Polo or rugby... what's the difference?

My husband would say "The difference between tw**s and Real Men".

(You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes. )

Honestly though, this is the most difficult question to find an answer for on the internet. No one seems to have devoted any bandwidth to this issue. Is it really as simple as solid vs. stripe? Maybe so.

Whatever. Here's my fourth polo/rugby shirt.




This one was made using the same pattern as the last, which I wrote about in this post.

There wasn't much difference in this one, except instead of cuting it from an adult-sized t-shirt I cut it from an adult-sized polo shirt . Which meant I had an adult-sized polo collar on hand. Neato! Time to experiment with adapting a large knit collar to a smaller size pattern. I find making collars out of knits unsatisfactory for the most part. They're usually bulky and awkward. But knit collars aren't always easy to come by, especially in the right color.

So, how to make a collar smaller? I dismembered the original shirt including trimming the collar away from the neckline. After cutting out and starting construction on the new shirt, I resized the collar. In this case I decided to have the collar meet up at the edge of the placket rather than offset the way it was in the red shirt. To scale the collar to my new shirt, I measured how long I wanted it to be by pinning it to the neckline starting at the front and marking the center of the neckline on the collar. Next I drew a straight line at the center marking on the collar and added a seam allowance. I cut the collar at the seam allowance and then laid the resized piece over the remaining piece. I trimmed this to match so I had two equal pieces.




I seamed it back up with a straight stitch, pressed the heck out of it and there you have it: kid-sized collar.




The rest of the construction was as usual. Piece of cake!

Mmmm... cake.

Yo Mama ('s shoes)

Ok. So many of you all (and by "you all" I mean the five or six people who read this blog and the many many voices in my head) will not be aware of my Great Shoe Tragedy. See, once upon a time I was a single, non-mom type person who blew vast sums of her discretionary income on the thing she loved most.... shoes. Just in Doc's alone, I had eight pairs (eight, it's totally ridiculous). I had flowery boots, red shoes, black mules... even a true thing of beauty: midnight-blue steel-toed Mary Janes (sob). Oh how I love Mary Janes. The little strap. The rounded toe. The... Mary Janieness of it all. And there were all the other shoes. Heels, flats, sandals, boots.

And then, they happened. Children. Sure you're supposed to love them unconditionally, but it's just so hard when they make your feet get two sizes bigger.

Words fail me.


I'll... try to... take a deep breath... and tell you the awful... truth.

After I had my kids... I had to give away all my shoes. (sob)

I need a moment.


I still haven't recovered from the Great Shoe Tragedy. I have about six pairs of wearable shoes and really they're all ugly. You see, I just couldn't justify having expensive shoes when the kids needed stuff like diapers and clothes and food and stuff. But now, I'm trying to "be cute everyday" as so eloquently extolled by The Slapdash Sewist in her blog yesterday. Unfortunately, the kids still want clothing and food (they're so needy) so I can't buy the ten different pairs of shoes I want (fine, so 7 of them are Mary Janes. They're all different.)

So, before I return to the endless polo slog, I mean blog, I have a question: Are these shoes horrible?



(note: clicking will take you to Zappos.com)

I need something to fulfil my requirements:

1) comfortable to stand in at length (like, 5-6 hours)
2) can be worn with skirts and/or jeans if needed
3) don't cost the $420 that the Taryn Rose shoes I wanted to buy cost

My hesitation on this pair of shoes, despite fulfilling all my requirements, is that they are Clark's. Typically I think of Clark's as being... matronly. This is most notably reinforced by the fact that my mom wears them. A lot.

So. Clarks Mary Janes. Yes? No? Oooo. Let's try out the PollDaddy thing. I've never had a reason to use that before.

Short Fat Woman from Texas Proves Existance of Parallel Universe

There is no other explanation for the good ladies at MyShape.com thinking that this item would fit me.



And yet that is exactly what they claim, as attested to by the big giant banner that runs across my "shop" which declares "Everything in your Personal Shop™ fits you."

Alternate universe? Or serious crack problem? These are the only explainations that would allow anyone to believe I am able to fit into a pair of DKNY jeans. Trust me.

Oh, those crack-smokin' fashion ladies. They are so entertaining. When I win my Nobel Prize for proving the most important theory in quantum physics (... EVER!) I'll be happy to share the credit with them. I can wear this dress to the reception. The crack-smokin' fashion ladies think it fits me.