Manic Pop

And here I bring you a fun little blog post I worked on for a few days... a late 1960s color palette story! You can thank Timehop for making me remember that a book I have on my shelf has a really cool page of color suggestions in the 1960s for dress design. The book is "The Co-Ed Sewing Book" by Marian Ross which was apparently published in 1968. (See below image.) It's taken a bit of a beating, and upon further inspection, it appears that my mom may have stolen it from a library when she was a kid (haha). There is evidence that there was a library log card envelope on the back page. So, thank you mom for stealing this book all those years ago so it can reside in my collection! If you haven't had the chance to run into this book yourself, it is chock-full with beginner sewing information: from the absolute basics, like choosing colors for you and making fashion work for you, to measurements, talking about thread basics, cutting procedures, as well as seam ...

This post is going to be really straight forward, but I am finally getting around to making myself some much-needed tops! This pattern was SO easy to put together it was almost insulting. Haha. You only need to cut 2 pattern pieces (front and back). I also measured and cut my own neckline bias binding because I didn't have twill tape on hand and I wanted the neckline to match. Needless to say, I cut and sewed this pattern up in about an hour -- no joke! I took lots of breaks/lazing around in between making it so I didn't make it straight through, but it was no more than an hour and a half of sewing and that's including installing a back zipper. I'm always at odd with myself when I make things: Should I make something that actually challenges my vast knowledge of sewing and design skills or should I make things that I will actually wear even though they're super easy? Super-easy and wearable won this time.  Zipper open, obviously. I could have v...

I'm at a total loss with how to present my second version of Simplicity 6299 so here goes nothing.... Yep! I'm back to bad Photoshopping. Haha. With the holiday season being around, being a retail manager, and winter in Chicago (though it hasn't been bad at all) it makes it nearly impossible to take photos of things I have made recently. So I resorted to taking photos against a blank wall and creating... this. It's actually apparently a sketch of Chicago somewhere but I just liked the linework of it. I need to develop my perspective drawing skills. Some of you may remember me posting this sketch deciding between 1 and 2 on my Instagram and clearly, I decided on version 1. It was a hard decision though! (And don't ask me why the sketch is more yellow versus orange, I can't figure it out either.) One thing I've been failing to do is show photos of things on my dressform. I don't know why I don't do that, aside from the fact that I'm ...