Jamaica(n me crazy!)

Nate is opposed to this title. But, oh well. I am finally done with TAing so I finally have some time to update a few things that have been going on lately in my/our world.

Three weekends ago, Nate and I went to Jamaica with Anton and Lyuba. We stayed in Discovery Bay in a Villa. It was beautiful! We kayaked, played cards, drank Red Stripe, swam, attempted to play tennis and volleyball, and just chilled. Such a great and relaxing trip!

The view from our meals and the walk to the private beach from the villa. 

After a successful kayak trip out on the bay/ocean. 

Standing on the dock of the private beach on our last day there. 

Summer Skirt

I apparently fell off the face of the earth. I have been very busy traveling and TAing and doing lots of lab stuff. But I'm back and I recently finished a skirt to share on this blog!

I started this skirt a while ago and it consisted of making trapezoids of pink on green polka dots on one side and pink on the other side. To sew these together, I sewed the right sides on three sides and kept one side open (the top) to inverse them. Yes, the material is a bit bright, but I think it's fun!

I then sewed 8 trapezoids together and alternated the fabric showing on each side of the trapezoids. Here is me wearing the skirt. It looks cheery but the tops of the trapezoids are not level because it still needs a waistband.

I realized that I needed a waistband and the only way it was going to work would be with a zipper. So I added a zipper and then I consulted google for the best way to put on a waistband. I found this blog post that had detailed instructions. I followed those instructions and pinned on a waistband. If I was doing this again, I would have added something to the waistband fabric to make it more sturdy, but for this case, it looked fine.

I sewed on the waistband and it started to look very neat and professional. I then hand stitched on some clasps to finish off the waistband.

Then I tried on the skirt! The waistband makes it look nice and complete! I do wish the waistband was a bit sturdier and maybe about half an inch to an inch smaller. I got scared that I was making the waistband too small so I made it looser than my calculation and it looks like there is a bit of slack. I also should have put in some pockets because that would have made it even better. Oh well, overall, I like the look and feel and color of the skirt! It's perfect for summer!

You can see my Easter sunburn on the right picture! Can't believe I got all that from an hour and half in the sun!

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!

Blouse Part 1

This weekend, I got started on this blouse I am making. When I was in Nebraska, Amber and I went fabric shopping and I got a beautiful silky-ish polka dot material. She suggested making a blouse and I was all over that idea. Since I've been traveling a lot, I finally got a chance to start this weekend!

Here is the blouse that I am making. The style is really in right now and I think it will look very cute with the material I have!

It took me a while to figure out the sizing of the Vogue patterns (I am a size WHAT????) and the parts that needed to be cut out on the fold. But I persevered and cut everything out. 

I started putting together the front and the back. This just involved sewing the darts and putting together the top and bottom part of the pieces. Although Amber recommended a special kind of needle for this fabric, this fabric was annoying in that it still tended to "run" once in a while even when I used the special needle (with the regular needle the fabric ran with every stitch!).

This is as far as I got because as I went to open the zipper (for the back of the blouse), I gave myself a nasty nasty paper cut underneath my nail that still has not stopped bleeding. I will finish the blouse next weekend!

Colorful Cheer

I am updating a bit early since I will be out of town for the next week. When I get back, I have many sewing plans, thanks to the wonderful Amber with whom I went fabric shopping in Omaha. Nate and I spent a week there, hanging out with his family, as the second part of our break. While there, we took a weekend trip to Des Moines for his cousin's wedding! It was super fun!

In the meantime, I found this wonderful paper craft (the link has detailed instructions that are fool proof!).

I had a lot of fun putting these "medallions" together. They look more like snowflakes to me. To make them extra happy, I used bright green and pink paper (which I'm sure you've seen before). 

Other than having to glue the two ends together (and wait for it to dry!), this was a super quick and simple craft! I made eight to hang in the my bay in the lab, but haven't had a chance to hang them yet! 

Don't they just make you feel so happy? Maybe it's just me...

Edit: Here they are hung up in my bay! My bench is on the right in this picture: