Outfit – Page 3 – Hopefully Creative

5 Minute Hair Accessory

Sometimes you just have to impulsively make a 1900s hair accessory, I guess.

After waking up with something resembling curls this morning – damp hair twisted into buns on top of my hair had that effect – I decided to try a new hairstyle. ‘New’ might not actually be the right term as it was inspired by the turn-of-the-previous-century styles. What extensive Pinteresting and YouTubing in the past has taught me is that you need a hair rat. That rat can then give you the kind of extra volume around the crown of your head that is needed for the look. I did not own a hair rat, so I set of to make one.

In came my stash of old pantyhose and tights where I grabbed a black one. Since my hair is dark brown with grey, I figured black would be easiest to camouflage with the hair I have. I used about 70 cm of a tights leg, stuffed it and sewed the ends together. This turned out way too big, my hair could not cover that amount of tight. So I wandered over to the treadle and zigzagged a seam about 4.5 cm from the edge. Turned it right side out and started stuffing it again. This attempt was better, but because I have bangs, there is much less hair at the front of my head and the coverage was scarce at best. So I took out almost all the stuffing, just leaving the ‘seam allowance’ (i.e. half the width of a tights leg) of the front 12 cm section. This worked wonderfully well.

I walked around with the tights on my head for most of the day, taking a sweater off too a couple of times. Edwardians seem to love the messy look, so that wasn’t a problem. For the majority of the day, there was just a hair tie on the bun and nothing else. After a while, I added a few pins to the back of my head to keep some strays up. Is it historically accurate? I doubt it with polyfill innards. Does it get the job done? Yes it does, especially when you would add a hat. All in all, a successful spur of the moment project!

MMM ’20 Week 3 – End

Second half of May and the things I wore. I clearly did not have a good handle on the weather as it seems to fluctuate between heart of winter and height of summer.

So the pledge was:

And I have done all those things. I also wore a lot of pants, because I just love pants. I did actually finish the grey sweater (for a preview see May 28). I’m still writing that one up when I can find the motivation.

Things I’ve learnt:

There are four dresses that I’ve refused to wear even if the weather was appropriate. I may need to look into giving those a new home.
The green pants from May 21 and the red dungarees from May 30 are too tight in the back. They both occupy niches in my wardrobe and need to be replaced with better fitting items.
I don’t wear short sleeved self-knit tops, ever. So maybe also find a new home for those?
The three piece suit is not something I want to gravitate to, this is a little sad.
Wearing jackets in general seems to be out, although I did try multiple times to find a combination for a purple jacket thing.
How to take over 30 pictures in roughly the same pose every time.
I have enough me-made clothes to survive a whole month without repeats; and I still own and wear bought clothing.. Perhaps I have too many clothes? Ah well, it still fits in my house, so lets not worry too much about it.

Complete tally of me-mades in May:

Tops: 15
Sweaters: 14 (1 repeat)
Pants: 12
Dresses: 11 (1 repeat)
Pant/playsuits: 4
Skirts: 3
Boleros: 3
Skorts: 2
Scarves: 2
Ponchos: 1
Belts: 1

I say, mission accomplished!

MMM ’20 Week 1 – 2

On May 1st, I again embarked on a journey to wear many of the clothes I’ve made myself. This is the registration of that attempt.

Totals of me-mades so far:

Sweaters: 10
Tops: 7
Dresses: 7 (1 repeat)
Pants: 5
Skirts: 3
Ponchos: 1
Belts: 1

So far so good. I did have to buy some more leggings, because it can be quite cold still. Especially when working from home when I need to have the heating off during the night for sound. I’ve mainly got summer dresses left, in the no-pants category, so I hope it actually gets a little warmer so it feels more comfortable to wear those. On to the last half!

MMM 20

A bit late, but I did sign up for Me Made May 2020.

I remembered it this morning when I got the notification that it was the birthday of a friend of mine. So into the cupboard I went to hunt for some non-pants. It’s cold, wet and horrible outside, so I opted for my double zip skirt and warm Francis. At some point I hope to post some terribly uncreative images of all the things I wear. (I also think I need to make this skirt again in a giant yellow plaid fabric that is still in the hoard.. inspiration!)

If you are participating, happy Me Made May!

Graduation in Red

For last week’s graduation ceremony, I tried something new. I’d found a picture on Pinterest, links below, that I really liked. So I set out to recreate it. I didn’t want to use grey plaid from my hoard, so I chose something completely different. A red fabric with specks of different colours, including some light blue.

