Friday's Alt Summit ensemble took on a different look as well. The skirt I started to make totally bombed. Instead of freaking out at the last minute, I simply adjusted my expectations. Chris was so proud! I grabbed my floor-length chiffon skirt and kept on going. The floor length skirt paired with the light pink fabric I had planned for the top top ended up looking horrible under natural and artificial light. They were just the wrong pinks that they just vibrated against each other. More expectations adjusted. I wasn't about to go out and buy more fabric to match, so I looked to my stash to see what I could work with. Et voila. I didn't add any leather details on the shoulders as planned. In fact, I don't know why I didn't! I think I was in such a rush to finish something that I just forgot that plan altogether. I modified my basic tee pattern to include very drapey sleeves. I think the overall vision worked great. It's not necessarily my "style", but it was exactly the piece I needed to bring the whole ensemble (live floral crown included) together. It also worked perfectly with the vision I had of our Secret Garden Party. Now I can't quite tell if I still like the top or not. I LOVE the print, but I'm not entirely sure the colorway is flattering on me. Sometimes I feel like there's not enough contrast between my skin tone and the fabric so I look semi-amorphous while wearing it. It's also sheer, which means I have to wear layers underneath. I don't like wearing layers if I don't have to. I need to give this top a chance. But I may end up just giving it to someone who will wear it more than I will. I LOVE the fit, though. The flutter sleeves are so fun to wear. I have plans to sew more tops like this in the future. Maybe a dress like this would be fun in the summer months? I can't think about summer now. We just got about 3 inches of sloshy snow. And I think it's going to keep coming. Must. Make. More. Winter. Clothes! Outfit details:

• earrings: c/o Sole Society
• necklace: c/o Sole Society (Tai Pan in the party photo)
• top: handmade
• skirt: handmade
• shoes: c/o Sole Society

   

Thursday night's look came together almost exactly how I envisioned. The only difference is that I opted for cobalt beaded detailing instead of gold chain detailing around the shoulders. The beading took more time than sewing on metal chain. I started laying out my idea in chain, but it started looking cheap. The green and blue combo is the new pink and orange. I love these colors together.  The outfit was a bit understated, but the beading made it something special. The bodycon silhouette is classic, too. Sewing up this piece was easy. I sewed a fitted version of the Renfrew tee and connected it with my wiggle skirt block. No zippers. No buttons. Easy peasy. The beading, however took the longest. Thankfully that could all be done while vegging out to Brooklyn Nine-Nine with Chris. It's our new favorite show. Go forth and watch it if you haven't already! Beading around the neckline was hardest. I had to use two needles and thread. One for stringing beads, the other for attaching the thread between the beads to the neckline. The neckline is barely big enough to fit over my head, but I still have to be careful when pulling it on and taking it off to avoid busting threads. I've broken threads twice already. It's a 20 minute set-back whenever I break threads. UGH! Still, so worth it, though.

Image by Justin Hackworth

The night of the emerald party, I paired my dress with a bold metal lace statement necklace from Tai Pan. That along with doing my hair in a low chignon made the dress shine.

Outfit Details:

• dress: handmade
• earrings: Lisa Leonard, c/o umba box
• belt: Forever 21 (here)
• shoes: c/o Sole Society

   

Learn calligraphy online at calligraphy.org. You'll learn the basics of pointed pen, flourishing, addressing envelopes and developing your own style. The course comes complete with a beginner kit of supplies and personal coaching from calligraphy experts Melissa Esplin and Erika Paulsen. Click here to find out more.   I was on Studio 5 last week! It's hard to convey everything I want in a short segment, so in addition to the little video (below), I have great tips on how to improve your handwriting. As I've mentioned before, it's International Correspondence Month. I've made a dent with my box of envelopes, but I still have about 15 letters to go before the end of the month (totally doable, if you ask me!). I make goals like this for myself quite frequently, and I'm excited that this one is sticking! Ideally, I'd love to write this many letters all the time, but it's a matter of carving out the time. It's not as quick or convenient as sending an email, but it certainly means more to get something hand-written than a quick 2-liner in your inbox. At least, that's how I feel. With the rise of the digital age, good penmanship has gone down the crapper. If I had a quarter for every time I heard the whine "I wish my handwriting looked better", I'd be living it up in my multi-million dollar dream home. It's an epidemic of bad handwriting! Most schools aren't teaching cursive, either! I'm glad to be in a state that still requires cursive as part of the third grade curriculum. Not only does it teach kids a slice of history, but it promotes better literacy (often times kids that don't learn how to write cursive have issues reading script fonts), better fine-motor skills and concentration. It may be impractical to hand-write everything in this modern age. However, we should shift our perception of handwriting from an archaic means of communication to something meditative, meaningful and personal. Calligraphy and penmanship have very similar foundations. So let's talk about 5 ways to make your everyday handwriting better.

