Vera Wang in the hizzouse

Yeah, so I'm pretty much a master tailor now, NBD.


*as I get up from the floor to which I fell from laughing so hard.*


But seriously, you guys!  I sewed!!  Like for reals!


Ok, so.  I've been breastfeeding for nearly a year now and it has been awesome.  It never fails to make me happy to see my baby's fat belly or her chunky thighs and know that my body did that.  It's validating to know that my body does know how to do things right after all, you know, since it's kind of a killing machine.


And I'm one of the lucky ones for whom breastfeeding makes you lose weight.  I've lost a crap-ton of weight and I'm waaaay under my pre-pregnancy weight.  I know, hate me now.


It's great and I love being skinny.  On a quick tangent, why is there so much hate for skinny people?  We praise people all day long for getting/being skinny - as long as you used to be a giant fatty.  But let you be naturally skinny and suddenly it's okay to write in your yearbook "I hope you eat food over the summer skeleton-girl."  Or "Oh, you're skinny now, just you wait until you hit 30/have a baby, you're gonna blow up."  It's mean and rude and it's a topic for another post because this one's about my sewing prowess.


Anyway, so breastfeeding gave me a case of The Skinnies, and nothing in my closet fit.  I looked like a bag lady and for six months I whined to Drew about how my life would be perfect if only I had a pair of jeans that fit.  Finally he took mercy on me and gave me money! To go shopping!  For my birthday!  Best birthday present ever!!

These used to be tight skinny jeans.  I bought them in October last year.

 Loose and tragic

I marched my happy non-ass to Nordstrom because I had a gift card and went straight for the denim, looking for some jeans that would give me an ass because when I lost weight, I also lost my ass and it's a sad and tragic thing.

They were so helpful and sweet and I got two pair of awesome jeans that fit, were immediately comfortable and the pockets made me look like there was a little junk in the trunk!  Okay fine, not full-out junk.  Maybe just a couple of pieces of trash.  Really, just some misplaced items.

 junk-ish

I also got a pair of bootcut jeans that were too long.

Incidentally, it is really really hard to take a picture of yourself in 

dark jeans in the middle of the night.

I took nearly fifty pictures of myself and this was the best I could do, but you get the idea.

As is my MO, the jeans sat in my closet for almost three weeks because I was afraid to sew them and mess them up.  I could have taken them to the tailor's, but I sewed a pair of jeans before.  Of course, they were Ebay fakes and not super fabulous, super expensive birthday jeans.  But, a commenter on that post directed me to her post on hemming jeans and it stuck with me.

So I went to Jo-Ann's, bought a $3 pack of denim needles and chanted to myself, "If I don't cut them, I can take them to the tailor."

I set up shop in the breakfast nook with the tutorial handy 

and my little helper for moral support.

The tutorial said it would take about fifteen minutes.  This is if you know how to sew - it took me about three hours, no lie.  I went sooo slow, praying to Jesus that I wasn't screwing up my jeans.

This is a zipper foot.  It took me nearly twenty minutes to figure out to get the other

one off the machine and put this one on.  PS, why does it say 'I?' Shouldn't it say 

'Z' for Zipper?

I pinned THE CRAP out of my jeans because I was terrified of an uneven hem and 

I need all the help I can get to sew a straight line.

Changing the needle and the foot on the machine took forever.  Measuring the jeans took Forever because I kept taking them on and off and measuring over and over again to make perfectly sure they were the right length.  Pinning took FOREVER.  The actual sewing part took the least amount of time because it was a straight stitch all the way around.

BUT IT WORKED!!!

One leg done and it's the perfect length!!

Then came the hard part:  Doing the exact same thing to the other leg.  I just KNEW I was going to end up with one leg longer/shorter than the other one.  I obsessively measured and measured and measured again to make sure they were the same length and pinned the crap out of the other leg and prayed for the best.

I did it!!!

The blurry pictures are giving me a headache too, but this is the best I've got.

You come here for the writing anyway, right?  Right?

They even look good from the back!

My very first hemming job!

These are a pair that I had hemmed at the tailor - done the exact same way!

The pair from the tailor

Mine, before I basted the cuff.  Totally the same!

I wore my jeans to a birthday party Saturday night and I was holding up my leg, telling everyone that I had hemmed my jeans myself!  I was so proud when I put them on and they looked good that I was like, "ZOMG! Sofia!  I'm going to sew your prom dress!"  To which Drew dryly replied, "Judging how long it took you to do your jeans, you should probably get started now."

Whatever.  You can't rush talent.

I was on a sewing high from my jeans and decided to tackle another seemingly simple project.  Sofia's birthday party is coming up and it's a garden theme.  I'm requesting that everyone wear spring flowers or pastels and I had a perfect skirt, but it was too big.  Since I'm a master tailor now, I figured it wouldn't be that hard to fix it.

It was too big and too full.  I figured making it into a pencil skirt would be simple enough.

A straight stitch down both sides and done!

HA.

This damn skirt took me three hours to fix!  Pinning, sewing, ripping out the stitches because I pinned too much and couldn't get it over my hips, and that's saying a lot because I have no hips and no ass.  I was so frustrated but by the third try I got it!

I don't have a before pic because I started so late and 

was rushing to get it done before the baby woke up.

Next on my list is to take one of my tshirts and refashion it to wear at the party.

I'm thinking a rosette t-shirt would be fun.

from here via my Pinterest

My breakfast nook is a mess because I don't have a sewing room.

But I'm slowly making friends with my machine.

I even have a pile of clothes to fix!

I'm so ambitious!

So, even though I'm making strides in the sewing department, I'm not doing *as* well in the baking arena.  I'm thisclose to throwing in the towel and letting the pros do it because Sofia's party is next weekend.

How did the time go by so quickly?

You are cordially invited!