So, I set out to create something resembling the pictures. Since I knew that the top and sleeves needed to fit and the rest could be loose, I chose to use the top of the bodice up to the armholes and heavily altered sleeves of the Garden Party dress. Then I just extended the side seams out to create a giant tent shape. I added some pockets, because a dress without pockets is just a torture device, and cut out light blue leather strips. The fabric itched, so I added a brown lining for the sleeves up to the waist. The lining was the original Garden Party bodice, but now with the darts sewn as shallow pleats.

Once the dress was sewn up, I needed to get the leather strips on. In some long forgotten days, I apparently purchased 10 ‘book screws'(?), that seemed to work quite nice. I used a series of needles and knitting needles to make holes in the dress big enough for the screw to go through and then added the leather strips on. The pleats on the arms are not sewn down at all, and the ones on the waist are only tacked on the front. To make it easier to get in and out of, I found some leather laces to thread through the zipper. And that was that!

I did get some compliments on the day, so that was nice. I do want to wash it, but I’m not sure how the leather and screws will hold up, so we’ll see how that went in about an hour..

MMM 19 – Week 5 + Round-up

Last three days of the 2019 Me Made May!

May 29: graduation dress, isis tailcoat.

May 30: new graduation pantsuit

May 31: convocation with a bow without the bow.

The month has taught me a couple of things about my wardrobe and I’ve made some choices. There were a few pieces of clothing that were front and center on the rack and I really did not want to pick those. So I’ve decided to let those go to greener pastures (i.e. someone else’s closet). These include the octopus shorts, the ivy culottes, this graduation dress and the blazer. Goodbye to those!

Other things I’ve learnt is that I have a lot of self-made clothes. The fact that it was even possible to wear something different virtually every day – when there were basically no warm days so all shorts were out – is almost disconcerting. It’s not going to stop me from making more things though. There is the giant hoard to get through…

In any case, MMM 19 was a success for me. I managed to wear a lot of non-pants and managed to cull some of the things I apparently don’t want to wear. I hope to do it again next year.

MMM 19 – Week 4

Week four had the slight issue of me staying over at a friend on Saturday, as such, I wore much the same on the Sunday too. Still, I’m not unhappy with the things I wore.

May 22: Duck skirt, grey scale sweater, scarf. The duck skirt still needs to have the waistband adjusted since it goes off kilter now. I still like the grey scale sweater although the arms are a little long – which is more than fine to me.

May 23: plaid sparkle suit, cat waterfall top. I love wearing the plaid sparkle suit. The cat waterfall top worked quite well with it, so this was a nice one.

May 24: horsehair dress. Oh lordy, that horsehair hem was terrible. I clearly failed to adequately encase the scratchy ends which kept poking through their binding. At the end of the day, I put some tape over it to keep it from being such a pita. This is definitely something that needs to be fixed.

May 25: sparkle plaid pants, larpish top, circle scarf and Harry Potter sweater. I liked this combination, stripes and plaid with some birds. I went to Dara Ó Briain in Carré in Amsterdam in the evening. It was so awesome!

May 26: sparkle plaid pants, striped shirt, circle scarf and leather sweater. This combi is very comfortable, but I don’t think it’s very flattering together. I’m finally feeling a little limited in my handmade wardrobe after trying to not re-use

May 27: Mondriaan dress, black edged top. I still really like the Mondriaan dress, it’s pretty and has deep pockets.

May 28: some graduation dress. This day was cold and I was feeling a little blue, so I wore: blue shoes, a blue legging, blue dress, blue Christmas deer-rex sweater and a blue/white scarf. This dress is quite nice.

I got to four non-pants this week! Yay me! Only a few more days to go.

MMM 19 – Week 3

Week two ended with a full suit, what will week three bring..

May 15: A graduation dress, an old infinity scarf and the plaid jacket. While I got a number of compliments on the dress, I don’t like it very much. It’s currently too tight across the chest, which is not something I experience generally.

May 16: Grey elasticated pants (pre-blog?), flamingo sweater and another infinity scarf. I like the flamingoes, it is slightly too cold for the current weather but I really enjoy wearing it. To get some better use out of it, the neckline should have been slightly smaller, but it doesn’t bother me too much. The pants will only ever get one day of wear at a time since my legs need to recover from the fabric for some reason.

May 17: The double duty dress with the plaid jacket. This combination is nice and I enjoy wearing it. This dress is still wonderful and one of the best things I’ve made.

May 18: Jeans, dragon shirt and leaf sweater. I went to a ‘klimbos’ today – a trail high through the trees where you’re strapped into a climbing girdle and balance your way along a series of obstacles and zip lines. As such, I wasn’t going to wear a dress and was very happy with my pants. The day was awesome.

May 19: Sunday was a pyjama day, I wore sweatpants with the striped dress over the top. This dress doesn’t have pockets and therefore doesn’t fulfil one of the most important parts of an outfit: to keep stuff in. There isn’t enough wrong with it to actually throw it out yet, I think.

