1940s style halter top recreation.

Hi everyone!

Hope your week was good and you are gearing up for the weekend!
I am so booked this weekend, going to a vegan festival tomorrow, working, and seeing friends.

One friend I saw this past week asked me to help her with her costume for her dance performance at Camp Hollywood this weekend. She's part of the JR LA  Shag team and she needed to have a top remade to work with her partner's costume.

She brought in this rayon halter that was super cute and with a few modifications (because the new fabric was cotton) I drafted a pattern off the blouse and was able to make her blouse.

The fabric I got to work with was this cute Hawaiian/Tiki novelty print with these super tan surfer boys!

Viva! part 1: Arriving and unpacking

Some of my Camp Hollywood wardrobe

Good morning everyone.

I've been in my head lately. Well, I'm always in my head, but I tend to over think on everything. I'd equate it to some sort of calculative deductive reasoning, but I'm not that inquisitive, or even that motivated.

The Red Sweater re-work

How do you all feel about re-working vintage garments?

I LOVE restoring vintage garments. There is nothing better for me than giving new life to a garment that has been around longer than me twice over. I also love repairing or taking a garment from graveyard status and re-working it to give it new life. When the person who gets it is thrilled with the results, there's no better feeling in the world.

As I was working on some of the many things I made and attempted to make for myself for Camp Hollywood last month, one project I did got a lot of unexpected attention!

My friend, and dance teacher is working out a trade with me. She brought me this sweater: mid-late 50's, cropped, short sleeve, cashmere, and cheery red. SO cute! Only, a sweater like this was made to be worn by itself. Meaning, nothing beneath. Lets just say that with wear, and a lot of dancing, it's had it's share of stress.

I'm back!

Well lookie here, I'm blogging again!

I wish I could say that I took a 'brake' of some sort, but life just kept going. I for one wanted to zip lock myself and just hide out in the freezer for a month suspended in time so I could collect my thoughts and pause for a bit. I've wanted to do that for a while, but alas, the foreverware version of Eerie Indiana isn't real, yet...

My first bias cut skirt, and a vacation.

I have this bias cut skirt I got a long time ago at Macy's for a song. It's an Eddie Bauer, and it's black linen, fully lined. I remember wearing it the other night to Cicada club and just loving the way it swooshed and galloped as I walked. Of course a lot of that was because of the weight of the fabric, and even the lining, but it felt so feminine and sexy.

Then I got to thinking, why don't I ever make my own bias cut items?

Well, as I'm sure you all know, it takes up mega tons of fabric. Mega tons is an understatement, shit load would be more accurate.

I'm done with social dancing.

I tried.
Especially since my last post on the topic caused such a firestorm. There was even a reply post on another blog. That blog post failed to see the point, but I digress.

I'm just tired of it. The rejection, the ignores, the flat out no's. On occasion, I can take it, say it's par for the course, and on rare occasions I may have a good night with great leads and fun friends, but when this treatment is more than 50% of your social dancing experience, it gets to be agony.

Last night I went to a bar with friends. One lead showed up and I asked HIM to dance. He looked at me for longer than it would have taken him to answer. "Uuuuuhhh, okay," then we danced a real lame dance. "My arm's sore," he said. "I don't want to overwork it." Yet ten minutes later he was dancing with two other girls more than twice each. I guess it was not worth it to overwork the arm with me, someone else, sure! Actually this night, two injured leads were dancing with other people. That's how special I'm not.

We went to another bar and I asked a guy I know to dance. "The next song, this one is strange." "Sure," I said. I'm not going to push, and I'm not going to hound. I trust people at their word if they say yes. The next song came on, and he got up (I was sitting next to him) and danced with someone else. Two someone else's.

That was kind of it for me. I got up and just walked out and around the block for about half an hour, and cried. Then I just walked home (I only lived a mile away from the bar). I don't know what I'm doing wrong and I'm tired of trying to figure it out. I was with my friend, and I am at the least just as good a dancer if not better than her, and she kept getting dances more times than I can count.

I don't understand it, and I think it's incredibly cruel. Incredibly cruel.

Leads, do me a favor. When you are scanning the crowd for a girl to ask to dance, ask yourself, "Why am I asking her?" or, "Why am I skipping this girl?" and say your gut reaction out loud. Then wonder, is your reason kinda making you a douchebag?

If you say, "Well, she's not that good a dancer yet," did it ever occur to you that she might become a better/faster dancer if someone would practice with her?

Because all of this happened, I'm actually less excited about Camp Hollywood now. One reason is they gave armbands based on skill level; beginner, intermediate, advanced, etc. I was actually looking forward to getting an advanced arm band, because then MAYBE some would see that instead of me and actually dance with me based on my skill! Novel idea, I know. But Camp Hollywood has done away with skill level registration. Fuck. Now I'm back where I started and because the dances tends to be follow heavy, I have a feeling that I'm going to be sitting out of a lot of dancing.

