save pandas from extinction!

My Halloween costume. About two months late in posting, but I do wear it at least once a week.

Easy adjustments to workout gear...

In the old days, workout clothes used to be just cast-off regular clothes, right? Giant gray sweatshirts, baggy track pants, ripped and stained T-shirts.
Now, women's athletic gear is more polished: I have acquaintances who swear by Nike Dri-fit clothing, or only will don stretchy, microfiber-woven clothing that wicks up sweat magically like a sponge.
Obviously, I can't whip out that kind of stuff on a low budget and minimal sewing skills.
But what I can do is get bored. Get bored with my plain, elephant-gray pajama pants from Old Navy. I chopped off the bottoms to make three-quarter length pant legs, and then inserted a tiny little pocket on the inside.
Of course, I brainstormed too much, too early, and thought I could create a beautifully lined, zippered pocket. So I could go runnng and have a place for my keys.
About 15 frustrated minutes later, I decided on a much simpler pocket and now make do with using a safety pin to secure a key inside.


(on the other haste-makes-waste note: I also have the bad-habit tendency to take the house key off the keychain to go running, and then forgetting to put it back on...thus, locking myself out of my house, not just my vehicle. But I digress.)

Practical, beautiful...but alas! not waterproof...

In times of haste, I make mistakes.
No joke.
I've locked my keys in my car three times, all under times of duress. Once: on my first day of my (unpaid) intership. Another time: trying to get across town to do a video interview in south Austin. Yet a third time: just discovered that I had to write about an escaped Utah convict who vanished from the prisons decades ago and was now living a secret double life in my town.
So this project suffered the consequences of my hastiness - I was pitching a tent in the Mount Hood wilderness during a camping trip. We were fast losing daylight, the rain was coming down, and I had this adorable, embroidered little pocket snuggling around my cell phone in my pocket.
Next morning: I wake up in a panic, chimes from a pre-programmed alarm ring, I frantically look inside for the phone...and it's outside on the ground. Drenched.

The pocket dried out, but let's just say I need to invest in cell phone insurance. Immediately.
(crafting notes: the yellow embroidered fabric came from a $3 oversized shirt from the Target clearance rack. Big yoke-style neck hole, ugly sleeves...I cut it up to make a bag [what else] originally, and made the cell phone cover out of a scrap of that. Inside I lined it with pink felt, and then attached an embroidered ribbon, scavenged, of course.)

Hoodie goodness...

I spent the summer of 2005 in Duluth, Minn. It was three months pocked with Lake Superior boardwalks, swimming in one of a 1,000 lakes, deep green forests and cheese curds.

At the end of the summer, I came back with a T-shirt with the slogan: "Oh, to see what Bernie has seen," crafted by a talented and creative fellow intern.

I wanted to wear the shirt more often, and reconstructed it into my first hoodie project.

Here 'tis:

(it's hard to take photos of clothes when you lack a live model...or roomates)

Vintage parents...

These are two passport snapshots of my parents in their 20s. They were leaving Taiwan to study in New Jersey, and I've always wondered about their journey. The background is a fabric remnant (broke the embargo!) of a bunch of free scraps that I picked up at a garage sale. At least I didn't spend any money. But now I have even more of a pile of upholstery and wallpaper scraps.

Faux strapless shirt...

This was a beautiful print dress, but the top was way too tight, and I saw the dress passed up on the dressing room rack.
I cut off the sleeves and the high neck, and then added a couple of darts in the front and hand-sewed an eyelet hook in the back.
For awhile, the shirt stayed in my closet because it was too hard to pull off as a strapless, especially since I was worried it would end up around my waist.
But hooray for sales at Ann Taylor Loft: the canary yellow cardigan was a perfect match to the shirt's print, and it helps cover all imperfections.
So here's the combo!

Minnie mouse skirt

This used to be a thrift-store dress with a massive white collar and buttons, but I chopped off the skirt and trimmed the top with a yellow ribbon.
Too much like Minnie Mouse? Or like a 1950s schoolteacher skirt?