yellow!

I scored this beautifully yellow corduroy today…

In the form of men’s pants!

I was costume shopping at JC Penney for the school’s fall mainstage production, and spotted these on the clearance rack for the low, low price of $1.97 (I told you it was low!). Now, my budget is tight, but all the more reason to snatch up fabric when I can get it cheap! Especially when it is yellow corduroy, so I bought it.

It’s a 40 waist, which is fairly large (the larger, the better, when buying garments for the fabric), but it is still definitely a limited amount of fabric. I’m not sure what to make out of it. Shorts? A skirt? The tiniest 70s a-line jumper for fall? Hmm…

dresses!

Well, I finally found a way to take pictures of myself, and so I can post pictures of the dresses that I have been making this summer. The pictures are not very good, unfortunately, because I lack anything resembling a tripod and have been hanging my camera on a safety pin jammed into my windowsill and taking “interval shots.” If I ever want to photograph anything below my knees, I will face problems, but for right now, this is sufficient.

First, my circus-y t-shirt dress:

One of the joys of doing cool things in high school is that you end up with a plethora of t-shirts that you never wear. Looking for a way to utilize or dispose of some of them, I hit upon the idea of making a dress out of them! I made this before my sewing machine was functional, so I had to sew the entire thing by hand. The skirt is made of three National Ocean Sciences Bowl t-shirts and one random purple t-shirt from who-knows where, and the bodice is my t-shirt from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Summer Seminar. I made mismatched sleeves and decorative but-not-particularly-sturdy pocket, and even a sewn-in sash to help support the weight of the skirt.

The purple sleeve is unfortunately folded oddly in these pictures, but I had taken so many of them by the time I realized that I decided I didn’t care.

And then there’s this dress…

I started making this dress three years ago, sewed it all up exactly according to the instructions, basted in the zipper . . . and then tried it on and realized it didn’t fit very well. I was terribly upset and lost all interest in finishing it, but the other day I finally sewed in the zipper, shortened the hem, added snaps to the cuff, and put ties on the back, all in time to wear to a solstice party!

It still doesn’t fit perfectly; there’s too much extra fabric under the arms, and the quilting cotton is really stiff. Nor will it stand up to much washing, since I didn’t zigzag the seams or anything. But, after all these years of disappointment, I am really very pleased with it.

Just for good measure, here’s a picture of me wearing clothes today and wondering if the camera is ever going to hurry and up and take the picture: