Guest Posting at Sew Country Chick!

I'm guest posting today (for the first time ever!) over at Sew Country Chick while Justine is on vacation. If you ever wanted to know more about my signature yardage, go check out my tips on how to find, care for, and sew with thrift store sheets!

Leonora's Perfect Pants, My Eye.

Sorry about the silence here, friends. I've been busy struggling with Leonora and her idea of a perfect pants pattern. At the suggestion of many of my readers, I decided to go ahead and try out this vintage pants pattern (can it really be called vintage if it's from the 80s?) in order to make the envelope illustration cat work for its keep, so to speak. I had some lovely soft suiting that I figured would be perfect for testing out the pattern (because doesn't everyone use expensive suiting to make muslins with?); I hoped that I would also end up with some wearable shorts out of the deal.

My inspiration was something along the lines of these "formal shorts," but without edging into these 80s horrors. Well, after wrestling with darts and crotch curves and non-existent waistband patterns and under-butt bagginess, I think I would've been happy to end up with the latter. Right now, I just want to crumple up these shorts and start a San Francisco UFO pile.

This was my traced pants pattern. The extra-long dart actually goes on the front pattern piece...I was just a doofus when I drew it in. I've never seen such a pointy back crotch area on a pants pattern. It was kind of difficult to sew, honestly.

Leonora's "perfect" pants pattern is intended to yield couturier pants, and maybe it's just that she's assuming a lot more sewing experience than I have, or maybe this is just a bad pattern, but I experienced quite a bit of frustration during the construction process. First of all, the pattern doesn't include a waistband (I sketchily drafted a curved one), nor does it have darts marked (you're supposed to just pin and figure it out for yourself). The directions are confusing and poorly illustrated (or maybe I'm just really bad at reading them?). In fact, I'm still not exactly sure what took 22 pages to say in the instruction book. But enough griping -- let's talk about the actual garment.

I'm cringing at the thought of putting this picture up, but I think it's important to show the sewing fails, too.

Ugh. This back. Some of the bagginess can be alleviated depending on
my posture, but good pants shouldn't only look good in one position, right?

I will start by saying that these shorts are extremely comfortable. The suiting is deliciously soft and silky, and there's plenty of ease in the cut. That ease, though, is also what causes the excessive bagginess in the back and the weird poofing in front, right above the dip where my thigh meets my pelvis. I tried to take in some of that excess fabric by extending the front dart like crazy, but there's only so much I can do before I start getting smile lines. The fly front was actually not very difficult to figure out, thanks to this helpful tutorial from Coats and Clark. However, since it was my first time ever doing one, I placed my zipper way too far over and had to make a huge fly front. That might also contribute to the weird hang of the front. I feel like my waistband could be tighter, but maybe that's what belt loops (and a belt) are for...I also think my idea of ease in a waistband might be skewed; what's a normal number of fingers to be able to insert in between your body and the waistband?

Since I was having so many issues with the fit, I didn't really bother finishing my seams until the end. As a result, there are some quite awkward intersections where I couldn't get the seam binding to reach, but they should hold up in the wash, I hope. Another problem with treating these as a muslin, and then suddenly wanting to be able to wear them for real, is that I didn't bother interfacing the waistband at all. It'll do, but I miss the structure and crispness. Also, it didn't occur to me to put pockets in, but now I miss them.

The side seams are mostly straight, at least.

Phew. That's a long list of issues with these poor shorts. I'm sure that most of these issues are actually my fault, not poor maligned Leonora's, but it's so much more fun to blame her! I guess this is a lesson in you-get-out-what-you-put-in: I was so slapdash with my dart pinning, waistband drafting, etc., that I'm pretty sure that calling these my slapdash shorts is an insult to Trena, whose work is actually very well done. Anyway, I'm still hoping to be able to wear these shorts out into the world, though. I mean, the fit isn't perfect by any means, but it's still within the realm of acceptable, right? Especially if I wear a shirt over it to cover the waistband? At least it's no worse than RTW shorts I might pick up at H&M or something. Actually, they're probably better because they're longer.

Which brings me to my final dilemma -- how short should I make these? I tried bobby-pinning up one leg to what seemed an appropriate compromise between not-a-grandma and not-exposing-my-cellulite. I figure I could always turn up the bottom into a cuff if I want to go for a tights+shorts look like Tasia's Thurlows, but this length is still okay for me if I want to forgo tights underneath.

What do you think of the whole formal shorts look? Shorts with tights? Or is that kind of ridiculous because it defeats the purpose of wearing shorts in the first place? And are these shorts worth finishing, or are they forever doomed?

Summer Sewing Swap with Handmade Jane

Sponsored by Kestrel Finds and Makes!

I was really excited to see the "Royal Mail" package in my postman's arms yesterday, as it has always been my dream to be sent an invitation to the ball. Except it wasn't an invitation to the ball, but rather my swap package from the lovely Handmade Jane! Which is totally fine, because honestly, to arrive at a ball is exciting and all; once you're there, though, it's scary. And it's fun to deceive when you know you can leave, but you have to be wary...

*ahem* 

How adorable is that card with the sewn on dress in real fabric! Also, I managed to photograph all the hearts upside-down.

Devolving into quoting musicals aside, I was indeed happy to open my charming (but not tall...okay I couldn't resist one more!) package from Jane. Isn't it so sweet of her to wrap each present individually for greater enjoyment at each reveal? I was tempted to save one for each day this week, but couldn't resist. My impulse control is poor when it comes to sewing-related goods. Can you blame me?

Friends, I think Jane nailed it with her assortment! There's a red cat print, a fun turquoise print (seriously, white on bluish backgrounds is one of my favorite types of print ever; I've been in love with Tilly's Loire Valley Skirt for ages), buttons from the 1930's (officially the oldest thing in my sewing stash!), cute trim, a DIY magazine, and my favorite type of pattern -- a fitted bodice with a full skirt -- in the form of Simplicity 4257. I am so excited to sew with these goodies, and I can only hope that Jane likes what I sent her. Getting her package together was a bit of a challenge, since my stash is in TCOCC and I don't know the thrift stores in this area just yet, but I think I managed to hit the right notes...we'll see in a week or so!

Totally not related at all, but the other night I dreamed that I found Rainbow Brite sheets at the thrift store. When I woke up and realized I didn't actually have them, I was so bummed. Even better, when I told my sister, she was like, that's pretty sad. Only she meant it was sad that I was dreaming about thrifting sheets and wasting time being sad about it, not that the RB sheets didn't exist. And now you all know what a huge dork I am!

Spiderman Dress Throwdown with Tanit-Isis

Once upon a time, there was a nerdy girl in glasses who was unpopular at school. She spent her summers working in her dad's lab, wishing that her classmates would understand why science was cool, until one day...

Old lab coat from my dad's lab, since mine is in TCOCC.

Her dad did not mysteriously disappear, nor did she have an Uncle Ben, and she was bitten not by a radioactive spider, but rather by the sewing bug. Her love for superheroes and nerdfighteria led her to transform into the amazing Cationess, fighting sartorial monotony and throwaway culture by making unlikely dresses out of thrifted sheets. 

My superhero pose is kind of spoiled by the fact that I'm holding onto this pole for dear life.
I couldn't bring myself to walk any farther out on the the ledge.

Sitting is okay, though. The Cationess keeps watch on the city....

Oh my goodness, is that a thrift store sheet in need of recycling? I will save it by making it up into an unlikely dress!

She was privileged to learn from a much greater seamstress, Tanit-Isis, but unlikely circumstances (aka fortuitous thrift store finds on both their parts) led to a showdown between the n00b and l33t. 

Gearing up for take-off...apparently taking off involves spinning around, not unlike the Sailor Moon transformation.

Taking off to fly to Canada! Where I would promptly freeze to death, of course. Can you tell how cold I am in all these shots?

Okay, I can't stand writing this artificially dramatic third person narrative about myself anymore. So yeah, in case you couldn't tell, Tanit-Isis and I decided to both sew up some Spiderman dresses in anticipation of the new Amazing Spiderman movie (although, can it really be called "in anticipation" if it's after the movie's already come out?). I'm so excited to be able to do this sewalong of sorts with her -- she's seriously one of my sewing heroes. Her blog was actually the second sewing blog I ever discovered (the first was the Selfish Seamstress, and it was her account of Tanit-Isis' awesomeness that pulled me in), and I could just gush forever about her jeans, coats, and retro dresses. I won't, though, for fear of sounding like one of those creepy groupies who know their victim's idol's blood type or some such nonsense. I'll just leave it at this: when she first started commenting on my blog, I was *almost* as excited as when Ryan North tweeted my Superman dress. Anyway, to call this a throwdown seems laughable. It's like if Aquaman was in a fight with oh, any other superhero.

