It was a snow day...and by that I mean it had snowed the night before but the school cancellation that we anticipated didn't happen so I had to go to work. I wanted to wear something comfortable and warm. I had a great idea for a quick no-sew!
Except I didn't even have time to do that. I had to go to school. I don't refash in the morning before work. That dress in the godawful mirror selfie is a great winter piece. It's a nice thick cotton made by LL Bean and it's an extra small! (With adult clothing labels like LL, XS is good.)
It's hard to tell in those pictures but the dress has a nice blue-gray color. If I can be all poetic and shit, I'd like to call this color "storm blue" or "stormy skies" or this:
After I brought it home from the Goodwill and laundered it, I noticed it seemed familiar.
I looked in one of my vintage suitcases full of garments to be refashed and what do ya know?
It's another LL Bean dress in the same color. If my memory serves, I picked it up at the Goodwill outlet over the summer and stashed it away. Yea, two dresses. That one looks like a nightie. Blank canvas!
First on the chopping block: the longer one. I cut off part of the sleeves. I don't know why, but I'm into medium
length sleeves, I always do that. Then I cut off the that neckline right
around the seam.
I was thinking about doing some sort of weird, jagged hemline but I didn't have faith that I would do it right. Maybe that would be better with a thinner material. So, I went with the ol' high-low.
See? You just fold it sideways, with the side seams together. Then chop a triangle shape off. So, there's that.
I had plenty of excess material for a sash belt (the elastic waist was funny looking) but I used a black sash from a previous project. No-sew! Here it is.
Did I mention the pockets? Nice, it's got pockets. They're a little big, though, they add some bulk that hip section doesn't need. Still like it.
"I want to stick around 'til I can't see straight."
Look at that picture, it's all blurry. It's like the lyrics I just quoted from that song by Foreigner from which I took the title of this post.
And the other dress. Here's what I did:
First step; an asymmetric hemline! I laid it flat and cut out another triangle. Now one side is longer.
Then, I put it sideways and cut off some of the neckline in front. Then I cut the sleeves again.
I actually took it in on the sides. I didn't want to, because I wasn't sure it was worth the effort. Yes, I am that lazy. Everything's a damn project to me.
After that, it still bored me. I looked through a bunch or sewing notions and scraps for something to make the dress more interesting.
How about just a zipper. Yeah, that will work. The hardware gives it a little "edge" along with the slashed hemline. I just sewed it on there and called it a day. Oh, no. I did another thing. Belt everything! I used the excess fabric from the bottom of that last dress and made a sash for this one. Ta da...
I like it. I don't like how my boots are all scuffed. Also, look at that pose, I'm so tough.
The before and afters look bad because of the color variations. Before=late night, After=day time.
Remember that old song? It was a one-hit-wonder from a short-lived early '90s show? Well it's seriously the perfect lame song title to use for this post.
Other (and probably better) song titles considered were: Prince's "The Most Beautiful Girl in theWorld" the feels-packed hit from the recently departed artist.
"I'll Stand by You" by the Pretenders. Might be a little dark?
"Slipping Through my Fingers" by freakin' awesome ABBA about a little girl growing up.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Allow me to back the f up and eventually get to the reason for titling this post after a song performed by that guy who beat up Donna on 90210 and why I'm dressed as a super hero alongside Hello Kitty.
So, the school year is over. Each year, the last day of school brings a bittersweet adjustment period where I'm relieved for the break but missing the routine of the work and students that I love. My job, working with young emotionally troubled children can be rewarding on good days and tumultuous (at best) on the bad days. This year was very different.
I'm bringing it back in time again, but just to last September. You see, every school year is very different for me. With this job, life is like a box of special needs children; you never know what you're gonna get.
Woo hoo, I got a doozy.
Although she was cute as a button, "MB" was wild as a puppy who's been let loose in a school building.
I worked with the same first grade teacher I worked with last year, who happens to be my own first grade teacher when I was a kid. It was exhausting. Attempting to keep her safe and from damaging property proved to be impossible for the most part.