1- Practice

Handwriting, like any skill, won't get better without practice. We're all great at typing, right? It's because we're using it ALL the TIME. Why does our handwriting atrophy, you ask? Simply because we are not practicing. It's not being used in the every day, so if you want to improve your handwriting chops you're going to have to carve out purposeful practice. Spend at least 15 minutes a day writing out the alphabet, or writing your to do lists.

2- Use the Right Tools

Handwriting isn't as tool-intensive as calligraphy, but if you have crappy pens, you'll have crappy results. You know those cheapie bic pens? Yeah, we don't have those in our house. They're awful. The gel-like ink doesn't flow easily and smoothly off the paper, requiring you to apply more pressure when writing. Also the narrow shaft of the pen requires a tighter grip. Both aspects are a recipe for hand cramping and fatigue. I personally prefer the pilot precise v5. It's a skinny pen, but the ink flows smoothly from the pen allowing for a light grip and a light touch. If you want to invest in some pen awesomeness, I would highly recommend the Kaweko Sport or the Lamy Safari. They're easy-to-use fountain pens with nice weight and grip to them. If you want something a little more advanced, the Noodler's Ahab Flex Pen (the green pen in the pictures) is really fun. It's a fountain pen with a little bit of flex, but you have to know what you're doing when it comes to inking the pen (more colors and great how-to videos here). Sometimes you can't control the kind of paper that you use, but if you want to buy a nice paper, try Clairefontaine lined paper. It's deliciously smooth. You can alternatively use a 90-100GSM high quality color laser paper.

3 - Slow Down

This is something that I tell my calligraphy students constantly. You can't expect consistent results when you're going too fast. The key is to go slow enough that you can anticipate the next move before it happens and so you can create consistent movements. I pick on Chris all the time for his handwriting. His handwriting is pretty hard to read because he's usually rushing to write as fast as he types. Pretty penmanship will never be as convenient or as fast as typing. It's a fact. So slow down! I like the quote from Modern Family ("Old Wagon" episode from Season 2), "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast." You're less likely to mess up style or spelling if you're taking the time to think about each movement. Therefore you're going to be faster than if you rushed, messed up and had to start over.

4 - Proper Positioning

If you had respectable elementary school teachers, they should have stressed this fact a TON from kindergarten through 6th grade. Holding the pen properly is a big deal. Bigger than you may think. Hold the pen nicely between your thumb and index finger and rest the pen lightly on the spot between the knuckle and tip of your middle finger. This light grasp will keep your hand from cramping and fatiguing which leads to a deterioration in handwriting. See the above video for an example of how that looks.

5 - Consistency

Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. You want to practice with guide sheets to maintain consistency. If you can hone in on your consistency, your handwriting will get so much better. What does this mean exactly? Use guides. Practice with guides. Ruled paper is your best friend. You want your lowercase letters to stay within the same x-height (save for the ascender and descender strokes). You want your uppercase and ascending lowercase letters to be at consistent heights. You want your descenders to have a consistent height. Practicing with guides will help ingrain that consistency into muscle memory. Download cursive and print alphabet guide sheets below to help you practice. Want to learn more about how to write in calligraphy? Calligraphy and penmanship are related, but different. You use the same basic principals above, however calligraphy is more like drawing than writing. If you're new here, or in case you didn't know: I can teach you entirely online. At your own pace. Read more and sign up for the online calligraphy class at calligraphy.org.

