22 November 2008

Catching up during a busy November week

What a week! Lots of random tidbits from my world to share, so let's start here:

Meet the newest addition to my sewing world!  She is yet unnamed, so for now, like when the hospital addresses your unnamed baby, she is Female Dress Form Perez (like Baby Boy Smith).  :)  LOL!  

She's dressed here in a faux fur vest and that lil' Butterick skirt from earlier this month that I really need to review.  Maybe she's ready for a little club action or something.  

I have been searching high and low for a reasonably-priced semi-professional dress form in my size for at least a year now, and I finally found it!  I bought this as a birthday present for myself.  My birthday was a few months ago, but it took me a while to make an offer on the form and for the retailer to get them back in stock, etc. etc.  I will take a photo of the form by herself and write a separate post so you can see how lovely she is and you can research getting one for yourself if you are so inclined.  I'm excited to drape for myself!  Stay tuned.

I was out of town for a few days this week, as mentioned in my last post, and while I was away there was some serious giveaway action going on that I'm really excited about!  
The first is from Modish, and the giveaway is HUGE.  Among the loot is a print from Tanis Alexis, whose shop has been an Etsy favorite of mine for a long time.  And there are a lot more goodies that look amazing and fun.  What a nice treat at the holidays, when we are busy running around and taking care of others!  For a chance to put yourself in the running for this giveaway, get thee to Modish and enter by Dec. 3.


The second giveaway is from Red Hen Studios, whose vintage lace and crochet is really lovely!  You've seen the stuff I sew and I use embellishment very sparingly, but I could see incorporating a lot of these pieces into upcoming garments.  There's a Red Hen Etsy store, too, with more vintage goodness at pretty reasonable prices.  Get the scoop on this giveaway at the Red Hen Studios blog.

If you haven't been following along with Becky at sew-and-so the last few weeks, you've haven't yet read the details of this talented sewist tackling the construction of The Perfect Suit.  I am in awe of the goal, and of  Becky's tenacity at trying several patterns with less-than-The-Perfect-Suit results.  I probably would have burned all the muslins and headed straight to the mall to buy one off the rack!  Her deadline is coming up soon and I am excited to see what her completed suit looks like.  

In the meantime, Becky tagged me with a meme/ Bookworm Award.  It goes a little something like this:
  • Pass it on to 5 friends
  • Open the book closest to you - not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment - to page 56
  • Write out the 5th sentence, as well as the 2-5 sentences following
The book closest to me just arrived from Amazon yesterday, and it is Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.  Unfortunately, the 5th sentence on page 56 describes a chart that goes on for 4-5 pages.  I've flipped to page 156 and here we go:

"Just as there is a perfect birth date for a nineteenth-century business tycoon, and a perfect birth date for a software tycoon, there is a perfect birth date for a New York Jewish lawyer as well.  It's 1930, because that would give the lawyer the benefit of a blessedly small generation.  It would also make him 40 years of age in 1970, when the revolution in the legal world first began, which translates to a healthy fifteen-year Hamburg period in the takeover business while the white-shoe lawyers lingered, oblivious, over their two-martini lunches.  If you want to be a great New York lawyer, it is an advantage to be an outsider, and it is an advantage to have parents who did meaningful work, and, better still, it is an advantage to have been born in the early 1930s.  But if you have all three advantages -- on top of a good dose of ingenuity and drive -- then that's an unstoppable combination."

And now I nominate five more for the Bookworm Award:
  1. Tina at glam.spoon
  2. Sarah at sewer-sewist
  3. Christy at Columbia Lily
  4. Dana at MADE
  5. Jennifer at ScrappinFor3
After I regain my mind, I will resume the "here's what I've sewn" posts.  :)  Hope you are all gearing up for a lovely Thanksgiving holiday!

6 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for mentioning me! Good luck in the drawing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can't wait to see a full picture of Female Dress form Perez! I can see what lovely legs and casters she has, and I think I see black metal squares peeking out from under that skirt.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have been searching for a form too. I can't decide on being taped up or buying one! I love the skirt--anything a-line, I love! Did you make the faux fur? Very fashion forward! Happy Thanksgiving!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tina, I'm very excited about the form! I think it's such a good value for the money. Pictures and info to come. Cindy, I have been taped and the resulting form works fine for fitting, but I have not been able to pin into it for draping with great success. Faux fur is store-bought. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. by the way... i'm avoiding the bookworm challenge since there are absolutely NO books within reach at my computer. so I wouldn't be able to honestly respond! is that sad? there are books upstairs if that helps. really.

    ReplyDelete

Hi! I'm so glad you stopped by. If you have a specific question, be sure to leave your email address or check the box to receive email follow-up comments so I can answer your question! Thanks for commenting!