Viva Las Vegas round-up

As of last night, we're officially home from our trip to Las Vegas. Home, sweet home!

The trip was fun, but I must admit that both Mel and I wished we'd had a better time. We both had a lot of moments when we really felt VLV had gotten bigger than the space allotted for it. And I think we've learned that whether we like it or not, it's just not how we like to spend our vacation time. But my blog isn't for complaining (okay, not often anyway), and there's no reason to dwell on the negative, especially about a vacation. And in spite of some frustrations, we managed to have lots of nice times, too. So on to something more fun: the photos!

Thursday we were at the airport around 5.30 a.m. The funniest thing about this picture is we were reviewing photos on Thursday night and couldn't get over the fact that this had been earlier the same day. Travel days feel like a week, don't they??

Red ready, amber set, green let's go!

With the exception of a few last minute items and toiletries, our bags are packed. We are ready for vacation!

On the top you can see clockwise from upper left: a vintage blouse, a Nudeedudee feedsack blouse, my pool set (swimsuit and matching teatimer cover up), my handmade castles skirt, and two grocery bags containing a couple of my pairs of shoes. My elephant sweater outfit did indeed get scrapped. In its place I'll be wearing my black sleeveless knit blouse and Mexican circle skirt from BombshellShocked.

Shoes and purses are the worst to pack! I think I managed to narrow it down to six pair of shoes packed, one purse packed, one purse in my hand and my delicate lucite purse in my carry on, containing all of the jewelry that I wouldn't dare check. Between the two of us we got it down to three checked bags total. I'm not sure we have ever checked more than two total, not even when we went to Ireland for ten days! Hell, I think the only time in my life that I've personally checked two bags is when I was going to live in Ireland for a semester in college. But the third bag should have plenty of room for VLV purchases. It's not very full and is mainly needed because I'm paranoid about going overweight with my suitcase, which is the bigger of the two. After all, my toiletries kit and hair dryer weigh a lot. (The hair dryer will hopefully not be needed but I'm taking it as insurance in case I set my hair there and it doesn't dry in time.)

I'm going to try and get outfit photos each day and evening of VLV, plus the remainder of our trip afterward, which will hopefully include me standing outside the turreted Excalibur in my castles skirt. ;)

So, we're off tomorrow morning, I wish I could take you all with us! See everyone in a little over a week!

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Viva Las Vegas!!

Crafty countdown to VLV

I have been running around like a crazy person in preparation for Viva Las Vegas! But my projects seem to be under control. Remember when I said I wasn't going to do any other projects specifically for VLV except for my black sleeveless sweater? Neither do I.

New jean snap attached to Freddie's jeans? Check! The snap fell off awhile back and I've just been using a belt to hold it closed but finally got around to fixing it.

Navy Heyday slacks hemmed? Check! I swapped out the buttons last month and finally hemmed them last week. Talk about waiting until the last minute... I must have bought them over 6 months ago!

Red blouse to match my capris completed? Check! That was done with plenty of time to spare.

Skirt fastener sewn on castles skirt so I can finally call it complete? Not done yet, will do this tonight. This skirt has been 99% complete for weeks but I finally got the right kind of fastener, a hook and bar type (even though I'm still not totally pleased with the result, but at least it'll be hidden by a belt).

A pair of Mel's pants hemmed? Fail, I forgot I didn't have the right color thread and ran out of time to procure any.

Zoo animals skirt to match pink elephants sweater completed? The skirt is sewn, the fastener is on, but I still have to hem it. Fortunately my rayon seam binding arrived and I can give it a whirl. I plan to sew it to the free edge of the hem and then blind stitch the hem by hand. I got this idea from several of my vintage pieces that are handmade (and some that were ready-to-wear, too). I wouldn't ordinarily be trying out something new 3 days before vacation but it seems pretty fool-proof. The skirt is essentially two rectangles pleated to form a circle skirt so there's not even any fullness to worry about. The only bad thing about the outfit is that I never did find a wide belt the right color in time, and I'm a bit lukewarm on how the whole ensemble looks. It's one outfit that might get rotated out. Or I may wear it with a black top, belt and shoes and throw caution to the wind and pretend that the dark color in the skirt isn't brown (here's a fabric sample). I did discover my pair of gorgeous brown vintage peep toes that I was going to wear with this outfit appear to no longer fit me (I am horrified at that one!). So we'll see.

