Meeting Clothes

Today I spent the whole day sitting in a council meeting listening to reports and voting on budgets. Since I didn't have to go to the office, I got to wear jeans and Docs - this time the 8-hole ones.

No leaves on our trees yet.

It's very hard to see, but the scarf is the one I made myself. The same one from the Scarf Ace post.  Here is a close-up:

It has yellow, white, black and grey circles and has a silky charmeuse-y feel to it.  Although I think it's just polyester.

The top I love for the interesting pattern and buttons:

When I got this, the armholes were uncomfortably small, so I had to alter it slightly.  I just sliced them up a tad, and tacked the extra bits in place: 

Outlined the extra bits in red.

It probably could've been done a little more professionally, but I didn't really know how and who's going to look under your arm anyway?

There were also too few buttons, so I added one of those sew-on snaps to the bottom, but it kept unsnapping and in the end, I had to just safety-pin it in place:

The snaps are circled and the arrow shows the safety pin.

So finally got to wear fewer layers as it's starting to warm up.  Spring is coming!

An Alteration

Does an alteration count as a refashion?  I'm always shortening the straps on my tank tops, but this time I "altered" a skirt.

There's something weird with my body shape because lots of times if clothing fits in the hips, it's too big in the waist.  And if the waist fits, then it pulls across the hip - or maybe it's my big tummy area!

I bought a skirt at Walmart. I know, I'm of two minds re: Walmart.  Do I buy into the low prices knowing that I'm contributing to the growing gap between rich and poor?  Just google what's wrong with Walmart to see what I mean. Or do I stick to my principles and avoid it like the plague? 

Well, this time I succumbed.  And found an already low-priced skirt which was marked down some more. I bought the smaller size, but it pulled and created an indented bowl effect in front.  It looked really weird.  I exchanged it for the next size up and then the waist was too big. 

So, I stitched it up by hand - basted I think it's called.  I used orange thread because I wasn't sure if it would look good and thought it might have to be undone, and didn't want to be squinting to pick out black thread.

You can just see the orange thread.

It looked okay, so I continued with black thread and here is the result:

Hard to see, but the red outline is where it's taken in

I tried it on and it looks normal! I think this counts as my first real "alteration" and am going to wear it soon.