Isn't Sunday Supposed to be the "Day of Rest"?

So, I'm a bit of a masochist. I like to punish myself knowing that it will cause more stress later. But--I do it for the good of my students, knowing it will benefit them more in the end. So, as you recall, last semester the 7th grade Project Runway kids tackled the infamous boxers. This semester, I REALLY wanted the girls to be able to do skirts. But, there are boys in the class too, don't forget--so they should get to do a boys' project. And some girls might not want to all do the same skirt. Or any skirt at all. So, that's when I had the bright idea to allow back sacks, simple skirts, and high-waist elastic skirts to all be constructed under one roof in one class at the same time. Crazy? Beyond.

So, things kind of caught up with me pretty quickly as I was out sick ALL of the last week in February and then I came back and realized, oh CRAP, I have not made ANY of the samples or student-friendly directions and they are starting on the projects like, NOW. So, today I spent my Sunday doing exactly that. I did get a wearable skirt of my own out of it, though. Five hours and three Power Points later, we have:


The Nylon Back Sack


The Regular Ol' Skirt...do forgive the strings I forgot to trim...


The High-Waist Elastic Skirt

While I admit that I was dreading spending all day at school when I'm normally alternating between sleeping and, well, SLEEPING on Sundays, I was very excited when I finished. The kids will be so proud of themselves when they finish these projects. All practical, all things they can use. A far cry from the useless drawstring bag I made in 7th grade Home Ec.

The Nylon Back Sack is waterproof and available from Haan Crafts. They've been around forever serving schools--my 6th grade Home Ec pillow was a Haan creation.

The first skirt is a simple, elastic-waisted (also non-vomit-inducing) and very easy skirt for beginning sewers. It can be purchased from Lama Sewing Kits, which is a great local business here in Maryland that serves its schools well.

The Elastic Waist Skirt came from another cool blog by a lady who does really great tutorials on a wide variety of sewing and crafty things; you can find it here.

Hopefully you won't see any "I'M GOING INSANE!" posts over the next few weeks... let's hope that my dear children actually use and READ the student-friendly instructions that I took my sweet Sunday to make for them and build their independence along the way!

Vintage Simplicity 5745- Wide-Leg Pants, Circa 1973

So, my hunt for the perfect pair of wide-leg pants continues. I've scoured the internet for quite a while in search of the perfect pair, and a few months ago, I found them--or so I thought. Behold:


Looking at this, I was too excited by the prospect of such an awesome fit and possibly making another pair of standard-crushing plaid pants to add to the collection. Click, add to cart, ship, receive...disappoint. Those dreaded words at the bottom, I did not notice before: "Sized for STRETCH KNITS only." NoooOOOooo. WHY? Oh, AND there's an ELASTIC WAIST? Ew. Okay, don't panic. This can work. Suggested fabrics include stretch wool/double-knit wool. Cool. Got it.

Hey, lady at Hancock, do you have knit wool? No? Oh. Off to JoAnn's. Hey, lady at JoAnn's, do you have any knit wool? No? It doesn't exist? What?! WHAT???!!!

So, apparently, many of the fabrics that these vintage patterns suggest don't really exist anymore unless you go to very highly specialized places that most certainly do not exist in any reasonable radius of my town. Sigh. No knit plaids. Nothing. I had to settle for the least sweatpants-like fabric I could find (which was a stretch...no pun intended) and I picked solid brown. It wasn't a difficult pattern. The elastic waistband isn't too vomit-inducing. But, like a dummy, I still lengthened them too much, had to do more hemming than I should, and threw off the proportion of the pants. I'm not too happy with them:


By the way, taking blog pics of garments is REALLY hard not to get a weird, unflatteringly gross angle.

I don't know. There's just something about them. They just don't lay right, I guess. And they still kind of feel like pajamas. Sigh. We'll see what I end up doing with them.

Garment Features:

Elastic Waistband
Hip-Hugger Waistline
Wide Leg Bell

Heinously Overdue

Oh, dear. It's March. I've been meaning to write since December. But, between school/work, grad school, and just plain ol' being BUSY AS CRAP, I haven't had a spare moment. Because I go to bed at 8 after doing all of these things...like the true decade displaced old lady that I am.

While I haven't had much time to sew for myself, I've received quite-a-many vintage-related gifts from Christmas until now that deserve just as much a spot on the blog as any handmade threads.

Gift #1: Christmas
The first (and the sweetest) came on Christmas. Mike and I were both admittedly strapped this year--both for ideas and for money--but he always manages to come up with the most thoughtful gifts, no matter what. Behold:



Can you say "Deadstock"?! Oh my goodness. I cried out loud for joy when I opened the ORIGINAL BOX...


