omfg. I love this mess.

Yes hello allison? EARTH to allison. You love this crap–remember? Your Queen of Slackers Tiara is over here with a stale glass of champagne.

Fabric! sewn or just bought at bargain basement prices!

Shoes! worn or just bought at … like you know, whatever!

Cocktails and cookies! (which I’m never on the ball enough to actually take photographs of before they are ingestedly decimated.)

I miss myself–is that hopelessly conceited? I think I’m owning up to it, at any rate.

I feel it’s time to crank out a quick post full of total wishful thinking: projects that, at some point at least, I want to attempt and maybe even complete and hang out in. Perhaps I’ll revisit to re/assign priorities or change the fabrics around or edit the projects themselves, but either way I should keep some sort of track of them all, right? It’ll be like a field trip! grab yer juicebox and c’mon!

There are certain garments that I feel I must have now that we’re all fully and awesomely moved into our deco-fantastic home. The weather is warming up, Beck is getting a super swanky grill for her imminent cumpleaños, and we have the best ever porch right off the living room that I will use to cement my awesome presence in downtown Durham by playing the ukulele in late afternoons whilst wearing tea dresses. Which is to say, I totally need a tea dress. I found an excellent fabric at the scrap exchange when we were in our temporary place (i.e. there was NO ROOM for new fabric purchases but I went an’ did it anyway), and I am *in love* with the idea of making it into this, for example. Something long and slim-fitting (though I’ll probably shorten it a little ’cause those dresses from the 1930s were for real almost ankle-length) with a fitted waist a smidge on the high side and little flared sleeves, maybe with a pleat in the center. I have about a hundred images I’d like to partake of, but I should probably start with what I have on hand. I’m not sure if I’ll wear it with a slip or underline the bodi—whatever. No. Totally making a slip. Just thinking about underlining a summery dress is making me cross my arms and assume the ‘no way jose’ stance you see moms of younger tots do in toy departments. Plus I need a slip to wear with that ancient simplicity dress I am practically done with, so there! Add to my list of summer sewing: One White Slip.

*ETA: the excellent fabric for my tea dress:

It’s going to be so boss; I can’t wait.

Next: a housecoat. I so, so badly need a housecoat for weekend lounging and midnight trips to the fridge. Every single character in Golden Girls has several, and dammit, I need to strut down the hallway with a long floral print billowing behind me.

made out of

Plus it will be excellent for brunch hostessing and running downstairs to grab the times on Sunday morning. (I’ll just have to reinforce the sideseams and buttonholes at the waist in case I eat too many tim tams.)

Now I am almost always blathering on about dresses these days, so that’s not really something y’all haven’t heard before, so I’ll ‘fess up that I need to start my list o’ summer dress madness with something specific. I’m quite fond of the bateau neckline, and I have a decent length of black stretch sateen that I found for a song at–you guessed it–scrap x. Pattern options: Simplicity 7574, a vintage find from 1968:

or maybe this recent Vogue designer dress from last summer,

And you know, the more I think about this latter Vogue, the more I think I may just get it. The bow in the back is growing on me more and more, and I don’t think raising the back should be too hard as long as I convince myself to make a muslin first. Also I have an awesome book that will help me approximate that curly-q updo the model is rocking. There are some fantastic reviews of this Vogue pattern over at PR, so … maybe I’ll move this one up on the list. Although I do totally still want to try out the ‘68 simplicity, perhaps in one of the many VWL brocades I bought last year?

Now rest assured that there are still about 36 things I want to sew up in the next two weeks, so my list is really much longer than this, but I think this is enough for the first installment. Plus I still (OMG STILL) have some pics to take of a couple fabrics I’m thinking about, so … yes. Till next time!

Monday! gah! How do you sneak up on me so fast? I’m going to be fifty in record time, the weeks are flying past so quickly.

So weekend report: success! accomplishments! and so forth. I got started on the V1170 skirt out of a black stretch cotton twill, finished cutting it out and got cracking on the assembly. I was shocked and awed to learn that I didn’t have a black 7″ invisible zipper, so by the time I stitched the pockets onto the skirt front at 10:38 on Saturday night and in doing so miraculously ran out of bobbin thread, I decided to call it a night.

Sunday we spent being good consumerists and buying things, including but not limited to speaker wire, underpants, and shelves for all my beautiful, beautiful shoes; then we came home and smacked up said shelves.

So first off, holy cow I have a lot of shoes. Old news, nothin’ novel to speak of, no duh allison; but don’t they look *fantastic* up there? Gawd where the hell is beautiful sunny weather with no chance of rain, because it and my most excellent metallic-acid-green-leather clompy-to-end-all-clomping-wannabes have a hot date scheduled ASAP. I love those things (although our downstairs neighbors might have words to another end) and am looking forward to coming up with fun outfits to pair with them.