It's a showdown like the back of my midriff panel -- evil Spidey vs. good Spidey!

The wind caught the skirt and my husband snapped a picture at
just the right time to show off its fullness.

Anyway, for those of you who care (not Shayna, although she was the one who graciously gifted me these sheets), I made my dress from the OOP Vogue 7521. I used the View C back strap pattern with the View A length, replacing the straps with black soutache cord in order to mimic Spiderman's signature webbing. Unfortunately, trying to get the correct tension on all six cords was extremely difficult; it's still not quite right, but I don't know if I have the mental energy to try fiddling around with it anymore. All of my insides are finished so nicely, I can't bear to think about ripping it open to fix that one cord. I'm also not a fan of how much excess fabric there is at the top of the bodice pieces (they're too thick to really count as straps, but not thick enough to count as reasonable coverage), but otherwise this dress turned out as I hoped.

Summary:
Fabric: Cotton-poly blend thrifted twin sheets (despite having both a flat and a fitted sheet to work with, there was still some tricky cutting to avoid...questionable spots).
Notions: A black zipper, seam binding, and thrifted vintage black soutache cording (my husband pointed out that black elastic cords might have worked better, but I was trying to avoid purchasing anything new)
Hours: Nine or so. I spent at least an hour adjusting and readjusting and basting and ripping the cords, and then slipstitching the lining down by hand was another hour. I keep feeling like I should be making these up faster, but I find that I'm really enjoying taking the time to finish all my seams properly, even if that means I'm sewing up each seam multiple times.
Will you make this again? I like the idea of this dress, especially the back shoulder drapes in View C, but as a full-length evening gown. However, 1) I don't need any evening gowns, and 2) the triangle bust pieces leave something to be desired in terms of amount of excess fabric...so the answer is maybe, but only if there's a specific occasion and I have time to redraft the bust pieces.
Total cost: Shayna gave me these sheets as a gift, so it only cost me $2 for the zipper and cording, but if I factor in the cost of the sheets, it rises to all of $5.
Final thoughts: Spiderman isn't my favorite superhero, and this dress is a little too exposing for regular wear (especially in foggy San Francisco summers!), but it was fun to see this idea turn into reality. I do like the fullness of the skirt, but if I plan to wear it again I'm going to need to invest in some bike shorts or tap pants -- the wind has entirely too much fun with it -- as my husband had to work hard to not get scandalous shots. I really, really wish I was going to Comic-Con this year so that I could have a good reason to wear this, but alas, one of the downsides to being in my favorite city is that it does not host Comic-Con. Also, I don't think we're going to be seeing the new Spiderman movie in theaters, as he's not my husband's favorite, either...would it be terribly wrong to wear this for the Batman movie?

Not especially confident superhero face for an idea of dubious quality?

Settling into Sewing at Home

I've been at home in SF for a few weeks now, but am still having a hard time settling into any sort of routine, at least when it comes to sewing. Part of it is that this is the home I grew up in, and because of that sewing is not an established pastime for me here. Every time I've been in this house in the past, reading has been the mode of recreation. So the plus side is, I've been reading* a lot more (my husband has experienced a little of this, too, as normally he watches TV or plays Call of Duty at our apartment in TCOCC; here, there's been no TV-watching to speak of, and Skyrim has replaced CoD). It feels odd to be in a place that is so strongly home for me, and yet not. This is the home I grew up in with my parents as the authorities, where I had a curfew and had to be accountable to them for my time. Now, as an adult with a husband and a cat (who is having his own issues adjusting**), it's strange navigating between being technically autonomous, but still wanting to respect and honor them.

Anyway, the result of all that is my sewing time has been erratic. If my parents don't have errands they want me to run that day, I can get in lots of sewing time, but only as long as it's not too cold downstairs. In case you didn't know, San Francisco, especially the Sunset District, is notoriously wintry even in the summer. Foggy and overcast outside = cold and gloomy in the office where the sewing machine is set up. Those sunny days when I took pictures? Flukes. And coming from SoCal, where I'm seriously spoiled by sun, I have a hard time sewing when it's not brightly lit in my sewing room. I know, I know, this is nothing compared to people in the UK (like Jane and her seasonal sewing lamentations!), but my sundress plans seem a little silly right now. I've got my Spiderman dress for the throwdown with Tanit-Isis cut out, but that's about it. Even then, the cutting was ridiculous as all three cats wanted to get in on the new fabric.

