Two summers ago I bought some plants in late September at a local farmers market and brought them home, super excited about the prospect of fresh herbs. Except then winter happened, I went home for a few weeks, yada yada. Basically, they died and I was sad.
I went to the same farmers market this weekend and came home with two strawberry plants and a mint plant.
*fingers crossed*
Lookit the baby strawberries!
Today was the slightly crazy kind of busy. It wasn’t that I had a million things to do, it was just that I had one really long time-consuming thing to be at, and then only about an hour to do about two sort of time-consuming things before heading over to Boyfriend’s house for birthday celebrations. I’m really excited though! I was feeling fancy yesterday so I put together some “samoas” and chocolate covered strawberries.
Funny story about the samoas: I made them for the first time about three years ago, and I remember thinking it was odd that the only ingredients the recipe called for were caramel, grated coconut, and chocolate. I hadn’t had real samoas in years but I vaguely remember an actual cookie part under all the coconut. But I went with it and they turned out a little gooey but delicious, and as long as they were stored in the freezer they were fine. When I looked again for the recipe, I couldn’t find it. Every thing I saw said something about making some sort of shortbready thing. So now I’m thinking I completely misread the recipe three years ago. Whoops. I went with my version anyway. You really can’t go wrong with coconut, caramel, and chocolate. They’re also kind of janky looking because I know literally nothing about cookie decorating and therefore used a fork.
Anyway, the point is that I kind of realized that while incorporating one me-made garment into my outfit every day isn’t going to be impossible, managing to go up to the roof every day for pictures is. So I’m allowing myself to be ok with the occasional iPhone photo.
MMM day 2: I was running late Thursday morning so I kind of threw together this quick outfit. The skirt is based on this Modcloth skirt which looked pretty basic and turned out to be really simple to put together.
MMM day 3: I had a little more time this morning to get ready so I got a little more creative. I had originally made this Sorbetto top in turquoise but didn’t like how girly it was so I thought I’d do it over in a black knit fabric. Now I feel like it looks a little too French maid-esque so I tried toning that part down with my mint Kelly skirt.
I’ve been wearing a bunch of dresses lately so I wanted to play around with separates but I think this weekend will be more dresses.
Also if you haven’t checked out the MMM Flickr group, you should. Super inspiring!
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!
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.
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.