside of me recently started screaming out that if I don't follow my dreams of creation and visual mischief right away, they might die inside me and harden into painful little stones of Regret. So I decided to give myself a year or more to dive into learning how to sew, being an artist every day, and telling everyone about it. Consider this a bachelor's party before my wedding to a career in education. And who knows? Maybe we'll all get to live together in a big harmonious threesome or something. This metaphor is getting beyond me.

This is also me. I'm kind of a chameleon like that.

So what are you going to see on this blog? Here's the rundown:

1. My Sewing Projects
I'm teaching myself how to sew, and I want you to see what I make! I love clothes. I love fabric. I love thread. And I love sharing. For years, as an art student, I used all the trappings of garment-making in my work without ever learning how to sew. I think my subconscious was trying to tell me something.

Well... Maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me a lot of things.

2. My Fashion Adventures

I have been trying to make myself look better since high school. I even won my class's Best Dressed superlative, despite being an all-around geek! Nowadays, I'm all about freedom in clothing. As good as I look in a button-down suit and a crisp tie, sometimes I just want to wear a skirt and makeup. And sometimes I want to be a fey deer spirit. So I do!

I happen to believe everyone in the world should be able to dress however they want. Style is about expressing your personality in a visual form, and that shouldn't be limited by color palettes, garment types, fabric choices, etc. So I'll be posting photos of myself (and hopefully my friends!) trying all sorts of fashionable options in everyday settings, fancy parties, theater productions, LARPs, etc. I'll be looking for feedback on what works, what looks fierce, and what should probably be tucked back in the closet for a long, long time.

3. My Thoughts on Visual Culture as a Whole

Given how important I think style is in our everyday lives, I'll probably have some thoughts and feelings to share on fashion, art, tv, movies, etc. I love talking about culture, and I'm going to do some of that here. I also happen to have a vested interest in children's culture, given my past (and present) with childcare and my whole future with education and (hopefully someday) parenting. What we show our kids, and how we let them dress, is of utmost importance, so the next time some boy gets yelled at for wearing pink toenail polish in a J.Crew ad, you can bet I'll be ranting about it here.

A TERRIBLE SCOURGE ON OUR SACRED AMERICAN VALUES

So there you have it. Gathering Pins in a nutshell. I hope you like what you see here, and please feel free to offer suggestions, constructive criticism, and respectful argument. I'm here to learn!