Adding onto the weather is the actual sewing situation -- I've come to terms with most aspects of my mom's old Kenmore, with the exception of how long it takes to switch out the bobbin thread. It's funny, I can forgive its rattling and occasionally erratic feed dogs, the lack of needle position adjustment, and even its temperamental thread snapping, but the non-drop-in bobbin really bothers me. Funny, what things get to you, isn't it? There's also the fact that the seam ripper here has a perfectly round handle, so whenever I set it down it rolls away, off the edge of the desk, and into the trashcan, as if it was trying to shirk its job. Okay, I know, now I'm just being a drama queen. Also, I have the sewing machine set up on part of my dad's desk in his office, which is much less space than I'm used to, and if he needs to use his desk that gets precedence, of course. Sigh.

I think the solution is a quick and easy project, just to get my sewing mojo back, but I only brought relatively complicated projects with me. Or at least more complicated than I feel like dealing with now. Maybe it's time to return all the books to the library so that I have to sew something. The silly thing is I even miss sewing! I just can't bring myself to go downstairs and brave the cold, cramped office.


Wow, that was a lot of whining. I'm pretty sure I should have just titled this post #firstworldsewistproblems, especially in light of my mom's griping about hobby sewing vs. making a living.  

Have any of you ever had similar issues? Tell me about your most difficult sewing situation to make me feel better! Alternately, you could just tell me to shut up and stop egoizing.


*World War Z and The Dispossessed and several short story anthologies.
**Walnut's uncle Gummy has turned out to be a bully. He's always jumping out at him from behind corners and trying to bite him. This has made Walnut very nervous about being upstairs, but we spend most of our time upstairs since it's cold downstairs...looks like we're going to have to just suck it up and wear sweaters in July.

Right after this picture was taken, Gummy jumped at Walnut, who went racing across the house and back downstairs to his safe zone. There's been quite a bit of yowling going on as well.

The Conquering My Fears Shirtdress

Celebrating the 70s with my vintage pattern and my dad's wood-paneled office.

Oh Walnut, why doesn't my dad understand?

If you thought my mom was blunt about my sewing hobby, my dad is even more honest. When I came upstairs in this shirtdress, he looked at me, started laughing, and said that I looked like "a hospital nurse...or maybe a hotel maid." Oh, Dad. And to think I was even going for a (belated) Father's Day tribute dress!

See, this dress started when Father's Day came and went, but the Sew Weekly challenge didn't even mention dads at all...why is it that we can sew up garments in tribute to our mothers, but not our fathers? I suspect it might be because fathers are not usually known for their fashion choices, and mine is no exception. You know those dads who wear tube socks with sandals and shorts? Yup, that's my dad. Factor in that the sandals were less than $5 at Walgreen's fifteen years ago, and yeah... I will say, though, that my dad definitely fits a lot of the things on Dads Are the Original Hipsters. He was totally rocking the huge nerd glasses, Beatles haircut, and playing "How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down" on the guitar when he was in college. Anyway, I decided to go ahead with my own dadwear-inspired challenge, which somehow crystallized as:

