Catching up

I haven't posted anything in 3 weeks?  Guess that means I no longer have all the free time in the world (AKA back home on parent duty).  I have been doing lots of planning and a little bit of sewing, but first here's what's been going on in my world:

 My green double-sided shwe shwe dress was chosen as a featured Sew Weekly project in May.  I actually didn't find out until the week was almost over because I was travelling and didn't have a good internet connection.  That's a nice surprise!

I finished Me Made May without too much trouble.  Here are the last few days:

Soaking wet from an afternoon spent fabric shopping around Cape Town.  Sadly, I tore the back of this skirt on a rusty bolt when trying to squeeze my way out of a combi with a huge package of fabric, jammed between two huge Mamas.  It's repairable. 

Wearing my leopard print mini when giving a talk to a bunch of synthetic chemistry graduate students who had no idea that I didn't study chemistry past first year engineering.  I threw in a bunch of structural diagrams to keep them awake when the "soft science" of traditional healing, indigenous knowledge sharing,  and biological screening made them fall asleep.  Note to self:  work on a more authoritative posture when lecturing. 
 

Doing science in my Cape Town Switcheroo wrap dress.  

 Sculpture installation behind my residence (had to set up my camera on a bench and take automatic photos while lots of confused looking law students wondered why I kept repeatedly walking back and forth between the statues)

Warthog ribs at the Hussar Grill!

And finally back home again.  I cheated and wore my Thank You Zoe outfit on June 1st because I was travelling on the 30th/31st and wore what I've now come to call my Travel Survival Outfit.  It was fun participating and seeing how people all over the world were using similar fabrics / patterns and coming up with such diverse creations.  I was also interesting to see everyone get more comfortable with taking photographs of themselves as the month progressed.

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I made a dress from 100% mystery fabric.  It wasn't quite the look I was aiming for, but it's a pretty good dress in its own right.  I was trying for a much more fitted bodice, but in the end, this was the best I could do.  Looking more closely at the pattern cover, it appears that the models have the same fit, and just bring the waist in with those ties / belts.  Note to self:  always check the model fit.

It was based on Zoey Deschanel's red dress worn in the opening credits for New Girl.

So here's my weird Picmonkey / Photo editor / Power Point hack.  I'll never have the Zoey hair again (no time in the mornings when there are 3-4 people to prepare for the day) and I'll never live in a loft apartment with three men (THANK JEBUS), so here's the closest yer gonna get.