Maybe Daily Blogging: Vacation!

Write. Write. Writey write write.

I'm on vacation. (Woohoo!) And I'd like to ease back into a writing habit, at least a bloggy writing habit. So, write. Tappitytap.

Have I mentioned that I apparently type at 110 words per minute? I took one of those online tests, and I don't offhand see a reason for them to boost my ego by lying about my typing speed. And that's actually after a lot of backspace-correction, so I'd guess that my flying fingers are actually typing at something closer to, oh, 130 or more.

Tappity.

Below, I realize that there are a lot of producty things. So, I'll just say here that no, they didn't pay me.

I've discovered that Etsy has a lot of vintage rhinestone jewelry. A whole lot. And a much better interface than eBay. This is a very dangerous fact to learn. Especially since while I'm looking at the rhinestone stuff, I see other stuff.

I'm planning to sew over vacation, too. My goal is to find the clothes that I will actually wear instead of jeans. Random thoughts (writey write write) include:

• Columnar knit skirts, like McCall's 6654, view E. (Picture here.) I have one columnar knit skirt, in wool, and I wear it probably as often as all of my other winter skirts combined. I find the shape to be the most flattering on my hip-heavy figure--having a skirt expand to my hips and then keep expanding, as an A-line does, doesn't work for me in the mirror. But a narrow woven skirt isn't comfortable enough for me, hence the knit.
• Drop-sleeve woven shirts, long, with a straight hem, intended to be worn untucked. I'm going to start with the Style Arc Lauren Boyfriend Shirt. (Picture here.) I'll extend the length, make it the same length front and back, give it a straight deep hem with mitered corners and vents, and make a variation with a faced neckline instead of a collar. 
• Straight-hanging cardigan outer layers. For the woven one, as described a few posts ago, I've been working on Butterick 5261 (Picture here), an out-of-print raglan shirt jacket.  I made the straight-hem version once with almost no alterations, other than making the hem deeper and finishing it with mitered corners, and replacing the gathers in the cuffs with tinytiny pleats. I thought that was likely a failure, but then I wore it a few days ago and it worked just fine.

Next would be a woven cardigan outer layer. And as part of a theoretical travel wardrobe that I'll probably post about soon, I'd like a knit tee, though I debate whether that's worth developing as a pattern versus just buying it. But the above three are more than enough for several days of sewing.

My main concern with all of the above is the likely shapelessness--there's nothing to give me even a hint of an inner curve at the waist. But I keep reminding myself that the goal here is to stop wearing jeans, and even a shapeless skirt outfit will be more flattering to me than jeans.

So. That is all. I might go trace patterns now.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.