Two pair of earrings made to match outfits? Check! Those were my tutorial earrings.

Black sleeveless knit blouse completed? Check! This seemed to take forever since it was such a boring knit.

Briar Rose knit-along post made? Fail. Sorry guys!! I clearly didn't plan well enough for vacation and the knit-along at the same time (due in large part to the above-mentioned black sleeveless knit blouse needing to be knit in time for our trip). Due to this, I am pushing back the deadline a bit, which I expected might happen anyway to give everyone enough time.

Now the final cast off date will be June 1st. I hope I'm not the only one this helps out. ;)


Phew! I don't even have time to post about my weekend, which included the Modern Vintage Chicago show. I'm down to the wire and in full-on vacation planning mode. I'm second guessing a few of my outfits and trying to decide what to do about that.  There aren't enough days and nights of VLV to get in everything I planned to wear. Do I take an extra couple of dresses just in case I have a change of heart once I'm there? Hmmm. We are staying on 3 extra days after, moving to the Flamingo and doing nothing but relaxing—a vacation from our vacation, if you will. So I will actually need more clothes than just for VLV.

I woke up this morning to snow and slush (a spring record). Let me tell you... am I ever ready for Las Vegas weather!

Finished project: sleeveless blouse for VLV

First and foremost, I want to thank you all so very much for your congratulations and kind comments on my last post. It's been overwhelmingly wonderful reading all your supportive comments. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

♥ ♥ ♥

I recently bought a pair of 50s capris from Bombshell Shocked. They're plaid, they're tight, they're fantastic. They're not my usual style, but they fit great and screamed "I need to be part of a casual outfit for Viva Las Vegas!" (Okay, maybe they didn't really scream at me. But they almost did.)

The main problem was that I wasn't really sure if I had a blouse that I could wear with them. I love my prints, and that constitutes the majority of my tops. I went through everything I owned and came up empty handed. I scoured eBay and Etsy and came up empty handed there, too. Drat.

Even though I steadfastly had refused to add any other crafty projects to my list before VLV, I had already planned one new thing and surely I wasn't going to take on a blouse now, too. But those capris... they were so cute! They needed a top!

I took a peek just in case. And it turned out I had the perfect pattern and the perfect matching red fabric (no small feat when you're matching a modern cotton/poly solid to a vintage cotton print). So this is how I spent the last few evenings.

It's a sleeveless blouse from Butterick 8946. I'm guessing by the hair and a consultation with my mom that the pattern is from the late 50s or early 60s. Don't you love that the previous owner, Mrs. Risberg, wrote her name on the pattern? Why do you think she did that?

I made view C, the sleeveless version with faux pocket flaps. I made a muslin Sunday afternoon and went full steam ahead, not making a single change to the pattern. Amazingly, with the exception of some armhole facings that refused to cooperate on the inside, it went together like a dream.

(Sorry the photos are a bit inconsistent, this red is so hard to capture in a photograph and I just don't have the time to take nicer photos outside right now!)

The fabric was a cotton/poly blend that I picked up from Fabric.com, which I was a bit disappointed with when it arrived. It definitely feels and looks a bit more like the 'poly' part than the 'cotton' part. It also didn't press very well and tended to show marks at the seams. I found myself needing to use something to put between the seam and the rest of the fabric when I pressed, which turned out to be two food delivery menus that were the nearest pieces of paper to my ironing board.

In spite of the pressing problems, I was able to get nice clean lines around the neckline and armholes. Fortunately for me Casey recently posted about understitching, which reminded me about this technique just when I needed to use it!

 (Don't mind the crappy-looking ponytail. I discovered with my new haircut that I do not have the option of using Hot Sticks on lazy days. Lesson learned.)

The buttons are interesting vintage buttons I had a bunch of, and I think they look perfect on this blouse. Like little sunbursts! Even better, I still have several left for future use.

I love how this blouse came out! I blind stitch hemmed it by hand, understitched the neck and armhole facings and did the buttonholes on my machine. 

