Strolling through Sea World in my colorful squares skirt

Whoever knows me very well can tell you how enormously fond of theme parks I am. It might seem shallow to some, but I think there's no greater feeling than walking into a magical land filled with excitement, thrilling rides, beautiful settings, scrumptious food and an overall mood of joy. It might be one of my favorite feelings in the world. Sometimes I feel sad and nostalgic when it's been a long time without me going to a top-notch amusement park, especially because such a wonderful place makes me feel at home.

The last time I visited Sea World was during our honeymoon, last March. I'd never really taken much care for what I wore to the parks, but with it being a special occasion and given that I'm really into sewing and fashion, I decided to pack better outfits for our adventures. In this case, I chose to wear a gorgeous black tee with a blue macaw (a gift from my husband) with my colorful squares skirt. You might find this skirt familiar because it is precisely the gathered skirt that I show how to make in my YouTube tutorial. Since the weather was quite cold, I paired the outfit with my favorite sweater: a cozy Jack & Sally reversible hoodie from Hot Topic. I also threw in a very loyal and comfortable pair of sneakers from the ever-fabulous Payless Shoe Source store.

First of all, I want to say that I didn't really plan the outfit. I just knew our honeymoon would be the perfect moment to debut this gathered skirt. While I was choosing what to wear to Sea World, I rummaged through the pile of black and white tees that I'd packed, until inspiration hit me as soon as I saw this macaw one. What I loved the most was that the colors of both garments were practically meant to be together. Actually, that's also my favorite thing about the skirt: the color palette. Greens, yellows, blues and black are all combined into a very well-thought squared pattern decorated with animal icons and names. The cotton fabric literally looks like kids' blocks tiled far and wide across a solid light blue background. This adds an element of fun to the skirt, and it sure looks curious!

This was certainly not the first gathered skirt I made. By the time I confected it I already felt confident enough to make it out of thin air, and that's why I used it to film the tutorial. I've received lots of positive feedback for it, encouraging me to make more sewing tutorials... Which I will make in due time (or when I actually HAVE time). For now, I just love to wear this colorful skirt knowing that maybe, just maybe, one day someone will recognize it.

Making a gathered skirt is not a very complicated project. I can tell you it's much easier than creating a dress or a jacket. However, when you're new at sewing you might find it to be a daring task, especially with the gathering process and inserting the zipper. Fortunately, this wasn't the case with my skirt, albeit the Slytherin and Gryffindor inspired skirts that I posted previously in the blog were totally the case. Featuring three meters of hand-gathered fabric, a medium waistband and a back zipper and hook-and-eye closure, this beautiful skirt falls into a girly-comfortable clothing category. It was delightful to wear it on a promenade through Sea World, hauling no complaints from yours truly. And, oh surprise, my outfit also matched the park's colors!

Naturally, I came to the conclusion that my colorful squares skirt deserved a spotlight with a review in my blog after being the protagonist of what has been my most popular YouTube tutorial so far. So here it is. We walked around the whole Sea World park. We rode Manta, Kraken and the newest Mako roller coaster. We were stranded for ten minutes in front of the penguin window inside Empire of the Penguin. We had to run and seek shelter from the rain. To my worst regrets, we did not get a chance to ride Journey to Atlantis because they decided to do maintenance that same day. We watched dolphins, turtles, sharks, rays, belugas, walruses and sea lions swim. I enjoyed the whole park in my incredible skirt and felt fabulous all day. I think I've found my staple clothing item for amusement parks!

I must say I already miss the enthusiasm and the adrenaline rush from being at the parks. Hopefully we'll get to visit one soon, and I'll have some more gathered skirts awaiting their debut at a theme park too.

Thank you for reading! Remember to follow our adventures on Instagram @edu_and_joy 

How to resize a shirt [Tutorial]

It's pretty common to have some ill-fitting shirts in our wardrobes, which usually consist of garments bought without trying them on, or a gift from someone who clearly wasn't familiar with your size. Instead of stuffing these in the abysmal depths of your closet wondering if we'll ever get to wear them, there is a more appealing solution to this problem: resizing your shirt with this easy and quick method.

Below you will find a simple tutorial on how to resize a shirt. Hopefully it will help you recover some clothes that you thought you'd never use again. Please note that this tutorial focuses on reducing the size of a shirt, not increasing it.

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Easter is the season of pastels

Every time that Easter comes near, it seems as every store fills its shelves and shopfront with colorful pastel tones. Chocolates and candies, balloons, flowers, Easter egg baskets and candles are only some of the products offered in these hues. However, we can also easily find season-appropriate kinds of clothes, shoes and accessories tinted in powder blue, baby pink, light yellow, aqua, lavender, lilac, pale orange, mint, or other pastel colors.

