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 

Tropical Hawai'ian sarong dress: A sewing challenge made from scratch

It's been several years since I've become a super Hawai'ian addict. I'm not certain about where my deep love for Hawai'i and everything related to it comes from, but it has shaped my taste and driven an important part of my style toward tropical themes. I even decorated my room, celebrated my last birthday, themed our wedding and planned on setting part of our new home with a Hawai'ian design.

Following this trend, it's natural that I feel quite attracted to tropical patterns (especially on fabrics because of my seamstress instincts). That is why as soon as I spotted this light blue and pink hibiscus fabric, I knew it would be perfect for a new sewing project. It wasn't that hard to imagine what kind of garment could work nicely with it: I pictured a classical sarong dress almost immediately.

Since I didn't own a sarong dress it would be a great addition to my closet. The problem was that I couldn't find any sarongs or similar dresses among my pattern stash. After taking an online tour through some of my favorite but few shops that sell sarong dresses, I realized that most frocks featured faux wrap-around skirts. I really wanted a real wrap-around model, so I finally decided to take a leap of faith and create my very own pattern from scratch.

Drafting a pattern off the top of one's head is quite a challenging task, especially if you have no guidelines to help you do it. With a little imagination, calculating, a somewhat bold combination of two different bodice patterns, and a blend of hope and luck, I traced out a complete sarong dress pattern tailored to my measurements. After analyzing it for a while checking for imperfections, I crossed myself, began cutting out the pieces from the fabric and hoped for the best. There could be no room for big mistakes, since I always tend to buy only the necessary amount of fabric in order to reduce costs.

When all the pieces were cut, I proceeded to do everything the way most of us sew our garments. First I matched the edges and pinned them down, and then I basted everything in place. This was a specially tense moment because it became the first time I tried on the dress. To my very good luck I only had to perform some alterations to size it down and make it fit more snug. Then I sewed all the way until the dress was finished.

In the pictures you can see me wearing the completed dress, paired with a pink flower hair comb,  a white puka shell necklace, a pink Chinese parasol (which I got from the China pavilion at Epcot), and black sandal wedges (I forgot to pack more theme-appropriate shoes). The dress is made from lightweight printed cotton, with a light blue background covered in pale pink hibiscus and palm leaves. As I mentioned before, the garment is fully wrap-around, featuring a small side buttonhole that allows the inner belt to tighten the fit, wrap the open dress, and come forward to make a nice frontal bow with the other end of the belt. The bodice is made with two overlapping panels connected by a halter strap, also forming a sweetheart neckline. You can appreciate some subtle pleats in top half of the skirt, neatly draped forming a curve over the other half.

I have to say that the most challenging part was creating the pleats of the skirt without making it look bulky, as well as making sure that the wrap-belt was tight and strong enough to hold the whole dress in place. It is definitely one of the most daring sewing projects I've ever pursued, but after taking the risks I was extremely happy with the final results. I think I'll be making a couple other sarong dresses when I find the right tropical fabrics, which of course I shall be sharing in a future blog post.

Thank you for reading and keep a look out for more articles in the near future! 

15 years in my closet: Agatha Ruiz de la Prada

When it comes to choosing at-home clothing, I always go for a t-shirt and a pair of leggings or lycra pants. These provide me with maximum comfort, freshness and freedom of movement to go around completing chores. However, as a lady who cannot skip any occasion to wear a dress, I've found that there are certain type of dresses that suit this need, such as beach dresses and t-shirt-like dresses. These garments keep you freshly covered up while allowing you to move around without feeling too overdressed.

Being able to go up and downstairs, kneel down, bend forward, reach out and perform any other task at home is priceless, especially when you can do so as comfortably and fashionably wearing a dress like this one. Believe it or not, my parents got it for me at El Corte Inglés in Spain... fifteen years ago. In that time, designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada was a full hit in Europe, even having her own spotlight with custom products at shops like El Corte Inglés. You could pretty much find anything designed by her: clothing, stationery, stickers, books, dolls, bedsheets; you name it. I adore her style, and that's exactly where I got my dress from.

This is a lightweight dress made of soft cotton jersey, printed with a grasslike pattern and featuring a sewn-on pink flower, one of the main icons repeatedly used by the fashion designer. The dress also has four functional yellow buttons on the back. One of the things I like the most about it is its composition, which makes you feel like you're wearing a long t-shirt. This comfort is achievable thanks to its loose high waist, its short sleeves and the t-shirt like fabric it's made of. Though the piece is a kids' size, I normally tend to buy clothing from the children's section at different stores because they fit me well enough. This explains that I can still get away with wearing this dress after fifteen years of closet existence. 

By the way, since the dress follows a clear inspiration from nature, I paired it with a green headband and a "Best friends" frog necklace from Claire's. The fact that I've been able to wear this piece for such a long time and keep it in an excellent shape makes it a big treasure in my closet. That is why one of my most recent goals is to switch more of my old t-shirts for dresses like this one, so I might be tracing some new patterns to get me going in this new project. I've also decided that when I have a daughter I'll follow Agatha's inspiration and design a whole rack of similar dresses just for her, hoping that she'll also love them as much as I do.

Thanks for reading! Follow me at @edu_and_joy on Instagram and Joy Casas on YouTube for more updates and posts about fashion. 

My lovely seamstress-inspired dress

Calling myself a professional seamstress is too much for me, but I do consider the experience I've harvested through these last years has developed my sewing skills, being able to handle more defying projects every day as a self-taught seamstress. I really can't put into words the way I feel when I walk into a fabric store and face shelf upon shelf stacked up with endless fabrics. The colors, the textures, the smells, the prints... everything revolves around me awaking my senses. Every visit to a fabric store is a unique experience for me.

There was one particular visit that made me thrive in enthusiasm. It happened about a year or so ago. I was rummaging through the cotton fabrics (as usual) and came across a new row of printed textiles. While idly choosing a couple of potential candidates, my jaw dropped as soon as I spotted it: a black fabric printed with colorful sewing-related items and words. It was inevitable, and I immediately fell in love with it. Naturally, I had to have it, especially because as soon as I saw it I visualized the garment that would come out of it.

The dress you see in these pictures was the fabulous outcome of that meant-to-be encounter. It has simple construction, featuring a bodice with a semi-gathered skirt attached just below the waist. The top is criss-crossed by four thin straps that form a double "X" on the back, adding in a nice detail. The black background of the cotton fabric makes a great contrast with each of the items presented: colorful thread spools and buttons, seam rippers, needles, pin holders, thimbles, scissors, measuring tapes, and four basic words for a seamstress: Sew, Baste, Stitch and Hem. You can also spot a pink stitched heart that conveniently reads "Love to sew".

The dress is very light, unrestrained and extremely comfortable, perfectly made to walk around in it. In fact, I took it for a stroll at Islands of Adventure and even got nice compliments from a super sweet clerk in one of Toon Lagoon's shops, who told me she came from a family of seamstresses and hat makers. By the way, did you know that the art of making hats is called "millinery"? In the photos I paired up the dress with my beloved black cardigan by Doll Me Up, and my new pair of uber comfortable gray and aqua slip-ons by Champion (from Payless Shoes Source). I also combined it with a pair of neon yellow D Heart heels.

It seems that every time I confect a new garment it becomes one of my favorites... But this dress really is one of my favorites, especially because it is directly related to my love for sewing.

 If you liked my story, stick around for more! 

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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