This look didn't come together quite like I had envisioned. I opted for more neutrals than florals, but I still mixed prints like I had originally wanted. I couldn't find a floral blazer like I had in mind, so I ended up finding this really cool textured blazer from H&M, then busted out some really rad geometric stretch fabric I scored in LA way back when. Since I bought the fabric, I knew I wanted it to be a pencil skirt, but I was just too lazy to sew it up. I already have a pattern (that I use ALL THE TIME), it's not like I had to draft up a new one! It was just a matter of changing the thread colors on my serger. My machine is actually really easy to thread, but I do find myself dragging my feet on projects just because I'd have to change threads. Anyone else do that? I wanted this outfit to be comfortable, yet very business-like. The heels were the perfect balance of height and comfort. The skirt the perfect balance of something I could easily wiggle on just minutes before the first sessions of the day and still look put together. I feel like in some ways this outfit was a little bit of a cop out. I wasn't particularly creative with the silhouette and I had already made the top back in September. Just because this was a low-stress ensemble to pack, I felt I had less ownership over it. Maybe it was the fact that the blazer was clearly not self-made. No matter. I was stoked to have squeaked out a midi pencil skirt out of the 3/4 of a yard I rummaged from LA and managed to match up the side seams. Those side seams are glorious, if you ask me! I also perfected my machine serged blind hem. It's my favorite binding to use on hems that will get a lot of stretch. I don't have a coverstitch machine (yet?), but this is easily done with my serger with just a few tweaks to the settings. It's cleaner than an overlock stitch on my regular machine and lot less time consuming than a hand-stitched blind hem. Also, did I mention the threads don't break with stretch and movement? Outfit details:

• earrings: c/o Sole Society
• blazer: H&M
• top: handmade
• bracelets: THP shop, c/o Sole Society
• skirt: handmade (tutorial)
• shoes: c/o Sole Society

 

I'm excited. Nay, beyond the MOON to share with you a fun collaboration that I had the pleasure of completing with Quarterly and Heather Armstrong! Quarterly approached me on Heather Armstrong's behalf to see if I could put together an art print for her calligraphy-themed box. Ummm. . . Heck yeah! The phrase: "Neither Representing nor Keeping it Real" is in a box full of pencils, a broad-pen calligraphy set, paper and envelopes. I had more than a little fun flourishing the border for this piece, keeping them simple with  a monoline, but making them meander every which way. Heather and Quarterly were a dream to work with, letting my creative juices flow. The icing on the cake? The kindest shout out from the queen of blogging herself! In the box's letter she writes: "There is a local artist named Melissa Esplin – http://melissaesplin.com/– whose work I follow religiously, and in this package I've included an exclusive hand-lettered print that we worked on together: her talented hand giving life to a phrase that once served as a tagline on my website. I love the juxtaposition of scripted letters that are so often associated with inspirational and romantic notions being used to render my facetious twist on a popular phrase." Chris couldn't stop laughing at my half hour long happy dance when I showed him the shout out. It. Made. My. Year. Did you know that this month (in addition to being Black History Month) is International Correspondence Month? Kind of perfect given that Valentine's day is basically upon us. I've written 2 letters so far this month (pretty sad), but I intend to use every envelope in my Quarterly box before Feb 28th and send some letters. I hope you take on a similar challenge and write to someone you love this month. All photos taken by the uber talented Will Deleon.

I finally feel like I'm back in the land of the living! I started laundry today (first time in 3 weeks), so I expect each and every one of you to give me an enthusiastic pat on the back. Just kidding! Chris has been picking up a lot of slack lately, so I'm glad to be taking back some of my household responsibilities. I'm also back to sewing. Well, blogging about sewing. I haven't touched my sewing machine since before Jan 21st. I'm aching to get back in the saddle. Too much pretty fabric just sitting, doing nothing. This year with Alt Summit, I wanted to sew even more of my outfits (last year it was usually one thing, whether it was a piece of jewelry or a top or skirt). And this year I wanted to make pants. Like real pants. So I sketched up plans for outfits for each day (see above for Friday day and evening looks). My friday day look turned out nearly as planned (the oxblood leggings didn't happen, obvi, but that's okay). The Friday night look turned out completely different, but in a good way. More on that one later. The limitations for Alt Summit:

• I didn't have time to go out and buy fabric or notions, so I was going on what I had.
• I wanted each of my outfits to be *mostly* interchangeable in case I changed my mind about an outfit last minute. This meant a simple color palette.
• I wanted clothes to be comfortable.
• I didn't want to spend too much time testing out a new pattern or fussing with zippers and enclosures.