For example, I recently came across these beautiful wedges at Payless Shoe Source, especially designed for this brand by Christian Siriano. They are everything you could wish for when searching for an ideal Easter outfit: the braided wicker platforms that remind you of woven baskets, the exquisite floral pattern reminiscent of Spring, the use of pastel tones like cream, lavender, light blue and lilac, and lastly the evidently fresh and delicate strap design, again resembling a slight weave.

I chose these shoes as the base for my Easter ensemble. The next item I selected was my "A hint of Spring" skirt, which I confectioned out of an old fabric rectangle that my aunt gave to me. Naturally I chose the skirt because of its nice volume, colors and flower pattern. The difference between this skirt and the other gathered skirts I've sewn is that this one has no zipper. Instead, it has a completely elastic waistband which provides it with a better fit and comfort (plus, it can size up or down on its own).

To complete the look I went with a 3/4 length sleeve unicolor shirt made of lavender tinted cotton. The piece has a small pocket on the left, and decorative button straps on the edge of each sleeve. This shirt is perfect to balance out the floral patterns and match one of the most prominent colors of the wedges.

I also accessorized the outfit with a heart-and-pompom pendant hanging from a golden chain, a floral-printed ball bracelet in pastel hues, and a second bracelet with real tiny flowers covered in resin (a perfect finishing touch for Spring!). Finally, I used some cool pastel-colored hair twists (by Avon) to weave my wavy hair into a fun and easy hairdo.

Spring has always been one of my favorite seasons because it's the time when flowers bloom with beautiful colors and textures. For some reason I feel a deep admiration for flowers and can't hold myself from contemplating these beautiful beings. So, seeing as it's a perfect occasion, I want to wish you all a happy Earth Day!

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A convertible pinafore dress/skirt

Continuing with one of my previous posts where I wrote about wearing uniforms, one of the new items I sewed back when I started my job as a school teacher was an incredibly handy, comfortable and convertible pinafore dress/skirt.

 I have always adored overalls, and some time ago I discovered how nice they look with a gathered skirt bottom. That's why I decided that making a pinafore dress would be a wonderful addition to my uniform stash, especially because I would still be abiding by the dress code while wearing a unique piece.

 

Made with khaki stretch gabardine, this overall dress was originally intended to be one piece, but I had the brilliant idea of turning it into a convertible outfit before attaching the skirt to the top overall part. I used five snap buttons on the front and one pair on either side of the zipper to attach a removable strapped piece to the skirt, allowing it to be used as a gathered skirt or as a pinafore dress.

In these pictures I'm wearing the pinafore dress with a long sleeve white shirt from Fru Fru, a shark tooth fossil necklace and Frankenstein mary janes by Dark Chocolate Design. I'm also wearing the gathered skirt with a pair of lavender sneakers by City Sneaks, a white flying geese printed tee by Retro Republic, and a silver filigree heart locket.

I remember that when I studied at school, teachers wore a wider variety of khaki bottoms: from layered skirts to capri pants, and from overalls to flared pants. Sometimes I wonder what happened to that amazing diversity, since now every teacher at my school wears pretty much the same kind of outfit: plain khaki jeans and a plain white tee. I've had many students express they really like that I wear "unconventional" uniforms, and I guess it's because they are used to seeing their teachers every year wearing the same old outfits. I just hope I'm being a good role model teaching them about expressing and respecting individuality. :)

Stick around for more posts about my outfits! 

It's black, it's white striped dress

Going back to my basic instincts, whenever I go fabric-shopping I'm always on the look out for striped textiles, which seem to be somewhat uncommon to find. Luck has hit me a few times because I've found a number of striped fabrics that are exactly how I ideally picture them in my mind.

Some say it's inspired by Beetlejuice's outfit. Others think it looks Robin Thicke-ish. I even thought it looked a lot like Hot Topic's dress from their American Horror Story collection. But the truth is that I'm simply a sucker for striped fabrics, and I'd wanted to have a dress like this since a very long time ago. I actually own several black and white striped clothing pieces, counting a hoodie, two dresses, a pair of pants, a knit sweater, two shirts, a pair of stockings, etc, etc, etc.

With a simple strapless bodice and a gathered skirt, the dress has a simple but elegant construction. I don't usually pair dresses with belts, but the day I got these pictures taken I discovered the dress fit a little big on me. I think this brown belt goes particularly well with my dress and it balances it out. Needless to say, I have already adjusted the dress to fit me properly.

The black and white striped fabric gives the dress a dramatic and even burlesque look. I also have this same fabric in red and white, so expect to see a similar dress in those colors soon enough! For these pictures I paired my dress with a black knit choker, a borrowed brown belt, and my faithful black sandal heels by Qupid.