One day she ran off, with me trailing behind her demanding she return. She immediately encountered another like-minded hall runner, a kindergarten girl who was being followed by another adult. With some kind of mental pact, they started moving down the hall together where they met up with a boy named LP (whom I worked with last year) who was on the run with his teacher in pursuit. He changed directions and the two girls followed him as if he were the pied piper of misbehaving children. If you're keeping count, that's three children and three adults sprinting through the school as if reenacting the Benny Hill chase sequence:
Couldn't find original, here are some teenagers.
Luckily, MB was accepted into a special program at another school for emotionally troubled kids where she would hopefully get the help she needed. And lucky for me, I was immediately assigned to look after another equally difficult case.
Or was I?
The aforementioned kindergarten girl who followed MB in the hallway? Her name was AB (well sort of). She has what is known as select mutism and that was the only thing I knew about her at the time. Actually, I knew one more thing: she loved Hello Kitty.
AB had curly, dark blonde hair framing her little cherub face. Her beautiful blue eyes were never quite...focused which wasn't immediately noticeable, but it was clear she wasn't your standard issue kid. She was often dressed in ruffly little skirts and sparkly leggings. She was never seen without a plush Hello Kitty. She walked on her tiptoes. When not walking, her toes turned out a little, like the opposite of pigeon-toed. What I'm saying is; the kid was absolutely adorable af.
It seemed no one quite knew what to do with her. This was her first experience with school. She wouldn't stay in her class, often moving through the halls or going to stand outside her sister's classroom. At her worst, she would rock back and forth as if in complete distress. The school social worker and the assistant principal sometimes let her play in their offices as they weren't sure what else to do.
I will always remember that day when we became a team. I received my marching orders and walked confidently into her class. (Fake confidence, actually.) I spoke to her and gave her my friendliest smile. I picked up an iPad and AB actually sat with me at at table and watched as I used the Doodle Buddy app to draw a picture that looked like this:
Artist reenactment
She loved it. A child who doesn't talk with her voice needs you to listen to with your eyes. Seeing her smile was a very good sign.
After playing on the iPad for a little while we went to the computer lab with the class. Remember, this little girl was a flight risk and from what I was told didn't spend much time participating with the class. Therefore, my first goal was simply, "keep her in one room." In the lab, she did some of her work, but the setting can be extremely distracting. It's the library with laptops and four kindergarten classes crammed in. When AB looked like she was losing interest, I suggested we do something else. Not quite sure what I was going to do, I opened up YouTube and typed in "nursery rhymes" and brought up a cute-sy video of "The Three Little Kittens." Success! She was enjoying it!
Soon, other children were calling for help, asking for bathroom breaks, etc. When I got up to tend to another kid's issue, something unexpected happened. I turned around and saw this:
(kitten reenactment)
She followed me. Like a big cat tracking her prey, her eyes locked on me and her feet followed as I moved through the room. "I got her! She likes me!" I proudly congratulated myself.
I remembered the words of the social worker who earlier that morning told me, "the most important thing will be earning her trust." In only a couple of hours, it seemed I had accomplished what most of the other adults hadn't been able to. AB could not tell me with her words, but as a small cat rubs up against you when you walk into a room, she seemed to be telling me that she liked me!
I was overjoyed. I knew it wouldn't always be this easy, but it was an excellent start. If I was going to help this little stray kitten, I would have to meet her where she was; and that was without verbal communication. How will I know how to meet her needs? How will I know what she knows?
I would have to figure it out, because the caseworker and administration liked what they saw when I was with her. We were soon inseparable.
To be continued. But first, how about that cape?
So, our school does a lot of theme days and during the spring time we has "superhero day." Here's the thing...I'm not so much into the whole superhero/comic book character craze. So, I did my own thing. First I made a cape.
That's a twin sized sheet and a Hello Kitty shirt. I also needed a nice ribbon which I had on hand.
