First day back at school...

... and I cannot decide what to wear!

Nothing feels right, me made or not! Eeek!

Volevo un gatto nero

I love this song. Youtube-ing kids songs in Italian counts as a lesson, right?!

Its about a kid who wants a black cat, and offers lots of things (an alligator, a giraffe, an elephant) in return for the black cat, but always gets the white cat... the chorus basically goes:

Volevo un gatto nero, nero, nero,

mi hai dato un gatto bianco

ed io non ci sto più.

Volevo un gatto nero, nero, nero,

siccome sei un bugiardo

con te non gioco più.

which means:

I wanted a black cat, black, black ,

But you gave me a white cat

so I'm not staying [there]

I wanted a black cat, black, black,

Because you're a liar,

I will not play with you.

In the end, the kid keeps the white cat and breaks the deal... So maybe not the best lesson to teach small children.!

I think that definitely counts as a lesson for me though!

The sorbetto... jumper?!

So this is what I made to take with me to Italy.

I wanted something warm but wearable in a range of situations. 

Believe it or not, its a sorbetto made out of an ikea throw!

So... what did I do?

I took out the centre fold on the sorbetto.

Added an extra couple of inches.

I drafted some long sleeves from a jumper I already had. They were meant to come down long and have holes for my thumb, but I misjudged the length and width, so I hemmed them at the wrist instead.

I cut out a rectangle as long as the total length of  the neckline, and twice as wide as I wanted the cowl to be. I sewed it on so that the seam for the cowl was against my neck, and the seam joining the cowl together would be hidden beneath the fold.

I took advantage of the finish of the throw to give a more interesting finish around the bottom and the cowl.

I would definitely consider making something similar again, but I wouldn't suggest using the throw ;) 

It served a purpose but was already piling really badly, especially on the sleeves, so I would probably choose a better quality fleece.

PS: Today I'm wearing the herman sorbetto with 3/4 jeans, and yesterday was a pjs day (I landed at 1am, got home at 2, then didn't fall asleep til 6 (midnight Italy time), attempted to wake up a couple of times but fell asleep again each time, only actually waking up at two... I wore the space invader pjs I made for the boy a while back!

Back from Italy... moderately successful MMM

Well, its hard to keep up the me-made-ness when you've mostly made quite formal and fitted clothes then have to go hiking for a week! I went to tghe Piedmont region of Italy for 6 days. 2 days there, 5 real field days, 2 days back. Awesome, huh! The food was amazing- I ate soo much because everything was so yummy, and because I was with mostly Italians it was easier to find out what was good and/or a local speciality. I need to work on my Italian for when I'm there on my own!

But all in all it was a good introduction to my phd!

I took a few me made things with me; I didn't manage to get photos of everything, and the photos I did get are hurried, generally with wet hair :) I did sleep in my dino pyjamas every night, if that counts?!

See that jumper? Would you believe me if I said it was from ikea? ;)

The weather was variable!

Sunny...

Rainy...

Snowy...

But there were views that definitely made up for it!

All topped off with Gelato by the lake on the way back to the airport!

It was a long way to go for 6 days, but we had a great time. 

I'm nearly over the jet lag I think, though it took a few days.

May 2nd - Fish Day

Today we sadly lost one of our fish. She'd been looking under the weather for a while, and today she looked much worse. We'd been searching the net for symptoms; at first we thought it was ammonia poisoning, which is why we had bought the new tank so we had much better ability to control their water quality. Today it looked like she had an infection.
We went out to the store to buy some medicine but by the time we got back she was hardly breathing and floating on her side, so the boy put her out of her misery. Its for the best, but I couldn't do it myself, and cried a little. We burried her in the garden next to her pond. I feel we let her down, but the new set up is huge- much bigger and better filtered than their little outdoor pond, so I think we'll be much better off in future. We can see them better, and detect issues earlier, plus we now have a huge host of water tests and treatments to keep on top of any future "under the weather-ness"

RIP Topaz.

But, we did get some new playmates for Amber, the one left behind. We're still cycling up tank, and will hopefully end up with maybe 6 goldfish in our 85l tank, maybe with some darios once I find some big enough not to be eaten! but today we got two more gold fish, a small yellow comet called Citrine (Trinny for short) and a slightly bigger orange and silver one called Molybdenum (Molly). So far they've all been names after minerals they resemble, but Molly looks like a fish I had as a child in our outdoor pond, and molybdenum is silver, and she's a bit silver... Its a stretch, but it kind of works!
They're loving the tank. Amber is much more active than she was outside, and the three of them seem to get a long really well.

So, todays outfit was fish themed. Whales and jean shorts:

I'm off to Italy tonight for a week or so (crazy life of a phd student) so I'll be offline. I've got some tshirts that I embellished or re-made from mens shirts, plus a skirt I made and a fleecy jumper made using the sorbetto pattern, plus some home made hair clips ;)

Oh, and home made PJs. 

Only time will tell how I go!

See you on the other side.

DIY Wedding Shoes!

So, I just saw a feature on modified wedding shoes on Grosgrain and thought I would add mine to the mix.

I started out trying to hack some ex-bridesmaid shoes that I would be unlikely to wear again. I attempted to cover them in the fabric we were using for lots of the details. They looked OK, but were home made, and not in a good way.

I never got them much past this stage. I did trim it down, but it just wasn't working.

I gave up on them and bought some glittery oat-meal coloured with maribou and diamante and pearls.

But I really did want some orange ones to go under the dress.

A few days before the wedding I was out shopping in Manchester, and saw a nearly perfect pair of orange strapy heels in Monsoon, heavily reduced. The heels were a bit high, and they were a bit plain, but they were the perfect shade of orange, and had lots of potential.

The boys buttonholes were hand made, using melted-edge flowers and different coloured buttons. The bridesmaids had some on slide for their hair. So I added some to the orange shoes to make them that bit more special. 

I simply attached two onto the t-bar of each shoe, a larger, more voluminous one lower down, and a smaller one at the top. Quick, easy, kept well with the theme and I loved them. 

And all for less than $15!

My bridesmaids lovingly does my shoe up for me. 

They were used to it by this stage because the broken elbow meant I couldn't easily do things like tie shoelaces or open doors, so they'd spent a lot of the previous 2 weeks tying shoe laces and opening door for me! You don't realise how much stuff requires two dexterous arms!

 Lookily most of the DIY was already done pre-break!

1st of Me Made May!

Its May! 

So here is my first outfit. Fittingly, one of the first things I ever made. 

A cowl neck tunic with huuuge sleeves. Theyre really badly sewn on to the cuffs, but generally you can't see that because they generally fall inside the sleeve drape. I love the floaty-ness! They were a bit too big at the shoulder originally, so I added the pleat and button just off the shoulder to get the shape I wanted.

All self drafted using a tunic I had, the burda cowl neck tutorial and my imagination.

I wore silver flipflops when I was out, but rarely wear shoes around the house.

Today we bought a fish tank for our pond fish. We were struggling to keep them happy in our tiny little pond, and were missing out on actually seeing them. So we took the plunge and bought a big 3 foot long tank, which will house our two goldies for now, and some more in the future :)