The Long Story of a Short Skirt

Several weeks ago Elaray decided to prune her collection of Burda magazines and give away the issues from 2004 to 2005 to Burda virgins, among whom I number myself. I supplied my address and Elaray generously sent me the patterns and instructions from August 2004. Thank you very much, Elaray!



The material Elaray sent me is in English; the pic above comes from a Russian archive of back issues.

What with this and that I hadn't gotten round to trying the rather intimidating Burda experience, when DD came home from graduate school for spring break and asked me to make her something. I told her to pick something from Burda 8/04, and she chose a little double skirt. She picked out some gauzy chiffony stuff for it at JoAnne--black underskirt and sort of a marbled (or scrappled) grey, black and off-white overskirt.



The skirt turned out OK, I think, despite the two layers of gauze being less than delightful to work with. DD seemed pleased and she is very persnickety! She wanted to grab the skirt off the sewing machine and run back to school, but she agreed to pose for the historical record first:



This project included my first invisible zipper of the milennium, successfully inserted despite my efforts to follow three different sets of directions for it! What I did not succeed in doing, however, was tracing a Burda pattern, which was the point of the exercise. This instructions for this particular garment called for measuring and plotting a circle on pattern paper, but no tracing. So I guess I'm still a Burda virgin!

Oh, and on the me-made-March front, I used the fabric remaining from the overskirt (plus a mile and a half of narrow rolled serging) to make a nice scarf which I will drape around my neck when the fray-check is dry.

More March Me-Made-itude and a Plea for Help.

I me-made it all the way through my business trip to Delaware, culminating in this refashioned reversible skirt:


worn this way on the flight home:


I got politely patted down going through security at the airport because, the TSA woman explained to me, I was wearing a skirt! Note to self . . .

Back to the office in this get-up:


Which (provided anyone is looking) has been seen before. The only new bit in that outfit is this newly thrifted suede shirt:


I love the feel and the color of this shirt, but it is BOXY. I am already boxy. I do not need boxy clothing. So help me, please: how do I give this top some shape? Darts? Tucks? I really want to figure this out, because my other obsession is thrifted men's silk shirts, and I'd like to give them some shape as well. Suggestions, anyone?

Me-Made-March '11, In Flight

I am flying from Los Angeles to Delaware to coach a law-student team in a moot court competition, but I am now hooked on this whole Me-Made-March '11 thing, so I'm posting this from Row 19 of USAir Flight 796! I am so 21st Century I can hardly stand myself!



Here's yesterday:



See what I did there? For the record, today's scarf is a different piece of the thrifted skirt-of-a-thousand-purposes from yesterday's pieces.

Up, up and away!

I'm Quite Pleased With Myself Today

I was going to wear the same thing I wore yesterday--Me-made, but still ...
Yesterday and today are low-exposure days at work--no teaching--so I figured no one would notice. Except for the whole world via these damned pictures. So I grabbed this me-made vest and thrifted silk shirt at the last minute. It had never occurred to me to wear them together. The shirt is special--the tag in the back says "Bullocks Wilshire," a classic Hollywood department store which has been "repurposed" into the law school where I teach!

One reason I started sewing again was to drape myself with fabrics that I like to look at and to hell with what anyone else thinks. Today's get-up is very satisfying for me.



Close-up of shirt fabric:


Vest and shirt together:

Some Me-Made Catch-Up

I'm finding Me-Made-March somewhat more educational than I expected (or hoped). I have spent years avoiding mirrors and hiding from cameras. This daily photography exercise, forcing me to see what I look like, is both disturbing and a little reassuring. The photos reveal an ordinary-looking person, not the misshapen clown who lives in my head. But they also reveal that the clothes matter. The easy skirt I hoped to make a staple of my wardrobe is not a good look for me or, at least, there are certainly better looks. So it goes.

March 8


March 9


March 10


March 13

Shake a Leg?

Yay! A few weeks ago I won Welsh Pixie's 100th-post giveaway. Today, this auspicious package arrived in the mail:


I opened it to find:


Yes, that is a single leg on top:


Beneath that is a very pretty and useful bag (handmade, Toria? And the leg, too?)


And two very nice patterns:


I am a very happy camper! Thank you Toria!

Me and Me-Made-March '11

I've been keeping up with my pledge, but barely. I'm finding the style blogging as hard as the me-making, which I'm also finding hard. But it's also inspiring, in a way. I could get by with my 3 skirts (1 has not made an appearance yet!), top, vest, jammie top and bag and not really be any more redundant with my clothing than usual, but undertaking to post a picture every day is enough to goose me to create more. Today's entry, for example, was serged up in the last 5 minutes before I left for work, when I idly picked up the hem I had cut off a thrifted skirt intending to shorten it before deciding instead to make a shirt of the skirt (not yet done) and wrapped it around my neck a few times. It felt so nice, and it was already hemmed on one side . . .

March 7


March 6 (Vest)


(and Bag)


(I love this bag!)

March 5 (the jammies again)
March 4 (Shirt)


March 3 (Skirt)

Snoozing Through Day Two

Today's entry in Me-Made-March is a little lame--I made and will shortly don this pajama top (bottom will come later). Just made it!

Me-Made-March Day 1 and a Blast from the Past

OK, it's March 1 already. I can make it through the end of the week for sure, I think. Today I wore my gold moleskin skirt, which has been seeing a lot of wear since I made it in January.

It hadn't occurred to me that the hardest part of Me-Made-March '11 would be taking the pictures, but it might be so. It took me half an hour to learn to use the timer function on my camera!

As for the blast from the past, I was a big Gerry and the Pacemakers fan in my early teen years, and I still am. But how did a bunch of painfully young Liverpuddlians come up with such a hysterical Golden-Ager name for themselves? The Pacemaker hadn't even been invented yet when Gerry(atric) and his pals adopted the name! But they must have known they'd appeal to us old-timers someday--why else would Gerry emulate a bad toupe with his hairdo?

I like the following version of "I Like It" in part because I think he is really singing, not lipsinching to their hit recording.