For the Makers

For my birthday, Olga got me a two-month subscription to For the Makers. Every month, they send you a cute little box with four different projects. There are tutorials online for each project but in general, you can do whatever you want with the materials given. So far, I've made two of the projects:

The first one was super simple but the second time took some time. I changed it a little bit from the tutorial but I think it looks very nice and clean. I have never thought about attaching beads to a rope like that but it's actually very cute. I wish the rope was thinner but now that I know how easy this is and how cute it looks, I can do it again with different materials! 

I'll finish the other two projects and show them next week. Thanks for the gift, Olga!

Nemo!

I have never seen as much snow as I saw yesterday after the blizzard (named Nemo). I think it's more snow than I've seen in the last three years living in Boston combined. Officially we got about 2 feet but the snow drifts were insane! There was a car ban for about 24 hours which was moot on Saturday since most cars were buried so deeply that there was no where to go! That along with the T and most restaurants being closed made for a very uneventful weekend. Nate took a few pictures of me on the way to MIT last night. 

Next to a random snow bank -- mostly made by the plows.

On the street with the Stata building in the background -- even after plowing there was still a good layer of snow on the roads. 

That is me next to a few cars -- all buried.

We didn't have a chance to check out our car but we also have word that is it buried. Nate will be taking the T to Harvard for the next few days since parking anywhere will be ridiculous. 

In the meantime, Nate and I enjoyed one of our Christmas presents. My parents gave us a fireplace that takes canisters of fuel to make real fire. It was really nice being at home while watching the snow and enjoying some dancing flames. 

This has definitely been an experience. I think I've had my fill of winter for the next ten years!

Blouse Part 2

Continuing from the last blog post, I went on to add the zipper. Amber had instructed me to get an invisible zipper foot and an invisible zipper. I read the tutorial she sent me and was all excited to do this.  Then I tried to get the invisible zipper foot onto my machine and low and behold, it just didn't fit. At all.  Thankfully, my machine came with a regular zipper foot so I ironed out the zipper like I was supposed to and just tried to sew it on as close as I could to the teeth. In the end, it worked out ok and you really can't see the zipper. However, I was disappointed in not being able to use the correct zipper foot!

I then went on to join the sides of the shirt to make a real looking shirt. While I did the measuring all correctly, as soon as I tried it on, I realized that it was a bit too large (as you can see in the picture below)! I am pretty sure I followed all the seam allowances so I do not know why it turned out this way. I resewed the sides by about an inch each and it started looking much more right. Another thing that you can't see so well on this picture but can see in the finished product is that the waist didn't quite sit right. I was debating when I was cutting out the materials whether I should lengthen the torso but ultimately decided against it because I wasn't sure how the sizing was going to pan out. I did know that these patterns are made for people who are ~5'4''-5'6'' and I am a few inches taller than that but I figured it was going to be ok. If I had added the two inches that I should have added, I think it would have hit the waist more correctly. Oh well! For this kind of style, it's not the end of the world. 

My two favorite parts of this shirt were learning how to do sleeves and using bias tape to make a beautiful neckline. Something about both of those things was ridiculously satisfying. The bias tape seems so random but when you do it right, the neckline (and I did it on the end of the sleeves and at the bottom of the peplum) looks so neat and professional! For the sleeves, you are first supposed to gather the material on top of the sleeve so you can give your shoulder flexibility and then sew it onto the shirt in a way that you are not introducing any folds. This seemed really hard at first, but somehow it just works out and looks so real! Now the shirt was looking like a real shirt (you know with one sleeve!).

I added the other sleeve and finished everything neatly with the bias tape. Once again, I cannot stress enough the wonders of bias tape. The pattern itself did not call for finishing the peplum with bias tape but I couldn't stop myself! Here I am modeling the shirt with a plain black pencil skirt. Yay!!

I have to say that I have not sewed something from a pattern for a very very long time (possibly since the sewing classes I took in 4th grade) and I learned A LOT of new concepts while doing this thanks to youtube videos and step-by-step tutorials online. In the end, I really like how this turned out and I am looking forward to making more clothes -- especially from fabrics I love. So, thanks to Amber for giving me the motivation and tools to get started!