1. A button-down shirt(dress). That's pretty much all my dad ever wears, even with sweatpants.
2. No girly colors. My dad, who's a poster child (adult?) for old-fashioned ideas about gender roles, doesn't believe in guys wearing pink or purple (or getting ear piercings, for that matter). This dress is all about the brown and blue, albeit in more pastel, washed-out shades.
3. DIY: whenever my dad could do something himself, he did. From building our treehouse to changing the oil in all our cars, from putting in new carpets or tiles to repaving our backyard, it was all about making a learning experience out of a task. So I frankensteined my own pattern for this dress instead of buying a shirtdress pattern. I think it worked?
4. Conquering my fears: I'm petrified of setting in sleeves, multiple buttonholes that all have to line up, and matching prints. This dress involved all of the above. I didn't do a perfect job on any of them, but I'll say I did a pretty good job. A solid B+ effort. And this is because my dad is all about doing things that make you face your fears, whether it be just taking off the training wheels and going (I was petrified of falling off my bike onto my face), talking to strangers (have I mentioned before that I'm painfully shy? Teaching helped a bit with that, but my first decade of life was spent dreading the after-church social hour when I would have to make small talk with all the aunties and uncles), or driving on the freeway (I had a whole roundabout way that I would take to get to Costco without ever getting on the freeway, until my dad made me drive to the East Bay four times in one week before I started my first teaching job...yup, I didn't conquer my fear of driving over 35 mph until after college). Anyway, now I feel much better about sleeves, buttonholes, and prints, but I think I'll need to practice a bit more before I feel confident.   
5. As a bonus: a vaguely geometric/mathematical-looking print. See, my dad, a scientist, also doesn't believe in majors outside of the STEM subjects. If I got less than an A in math in school, that was a cause for concern, but a C+ on an English paper? Meh. Summers growing up were spent doing math workbooks specially sent from Hong Kong (teaching algebra to a fourth grader? sure, that's a good idea!), and culminated in taking the SAT in 7th grade. So this thrifted bedsheet, with a print reminiscent of tesselating cubes, was pretty much perfect. Also, I'm pretty sure it's from the 70s, which is when my dad was living it up as a young adult.

[picture]

I used a combination of my trusty McCall's 5845 and Simplicity 7331, a 70s shirt pattern, as a basis for the bodice. I used the dart placement and size of the former and the shape of the collar, sleeves, and button-front facing from the latter. I did add a little ease to the bust and waist of my McCall's block in order to be able to raise my arms, but I'm not sure how much ease or pulling is normal. I tried windmilling my arms just to see, but that hikes up the whole dress. However, that's pretty par for the course even in my RTW dresses, so I don't know. My only real issues with my frankensteined pattern were that the sleeves turned out way too wide and long, so I had to roll them up to prevent Frump-ville, and I couldn't figure out how to make the notched collar. The instructions and diagram were pretty confusing, despite this being advertised as a "How to Sew" pattern. For the skirt portion, I used the A-line piece that came with the Simplicity pattern. In order to make it button in front, I added a couple inches of facing allowance in the center front of the skirt pieces.

Arms down.

And arms up...attempting to test the mobility of the sleeves/bodice ease.

After figuring out the free-motion sewing of my darts/lowered feed dog issue, the Kenmore behaved admirably, even managing to pound out ten lovely, lovely buttonholes. Seriously, I was afraid to do buttoned anything with my Brother, since its buttonholer was so mercurial, but now I'm kind of hooked on buttons! I want to put buttons in everything now; I'd even go so far as to say that it's less of a headache than inserting a zipper. I'm sure part of my button love is at least partly due to how perfect and softly luminescent my buttons are, though.

Close-up of my buttons, buttonholes, insides, and hem. Gosh, I love seam binding.

Back view...so pleased with how I lined up the blue bits!

Summary:
Fabric: Thrifted poly-cotton blend twin flat sheet...I was so excited when I found this one!
Notions: Ten 3/4" buttons, seam binding for the insides and the hem.
Techniques used: Buttonhole foot and Sunni's guide for preventing gaping in a button-down shirt...although frankly I don't have many worries on that front, despite not being a guy.
Hours: Ummmm...a lot. Let's just leave it at that. From figuring out the pattern, to procrastinating to avoid setting in the sleeves, to the many practice buttonholes, I'm scared to count. Okay fine, it's probably close to twenty.
Will you make this again? Yes! I really want to make another shirtdress; this is so comfortable and feels casual but put together and yet not too girly, even if it does make me look like I'm in the service industry, according to my dad. I'd love to make one in gray chambray with yellow buttons.
Total cost: $5. The buttons were 2/3 of the cost of the fabric. Doesn't that sound like the beginning of a math problem? "If Walnut the cat paid $5 for new dress materials, and ten buttons cost 2/3 as much as the fabric, how much is one button?"
Final thoughts: Okay, I know this is not really an epiphany for most people, but I'm going to say it anyway because I think you all should know how dense I can be sometimes: when a dress has ease built into it, it's more comfortable than a skin-tight bodice. In the past I've always fitted my dress bodices within an inch of their lives, and ended up, dare I say, overfitting them. While I love that look, it's not as comfortable as this looser bodice. And you know what? It doesn't look as sloppy and old-ladyish as I was afraid it might be! So yeah. There's my facepalm moment of the week. Anyway, I really like this dress, partly because it was a challenge to figure out and I'm pleased that I conquered it in the end, but mostly because it's comfortable and the print reminds me of an M.C. Escher piece of art. I know that's a stretch, but still!

