Motivation, never leaving the house and leggings.....

Well, this post is sort of blogland current affairs with many of the blogs I read mentioning the topic.

This will be in two main parts, my struggle for motivation and the curse of awful clothing choices because I hardly leave the house.


Ok, motivational depletion.....like this lazy so and so...

My dear sweet Biggins is a bad influence!
Well, it's not really the cat's fault, it's my poor adjustment to not being at work and having to organise my own time. Being laid off sucks! I really need to adjust to this situation before I reach the point of no return, it's been about a month now, and I have been so unproductive in this time.
Laurell K Hamilton (best selling author of the Anita Blake series) has been doing a series of blog posts and a couple have hit on the issue of motivation, especially this one, it's good to know you're not alone, however, it would be better if it mentioned a quick cure for the lazy-itus!

I know I need to deal with this, I won't always have the luxury of so much time on my hands, it is frustrating to know that when I was at work all day long, getting home at 10-10.30pm I would come home and get cracking on the sewing and have a pretty good completion rate given the time spent on things, and now I am home all day I rarely get anything started let alone finished.

How do all you ladies who work from home do it?!
I worry that it is a sign I would never be able to work for myself, and that is something I really really want to do, at least to the extent a part time job outside my home would be able leave me financially secure.


The second part of my post is related to my being at home all day too.
I have become a slob! Leggings are now my most worn item - nooooo!!!!
This issue of sloppiness has come up over at Gertie's blog, because she has just started working from home. A funny but very true post, based on a reader's comment - here - highlights that the problem I am facing with dressing for comfort and neglecting style. The leggings first appeared as a trial for an alternative to footless tights, meant to be worn in the same manner, under dresses, for extra warmth and to last a bit longer. So far so innocent right! This quickly turned into a case of wearing them as an alternative to trousers for when I am sewing, I sit on the floor a lot and buttons dig in and get uncomfortable.
Then it promptly became a case of "well I'm not leaving the house so it doesn't matter what I look like".
Such an easy habit to slip into!
Just for the record I really don't feel comfortable just wearing leggings to leave the house in, a bit too exposing in the bottom area, not a good look!
Take into consideration that despite working in a hot smelly kitchen I always wore tailored trousers with my chef jacket and a full face of make up so I didn't look too awful when I left the kitchen!
So there is no excuse not to make the effort at home.
Especially when Leigh Ann over at Voodoo Stitches wore this dress to clean her home in!
So stunning! And a reminder that ditching the leggings as anything other than a little added warmth/modesty under something pretty is an absolute must!

As mentioned at Gerties blog, the key to keeping it pretty whilst at home is ensuring that everything is comfy, so I think it is about time I made a few things for myself that look pretty, not too over the top, which also are as un restricting as leggings.




Perhaps this is my motivation, not the motivation I would ideally like, but a start at least.
Sorry for the lengthy ramble here, sometimes you just have to get it all out!

Things I forgot to put up.

A couple of items that I had brought upstairs to photograph and put on here but forgot about! 

I made the skirt about a fortnight ago, it's so small, probably fit a child! The halter top was made shortly afterwards, same pattern as normal, edited to have tie up straps instead.

 I made the pattern for the skirt using an A4 piece of paper, measured the top of it to determine the amount of panels I would need...... and completely forgot about seam allowances! Which is why it ended up so small, I have got another similar skirt on the go (being lazy and not finishing it because it is one of those time consuming and completely boring bits left to do!) which is more grown up sized!

I only had enough of this purple ribbon to do two bows, had wanted five, perhaps I will pick up a metre next time I'm in town, but it looks okay anyway :)

Used up the last of this fabric with this top, well, a few scraps left that I'm sure I will use for something!

Really satisfying knowing that I've got so much use out of half a duvet cover! The other half of it was the blue with ivory daisies, I got it from a charity shop but it originally would have cost more than I would ever contemplate spending on a bed sheet! Some people have more money than sense, especially to give it away in perfect condition to a charity shop! 

Apologies for the usual reason of terrible photos, when the weather co-operates I'm going to take some proper photos (still with my phone but it can't be helped) outside, in the sunshine with my good friend Bethany as my model because she is far slimmer and far more photogenic than I am! This has to be the biggest problem with making clothes that don't fit me, but I wouldn't ever sell them if I could squeeze into them!

New look blog!

Well, it isn't that exciting but I've spent several hours today battling with technology (in particular the scanner grrrr) trying to sort out something a bit better than the crappy font header I had before.
I get major blog envy when looking at other peoples blogs with their swish headers, fancy backgrounds and general look of wonderfulness! I will get there eventually I suppose but until then this will have to do.


Here's a better picture of the centre of my header, very dodgily hand drawn and coloured in (I use pencil crayons because paint is too grown up and scary ha ha!) by me.

More posts to come soon, have some clothing all ready and waiting to be photographed and a few others near completion. I have been a bad lazy blogger!

Slippers!

I guess these are a little out of season but I crocheted some slippers! They are in fact bright cherry red not pink as they appear here. I started off with a pattern for Mary-Jane style slippers but as I crocheted them up it became apparent that the pattern was wrong! Or some unknown weird thing was happening.....

Anyway, I ended up unravelling the whole thing and made up my own pattern - yay! I wanted a more ballet pump look to them anyway so making my own pattern was the perfect thing to do, I'm proud of myself for taking the plunge rather then consulting the internet for a different pattern.

 

I plan to make more of these to sell at an event I will hopefully be doing, there will be ones the same as above, black ones with a red trim and a cherry motif on the toes, navy blue ones with pink trim and a flamingo motif and finally pink ones with a navy blue trim and either  navy polka dots or a navy rose. I haven't decided which yet! The event is in September so slippers will be more appropriate, they're super cozy!

Summery Circle Skirt

Here is the product of this afternoons sewing, a super summery full circle skirt with scalloped edge trim!

Below is a shot of the cute bow detail on the front, couldn't resist adding a little bit more cuteness to it!

And finally a shot of the scalloped edging, my first attempt at this and definitely not my last! Just adds that little something to the overall look of the skirt and now I know how to do it there's no stopping me!!

This was overall a simple skirt to make and fairly quick too which is always a bonus!

One for the boys....

Mario crochet toys!!

A mushroom to make you grow bigger and a bombomb :D

Here's the mushroom next to Colin to give you an idea of scale, they didn't take very long, about an hour and a bit each so when I get some more yarn I'm going to make more mushrooms (green, yellow with red spots and a purple one, all my fellow geeks will know what they do!) and create my own Mario universe! Will eventually make the main characters but they're a bit more advanced than the level I'm at now.

The bombomb even has his own little key detail as well!

I got the patterns for the bombomb here, and the mushroom here.

I did alter the mushroom pattern by adding a few extra rows for the stalk/face part.