 (That's me knitting my black blouse for VLV. Wearing the project that temporarily put it on hold. Ha!)

It also fits well on my new dressform! Her name is Notasha. Not-Tasha... get it? It was a birthday present from my mom and step-dad, and she arrived last night. Currently she's living next to our hutch.

Yes, I guess that's a little weird having a dress form next to our hutch. On the other side is Mel's art studio area. We have a small condo so we do what we can to double up on space. :)

Overall I'm really pleased with this blouse. The only change I made was to use 5 buttons instead of 4. And the only change I'd make in the future would be to lower the bust darts, which seemed fine on the muslin but on the final blouse are a bit high. But really, that's my only complaint.

I am a huge fan of sleeveless shirts in the summer when it's super muggy here and I don't want a lot of extra fabric sticking to me, so I could easily see myself making several variations of this top. A fun novelty print, or a solid with printed pocket flaps, maybe contrasting bias tape around the armholes instead of the facings... lots of possibilities. What do you think?

Expect to see some photos of this with my plaid capris at VLV!

This weekend we're off to Wisconsin with our friends for a getaway. We'll be enjoying the kitschy wonderland that is House on the Rock, drinking New Glarus brews and hopefully we'll fit a cake in there somewhere since my birthday is Sunday. I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, and once again thank you for all the congrats on our engagement!! ♥

Little outfit details

I am nearly in panic mode about my wardrobe for Viva Las Vegas. This is in part due to the fact that we did an idiotic, massive spring cleaning last year of our home and everything in it, and that's left me (actually both of us) with some ludicrous holes in my wardrobe that I've been struggling to fill ever since. Case in point: I no longer own a brown purse. Seriously. No brown purse of any kind.

I know it's time for me to open up my closet and figure out what I want to wear, because if I wait until the last minute and discover I need an accessory for a particular outfit (see above), I'll be screwed.

Because I've been so busy I'm trying not to be delusional about what craft projects I can complete in time. I want to finish my black u-neck blouse, because otherwise I have no top for a couple of skirts I'm planning to wear (once of which will be my castles skirt once I finally make a buttonhole for it). I don't think I ever posted the picture of this blouse, did I? It's a pattern from the 1953 Spring/Summer Vogue Knitting Book. I may do something different around the armholes and neckline because I simply don't know if I have the time and patience to knit little bias bands and sew them all the way around. I'll also be raising the neckline a bit in the interest of modesty as I'm not small-chested like the model.

I was daydreaming about other outfits, specifically trying to come up with something to wear with a navy-colored gorgeous slinky vintage sweater I recently got from Etsy. (Excuse the blah slapdash photo.)

It's a bit fancier than I usually go for, with the silver-flecked rope trim at the neckline,  rhinestones and a back keyhole neckline (sorry I didn't photograph that), but I couldn't resist. I thought it would make a great top for an evening outfit.

However I couldn't think of a single thing in my wardrobe that I could wear this with! Not one thing. It occurred to me that I could probably sew up a skirt in time, but I already feel pressed for time with the knitting project (not to mention Briar Rose), so I nixed that idea.

Then I remembered I have a pair of navy slacks from Heyday that have been sitting in my closet as I've been too lazy to hem them. I can squeeze in hemming, certainly. Those slacks, the knitted top, a pair of red Remix L'Amour wedges (that Mel bought me for my birthday at Viva two years ago since Viva usually falls near my birthday) and accessories? Perfect.

But when I pulled the slacks out, I realized they had white buttons.

I thought naturally they'd be so much nicer with vintage buttons, so I went through my stash. Sadly, I didn't have any navy buttons the right size. A quick stroll through Etsy and eBay didn't turn anything up, either. What I did turn up in my stash, however, was a set of great red vintage buttons.

While in general I'm not a fan of contrasting buttons because I am a big weirdo and they make me feel I can only match those exact colors in my outfit, this turned out to be just the lightbulb moment I needed. I thought I would switch out the buttons on the slacks to red, they'd go great with my outfit for Viva, and then I'd have the luxury of time afterwards to find perfect navy buttons for permanent use on the slacks.

So that's exactly what I did.

One outfit complete with 5 minutes of sewing!