"What's that 'Philadelia' girl?..."

"...What's that mean?  No sexy?"

Ah-hah-hah.  The days of my youth in the high school pit orchestra on the set of South Pacific.

But for real.  I hail from a suburb of Philadelphia, and I am home for the week, just before the hell-throes of my last semester begin.  Well... I exaggerate a bit - my course load for the next few months is:

- Process Design 1 + lab (Chemical Engineering core curriculum)
- Bio 1 + lab
- Chinese 1

So, to be fair, this is technically the easiest semester I've taken since Freshman year, 1st semester.  ...Stop staring at me like that.

Anywho.  I must admit that I haven't crafted a great deal since I got home, despite my sewing machine being within arm's reach.  My parents aren't really too fond of the 2nd-hander mentality, despite being the most frugal people I know (actually - fun anecdote - I decided to wear an old thrift store green jersey dress with a lace tucker, and the very first thing my mom said to me when she saw me was "Wow!  ...You look like an old woman!")  To that end, I left my scraps in Pittsburgh.  Sigh.  In the interim, I can at least share this quickie that I've been working on:

I made this from a large tee-shirt w/ a giant racing logo screen-printed on the front.  Actually - that hole on my back, where you can totally see my bra?  That was originally the front of the shirt.  I turned it around, cut out the logo, and cinched up the gaping hole to make it a little more fun to wear :)  Also - just in case you ever are curious, food is a really great way to stain yourself, but a terrible way to get good dye results.  Beet juice?  Pale orange-brown.  Tea?  Pale orange-brown.  Ketchup (read:  desperate)?  Pale orange-brown.  It's pretty disheartening, given all my other clothing items that are forever ruined because of a spill.

Ironically, the reason for whipping this up was because I needed a plain white tee-shirt for a benefit that I'll be volunteering for this September.  It's called Savor Pittsburgh - if you live in the Pittsburgh area, you should check it out.  All the major restaurants in the area gather in SouthSide Works to have a great sampler event.  My sorority (don't go mental - it's the engineering soro) volunteers every year; this'll be my second time bussing.  It's good fun.

http://www.savorpgh.com/


Publicizing aside, the (current) front is a little bit too boring at the moment, so if anyone has any suggestions to spice it up a little, I'm all ears.

Things might slow down even more once school starts, but I'll still try to get a piece in every week.  If not clothing, then maybe a recipe or something similar.

Until the next.

In a Bind

While we're still in the very early stages, and before I continue with my weird little sojourn of sorts, I thought it might be a good idea to inform all readers of the following:

Just in case it wasn't already apparent, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Not owning a sewing machine (in my apartment, at least.  There's an old Singer at my parent's place) was probably the first tip off.  Generally speaking, I don't buy/download patterns.  I try to follow recipes/craft directions to the best of my abilities, but I can guarantee that I will deviate a bit for one reason or another.

The point of this isn't to deter you from reading my musings, otherwise, there would be no point in blogging in the first place.  Instead, I mean only to 1.) give you a heads up when I do something completely "what in the world are you doing?!" worthy 2.) preempt the times that I completely ruin a project and 3.) sort of give you incentive to try branching out into your own kind of creative zones.

I like to think I have some basis for eventual talent, since my grandmother was a seamstress.  Realistically, though, that's a stretch.  If we want to dig a bit, I've been sewing for a lark since I was 6. Messed around with that for a few years, and then proceeded to get a C in Home Ec. my first semester of junior high school.  ...And to that end, I still burn myself when I iron clothes, but only sometimes. 

But, you know what?  It's great fun, it makes me feel a little more earth-friendly, and over the years, I've been able to gauge a steady growth in my abilities.  Also, I quite like it, so let's continue on with one of my biggest flops this year.

Being Asian, I've had a love/hate relationship with my bust.  I sat at an A-cup for about 8 years, making bra-shopping extremely difficult, since stores rarely carried my size.  Under-wire/padded always felt cutting and uncomfortable, but the alternative barely hid anything cold weather.  On top of that, I always have the bad luck of having straps that dig into my shoulders, or just plain fall off my shoulders. 

In more recent years, I've test a few alternatives - sports bras and camisoles.  They fared a little better, but still shared some issues (mostly the cold-weather ones).  After Google-ing for solutions, I came across two other options - binding and bandeaus.  Having played a male in several roles, I was sort of familiar with binding, but wasn't too keen on the idea because 1.) Hi, I'd rather not make myself any flatter than usual and 2.) If you don't do it right, breathing becomes a bit more taxing that it should be.

So... bandeaus it is?  I was still worried about the cold-weather thing, so I thought I'd try a stiffer fabric, like denim.  Luckily, I had an old leg left over from a patch job I did on a friend's pants.  Okay, now going to back to the whole "I haven't a clue" dealio, I sort of turned this into a hack job, randomly making measurements right at my armpits, across my bust, and right below my bust.

The outcome was this:

Not too horrible-looking, right?  Well... the problem was, it hugged in the wrong spots, and worst of all, it was still really obvious when I was perky.  It would be a punishment for everyone involved if I took a picture myself wearing it. 

Project status:  Scrapped.  I ended up using the denim for a second gift for Dillon.

I might give it a second go with a better pattern and maybe a "buffer" region, of sorts.  It's back to bras for the time being.  Luckily, I've come across bras with petals, which is quite nice, but it doesn't cover the discomfort issues.  Not sure what I'll try next. 

I hear tape is quite the new thing. . .

Uh...

 Cripes, that must hurt to take off.

The Final Countdown

I realize that I said in my last entry that I was going to talk about candying, but as per usual, the issue is I don't have any pictures (and haven't had a lot of time to start a candy-making day from scratch!!!).  But I promise, at some point, I'll get to my specialty (according to my friends) - candied orange peels and crystallized ginger :)

In the meantime, though, I thought I'd share a little how-to for an upcoming special occasion.  August is a fun time for me for several reasons.  Work will be over soon, school will start up in a few weeks, and - the creme de la creme - it's my and Dillon's anniversary.  We always try to challenge ourselves to give unique gifts, since we both like to think outside of the box, but still like to keep it practical.  Case in point - one V-Day, I received a snazzy mini butane torch.

Flame on!

It's only our 2nd anniversary, and being a college student on a budget, I thought I'd go for a homemade gift - cheesy, but meaningful.  Today's project:  a picture frame clock.  I'll readily admit that I had no basis to start from, and all I had was an old, broken clock that I had found in the back corner of my office.

Not very nice looking, and plus the outer frame was cracked in a ton of places.  I took the entire thing apart, leaving me with just the important part - the gears and the hands.  From there, it was time to go town. 

Eventually, I'll put a pic of Dill and I in the empty white space, but that's more or less the finished project.  I'm really happy with how it came out, especially the fake pearl decal.  If you're interested in make a similar one, I've posted a how-to here (link goes to my Cut-Out and Keep profile).

Project:  success!