Category Archives: life

It’s late, I’m tired

March 6, 2013 peneloping

hello

Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes, you guys are the best!

I knew that I wasn’t going to be up for anything terribly exciting on a Tuesday night after class so I decided it’d be fun to do what we do every Tuesday night, which is to nerd out at a bar.

It was pretty awesome. I brought my camera with my vintage 50mm lens to play with and I’m pretty impressed! I’m still absolutely terrible at holding it still but to be fair it was 10pm and super dark and some of the photos still managed to look like they were taken at high noon. I need to start using this lens for outfit photos!

On a completely separate subject, I’ve been wanting a new camera bag lately and since my bank account weeps every time I visit Kelly Moore or Jo Totes, I decided to go the DIY route again like last time. My last bag was great and I love it, but the new camera is really just too big for it. Plus I always hated that I didn’t think to get a bag that had a zip closure on top to protect gear from the elements. And it literally just fits the camera and one lens and possibly a set of keys. Possibly.

This new bag is all kinds of amazing. It’s absolutely huge but still usable as a purse, it zips across the top, and it has a front pocket! I’m so excited to be able to take my camera with me everywhere! Plus how adorable is the carpetbaggy print?? I ruv. Now, what color to make the inserts..?

I also finally got my paws on this lovely pattern! I’m convinced that once I start making exclusively spring-appropriate clothing, the weather will take a hint. I can’t wait to get started, I already have so many ideas!

I’m pretty exhausted today for no apparent reason, so tonight is just lounging in Boyfriend’s sweatpants watching old episodes of Gilmore Girls.

Don’t judge me. I hate myself for it. I blame Alexis Bledel’s eyes.

Headless chickens

March 1, 2013 peneloping

Welcome to your friendly neighborhood disjointed post.

I’m starting to have papers and projects due for school so things have started feeling a bit more frantic. Ok, a lot more frantic.

Anyway, the Boyfriend’s family is in town visiting so we went out for brunch today. His Seest is just learning how to use her dSLR so I brought mine along too and we played around with them. It was fun having someone to experiment with and not feel too self-conscious, especially when we hunched over things for several minutes, fiddling with settings as everyone else twiddled their thumbs.

Anddd now I have to go dig through my closet to try to put together an outfit for an event tomorrow. Boyfriend is having his white coat ceremony for dental school. Super exciting! Except business casual just doesn’t really work with my wardrobe.

PS: In other news, my Chelsea collar knockoff dress was entered in Erin’s Copy Cat Challenge over at I heart fabric! Feel free to check it out and enter any of your own copycat projects!

On perfect fabrics falling out of the sky (not literally)

February 22, 2013 Peneloping

Sometimes I’ll have a project in mind and will search high and low and not be able to find the right fabric for it. When I was making my Betty Draper dress for the Mad Men party I went to, I literally spent hours perusing eBay and fabric.com and went to the fabric store twice before giving up and picking a different dress to replicate. (I had originally wanted to do this one but ended up going with this one instead.)

Then there are times like this past week when perfect fabrics fall into your lap and beg to be taken home.

A few days ago I went thrifting on a whim looking for spice jars and possibly some DIY-able men’s shirts. There was nothing remotely resembling a spice jar and I was completely distracted by shoes and forgot to look at men’s shirts, but I did stumble across a three yard hunk of gorgeous pink/taupe silky satiny fabric mixed in with the sheets and bedding. Here’s the extra-awesome part: a few months ago I was wandering aimlessly around the fabric store looking for exactly that fabric! Except the only thing remotely similar was 100% silk and about $290384 per yard (not an exact estimate). I ended up leaving with a satin that was too heavy and didn’t drape right and abandoned that project. Did I mention the thrift store charged me exactly $1.99 for that three yard piece??

The next day I stopped by the fabric store on the way to school to get some thread and decided it couldn’t hurt to just glance around. My bank account winced and I thought maybe just one tiny chunk of fabric couldn’t hurt. And then I found the same fabric I had found at the thrift store, in exactly the shade of navy I had needed to go with the taupey pink! *happy dance*

While I was at the fabric store, I had also wanted to look around for a navy cotton, something on the thicker side but still with drape. I was about to walk out of there with something not so amazing when the perfect fabric basically jumped out at me. I don’t even know what this fabric would be called so I couldn’t really ask for what I was looking for. I’m still amazed!

Anyway, sometimes it’s nice when the universe balances out the times when you just can’t for the life of you find what you’re looking for.

In other news, I’ve got some more exciting projects lined up this weekend. I bought a yellow floraly fabric a few weeks ago and I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do with it but I’m thinking of going with this pattern. I might add some sort of cute collar detail but I haven’t decided.

I have to say though, it’s a little depressing making summer dresses and not being able to wear them immediately. I feel like this yellow print is a little too sunshiney to be able to wear in the snow. I’ll have to experiment.

Literally all of yesterday I was sucked into this project and holy crap it’s been difficult! I’ve had absolutely no training in pattern drafting and I wouldn’t even know where to begin to do it the “right” way. I’ve tried the math thing and somehow my calculations always seem to be off (one time I swear I did all the math right and ended up with a waist line 14″ too wide). I’ve tried using my mannequin but it’s a cheapy one and we have entirely different body types (plus her boobs are oddly pointy –maybe she needs a bra?). I’ve even tried tracing existing garments, which usually works best (except for the time I stupidly used a knit dress to make a pattern for a cotton dress and didn’t account for the lack of stretch -headdesk-). Usually I’m able to cobble together something decent but I couldn’t begin to tell you how I did it.

Anyhoo, the point is I’m 99% done and it 99% fits! I just need to hem it and fray check the buttonholes and it’ll be good to go! Look for it on the blog on Monday ;]

Lastly, can I just say how much in love I am with my new camera? My one piece of advice for camera noobs is to go touch one. No joke. If I had actually gone to a store and picked up and played with each of the cameras I was looking into getting, I’m fairly certain I would have gone home with this one in the first place. (Although to be fair, the only reason I could afford this one now is because the d7100 just came out so prices on used d7000 dropped dramatically. But still! Touch all the cameras!)

And yes, I do feel slightly blasphemous taking crappy picture of a d7000 with an iPhone.

Have a great weekend!

8 Comments life fabric - new camera - pattern drafting

Excuse the mess –again!

February 9, 2013 peneloping

I know, I know. I think I’ve changed the layout here four times in the past month. I’m still making some minor adjustments, and some bigger ones, so bear with me! I was going to do it all at once but my previous theme was just really bugging me. I wanted to try out the whole front-page-post-excerpt thing but it just wasn’t working for me to have to click on each individual tiny picture to get to the whole article.

Thanks for your patience!

PS Holy crap SNOW! As a person who really wants to go fabric shopping I am horrified. As a Californian who’s never lived in the snow, there are no words to describe the glee.

Stay safe, guys. And don’t forget to play in the snow!

On not standing in the way of goals

February 5, 2013 Peneloping

I made another Sorbetto top! Actually technically I just harvested the guts from my turquoise Sorbetto and used black knit instead.

There are going to be some changes around here in the near future. I mentioned wanting to blog more in my New Year’s resolutions post and then again when I changed up the layout a bit, but I’m still not completely happy with where things are here.

A huge part of the problem is the state of my laptop, and another issue is general shyness.

My laptop is over three years old. It’s sad and dying. Editing photos literally takes hours because of how slowly it loads things and how often I have to start over. I bought a Wacom tablet last year that I’ve barely been able to use because it’s hard enough to get used to writing on a tablet without dealing with lag.

And then there’s the shyness issue. I bought a camera last year wanting to learn all about photography and use my blog as a way to learn as well as showcase crafty projects. I read piles of books (I have tons of recommendations if anyone’s interested!) and watched hours and hours of instructional videos. The one area where I had trouble was actually taking my camera out to play around with it.

It seems counter-intuitive, right? Most people get a new toy like that and can’t wait to run out and try it out immediately.

I really have no explanation. Except that I had no idea what I was doing and I was terrified that people would stop me on the street and and disdainfully demand to know why I was bastardizing the art of photography.

Totally reasonable fears, I know. *cough*

Anyway, I’ve decided I’m tired of holding myself back. My old apartment had great indoor lighting, and I was able to post fairly regularly, but I would only take outfit photos when no one was around. Needless to say, having to work around my own schedule plus my roommate’s absences was not exactly ideal. My current apartment faces the wrong way and has no good place for outfit posts. We do, however, have a lovely huge rooftop filled with plants and decor that would be perfect for outfit shoots. I’ve been meaning to go venture up there to try it out for ages but have always managed to come up with an excuse not to.

But no more! I’m doing it this weekend. If not tomorrow. I want to learn photography! I spent three hours yesterday looking at blogs and Pinterest and photographs and I’ve got all kinds of inspiration running through me. I don’t expect to end up with anything resembling an amazing photograph but I’m never going to get there if my camera just sits sadly neglected in my room while I read books and watch videos.

So yes, roof. Tomorrow. And yes, I will probably freeze.

And to address the technology issue, I have a new laptop coming in the mail tomorrow! *squee*

Which basically means that if I’m still unable to achieve my goals, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.

4 Comments life learning - photography - reaching goals - shyness - thoughts