All posts by peneloping

MeMadeMay’13 // day 1!

MMM'13 day 1

MMM'13 day 1

MMM'13 day 1

MMM'13 day 1
dress: Modcloth // top: repurposed // satchel: self-made // glasses: Bonlook //shoes: Minnetonka (not pictured)

I’ve probably spent waay too much time planning out outfits and projects to work on and garments to finish so they can be incorporated into MMM outfits. But it’s so much fun! I’m also using this as an opportunity to clean out my closet and get rid of all the stuff I never wear and probably will never wear.

This is my favorite outfit right now, although technically the chambray top was not entirely handmade. I decided to make up for it by adding in a floral satchel I made last year that has somehow managed to avoid making its way on the blog until now. I’ll do a post on it soon; I absolutely love it.

In other news, holy crap, when did it become spring for real? I swear I was up on the roof only a few days ago and everything was still gray and leafless. Suddenly everything is all warm and green!

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A few things

in progress

1. I’m squeeing like a fangirl over this, but if you didn’t see, my Katniss dress was featured on Megan Nielsen’s blog yesterday! So much happy going on over here. :]

2. I think I had started learning to sew normal wearable in public clothes sometime around mid-May last year because I remember seeing “Me Made May” all over the interwebs but not really knowing what it was until it was mostly over. This year I signed up!

I, Ping of Peneloping, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear at least one self-made item of garment each day for the duration of May 2013. I also pledge to finish my hefty pile of non-costume-related UFOs and to make at least one dress a week.

I broke up with a lovely blue lace semi-backless dress that gave me all kinds of heartache last summer but it’s been a year and we’ve grown and I think maybe it’s time to reconcile. There’s also a chiffon dress (pictured above) that I’m pretty sure I ignored for a while because I made the bust too small but luckily I managed to stay (mostly) on track with lifting and eating clean all year and lost two bra sizes so it should fit now! And then there’s the dress that just needs its buttonholes sewn and a cord belt made. And a Kelly skirt that needs buttonholes and hemming. Ooh and a lilac checkered dress that I can’t even remember why I broke up with. And lastly a heinous 90s dress that I have plans to beautify.

3. One huge paper due this afternoon, one behemoth paper due next Monday, and then one last mini-final exam on the 13th and I’m officially done with most of the academic part of grad school! There is the pesky little dissertation-esque portion but I’m choosing to ignore that until September.

4. I was just mentally going through my wardrobe and planning out the first week of Me Made May when I realized that some days I don’t change out of pajamas (usually Fridays. And sometimes Sundays.). And then I was really thankful that I’ve made a few pajama bottoms. Does that defeat the purpose? hee.

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Mr Darcy’s going to love my new bonnet

Blue green blazer

Blue green blazer

Blue green blazer
top: f21 // blazer: self-made // skirt: self-made // shoes: Seychelles

I’m going to make a confession. My recent desire to delve into the world of blazer-making can totally be blamed on a New Girl episode. I’m really not expecting anyone to be surprised. There’s an episode where she goes shopping for weird starfish lingerie and wears a gorgeous bright blue blazer with turquoise lining and zippered pockets and my lusty heart was lusty.

I looked at some screen caps and eventually decided that a blazer is a blazer (well, to a beginner anyway), and bought B4610. I used View A, but left off the pockets.

Since this was my first foray into the world of super fitted semi-professional attire, I made exactly zero pattern adjustments. Except for the part at the end where I had no idea how to close the whole thing up and ended up improvising and handstitching almost everything. I kind of feel like that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Oh well, I’m mostly happy with how it turned out!

For the record, I had every intention of putting the zippers in, but the only black and silver zippers I could find were black and gold and far too heavy and I was afraid they would pull too much at the fabric and look funny. Also I was lazy.

And yes, I briefly considered wearing white lace panties on my head as an accessory. I do value authenticity when it comes to costume replicating.

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Floraly pleats

Pleated skirt

DSC_1609_A

Pleated skirt

Pleated skirt
top: Modcloth // skirt: self-made // shoes: Seychelles 

After a whole week of failing to take photos for one reason or another, I got up this morning and checked the weather. Seeing that it was 50 degrees out and would be rainy tomorrow, I got dressed up and headed upstairs for a quick photo shoot. Except instead of 50 degrees, it felt more like 30 and was windy and miserable. So I took a few quick shots before giving up and heading back to the elevator.

As I was waiting for the elevator, it suddenly occurred to me that I was in a toasty warm room with bright natural light shining in. So I set up my tripod and took a few more pictures. Win! I love finding new places to take photos.

Anyway, I bought this fabric more than a year ago back when I owned zero skirts. It sat in my stash pile for this long mostly because I could not for the life of me figure out how to draft a skirt, but at the same time felt that skirts should be too easy to spend money on patterns for.

Luckily making so many dresses recently has made skirt-drafting a breeze. This one is just a simple pleated skirt with a slightly overlapping band held down by snap closures. I made the pleats pretty big because I thought it went better with the bold floral print than tiny pleats would.

All in all, pretty happy with how it turned out!

Lastly, I want to thank you guys for your lovely comments about the Boston bombing. I really appreciate all your sweet notes! <3

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