Come back later for more about fashion and crafts! 

Pastel green in the '50s

Since I started sewing seriously and more frequently, I have felt really inclined towards fashion styles from the '50s, and especially attracted by the dresses. They are a perfect combination between girly, elegant, comfortable and sexy, and they can be styled for casual occasions or for more formal events.

After creating two  patterns out of my beloved Ixia fold over pinup dresses, I decided to start experimenting by altering the silhouettes. At first I still stuck to the original shape, but then I went ahead and created the pastel green dress seen in the picture below, which features a narrower skirt and a separate waistband from a different material.

I made this dress using a soft cotton fabric that had been lying around for several years. The only problem that I found was that the fabric is a little see-through. I don't usually line my dresses on the inside because the fabrics I use tend to be sturdy enough, so this was the first dress ever that I lined up, and whenever I wear it I necessarily have to put on a slip underneath the skirt. The waistband is made from a recycled satin waistband from a party dress that I hate, so I felt no regrets when I took it down and cut it into a new one.

My favorite part of this dress, apart from the exquisite color palette, is the bow. It is made out of the same material as the waistband and when I made it I couldn't decide whether I should sew it to the waistband or in the middle of the bodice. I liked both options so much that I finally sewed a safety pin to the back of the bow, making it easy to move it around and stick it wherever I liked the most. I normally wear it as shown in the pictures.

In this case my shoes are black wedge sandals by Vic Matie, my necklace is a key-and-heart matching "Best Friends" necklace from Claire's, and I also paired the dress with a black bolero by Exotik.

Come back later for more posts about fashion and crafts! 

Nude colors & a touch of purple

Uniforms usually bring together mixed opinions. Some say they're fantastic because you don't have to waste a whole hour each morning choosing what to wear. Others say they're a blasphemy because they suppress your identity through endless matching outfits for everyone. Debating this argument, there are people who state that uniforms are a way of showing equality and not discriminating anyone for what they wear. I personally think two things:

1. There are beautiful uniforms, normal uniforms and ridiculous uniforms. (Have you seen some of the prettiest stewardess uniforms?)

2. If you ever wear a uniform, you should definitely find a way to pump it up while sticking to the dress codes.

My daily uniform consists in a white shirt and khaki bottoms. I personally dislike it because these colors do not match with my skin tone (especially khaki, beige or whatever... yuck!). So from day one I started off by asking if it was allowed to wear skirts instead of pants, seeing as no one ever wore khaki skirts. I was told YES, so I immediately proceeded to buy khaki gabardine to make myself a jumper and a skirt/jumper (or pinafore dress). I also found a pair of old khaki jeans stashed in my crafting room, which belonged to my brother a long time ago... and guess what I turned them into?

In these pictures I am wearing an a-line skirt made with old khaki pants. You can even see some fading in the fabric caused by the sun. As I was saying before, I like to pump up my simple uniforms. In this case I chose to combine it with a plain white long sleeve tee (by Fru Fru), my favorite purple and black scarf (it was a gift from my boyfriend's sister, who bought it somewhere in Spain), my "The Haunted Mansion" bat key necklace (from Disney's Magic Kingdom park), a pair of palm-printed slip-ons (by Refresh), and I also threw in some Leia buns to improve my hair game.

 Stay tuned for more fashion posts! 

How to make a gathered skirt [Tutorial]

Full skirts are possibly one of the best fashion items ever invented. They're comfortable, easy to combine, flirty and elegant. You can pair them up with tees, blouses, shirts and cardigans, and you can wear them with sandals, wedges, heels and even slip-ons. You can put together a casual look or a classic outfit with one of these beauties.

In the video below I am sharing my very own tutorial on how to make a gathered skirt. This is how I've made most of my full skirts, with one or two variations.

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My first serious dress

My passion for fashion started to develop when I was very small, possibly due to the fact that I owned a lot of Barbies and loved to dress them up with an enormous variety of doll-sized clothes. I started crafting clothes for them with fabric and silicone, until I taught myself how to hand-sew. After that, I made some other clothes sewing by hand, until my mother showed me how to use the sewing machine. Some time later, my grandma helped me make the Dorothy Dress (check out my previous post). Even later, I dared to make my first dress from scratch and completely on my own. 

Crafted from an old fabric that my mom had kept within a fabric stash since many years ago, the dress follows almost the same pattern as one of my Ixia dresses. I traced out the pattern directly from a dress and adjusted it to fit some seam allowance and zipper space.

It is made from some kind of white and blue printed curtain or tapestry fabric. It holds up nice and firm, but the fabric is still still somewhat soft. Even though the seams are not perfect, it still has some pencil markings on the reverse side, and it has some fitting mistakes, I am very proud of my first serious dress. I wear it with pride, knowing that it was the start of what has been a wonderful progress as a self-taught seamstress.