Secondly, plaster walls are sort of a pain, yes, but more to the point they require traversal of a hairpin-sharp learning curve: which is to say, We are at least learning. (Read: oops.)

I also decided that I want to pair up my striated-orange-blobs stretch cotton with a bottom contrast panel of the VWL navy ribbon faille into view A of M5991, but without the slanty side pockets–just regular ol’ side seam pockets. I am afraid of slanty gaping at my hips, so I’m hoping to avoid it by going less fancy with the pockets. Except for the two strips of the navy ribbon faille, I still have to cut all that stuff out (and figure out exactly what I want to face the hem contrast with, and whether I should underline the orange-white cotton or just line it), but I’m sort of excited about it. And it’ll be way easier for me to shoe-shop my collection for a perfect complement now that they’re all on display! wooo!

Next time: I’ll try to make some progress on the V1170 skirt, and maybe the blouse too (those tie-ends for the sleeves are a royal pain in my ASS) and, well, one day I’m going to have to officially finish that zebra-print wrap dress: buttons on the cuffs and beltloops, stat!

Hey, were you the one who bought the size 9’s in the Clergerie black patent houndstooth Nephys wedge? and are they about a size too small for  you? ‘Cause if that’s the case we should totally switch ‘em, because the 10’s are too big for me. Wouldn’t that be excellent?

Sigh. I’ll get over it.

I sought, I scoured, I found; I debated and rationalized, backtracked and obsessed; ultimately I actually splurged–and now I wish I hadn’t. Or at least I wish I had bought a size smaller in that super excellent houndstooth nephys black patent wedge. I am afraid to say that they’re too BIG, because then I’ll have no good excuse for returning them. The other ones, the espace mygne heels (the memory of which I clung to for years), are very WAY too big, in a farcical ‘yeah there’s no way I can keep these’ kind of way, so those won’t be hard to part with. Also they only had them in brown, which I can pass on, and the only reason I jumped on ‘em was because the 10 magically reappeared and they were still crazy marked down to like $36. But houndstooth and patent platform wedges? dare I send them out of my life, when it took so long for the two of us to meet? I … don’t … I don’t know!

Anyway.

In other news I am rocking out another bowling pin; it’s been hanging out in the hallway for about four days now. I’m not sure if I have anything even inspiring me yet, in a finite sort of way. I mean, I’m always got about forty-five ideas rollicking around the ol’ grey matter, but nothing that’s emerged as a ‘Eureka!’ kind of thing just yet. Maybe that’s the way it goes? like I’ve got to cradle the scratched up plastic-coated wood bebeh in my arms before it speaks to me? What do y’all think? any fun ideas you ever wanted to see on a bowling pin?

And then, also, there is sewing: I have not done a single finishing stitch on those V1098 pants and I still don’t know if I want bound inside seam allowances or to line them. I wish I’d put some pockets in there somewhere, but … I guess I could still slash the back and sock one in there. I did manage to move the snaps on my zebra dress over and I finished hemstitching the facing to the bodice and I picked out which buttons I want on the cuffs–but I think I might want the buttons to be superficially attached and for the cuff closure to be accomplished via a small snap. Oh and then I also decided I want a blouse AND a skirt from the new Rachel Comey V1170 pattern, so I got all my pieces traced out in their respective sizes and the blouse has already been cut out. I grabbed a piece of thin-ish, drapey and soft bright royal blue rayon from ye olde stash (which of course I don’t have a picture of) that I think will be comfy and offer a lovely *pop!* to my black and white summertime ways. The back calls for buttons but it’s a pretty loose blousey fit, so I may alter that decision at some point when it’s closer to being done. Or maybe little pearly snaps? would that be weird? is it possible for anybody out there to have half a clue what the hell I’m talking about when there is Not One Single Picture! to accompany all this mess of rambling? Maybe I’ll see to that over the weekend. I’ve also been going a little nuts with buying fabric lately, too: now I have actually been sewing some of it up, and I do always look for stuff on sale, but I’m very often battling the urge to click on the “Proceed to Checkout” option and make that admitting click. I just bought a box o’ stuff from fabric.com, one of which was a long-lost Vera Wang Lavender Label print, a navy blue polka dotted silk chiffon for a whopping $2 a yard. That one was gone pretty quick, but I managed to score it (along with a few other things that would, you know, push me up to the $35-mark so’s I could get free shipping). There’s a current wishlist shopping cart full of stuff I have at two other online spots, and I’m sorta fighting the urge … perhaps I will return on Monday to share with you how I fared! (And to share some photo love.)