Look, I know I claim to be a DIY blog but there's no need to reinvent the wheel. There's a way to make a cape by folding the sheet over by an inch or two and sewing it across so that it looks like a curtain with a thing to put the rod through. Well just my luck, the $2.99 sheet I brought home already had a little fold over! All I had to do was cut some 1" slits in it.
See? Then I laced that ribbon through the holes. I had a cape...one that was twice my length. I had to cut a ton off the bottom to prevent my cape from dragging like a long bridal veil. So, I had some material to make this!
Cool mask, huh? I did not wear that mask. I have glasses and unless I wanted to be Daredevil (get it?) a mask would not work. Anyway, I do things at the last minute and I was running out of time to make this regular cape a Hello Kitty cape.
I considered just cutting the front half of the shirt off and sewing that on. I decided I should go big and not half ass it, so I went ahead and cut out the shapes to add the cape and laid them out. I then decided to skip the sewing and just safety pin them on, thus half assing it.
I had previously picked up a slightly snug blue shirt with silver belt that was completely inappropriate; unless it was superhero day. Oh, I also cut up a broken waist cincher belt from my wrestling days and made these:
See what I did? I folded those elastic pieces into wrist-thingies and secured them with safety pins. (Bless you, safety pins.) Then I used some black washi tape to hide the raw edges and pins. As for a mask? I picked up something from the party store for $1.99 and wore it like a headband.
By the end of the school day, this is how I looked. Instagram filtered. What I mean is, I was tired so I took this picture while resting on the couch. I then instagrammed it, pointing out my shifty eyes. I might actually be a villain. Here's one with me posing:
In case you didn't notice, I should acknowledge that I'm pretty much breaking my own arm by trying to pat myself on the back. First, I'm claiming that I worked some sort of miracle (nope, just had some good ideas) and second, I'm dressed like a freakin' caped crusading jerk. Just being self aware.
I hate that I always have to split these story posts up into parts, but...I don't want to keep writing for too long.
When it comes to DIY projects, it's obvious that I rarely break a sweat with mine. In other words; I like 'em simple.
As I mentioned in one of my lengthy, dramatized stories, I have occasionally put together little works of art as gifts that I called minimalist collages. I shared the one that I made for Falcon, which looked like this:
As you see, it's basically a painted canvas with a word, and a picture of a leopard cut from an old book decoupaged on it. Definitely not what one would normally call a collage. The method behind this series was to choose an animal to represent the particular wrestling performer as well as an adjective used to describe him/her. Then do art.
I should backtrack...this one isn't the first I had made. The first was created (though not gifted) to a guy who wrestled as...let's just call him "CVZ." I don't want to point him out on the internets. Like many of my tales, this one is from that crazy summer of 2012. I had plenty of time on my hands and I was really getting into the arts and crafts. This dude was going through a pretty big life tragedy and had just moved into an apartment alone. I thought that maybe I should make him some wall art. AS A FRIEND. I mean, I had the materials laying around.
Anyway, I started with a bunch of pictures cut from old, tattered books that I had collected. My theme was the pompous, grandiose, dick character he played in WAW. I painted a canvas in blue (CVZ's color) and swirls of black and sparkles which actually came out quite nice. After trying to arrange my cutouts onto the painted canvas like one would a collage, it looked "meh." I took off everything but the drawing of a tiger from a book about drawing animals. I used some letter stickers to spell the word "awesome."
Of course, that time period was a roller coaster and when I completed this, I chose not to give it to him because I didn't want to look like a freak. I just checked to see if it was still under my couch...
Yes! There it is! It looked decidedly more "awesome" without the dust layer, but there you have it. Here's a little bit of "how to."
Gather materials. That picture is the beginning of Falcon's piece. I've got a canvas, some picture cutouts, letter stickers, paint brushes, and paint in the color of his wrestling tights. Not pictured: Mod Podge. You need that.
Let's jump way ahead. In April, I decided it was a good time to honor another of WAW's finest for his b-day. I present; Christian Sain.