I am this close to holding up a sign that reads, "I can dance too, I'm not invisible!"

I'm just not clique-ish. Never have been. Even in high school, I shunned away from only one group of friends. I'm finding a lot of dance folk cleave to their own and it's really hard getting in that inner circle. And if that were my goal this post would have a different title.

I just wanted to dance. I did't know it would be this difficult to do it.
So I guess it's just classes for me for a while. At least there I know I'll get to dance.
That's all I have to write.

May Pattern Showcase!!

Happy Friday one and all!

First, I'd like to thanks you all for your comments on my previous post. They were honest, encouraging, and very insightful. You all are awesome.

For what it's worth, I went back to Lindygroove last night and I guess I must have purged the bad thoughts from my mind in that post because I had a good time, and I was worried I would not. I danced, had fun, and didn't care. I think that was the most important part. I didn't care. So thanks you all. I feel a lot better.

Now back to sewing:)

This past month was not very pattern heavy. 

Wednesday Update

Good morning lovely people.

Just an update for the week, since I don't have anything to really report.

I got a package in the mail yesterday, some Fireking ovenwear bowls I order arrived. 

My clothes are too big...

...and I feel stupid...

Yay, Air Raid Pictures!! (and men's suit alteration)

Finally I got the videos and the pictures of the suit!

First things first, the rest of the tailoring info.

As I undid the previous mending on the seat of the slacks, I paid extra close attention to matching. My main match was the seam that was from the waistline to the seat. Sure, it caused the pinstripes to me slightly mismatched, but that was from the original cut, there is nothing that can be done for that.

What I'm cramming in in-between packing boxes.

Happy Tuesday one and all!

I hope your week is going well. Actually, I hope you all recovered from last week by having a restful weekend. Me? Well, I'm glad you asked. MY weekend was just as packed (ha, that's a pun) as my weeks have been.

On Saturday evening, after a day of determination to go from this,

to this!

Birthday Dance!

I had so much fun the other evening! That was one of the first times I've ever thrown myself a get together and I was so warmed by how many people came out to help me celebate by birthday. I had so many drinks in the waits for me! It was fantastic!

Eugene's last stand.

Yesterday was Eugene's last night out and about. He's going to retire to a lovely place in the woods. But before he does, he wanted to do one last might. Our team, Passport to Dance went out with one last hurah and pranced Eugene all over the floor in a celebratory dance.

I'm back with a Dance-A-Thon recap!!

Helloooooo everyone!
Wow, this past weekend and the past week have been busy. From the start of 'resting' on Monday from the Danceathon I had two sewing projects, plus I decided to take on some OT at work. How could I pass that up!? I got so busy I missed a dance class. I'm pretty bummed about that.

But now that I'm at a regular pace, I gotta tell you all about the Danceathon!

It was so much fun as I'm sure you could see from the two videos I posted.

Here are some of the pictures I managed to snap in between dancing and sewing (heheheh).

Here I am the morning of. I spent the night at a friend's place, and we just went from there. I didn't even have time to wash my hair for the event, so I did it that morning and twisted it in the car!

Dance-A-Thon news coverage!!

Check out 0:09  :)

Here is another one. I'll have a recap soon :)

Last days to donate. Please donate!

Hi everyone. I'm going to be MIA until next week, 

so I'm making one last plea to donate to the Dance-A-Thon.

You can donate here. I will be posting images throughout the weekend, 

so stay tuned here and you can see the coolness of the event.

Thanks everyone, and I'll see you soon!!

Still recovering from Halloween weekend.

Good morning, everyone. I'm writing this before I get to work just to let you all know I had a blast over the weekend.

Saturday I caught up on some sleep and decided to finally put together my last PPP dress. I was going to wear it for Halloween where we were having a bake sale for my Dance Team for the Dance-A-Thon later this month (still plenty of time to donate)!!

Sunday I went to see the Tim Burton exhibition at LACMA. It was cool and very crowded. Kinda discouraging, but I saw the sections I wanted to see.

Now onto finishing some stuff.

I'm Dancing to fight Cancer!

I've decided to add some more activities to my plate. Aside from the sewing, and the job, and a few other small things, I'm going to kick my dancing into high gear.

I just signed up to participate in...!

It's a 24 hour dance that goes on the weekend of November 12th. There are going to be classes and dancing and bands and all sorts of things!

Your pants too big!

Made these cords years ago. It was before I got my jeans fit from my repro. I made about three pair of corduroy pants, in what I thought was a good loose 40s fit. Now, they are just too droopy on the sides. It's kind of embarrassing. I'm talking each leg like 5" too much fabric.