...to find those. How cool are those? Too cool. How did he know what to get, you ask? Well, I had shown them to him on ebay, and he took it upon himself to get them for me. That was one sweet Christmas.

Gift(s) #2: From Ms. K, Queen Antiquer

Ms. K is my former English teacher and very good friend who so sweetly sends me random odds and ends with letters in our county basket mail every now and then. This year, she has bestowed upon me a variety of beyond-awesome vintage finds:




From the 40s and completely useful!




She knows me TOO well.



Amazing Valentine's Postcard, 1909



Vintage Buttons. I would love to know exactly how old they are!


Ms. K's vintage finds for me are always a hit. So personal and they REALLY make my day when I get them in the mail! The last batch came on one of the worst days of my teaching career. It was SO needed!

Gift #3- "Decades of Don'ts"...Hilarity Ensues


(Sorry for the rotated-ness. Blogger does that sometimes and I don't know how to fix it.)

Thanks to one of my friends at work, I had a day of gut-busting laughter simply from reading this book--which I HIGHLY recommend--which chronicles vintage mostly crocheted and knitted garments and the ridiculousness of them and the intentions behind them. You will pee yourself laughing as you read this, guaranteed.

So, I am thankful for those who were so kind to give these extremely personal and thoughtful gifts to me. They have my name written all over them, no doubt about that!

"They still have Home Ec??" Um...yeah.

The above question is something I hear so often now that I can see it coming from a mile away. When I meet strangers and we get into the "what we do" conversation, and I say, "I'm a Home Ec teacher," their eyes get wide, and there it comes: "They still have Home Ec??" Then, 99% of the time, they follow it with, "Can boys take it???" Really? It's 2011. Sigh.

I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Home Economics, but it's actually not called that anymore--it's called "Family and Consumer Sciences"--FACS. (Although I have seen many a kid write "FACTS" when they're labeling their notebooks. Ha.) They had to update the name I guess to make it all 21st-century sounding so that kids won't automatically assume they'll be transported back to 1950 the moment they step in my room (although I'D love that, I suppose the kids wouldn't appreciate it).

Yes, we cook. Yes, we sew. But all in a very "modern" way. But we also learn about resource management, finances, child development and child care, nutrition, leading a healthy lifestyle, fashion, textiles, and much, much more.

Myth: Boys hate sewing and think it's for girls.
Truth: I'd say 99% of my boys are excellent and enthusiastic sewers who are sometimes better at it than the girls.

In any case, I want to share the end result of my first real "nightmare" sewing project. My 7th Grade Project Runway students just spent the last 2 months in the Battle of the Boxers:

(That's me, of course.)

Though not a raging battle for me, these kids shed blood (literally) and perhaps even some tears and loooooooots of anger before these were done. We kind of hit a snag halfway through the project. Without getting into details, we were missing a step due to a triad of reasons:

1.) The written directions...SUCKED. Plain and simple. The important and essential step was, quite simply, absent from the directions.

2.) Though I figured out the step when making my sample pair, I forgot about it when it came to starting the project with the kids. I hate myself for this. But it was something that was not in the written directions, so there was confusion all around.

3) The kids WOULD NOT GIVE THE DIRECTIONS, of any kind, A CHANCE. I spent hours making a Power Point with pictures and videos of EVERY. SINGLE. STEP. for them and most of them didn't give it a chance. The missing step is actually in the Power Point, but just not clearly, because I wasn't given it clearly. I did have one girl, bless her soul, who figured it out all on her own and didn't have to fix anything when we discovered the error. I said, "M, how did you know what to do?" and she said, "I read the Power Point. I can read." GOLD STAR, RIGHT THERE.

In any case, the majority of the students took it well, seam ripped a little and now I've got finished projects flowing in. They are very proud when they're done and actually have a wearable garment. We're hoping to have a "boxer day" when we will all wear them at once (over leggings, jeans, etc., of course.)

Garment features:

-Stress
-Annoyance
-Gahh

...and an elastic waistband

Christmas Skirt- Vintage Simplicity 6594

I used to have a Christmas skirt or two, with that traditional red plaid that everyone associates with the holidays. They have disappeared over the years, so I figured it was time to craft a new one with a vintage pattern (of course).

I bought this pattern from the wonderful Erika, who I went to Salisbury with and who sells vintage patterns on her Etsy:



So cute. I've been more stressed and busy and out-of-my-mind the last few weeks than any other EVER, so the other night I decided to say, "SCREW WORKING ON IMPORTANT THINGS! I AM GOING TO MAKE A SKIRT!" I did, and it felt good. It was a quick one, and I look forward to wearing it and feeling merry:



An extra-Christmasy wear option:


Garment features:
-Side zipper
-Natural waistline
-Hand-stitched hem

First Etsy Sale!