The first thing I did was decide what animal I wanted to use. It wasn't an easy thing to pick, but once I decided on a cobra, I found it was the perfect choice. The cobra is the snake known for its hood around its head which it flares out when ready to strike, like the showy entrance pose of a wrestler making his way to the ring. Their sinewy, graceful movement with great speed brings to mind many of Christian Sain's great matches. Basically: the cobra is an aggressive, deadly snake with a loud hiss and some with the ability to spit venom; yet they move along gracefully and regally, like royalty. An easy comparison to Chris.
I was happy to have the chance to pull out my stash of supplies:
Those Walter T. Foster "how to draw" books were only $0.99. Here's some of the stuff in my suitcase:
stamps and stickers!
a bunch of awesome stencils!
More stickers and some little rub on letters!
Oh, guess what? I couldn't find a single decent image of a cobra in any of many children's encyclopedias or science books. I was going to have to draw my own! But first, the background.
I started with two colors; silver and gold. These were the colors of
our wrestling attire when we were a team. Silver and black mostly, but
for a short time gold and black. I wanted to make a hypnotic swirly
background.
It looked pretty nice after using many layers of paint, but I guess I couldn't leave well enough alone. I added black.
For whatever reason, I really liked my swirl. Ooh, look up close:
Using white paper and a pencil, I found a one of those step-by-step-how-to-draw sites and picked a nice little snake. Once completed, I cut him from the white paper and adhered it to a piece of silver paper.
Hellooooo
Now for the descriptive word. I probably should have used "glorious" but the one I had been kicking around was "unrepentant." Like: "the villain was unrepentant of the damage he had done, as he strutted off in the act of giving no fucks at all." Perfect for a heel wrestler. What sucks? Long word and a small picture.
I picked the letters that I thought matched best and rearranged them and the snake all over the board, eventually deciding on the diagonal letters. Using Mod Podge, I painted the back of my cobra drawing and pressed it onto the canvas, flattening it out to ensure there were no bubbles. After an hour, I gave the whole thing a top coat of Mod Podge and let that dry. Then I glue gunned those cardboard letters in place. Like the other two I showed you, I included some studs to toughen it up. Finally:
Settle in, folks. I've got a whole ramble to do before eventually getting to the dress.
It starts back in 1998. I'm just messin' with you, I won't go back that far. A couple weeks ago, I received word that WAW, the small, low budget wrestling promotion I once considered my pride and joy would be disbanded. The shows took place in a local gym which we rented out on Saturdays. The gym owner was in financial trouble and would most likely be losing her building, leaving WAW homeless.
"artistic" photo of the ring apron
There are times in recent years where I cursed vengeance upon those in this group. I dreamed about riding into the gym on horseback, and slaying the current regime placing their heads on each ring post to take back my throne. (I have an active imagination and I'm obsessed with Game of Thrones.) But, news of WAW's demise was not good news for me.
another artsy-ass pic which shows me in WAW's corner
In the week that followed, the most beautiful thing happened. My former WAWers, past and current members took to social media to share our love and memories and shit. Using the tags #wawmemories, and #farewelltothedojo or #savethedojo, we shared our highlights and stories from olden days. We changed our Facebook profile pictures to photos of ourselves in costumes or in the ring.
It was announced that there would be a show on the upcoming Saturday, possibly the last. Of course I would attend.
Here's where I talk about my outfit. For most of my career in WAW I played Ms. Moody Starr, company president. My look was usually a cross business lady and dominatrix. I thought I should give a nod to my executive era with something a little like that.
Here's the dress;
I feel like I'm doing this wrong. That dress already looks pretty decent and my bewbs are on full display and that wasn't intentional. I just put this on over my pants to grab the quick "before" picture. It's a pinstriped thing I got for $5 at Savers. It's by Ann Taylor. I'm not sure if that's a fancy name or not.
This isn't a refashion. My end result is basically the same dress with a bunch of accessories. I did some altering.
I took it in from the back. That's what it looked like pinned before I sewed. This made the low cut top fit a little strange. So, I made it lower because I planned on layering.