Here’s a collage with several shots of the complete dress-making process.

Keep an eye out for more fashion posts! 

Pretty in plaid and pleats

Another pattern that I'm very fond of is plaid; perhaps because it's created upon the intersection of stripes or lines (yay!), or maybe because it reminds me of the famous Scottish kilts' fabrics (actually called tartan). I like most color combinations on this type of fabric, and I own a considerable amount of plaid clothing pieces in different colors. 

Scarves, dresses, shoes, shirts and skirts have been my outfit choices for these fabrics, which I have in a set of different colors: red, dark blue, dark green, yellow, pink, and orange. In the pictures I am wearing a black and orange plaid pleated skirt, which I made using only a meter of Abercrombie cotton. This was the first pleated skirt that I ever made.

If you've already mastered how to make a gathered skirt, making a pleated skirt is just going to take one different step. Instead of gathering the border of the skirt in order to sew it to the waistband, you have to calculate how many pleats you want or how wide you want them to be. Based on that, divide the length of the complete skirt rectangle into the number of pleats wanted. That will give you an average number of the width for each pleat. (Take into consideration that one pleat has three layers, since it is made in a zig-zag overlay. The width must be for the complete pleat. Ex: 9cm: 3cm - 3cm - 3cm). All that's left to do is create the pleats, adjust them, and sew them onto the waistband.

The color mix of this skirt might look a bit Halloween-ish, which it's perfect because I adore Halloween and its color combos. Speaking about Halloween... October is so close by! That means costume-planning time is right around the corner, and I will definitely be making a post about it. 

 Stay tuned for more fashion posts! 

Ssssstripe two!

As I said on my first outfit post, stripes are a recurring theme in my clothes. I simply cannot get enough of them.

In this case I'm wearing a scarlet red and green striped dress. When I made this dress I had already been sewing for a few months, so the project felt easier to complete. My aunt gave me the fabric, which she had bought many years ago to make a beach outfit for herself. I think the fabric gives a sensation of gypsy inspiration, due to its bright color mix and pattern choice.

I paired it with green heels with small bows (by Zabumba) and a rectangle-shaped stone necklace. The halter straps were made exactly to fit the width of the green stripes, and the complete ensemble was carefully matched to remain symmetrical. Here are some quick snaps back from when I sewed the dress.

 Stick around for more fashion posts and fun findings! 

We're not in Kansas anymore (Dorothy's dress)

Whenever you think about "The Wizard of Oz" many key elements might come to your mind... Emerald City, the yellow brick road, "I'm melting, I'm melting!", the red slippers, flying monkeys, and of course Dorothy's iconic blue gingham pinafore dress.

Here's a short story: when I was a little girl my mother made me a Dorothy costume to dress up like her for Halloween, and she made my brother a Tin Man costume to match. I adored that dress, but eventually outgrew it. Many, many years later, as my interest for sewing was developing, the first big sewing project that I planned for myself was replicating Dorothy's dress for myself. I remember going to a fabric store and buying 2 or 3 meters of blue gingham/vichy. That was the first time I ever bought fabric for me to sew.

Back then I was on vacations, so I went a few days a week to my grandmother's house, who was teaching me how to trace, edit and cut patterns, as well as helping me out to make my dress possible. Sadly I have no pictures of the process, which took a lot of patience, work and my grandmother sewing the zipper because I was no good at it. However, I have the beautiful outcome to remember those wonderful moments.

                 

This is not a replica of Dorothy's dress. I designed it to look more modern, but keeping the essence of her original dress. Here I am pairing it with blue bracelets, blue-and-white earrings, a heart-shaped cookie cutter necklace (from the book The Queen of Hearts), and yellow and khaki wedge sandals (by Naturale'z).

 Get ready for more fashion posts! 

Crazy about stripes

There are few times when I can resist striped clothing items. I have a clear weakness for them, and you will see that recurringly in my wardrobe. Since some time ago I've thought that I must have been a zebra in my past life, because I'm crazy about stripes.

This is a white and violet striped tee that I purchased at a very small shop near my home. I remember I'd been eyeing it for a couple of weeks, until one day it was gone from the display window. About a month later I was running some errands nearby and remembered about the shirt. I decided to pass by the shop and try my luck with the tee. Bingo!  They still had it; so I quickly tried it on and fell more in love with it. I obviously got it on the spot!

In the pictures I am pairing the tee (it is brandless -only says "made in Peru"-) with a black gathered skirt made by yours truly, black sunglasses, a heart-shaped necklace and black sandal wedges (by Vic Matie). The skirt is made of black stretch gabardine. Later on I will post a tutorial on how to make one like this.

 Stay tuned for more fashion posts!