That said I went pretty simple with my ensembles, but little special touches here and there. My wardrobe paled in comparison with Merrick's and Leanne's amazing duds. Seriously. Equal parts jealous and in love with their creations. Those ladies inspire me to push my sewing further. For Friday's look, I wanted a sweet and romantic pussy bow top with bishop sleeves. It turned out almost exactly how I envisioned it. Almost. I sewed everything up and was going for a final press when I forgot that my iron was set to the cotton setting! Unfortunately I melted half of a sleeve onto my iron. I'm thankful it was the bottom half so I could salvage the sleeves without much hassle. I used Jessica's Simple Blouse pattern (another variation here). It's a very simple sew, perfect for variations. I used a rayon jersey print I got at Mood for the bodice and a polyester chiffon for the arms and necktie detail. Often times synthetic chiffons are a little scratchy to the touch, but this stuff is magically soft! Attaching the neck to the top was easy, easy. I made the necktie first (sew wrong sides together, turn and press) then sandwiched it between the neckline and biased tape when I bound the neck. It was a lot easier to put together than I thought. Because of the drape and cling of the jersey, I opted for a banded hem to give the bottom some structure. I was afraid this would date the shirt too much, but because of the light weight of the fabric, it still allows to be tucked in and styled differently unlike most shirts with hem bands. Now for the pants. I found this awesome tie dye print at Michael Levine Loft in LA. I was stoked to figure out a project for one of my favorite LA fabric finds! This stretch denim has about 40% stretch, so I figured if I loosened up the seam allowances on my self drafted leggings, I'd have a perfect fit. I made the mistake of cutting the first pant leg on the wrong grain so there was no stretch horizontally. Thankfully I had enough fabric that I could re-cut the pattern pieces on the right grain, no problem. The pattern worked out perfectly, except in the knees. The knees were too loose in comparison to the tightness in the calves. I thought it wouldn't bother me, but minutes before walking out the door to Alt Summit, I decided to fix it. I'm SO glad I did. Too lazy/intimidated to try and figure out how to put in a fly zipper, I opted for a yoga band. This actually works to my benefit as I'm CRAAAZY baby hungry right now. At some point down the road (no announcement, yet) I want to have another baby, so it's nice to have pieces that will stretch with me. I'm at that awkward point where I don't know how long it's going to take to get pregnant. I don't want to jump the gun on maternity clothes, but I also don't want to invest serious time into making something I love if I can only wear it once or twice. Beyond my future plans, having a yoga band pant was awesome at Alt Summit. I was incredibly comfortable while sitting at sessions and running around decorating our party. There's a lot going on here with the two patterns, but I think they work really nicely together. Kinda how stripes and dots just work. The neutral color palette makes it easy for me to mix and match each piece with just about anything. Sewing these pants together made me think that I should try even more woven pant variations. Maybe have another go at Harem Pants? Outfit Details:

• earrings: c/o Sole Society
• top: selfmade
• bracelets: THP shop, c/o Sole Society
• pants: selfmade
• shoes: c/o Sole Society

Next year, I think I'm going to clear my plate a little more before Alt so I can spend a ton more time designing and sewing clothes. 'Cause that was my favorite part of prepping for the conference! Check out the links above for similar tie dye pants (all under $50).

I recently finished up a collaboration on some packaging calligraphy for Ticket Chocolate just in time for Valentine's day! Ticket Chocolate is a fun chocolate company that makes indulgent chocolate sticks for hot chocolate. They're (if I had to use only one descriptive word) delicious. The process was so fun. I just ran with it and lettered whatever I wanted! My kind of freelance work, if you ask me. Amberlee was a dream to work with. I'm hoping to unleash even more craftiness for this upcoming Valentine's day. It's Penelope's first year for doing Valentine's at school and I'm hoping to do a couple of cool things for a few friends as well. Let's hope that I have enough gusto to follow through on my creative fantasies. What are your plans for Valentine's festivities?