I just folded down a little of the material on each side in the front like that. It worked. My next step was choosing all the cool crap to go with it. I still have all my costumes in one of those hated plastic bins.
It was decided that I would act as the manager to two of my former clients, one of them being a former boyfriend. We had worked together in 2008-2009 and had a successful "stable" (group of wrestlers banding together like a team, ex.WWE's Degeneration X) called "The Dynasty." Our colors were for the most part black and silver, sometimes gold.
On the left, a sparkly silver gown for a special event; on the right a publicity shot from the Dynasty era. Not shown are my metallic silver leggings that I used to wear under short dresses. Sadly, they had lost a lot of their shine. I wore those, my patent high heel boots, my silver sequin bra, a silver accented belt, and a faux fur boa thing. A bit of an overkill? Too much?
Yes
It looks a little over the top, which is good for wrestling shows, I think.
The necklace is just a black chain with one of those big pins attached. No need to be flashy. Bring on the narcissistic photo shoot!
The leggings used to fit better.
I will probably come back to this, but to wrap it up, the show went well, JOHN showed up and performed, and there might be more life in WAW.
It's been over a week since I started writing the third part of my last story and I'm almost done, but oops, I seem to have fallen behind. As usual. Valentine's Day was days ago, so I figured that now would be a good time to share some red and pink crap. The post itself reflects the hasty, last-minute hurried feeling I get sometimes. Too many little chores; blogging/writing takes a back seat.
I'm behind as hell and don't feel like explaining myself, dammit.
On Thursday of last week, I knew I had put it off long enough and had to redo my hair color, but before that I threw together some half-assed outfit ideas that might be considered no-sew restyles. I had this skirt that I had already photographed awhile ago...
It was months ago, and I don't remember why I have it or why I used the dress form for the "before" shot. It's a large stretchy skirt with useless buttons and tiny pink polka dots. Tiny pink polka dots, despite being a color I don't wear are considered acceptable because they have a certain retro kitsch value.
I digress. Anyway, I did the usual "pull the skirt up over boobs" trick and then to make it a little more fitted, I added two safety pins to create darts in the bodice section.
Do you see them? You see how I added safety pins? Not that there is much daylight around here anyway, but it was totally nighttime when I took these pics. I hid the pins with a sash and added more layers, plus a heart shaped necklace.
The tired, thrown together me that was captured here could only be saved with some heavy photo editing.
This following thing is really just a sweater I love and have had for many a Valentine's of yesteryear. It's somewhat ill-fitting and there wasn't much I could do.
Ugh, no to everything. I tried to add "pops" of red with the belt and shoes to bring out the sweater's design. Pencil skirt's too small and I look super mad about it. I did have to shorten that elastic belt, though.
My sweater with the gorgeous sacred heart embroidered on:
I bought it when I was much younger and badass-ier. Love the sacred heart image and if I weren't so wishy washy, I'd have got something like that for a tattoo while younger and badass-er. The sweater came from an alternative indie clothing store (do people still use words like that?) in Cambridge, MA and probably cost a fortune.
Finally...this goddamn adorable cat print dress. It's sheer black with more tiny pink polka dots and retro style kitties on it. I got it a few years back at Savers, I believe. It's a small junior's size. It has a weird fit at the sides and two stupid strings at boob level.
Lolwut. What are these? Am I wearing it wrong? Don't answer, I know what's wrong; I'm not a size 3 teen. But, seriously, why pointy hips?
I don't really know what to do, but for the sake of getting this shit done, I started by cutting off those strings. Then I added a different red waist cinching belt to hopefully fix the "hang" of this dress or at least draw the eye towards the middle.
This pose is like, "What's that? Damn right I matched red and pink and you added some big-ass fake pearls. Think it's tacky?"
Come at me, bro*
*Any time I see someone posed with arms outstretched, I'm reminded of the old meme phrase which translates into "approach and we shall engage in fisticuffs."
