Seamstress and The Band

Seamstress for and The Band
Hi, my name is Heidi and I'm a shopaholic. Well, not really - but I did perform a cardinal sin of shopping - I bought something that I ordinarily wouldn't have because it was on sale. I found this amazing yellow knit dress with a gray tree pattern on super sale. Perfect except that the only size available was Large. So I took it along with the challenge - I do have a sewing machine afterall...

So I downloaded so new tunes and broke out the sewing machine. Through a variety of techy disasters, I've managed to lose all of my music (multiple times.) So my current iTunes is a compilation of various friends' music. Occasionally I'll go out and download some of my own choices. This week's addition...The Band's Greatest Hits and Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner. Turn up the volume and start the project.

This is the original garment. I'm a fan of the flowy style of dresses and shirts that has luckily remained a trend (totally comfortable, totally hides the food baby), but this was a little more potato sack than flowy cuteness.

So I turned it inside out and pinned it up to see how much should be taken in.
Basically just up on the shoulders and in on the sides, then whatever change that means for the sleeves.

This is the scary part...ripping off the sleeves to fix the other parts. No turning back now!

Sewing the shoulders up a few inches and the sides in was the easy part. Now to reattach the sleeves and make them smaller based on the arm-hole new circumference.

Fudged it a little around the intersections and..voila!
A Rant.
I'd like to pause to point out my growing distaste for the Hallmark side of holidays. I say Hallmark because I think that it epitomizes the cheap, commercial side of things - the summary of where we go wrong with removing the thoughtfulness and quality to holidays, replacing it with surface-level in excess. Call me a cynic, but just a smidgen of vom came up into my mouth when I was walking around yesterday and saw women and men plastered with shit-eating grins as they gripped on to their requisite red roses with baby's breath wrapped in a piece of plastic. V-O-M. Where is the originality? Hallmark makes a fortune off of the guy (or girl) who doesn't take the time to write out his or her own feelings but instead relies on the words of an unnamed writer sitting in a cubicle somewhere churning this crap out. I know that half of the people reading this will simply write it off as the tirade of a heartbroken girl. I will begrudgingly justify myself to those in saying that I'm not heartbroken - quite the contrary; I'm actually one of the ones to have always had someone to call my valentine on this Singles' Awareness Day - a skill that I still can't tell whether it falls on the fortunate or unfortunate side of things.

This being said, fresh flowers will always bring a smile to a girl's face :)

I'm also one of the unfortunate ones who was trying to teach a group of sugar-buzzed and hormone-raging 13 year-olds on the day before Valentines Day. Hopped up on all things fructose-related, they fret about going on and on about who got what from whom. This is what we're instilling in these kids?? It deflates me. Each time I walked into the staff room I was greeted with things like this

and this. I mean honestly... there's no way that this could even taste good. Think about the combination of flavors going on here. It's as if someone just grabbed everything pink or red and threw it on top of some frosted sweetness, topped off with red sugar to fill in any of the gaps.



But before I get too deep in lamenting over our losing battle with the Hallmarks of life, I should point out some of the happy moments. A lovely hand-made valentine arrived in the mail from Ben "shnookums" from Baltimore.
I have some cute plans involving tacos and a sunrise. And my mom sent me the funniest ecard that I've ever seen (I'll email you the link if I know you and you want to see it, it's pretty amazing.)


Happy Valentine's Day :)