Running to and jumping on the windowsill and trying to balance on the narrow ledge while keeping a normal expression, all before the self-timer went off, was quite a challenge.

Okay, just standing here is much easier. And all those little rows of blue cube-y things make me so happy!

Incidentally, if you're wondering what my mom said about my dress, her pronouncement was that it was pretty good, but the bust darts were too high. Darn, to think that I thought I could get away without someone noticing.

Steampunk High Tea

 

I've mentioned before that Elaine is my dress-up buddy, but I don't know that I've ever mentioned that we are also long-time best friends. We met on the first day of high school, and after a rocky start (we were forced to work together for a group project), we discovered that we lived a block away from each other and quickly became friends. High school was all about passing notes in class (I still have an envelope of these notes, and 90% of them are about boys), running up and down the block to each others' houses to "do homework," and talking about the day we would have significant others and no longer be under our parents' roofs (and therefore rules).

Well, fast forward fifteen years (goodness gracious, has it really been that long?), and here we are, spending the summer in our childhood homes (albeit in the in-law apartments downstairs), still running back and forth to each others' houses, but this time with men-folk in tow, and no longer subject to 9 pm curfews. It's so nice to be in the same city again and not angst about boys! Even better, we can go to costumed events together! Neither of our men are into this whole steampunk thing, so we made a date out of attending a late-night tea at Rue du The together. Since I'm not going to be able to make it to  SDCC or SteamCon this year, this will be my steampunk costume event for the year. It's really just as well, considering there's still so much more I want to make for it.

1912 project blouse #0219, curtain skirt, goggles, gun (on a hasty holster), new pocketwatch from Whimsic Alley, spyglass, magnifying glass, and gaming dice tube. And a belt from Ross.

The event description said to dress in one's best quasi-Victorian/Edwardian steampunk costume, so of course I took advantage of the opportunity to break in my steampunk detective costume. It's still not finished, but I put on all the pieces I had with me (yes, I dragged a shoebox of all my pieces from TCOCC with me to the city) and was sufficiently feted by other costume enthusiast attendees to gratify my ego. Unfortunately, I couldn't get very good pictures because of the lighting, but you get the idea.

I antiqued the heck out of these pictures in an attempt to make their graininess somewhat acceptable.

I love any excuse to get all dressed up, so if it had only been a be-costumed meet-and-greet I would've been happy enough, but we got to have lovely tea, mediocre sandwiches, stellar shortbread, and tasty cake (it was not a lie) to boot. And best of all, there was live music by Unwoman, a fantastic cellist/vocalist who sings post-apocalyptic love songs and other steampunk-flavored things. There was even some attempt at waltzing inside the tiny tea shop; unfortunately neither Elaine nor I really remembered how to lead properly (although Elaine was still much better than I), and I kept tripping on my train. Note to self: if I intend to dance, I need to figure out how to bustle my skirt, or just wear one that doesn't drag along the floor. Dance hampering aside, though, I really enjoyed the swooshing of the full skirt and train the rest of the evening.

Unwoman plays in the background while Mr. and Mrs. PEERS (and others) waltz and watch.

My favorite part of the evening was probably all the mutual admiration of costumes. I love it when other people can appreciate chevrons and trims and clever material sourcing, and I in turn can appreciate their thrift store finds, beautiful piping, and hidden-bustle-pocket design features. Since this was my first foray into costume events with other amateur costumers, I was really pleased and surprised by their warm welcome...none of that you-used-non-period-textiles-and-the-shoulder-seam-should-really-be-an-inch-further-back-and-good-heavens-is-that-elastic-I-see? that I was afraid of. I look forward to more events like this in the future!

Fraulein Michelle design this gorgeous blue and brown number herself!

And can I just say that these types of events work so much better in chilly and foggy Bay Area than swelteringly hot Tucson? I was actually glad for all my layers of petticoats and stockings!

Thanks for being my dress-up buddy, Elaine!