I used the same waistband and zipper pattern/technique as my full circle skirt. I think I am going to shorten this into a mini-skirt, now after seeing how long it looks in the pictures.

I bought the corduroy for $5.00 and was able to make this skirt and part of my Sew Weekly project from it. This skirt ate up about 2.5 yards and cost me $2.50.

My vintage boucle sweater was purchased from JessJamesJake.

The sun was super bright out at Fort Missoula, resulting in many interesting  facial expressions like the one above.

I need someone to model the clothes I make.

You: like clothes (duh?), don’t mind being the center of attention for a few minutes, super patient (for fittings, mostly) and fun!

You would have to available most, if not all, of the Friday evenings listed in the above link. I would prefer if you had free time during the week for fittings so everything goes smoothly Friday.

Speaking of Friday, I will be doing hair and makeup, so we would probably meet at 5ish to get that all done.

]]> http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/894/feed/ 0 Eems http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/892/ http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/892/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:00:37 +0000 eemsreeses http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/?p=892 ]]> I finally got around to getting my patterns onto Flickr.

You can check them out here.

I hope to get them organized in a binder sometime this month based loosely on this tutorial from Sew Weekly.

I think it’ll be good to have a small picture, the era, price and location of purchase information.

Good news, I did not fall off my rollers today. 75 minutes well spent watching Hulu.

Swimming was good as well. Man, the pool was congested. It always makes it hard to do the rests and quickness as accurately as my workouts state. You never know if you’re fellow lane people are going to be the same, slower or faster speed than you.

The 250 warm up was fine, so was 100 kick. I’ve noticed that my right leg gets super tight ( i.e. I should go to yoga).  The 9×50′s were fun and the 100 quicks were painless for the most part. I’m still working on trying to keep my ‘quick’ speed the same for every yardage. During the last 100 I almost ate shit because I’d messed my breathing up and was running out of air.

Today I had planned on getting to campus early so I could do an indoor run since there’s so much snow on the roads (i.e. super sketch). The gym ended up being closed till eleven due to a staff meeting, so I opted to do my swim first.

Swimming was good, 7x100s was fine. I feel like I concentrate so much on head placement…that maybe I shouldn’t and it’ll all come together.

Eh. 2x500s were ok, the second one was a little slower. I think I really need to invest in some more Vega since I’ve already run out.

All in all,  nothing too fancy.

This past week I decided that I would make a shirt for the Sew Weekly button challenge.  I chose the McCall’s pattern because it looked cute, had the button element and I had some white fabric that would work perfectly.  The pattern lost it’s directions somewhere along the way but that didn’t faze me. I’ve sewn a shirt before and felt confident that I could do a passable job.

Well, putting the shirt together was not the problem. In one sitting I got everything but the hems and collar on. The biggest problem was in the bust size of the pattern, 34″. From previous measurements, this shirt would be a tad big on me. Just for the hell of it,I remeasured myself with a string (notice, AFTER I had done all that sewing, not BEFORE) and my bust measurement is smaller than my previous measurement.

I'm not sure I like the pleat in the center back of the shirt.

The word fuck played repeatedly in my head at this moment because the shirt was swallowing me up. I took in the sides, the darts, but the front of the shirt without the pocket was baggy. I could not figure out how to fix it and to say my frustration resembled that of a toddler throwing a fit is a vast understatement.

I said to hell with the shirt for the time being and turned my attention to making a circle skirt using this tutorial. The skirt went together quick, especially with the lapped zipper. I think my favorite part of the skirt is the two different pale pink buttons I  used to latch the waist band above the zipper.I also tried to make a handmade belt for the skirt but failed. The glue from the belt kit was not sticky enough. Probably because it’s been sitting there since the forties. Instead, I made a quick ribbon out of some awesome pink fabric.

I managed to finish the shirt the day the challenge was due. I slapped a pocket on the bagginess and thankfully, it worked!!! I also realized I’d fucked up the collar, so instead I made a detachable peter pan collar for it. I think detachable collars may be my next big love.

