What I wore today

In the spirit of outfit posts à la Casey, Nettie, and MimiG, 

I present,

for your viewing pleasure,

What I Wore Today:

First layer:  underwear

Second layer:  synthetic tank top, woolly tights

Third layer:  New Girl dress

Fourth layer:  polar fleece pants, polar fleece jacket

Outer wear:  woolly scarf, fleece hat, furry mittens, furry boots, down coat with hood.

Accessories:  black belt, basket woven earrings from Rwanda, frosty eyelashes.  

Yes, it was so cold this morning that my eyelashes froze together during my 10 minute walk to work.  It was -29C (what's that, like -237428.34F???  I don't know the imperial system.), and -39C with the wind chill. But don't worry:  it's going up to -21C by this afternoon!....and then down to -42C tonight...

I thought I would wait outside the back entrance at work until someone came along to take a full-body of photo of me looking like a tick about to explode, but standing still for more than 10 seconds was too much for me.  I grabbed this quick iPhone selfie. 

BTW, I know that this isn't really cold for some of you (I'm looking at you, Heather), and I've been much colder before (-52C at the top of the Rocky Mountains in January), but the heat also went kaput at work this morning, so it's a double whammy.  

Send thermals.  Quickly. 

Hollyburn Giveaway Winner: Gillian!

Hey Gillian / Jirian!  You won! Send me your mailing address (email above in the About Me box).

I was going to do a cute draw using all your names on scaps of paper in the hat I recently made for my daughter, and let her do the drawing....but we're sick, I'm at work, my sister is coming to stay because her place is being bug-bombed (Montreal sucks for bedbugs), and I'm sure I won't do anything when I get home tonight but eat and put the offspring to bed.  Maybe not even that.  So, here you get a screenshot from Random.org, not even properly cropped. 

Don't have kids. 
Seriously. 
They are better crud incubators than my industrial grade fermentor here in the lab. 

A Hollyburn Giveaway to drive the cold winter away

When your view at work looks like this:

You need a little something to improve your day.  How about a giveaway?

I received the Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt pattern just after it was released as a thank you for being a pattern tester.  Now, I thought twice about giving this away, since Tasia's company is a small one.  Should I give this away and deprive her of a sale?  

Then I realized I can act like a Sewaholic pusher:  I'll let you have this one for free, you'll become instantly addicted, and you'll have to search out more of her patterns here.  If this Hollyburn is your gateway pattern, I suggest the Pendrell for a slightly stronger hit.  Then when you've tired of the light stuff, you can move on to the Thurlow.  Laboured metaphors aside, I know you'll like this one and then buy more.

I made mine from a stiff cotton shwe shwe, but other testers have used everything from wool to lightweight blends.  I think it would work well in pretty much any apparel fabric, and probably even in quilting cotton.

Leave a comment below if you'd like to win the pattern, and tell me what fabric you'd use.  I'll keep this giveaway open to comments until 11:59pm, next Monday (January 14th, 2013).  I'll ship anywhere, but I'm going to send it surface mail, so please don't expect it to arrive on January 15th!

Happy 8498....I mean 2013!

I'm sure you know by now the story of the extremely casual sew along between Tanit-Isis, Nettie and I. We discovered that we had all gotten the same pattern around the same time, and we were wondering how the same pattern would look on three different bodies, in three different fabrics.  Take a look here and here for their  beauties.

Of course I was the last to finish, and after seeing T's gorgeous full length gold gown and N's perfectly fitted wool jumper, I was all the more squeamish to show off this quilting cotton quickie.  Well, to be honest, it wasn't a quickie because as it turned out, THE PATTERN WAS MISSING THE INSTRUCTIONS!  I'm sure I saw them at one point, but a thorough clean up of my sewing area didn't turn up the missing sheet, so I may have imagined it.

It was pretty easy to put together even without the instructions, although I did go through my usual litany of alterations:  add 4cm to middle back, lower the bust darts 1.5cm,add 5cm for the hips, shorten hem by 10cm.  All that added up to a pretty good fit, except that I forgot to raise the armscye, which resulted in this:

(please excuse the bathroom mirror photo. I'd been sledding all afternoon in -10C weather, so I was in no shape to make much effort)

Off came the sleeve and out came the bias binding, and a sleeveless shift was born.  I've been making more than my fair share of this shape in 2012, so my aim for 2013 is to branch out a little and try some new silhouettes.

I am pretty happy with the placement of those unusual bust darts / underbust seaming combo.

I even like my weirdo huge exposed separating zipper - it was the only red zip I had in my stash and I thought what the hell.

You may be able to see where I had fisheye darts in the back that I picked out.  I didn't like the placement, but now that I see photos of my rear, I can see that I need some kind of shaping back there.  To be addressed very soon.

And a post wouldn't be complete without my usual outtakes.