The Fairy Dust Bin

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Dressember Bound!

It's almost December, which means it's almost time for Dressember! 10 days until my jeans settle into my closet for the month and I will wear a dress every day in December to raise awareness and money to help end modern day slavery. This is my fourth year as a Dressember advocate, and I've determined I need to make a few changes.

First, this year I'll be joining in #Dressemberbound on Instagram and Disneybounding in my dresses! If you're unfamiliar with Disneybounding, the short answer is that it's creating an everyday look inspired by a character instead of wearing a costume. This gives me a chance to plan ahead, though a few of the prompts are tough - how do I even choose one favorite Disney song?

Second, the past few years I haven't done well at meeting my fundraising goals, so this year I'm offering a few incentives. Yes, they stack!

$5 - I will send you a handwritten note. Who doesn't like getting real, non spam mail?
$10 - Sponsor a Disneybound. You get to choose a day and character. Bonus if it follows the prompts, but I'll make it work anyway if it doesn't!
$20 - A dozen homemade cookies. You choose what kind, I bake and send them to you. OR if you don't want cookies, I will make you a little zip pouch.
$50 - I will record and post a song related to your chosen Disneybound.

If I meet my goal of $350, Ellie will record a duet with me. She also plans to Dressemberbound as a soft start to being an advocate herself!

My donation page is already live: Kate's Dressember Page

Again this year, I plan to wear dresses I've made, and hopefully mainly handmade or ethically purchased accessories. For these Frozen 2 Anna pictures, this is a George+Ginger December Dress, and my well loved Mouse House Creations Julia Cardigan.

And it was freezing! This is how I really felt.

Together, we can make this world a better, freer place. #It'sBiggerThanADress

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Me Made May 2019

Another May has snuck up on me! Which means it's once again time for a month of wearing clothes I've made. This will be my fifth year of this challenge, and while I still want to participate, I admit that I've found the last couple of Mays to be more stressful than enjoyable. After some thought, I've decided that really isn't the intended result, so I'm going about it a little differently this year. Instead of increasing the challenge, I'm going to give myself some grace. So I simply pledge to wear something me made every day in May, and be mindful of choosing handmade. I will probably post most days on Instagram as well, so be sure to follow me over there to see how my Me Made May is going!

I started off with my favorite Sunny tee, and a Vermont Cardigan that I find I don't choose to wear often. It's not my favorite shade of pink, but it goes really nicely with the hint of pink in the floral, which I hadn't noticed before! And it was actually pretty comfortable to wear all day, so I'll try to show it a little more love in the future. This shirt has become one of my favorites over the last year, even though the fit isn't quite perfect. These pieces were paired with RTW jeans since, I'll be honest, I'm fairly happy with how my jeans fit. So while I have pants on my to sew list and even have a pair of jeans in my UFO pile, they haven't made it to the top of my priorities. I did make my necklace though! Do accessories count?

Since this is a pretty short post, if you made it this far, have a bonus and unrelated music video! Heavy Metal Heroes is possibly my newest favorite.

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Boys Can Wear Pink!

I've been intermittent in joining this blog tour, but we're back this year for season 5 of Boys Can Wear Pink!

Truthfully, Cyrus is STILL not really into pink, but for some reason he's become adamant about doing this tour. It's funny, really - we've done season 1 and season 3. I'm not sure why I didn't do 2, but when I skipped last year due to being overwhelmed by school, he was pretty upset with me. So this year I made sure to sign up! You'll notice he's no stranger to rolling his eyes at traditional gender stereotypes. These photos were taken after he finally let me cut 5 inches off of his hair. Yup. His gorgeous long hair often gets him mistaken for a girl by strangers, but he's so unbothered by it that he typically doesn't even correct them. So wearing pink? He's got this. And since he's solidly in that "tween well on his way to being a teenager" phase, if mom isn't looking, he just might give any judgement the finger. ;)

My original idea looked nothing like this. Cy was on board with doing a hoodie inspired by the Phoenix Armor from Mass Effect, but my fabric didn't arrive in the timely fashion I'd hoped for. I ended up at JoAnns, and my kid knows what he likes - neon brights, the brighter the better. So when he saw this big cat print in neon pink and orange (his favorite color), he said "That one!". It's not my style at all, but he loves it. Both the print and the black are performance knits from JoAnns, which was perfect since this kid absolutely lives in athleisure wear.

I used the New Horizons Summit Peak Hoodie to take advantage of the built in places to color block, which was probably the only thing I didn't change from the hoodie I had intended to make. It has princess seams with side panels and a lined hood, which are perfect places to use a second fabric. This one is the kids' version, but if he grows any more I'll need to print the men's version. When did he get so grown up? And so TALL? This was my first time making it, and it came together perfectly and quickly. The cowl hood is his favorite, and he's already playing with ways to keep it over his nose. Apparently he's a fabulous and not very stealthy ninja - there's NO way you don't take a stealth check penalty in that neon cat print!

He's loving this crazy hoodie, but already planning something truly, eye poppingly pink for next year if the tour runs again! We'll see how he feels about that in a few months. Pink seems to be in for men this year, so perhaps he's coming around to it. Or maybe it's just because he's inherited the contrary, stubborn genes. I, um, have no idea where he might have gotten those... Well, here's one last picture with him all ninja'd up!