Woo-hoo! I am beyond thrilled. After months and months of absolutely NO action in my Etsy shop, someone FINALLY inquired about a custom bag. It was so easy. She showed me an example of what she wanted, then sent me links to fabrics she wanted, I got them, I made it, done. Going to actually buy the fabrics made me realize though that I seriously need to up my prices (unfortunately). I'll only be making about a $10 profit on this one, so after she purchases this bag, I will have to up the price significantly. I feel bad doing it, but between the cost of materials, time taken to get the fabric, and the labor involved to actually make it, even the price I'm upping it to will be undercharging. But I really have fun doing it, which makes it all the better. Alas:

Next In Line...

Vintage Butterick 2799 Sleeveless Dress, Circa 1963


That fabric has been staring at me every time
I go into JoAnn's. I had some coupons recently plus
a teacher discount, so I caved.


Seriously. How cute is this?

I Will Forever Bow Down to Vintage Pants

Pants are, simply but, the best garments to make as far as efficiency goes, because they take so little time to complete. Most pants can be finished in just a few hours, sometimes as few as two hours. (If you don't sew, that may sound like a lot, but, trust me-- compared to the 8-12 hours that a dress can take, it's nothing.) So, whenever I start a pair of pants, I get a little giddy knowing I'm going to have a completed pair pretty shortly. They aren't complicated. Just a few seams, a zipper, something on the top, and bam, you're done. Pants never cease to rock my world.

So, I've had this predicament for a while: dressing professionally. Not that I can't, or don't know how-- I just don't really prefer it. Dress pants suck. Dresses/skirts are great, but I HATE DRESS PANTS. Being a teacher, they have forcibly become a staple of my wardrobe. (Why not wear all dresses and skirts every day, you ask? Well, because generally they require heels and doing that every day is KILLER. You have to switch up.) Now, I've found my share of decent dress pants, but they too require heels much of the time, and every female teacher needs pants where they can just wear a pair of freakin' flats, dang it! I've got some khakis where this is possible, but...eh. Khakis. Don't get me started on them. Grey is the ideal color for dress pants, dark grey. But my only pair like this--because I have yet to find any other in the stores-- are what I call my "schlub" pants. They have what my dad always referred to as the "baggy seat" syndrome, and I only wear them if there is NOTHING ELSE. So, recently I thought, "I need a pair of awesome, wide-leg grey dress pants for work that I can wear flats with...hmm...LET'S MAKE THEM!"

Enter Vintage Simplicity 6348, Circa 1974:

(Stolen. Not mine.)

It took me a while to find the right pattern. I scoured Ebay, Etsy, and random places until I saw this one. Wide leg: check. Hip-huggers: check. My size: ooh, it comes in two sizes? Even better, I have options. (Mine came with 6 and 8 in one pattern.) Now all I need is the perfect fabric. When it comes to nice pants that don't feel like pajamas, twill is it. These pants were also twill. I went back to Hancock to get the grey version, but they were OUT. For like, THREE MONTHS. So, I went to JoAnn a few times, seeing nothing, except one that was kind of shiny. Ick. But, the inside of the shiny grey was nice and dull, so I just flipped it the other way-- problem solved.

So, yesterday I was supposed to go to my fellow Home Ec teacher/college best friend Bridget's party, but--lucky me-- I woke up sick :(. I was pretty bummed, but I had enough energy to complete the heavenly grey pants, but around 5:00, the fever spiked and I was in la-la land. The only thing that could distract me from the body aches was 5 episodes in a row of The Big Bang Theory on TBS. (If you've never watched it, DO IT NOW.) Oh, and remembering that I have these to wear on Monday!!!!!!!!!! :



Now, they may not look like much, but they are solving the problem of the Schlub.

Ahh, relief.

Now, if you've been tracking my vintage exploits, you will recall that the last few patterns have been going against my "VINTAGE PATTERNS ARE PERFECT IN EVERY WAY" mantra. Well, this one threw its own little curve ball... the second page of directions--the part with the pants-- was, ya know...missing. Sigh. Luckily, I had another pattern that was identical (although high-waisted... a project from back in 2005. Post to come in the future) and the directions matched exactly. Thank goodness. Besides... there being Dutch versions of the instructions on the pattern totally made up for it :)


"kniplijn"= cutting line


(It keeps rotating itself...sorry)

So cute.

Garment Features:

Hip-Hugger Waistline
Front Zipper
Hand-Stitched Hem