I … I know that I do not NEED shoes. I know. Deep down and very frankly I utterly concede big bad heaps of YES I KNOW to the age-old question, ‘Do you really need to buy anything else?’ I don’t even have enough of a set-up right now to even unpack all the shoes I kept, they’re mostly still in shoe boxes or in protective cloth bags in a big moving box. I already have farylrobin shoes, black season-transgressing shoes, and even a damn pair made of woven raffia with patent trim. But I kind of WANT these three. Is that bad?

(Do not feel the need to respond if your name is BECK. I know how you feel about this already.)

In other news, I really am almost done with my zebra print wrap dress. I actually already wore it to work on Tuesday of this week, so it’s definitely already serviceable, but I have a few more finishes to crank out. I need to shift the snaps over about 3/4″ because, as it is now, it’s just a hair too snug. I also need to sew on a couple of buttons on the cuffs, add beltloops to the waist sideseams, and finish hemstitching the facing to the upper bodice. And then?! THEN you will get a picture of me in a very animal-print dress, which I never really thought I would say, but it does look sorta good. And it would also look quite good with at least two of the three aforementioned pairs of shoes that I don’t need.

Like, you know, whatever.

So there have been some changes all up in the life in the seven months since I pretended I have a blog. We sold our house and moved out of it, got a quick and awesome intro to living close to downtown and being able to walk places, developed the initial strains of awesome stamina by carrying 463 heavy-ass boxes up a big flight of stairs, and hauled butt to host our Annual New Year’s Eve Super Party less than a week after having moved in completely. And now? Now it’s time to not have to uproot any more; to relax when we want to without feeling guilty about not getting a thousand things done every night after work; to get back in the habit of a Full and Complete Life Under a Single Roof, for real. And it’s been pretty awesome: I’ve been sewing, I’ve been listening to music I totally forgot I had, I’ve been spending money on fabulous fabrics, I’ve been wearing fancy shoes that’d been packed away for months. And I even heard a rumor that I was going to think about not being such a patsy when it comes to my poor neglected VP. My poor, poor various pants! Also we need to get you a better design honey, I know.

So, to look forward to: projects. I actually managed to get a smidgen of sewing stuff done at our temporary digs (though you’d never know it): I finished the Wicked Witch skirt for Hallowe’en, finally finished the sleeveless floral print blouse, and started *and* finished a slim-fitting skirt with a back flounce from the midnight-blue wool crepe I got from Asheville last January. Those three projects are all done and I should probably write pattern reviews for them, because I do like having a big fat number next to my profile name on PR. I’m also super close to being done with a long-sleeved wrap dress, the 1976 Simplicity Jiffy 7705, and I’m more than halfway done with my first ever (!) pair of real pants, from Vogue 1098. For these last two projects I have used up actual amounts of stashed fabric, which is sort of awesome in two parts: it was gathering dust already, and now it’s not, and I know at least the 7705 is a pattern I’ll make again in a nicer fabric. Which means more room will be created in my cedar shelving options to accommodate NEW PURCHASES AW YEAH. I have also resolved that I must sew more dresses, because they kick ass, and also that I need to be more hands-on with trying out my vintage patterns.

I also need to attempt greater timeliness with taking and actually uploading pictures, as is evidenced by my total lack of photographerial involvement with this post. I mean, Lisa is cool! she looks like Blossom! ‘Sall good.

Of course! C’mon, y’all! I am naturally obsessing about some shoes in some way or another.

I was thinking the other day that it might be nice to have some kind of regular checking in here on the V-Pants that would keep you in the know of what kind of Shoely Activity I’ve been engaging in. It’s always something, you know: looking at new designs and styles, checking out the seasonal sales, finding something I couldn’t possibly live without, being totally disheartened by the raunchy clods I see some folks walking around in, selling or giving away lots of stuff, and so on, and so forth. So let’s get to it:

MY CURRENT WEEK IN SHOES.

I’m selling a lot of pairs on ebay right now: including four belonging to Beck, I have 21 pairs that are on the chopping block. Most of them were ebay or other online purchases, which sort of precludes, perhaps, that most of them do not fit. They were all found on sale at least, but only on the irregular occasions does that actually result in me wearing them regardless; so I bit the bullet and started them off at super cheap even though it hurt a little. Would I keep a few if I could ostensibly trade them for a size that fits? Oh totally. Unfortunately ebay and flickr and my current googling skills have left me with No Dice, so I’ll just have to keep looking while I chuck these out the front door.

In other Shoes News, I have found several pairs that I am currently lusting after:

First! Robert Clergerie’s “Dormit” wedge.

