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Monday, March 18, 2013

Vegas + Driving + Clothes

Yes, finally, I have returned.

I didn't really go anywhere, mind you, but I did have a silent blogging weekend. But it was definitely not an idle weekend! I have been sewing up a storm the past week since I returned from my little vacation and now I'll show you what I was doing! Well. After a couple of other pictures of fun times :)

bad weather driving

First, a photo of the kind of weather we faced on our drive up to Las Vegas. Ridiculous, no? I'm glad Mario was driving through the worst of it! It was such an unfortunate weather weekend. I live in the southwest... I should be able to plan a vacation and expect sun pretty much anytime that isn't monsoon season. But of course, this is what happens when I finally take a vacation. The little black thing in the bottom of the picture is a headlight, by the way. I drive a mid nineties Mazda Miata. It has pop-up headlights and is totally adorable :)

in front of the fake sphinx

This was our ridiculous hotel. The Luxor. We stayed in a pyramid room with sloped windows and pyramid shaped hand soap.

luxor view

View from outside our hotel room door!

burgr time

At Gordon Ramsay's Burgr. Just the ladies of the group because this is the picture that turned out best :) I missed these girls!

Most of the rest of my pictures are of silly things that I won't bore you with ;) I didn't take many tourist-y pictures because half the time I forgot I even had my camera on me. I was much more excited to be seeing my old friends than I was about Vegas, anyway!

Speaking of spending time with friends, we also took a trip up Mt. Lemmon last weekend with the Volvo crew. Yeah, there's a crew.

volvos in a row

These are the cars that came up the mountain with us! We invited more people, but for various reasons they couldn't make it. Still! It was a ton of fun.

top of the mountain

Here's Mario and I at the top of the mountain! See the snow in the background?? It was over 90 degrees in Tucson that day. But at the top of Mt. Lemmon there was still snow! Exciting! We're leaning on the green Volvo :)

do not attempt

Our friend, Beau, got some really fancy pictures and videos on the way down. I don't recommend doing this, though! It looks rather terrifying to me. But he's crazy. Anything for a good car picture!

Whew! Okay. So those are some of the fun things I've been doing lately. Well, the fun non-sewing things. I have also been making more clothes! Look!

shirred tube dress

pleated wrap skirt

elastic waist skirt with pockets

skirt from old t-shirt


Three skirts and a dress! I made the first two from scratch. The top one was my first time shirring anything and I am pleased to say it was pretty easy. And it fit when it was finished and didn't fall apart! The second one is a (very wrinkled from wear) pleated wrap skirt. I loosely based it on this tutorial found via Pinterest. I didn't have enough fabric left after making the dress to follow the pattern exactly and still have it wrap around me, so I made the pleats much smaller. I think it still turned out pretty cute! I wore it all day (hence the wrinkles!) and got a lot of compliments :)

The last two were refashions of clothes I was planning to donate or throw away (for the really worn out items). I stumbled across the blog Refashionista, written by a lovely lady named Jillian Owens and after reading about 200 posts, I became a little obsessed. I immediately starting digging through my donation clothes to see what I could come up with. The pink and brown skirt used to be a shirred tube dress, much like the one I made. But I LOVED that dress and wore it to death. The elastic was just dying and the top was starting to unravel... But I thought maybe the bottom was still salvageable so I cut it off and added an elastic waist band and voila! My adorable dress is now and adorable skirt! With pockets!! The last one actually used to be a t-shirt that was sadly way too big for me after I lost some weight. The material was pretty heavy for a t-shirt, so I thought it would make a cute, comfy, casual skirt. again, I just cut the top off right under the sleeves and added an elastic waist band (I need to buy more elastic now...). It's so comfortable! And purple! I love how it turned out :) 

I will definitely be doing more refashioning. I think each of these skirts took me about 30 minutes (maybe) and the results were so cute! Plus, I was able to give new life to clothes I still loved but couldn't wear anymore. Jillian's blog is so much fun and so inspiring. I definitely have a new awareness of the clothes I own and I think after spending so much time reading her blog I will take to my next shopping trip with heightened awareness of the spending choices I make. If you have any interest in making cute clothes from thrift store purchases, you should definitely check out her blog! 

Did you make it to the end? WOW. Good for you :) Don't worry, I haven't abandoned quilting. I just needed a little break after Mr. Hounds Tooth. I'm working on Bee and BOM blocks this week- my goal is to have them all done by Friday. Wish me luck! First up is my March block for the Newbee Quilters Bee, a Sawtooth star in red, blue, and gray. Better get back to work!

newbee quilters march sawtooth star


Linking up to Let's Get Acquainted, hosted by Jamie Lee at Busy Bee Quilts this week!

11 comments:

  1. You are so brave with the clothing sewing, Anna! I love what you're making!!

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  2. We stayed at the Luxor once when I was a kid. I didn't process that sloped outer wall would mean sloped interior windows. I was so impressed with the view I walked right into the window.
    Great fashioning!

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  3. I am going to hop over and check out that blog in a second. I've wanted to sew clothes but don't even know where to start. Maybe I could try this first because I've made a few doll outfits and it's easier to use old clothes since they are already serged, etc. Looks like you had a fun time in Vegas! I could use a vacation myself:)

    Thanks for linking up!

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