May 20: red pantsuit, some infinity scarf and the reworked riding jacket. I felt so pretty wearing this combination. I really love the riding jacket and should wear it way more often. The pantsuit is also super flattering (at least to my eyes) and apart from the shoulder hooks quite comfortable. I need to wear this more!

May 21: fur poncho, sweater with leather, sport skort and new plaid pants. Tuesday is my day off, and I wasn’t feeling like getting dressed at all. So I spent most of the day in a onesie and my fake fur poncho. I was working on finishing the super bright plaid pants, which I then wore together with the leather sweater to go to the supermarket. At night, there was skating in the sport skort that I’ll shortly blog about since I keep forgetting. I’ve been wearing it for weeks now, so I guess it’s finished.

I managed to get to three non-pants this week again! I’ve also been keeping all the things I’ve already worn in my bedroom such that I know which things are still left unworn and potential clothes for the remaining week and a bit. Is it bad that there are still a number of clothes left?!

MMM 19 – Week 2

Week 2 of Me Made May 2019, will I manage three non-pants?!

May 8: plaid skirt with double zippers, recent scarf and black sweater. I’ve worn these items before in May, but not in this combination. I liked this one.

May 9: grey pants, grey top, recent scarf and eighties sweater. This combination was very comfortable, but I saw a picture of myself later in the day and I looked a little like a hobo, so I’m going to nix the pairing, but I like all the items.

May 10: new skyline skirt, cut-out top and birdy scarf. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the skirt was to wear. I liked the pairing with the cut-out top although it wasn’t as warm as I’d hoped (and/or the day was just too cold).

May 11: plaid pants and grey-edged top. I liked these two together. I also like them separately. They are both quite comfortable.

May 12: sport skort, recent scarf, Francis sweater and grey-edged top. We had a roller derby game today. I took part in two parts, I played a game and I was part of the officiating crew for another game. The venue was partially outside, so for officiating we were instructed to wear warm clothes of which the top needed to be black. Since I’m quite sensitive to cold, I wore an undershirt, shirt, longsleeve shirt, the Francis sweater and the grey-edged top. I’m apparently an ice cube incarnate since I still managed to be cold after wearing all of that.. During play, I only wore a sleeveless top, leggings and skort and that was plenty warm. Apparently using your body does help somewhat, who would have thought!

May 13: dad’s party dress and bolero. While this dress is pretty, it doesn’t have any pockets, thus making it nearly impossible to carry around things. I had a day off work and therefore could wear a fanny pack to carry around mobile phone, keys and wallet. The bolero was needed because it was still quite cold out.

May 14: full suit (part 1, 2 and 3). There wasn’t a special occasion, so why wear a full suit? Because I can!

All in all wore some things I haven’t worn in a while, so go me! I managed the goal of at least three no-pants, so again go me! I’m doing quite well this year.

MMM 19 – Week 1

This year’s MMM started with suddenly remembering that it was May and thinking up my pledge. Then I needed to make sure that the first day followed the pledge of wearing multiple me-mades since I wasn’t in the mood for no-pants. The next few days also went well, so fingers crossed for the remainder of May!

May 1: I wore some shortened bought jeans with the bicycle shirt, the jacket of the three-piece suit and one of my recent infinity scarves.
Decision: Keep it all, it’s very comfortable.

May 2: One of the winter graduation dresses with the bolero of my dad’s retirement party.
I really liked this combination! The bolero nicely breaks up the dress and I finally figured out how to wear it.

May 3: Another winter graduation dress, with a bought scarf.
This dress is still nice to wear, I enjoy it.

I play roller derby on Tuesdays and Fridays and tend to wear sport skorts. On Friday, I wore a new sport skort that I think I haven’t blogged about yet (mainly because the waistband hasn’t been finished, but I’m wearing it anyway). Then on Saturday morning, I did some home exercise and wore it again.

May 4: Swordfish pants – fixed the falling zipper with a little ring, ochre sweater, recent scarf and striped shirt. Super comfortable, keeping it all.

May 5: Plaid pants, animal shirt, red sweater and an old scarf. I really like this combination, wear it all the time.

May 6: Other plaid pants, owl shirt and grey sweater. The owl shirt is a little too long for this sweater but tucking it in solved that issue.

May 7: Double zipper skirt (before blog?) and the same bolero as on May 2. I was also wearing a shirt underneath but ended up wearing a sweater over the top as it was too cold. However, the combination does work. In the evening, I wore the zippered sport skort for derby practice.

So week one is finished. So far, I’ve mainly chosen easy things that I wear regularly although I’ve branched out with the non-pants. We’ll see what week 2 brings!

Category: Outfit