I love this Clergerie man, anyway, but the graphic upper coupled with the terraced wedge just about make me start drooling. And if you take inventory of not only the shoes I’m getting rid of, but also the ones I’m hanging on to? You will see quite plainly that I am a Total Sucker for platforms and wedges, ankle straps, open- or peep-toed vamps and a healthy dollop of funky. I actually got a notice in the mail that I was obligated by law to love this style. I can only seem to find them for sale at Zapp’s, where they call it both the “Domit” and “Dormit” stylenames. Uh, hello? Hello, Zappo’s? These things are SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS. Not like six hundred Hungarian Forints, or even six hundred Swedish Kronor, we’re talking u.s. dollar-i-doos. That is a LOT of dough for something that you can’t even call by its right name.

I also have discovered that I am helplessly in shoe-love with Angelo Figus. Can you imagine what this fellow is doing to my shoe-dreams?!

I am helplessly cooing and squinting into kissy-faces and tapping my pigeon-toed feets. Omfg.

And last but certainly not least, my newest perennial favorite, Ms. Chie Mihara:

These are all from Gimme Shoes, in case you want to gimme any of them. I promise I would wear them with handmade fancy dresses and make you from-scratch lemon bars, unless you’re vegan, in which case I would make you some delicious guacamole and take you to a nice vegan bakery where you could pick out some butterless concoction upon which to snack. See? Win-win! I’ll wait for your reply in the comments, xox.

Let me first say to my nineteen-year-old self, who (if I understand appropriately the whole time-space relativity thing in addition to how the interwebs work) will be soon reading/has already read this post, that I apologize. I know you used to stay up all night for the shit of it and read random books in the undergrad in some slightly precocious way of approaching college educatedness; I remember well that you used to work a job until 11:45 or midnight and only afterwards would go home to eat dinner and do your homework and watch either infomercials or random programming on public television while you deciphered meaning from elementary-school-level russian dialogues for at least the next three hours; and, yes, I too was there! when you halfway slept on a crappy wooden framed dorm lounge loveseat for approximately 82% of your sophomore year so you wouldn’t have to listen to your cranky roommate complain about the light being on in the room after ten or eleven at night. So, I totally concede that it’s sort of odd to be coming forth with this business, and even I didn’t anticipate it, but it’s also really true so just brace yourself, okay?

I totally dig getting up way early in the morning.

Now, I’ve only done this for the last two days, so my opinions might change, but getting out of bed before six in the morning, today and yesterday, has totally allowed me to have an amazingly different kind of day. I got out of bed, and had a cup of tea or coffee and then boom! into the sewing room. I pinned things; I sewed seams and even pressed them; I adjusted the waistband for fit for crying out loud. I mean, productivity! it was amazing! And I actually got stuff done, and then was at work (work!) right on time! and I didn’t even forego showers or teeth-brushing! It was like, pow! All of a sudden, I had this swath of color in my morning that hadn’t been there before. Now, granted, I found myself alarmingly SLEEPY at like 8:30 last night, but I held out a bit (thank you, birthday cake!) and wasn’t even in bed all that too much later than normal, like 10:15 or so. And after yesterday morning and last night and this morning, I’m totally almost done with the knockoff skirt. Which I’m naming the Tristis skirt, after the latin name for an American Goldfinch, because it’s all yellow and white and silvery grey and black, and also because I dig on the goldfinches what come to sup at our feeder.

I’m planning on working on it some tonight, and then tomorrow morning, and I am really quite confident that I’ll be able to wear it to work by Monday. No wait, this Monday! More photos to follow, accompanied by excellent choice/s in footwear (even though I’m not sure what top I’ll wear with it).

I am all totally done with the pin. Finito! es concluido! готов! And I have to say, I knew I was all in love with random beaded objects before, but now? Now I’m ready to buy up beads by the pound in no fewer than eleven silver-lined colors of the known spectrum.

I can’t look at anything comprised of more than two colors without visualizing it in a majestic BEADED iteration: motel signs, paperclips, my sewing machine, the cats, whatever. I want a glittering royal blue bowl of neon orange beaded cheez puffs as a Thanksgiving Centerpiece; I want a  beaded multi-color portrait of the sign for the Towne Manor Motel in Akron, Ohio; I want beaded arm cuffs of all my tattoos to wear instead of a long-sleeved jacket when it gets chilly. I’m going a little nuts with it–but going nuts is one of my favorite things to do, anyway.

On the other hand, I miss sewing. I cut out the yellow gingham and some white cotton underlining for the Anna Sui knockoff yesterday, and while it didn’t whip up into total perfection or anything? It did feel familiar and good to be in front of the sewing machine again. It’s still going to take some fudging, because I’m not sure what I’m doing and all, but progress is being made at least. I’m a pretty dedicated clothes horse these days, so I can’t spend all my time beading snack foods and neon signs.

And fyi, this ‘pin and many others will be auctioned off Friday, May 29 at the Pinhook in downtown Durham as part of Troika’s annual fundraiser.