In the end, I’m fairly happy with how the shirt came out. I think it’s the only shirt I will sew for awhile because I realized shirts…aren’t really for me.  As evidenced by the fact that I don’t have any in my wardrobe, save this one. I think it’s because I find them uncomfortable to wear, just like I do jeans and bras.  For more pictures and yammering, check out my post over at Sew Weekly.

First off, holy fucking snow!

I had 60 minutes of roller time after work today. For some reason, I kept almost tipping over, and then managed to fall  to the ground while clipped in.

The swim was ok, though I didn’t have enough time to do my last 250, 50 kick and 3×50 cool down.  Slow going.

I think I’ve narrowed my two half-ironman choices down to Troika in Spokane and Bear Lake Brawl on the Idaho/Utah border. Now I just need to get around to registering.

]]> http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/871/feed/ 0 Eems http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/868/ http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/868/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:45:34 +0000 eemsreeses http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/?p=868 ]]> Training 1/15

I really need to get into the habit of updating every evening.

Yesterday I had a 60 minutes hilly run to do. Went to Crazy Canyon and started up a trail that didn’t look like the grade was steep, but when I turned around to look behind me, it was definitely a climb and my calves were feeling it. Twentyish minutes in I started downhill to the fire road, then went uphill on the fire road than downhill to the car. It was pretty cold out and I was a tad worried that my mysterious pain would unleash, so I was trying to take it easy up the hills.
When I went to the pool last night, I was the only one there. That’s never happened before, usually it’s so congested! The 200 swim and 4×50 kick were good. I really need to work on my kick when I’m swimming.  It’s fine when I use the kick board but I feel that when I’m actually putting it all together it goes to shit. The 50 quick were good, and I tried to keep up the same speed for the 200s, but man, that last 200 wasn’t even close! I did a couple of drills and 100 cool down and that was that.

I’ve been writing my triathlon training down on paper as of late. However, I have a habit of losing  misplacing things quite frequently. So, I am back to posting them on the blog. They are quite dull, but it’s so helpful to be able to look back at what I did, how I was feeling.

Onwards!

1/11

Yesterday was my longest run to date, and coming off being sick the previous week, I was unsure about how it would go. I ended up going to Blue Mountain which has a good mixture of flats and very small hills in the forefront of the actual mountainous part. The run felt really good, just being outside on a nice day and my legs were feeling awesome.  I felt like my pace was fairly steady until probably the last 15 minutes when I was starting to get worn out. Also, the mysterious pain surfaced for a brief second, causing me to walk  a couple of minutes. All in all… I ran 85 minutes.

I have a confession. I’m starting to love running (weeeeeird).

I rolled my bike on my rollers as I watched the Biggest Loser (I am obsessed with that show…for  reasons that can’t be explained).

1/12/2012

Uuuuuuug. Today I had to do my exercises after work. I’ve just started working as a seasonal receptionist at H & R Block.

I know it’s weird to be tired after literally doing nothing all day, but I am. I equate it to when a person sleeps too much  that they’re still tired when they wake up.  Lovely, no?

Also, I finally bought my spring gym membership today, and I cringed at how much it cost for the five months.

I’m really not a fan of gyms, I’d rather go outside. Too bad the weather doesn’t agree. So, I ended up running my short 30 minute easy run in the gym since it had gotten dark by then. My legs were pretty tired and tight from yesterday, so I tried to do quite a bit of stretching.

After running, I walked ever so slowly to the pool. The 2×100 easy were good. Oh, crap. I just realized that I zoned out on part of my swimming which was supposed to be:

6 (2x 25 drill r:10, 150 as 50 relaxed/50 quick/50 relaxed r:40).

I forgot to do the drills after the first few times!!!!!! Crap! The 150′s were ok, though to be honest, there was nothing ‘quick’ about the middle 50 yards, too tired. The 500 yards I swam at a nice, comfortable pace which felt awesome. The last 2x50s were good as well.

]]> http://abearsfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/862/feed/ 0 Eems