School Comes to an End and Winter is on the Cusp

I finished with school for the term and I ended up with straight A's! I was working pretty diligently the last week or so with my web development courses.

Here's a link to what I was working on: Things Found Vintage

You may have taken the guess already but I'm thinking about making the leap to my own site and really revving up output and become more rounded with what I sell. That's a pretty rough layout, but it's where I'm headed. I was almost thinking of changing my shop's name to something a little more creative too - the current one is a bit dull. Maybe that's just me?

I have been working on my dress again! The super lightweight cotton I am using has been pretty finicky so there have been some breaks in between progress (to accomodate wailing and gnashing of teeth.) Thank goodness the sleeves are through with, I look forward to working with a stiffer, or at least thicker, fabric. I think I've been dragging my feet about finishing because I know I can't truly finish until I get a proper buckle for the dress. Does anyone else do this? And how don't I have more buckles with the ridiculous amount of random notions I have?

Since classes have been out I have been at the gym almost every day. I cut down quite a bit during finals... on everything else but school really and so I think a few pounds snuck up on me!

Remember those girdles I purchased? They were sent on the 23rd of last month but they haven't shown up yet. I'm still crossing my fingers because they were shipped out of England and they're having some real weather problems lately from what I hear. Portland is real similar when it snows everyone throws up their arms and runs around in panic until most the city's population just huddle inside.

I've been on a bit of a shopping binge and so I'll post a few pictures of my goodies too. I need to keep it down to window shopping for a while now... A lot of the purchases were worthwhile, and all good deals (I see a good deal and my hand just reaches for my wallet automatically.)

Speaking of buys, I got some sleeves for my patterns! I'm going through and besleeving them all, finally! I think it might take a while but this means I'll be able to move them around with a little less worry. I'm also trying to order them all by date. Then maybe I'll let you see my collection. Let's just say I got 500 sleeves and I'm not really sure it's enough...

MIA Already!

It's been a long week away from my new blogging world! And, wow, five followers already, thanks you guys, I look forward to reading your posts!

Soon, my scattered posts should be a thing of the past. My own computer broke down earlier in the year and I've been without one since. Well, I got a new one! It's supposed to be here sometime mid to late next week and I'll be able to get rolling on posting and keeping my Etsy store more regularly updated. I'm very excited!

I'm starting to get into the swing of things with school. I'm taking web development classes mostly. I used to create a lot of web sites in my spare time and so it's nice to get back to it. Plus I'm taking a drawing class for me. I'm not very good with drawing, but I've got hopes to get better at it.

Onto projects:

Remember how I was having trouble with the purl stitch? Well, I decided to go a little more modern with my approach and watched some YouTube videos.

I haven't checked out any of the other videos - and there are plenty - but this helped me make my first stockinette stitch!

I dropped a few stitches but I'm pretty proud of it!

And, in case you thought I forgot about the Hollywood Pattern skirt, I was about done and then got the notion that I should probably take the time to line it. So here's a little picture of the progress on that too (by the way, soon I will get better at this blogger layout with the pictures and all! Haha)

And I know I haven't mentioned anything about combat sports yet. Today I went to the Oregon Open to root on my friend, and fellow gym mate, Jenny. This was her first BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) tournament and the competition was really tough. She's only been at it a short while and the Beginner's bracket was 18 months or less. I think she got a lot of nerves out of the way and it was good to experience competition. I haven't competed yet because I'm a bit of a wuss about it so far. I just always want to be really prepared. Here's a photo of Jenny at the beginning of her very first match!

I have to go get my cardio in before the gym closes so I'll leave you with that. Bye guys!