Kaoru Marie

A 3-day weekend is upon us in the States! Yes!! I don't know what I'm more excited about: finally entering September or having an "extra" day to mill around. I don't know about you, but August has felt so freaking long. It's the same number of days as July, but for some reason July seemed to fly by. Despite taking a vacation in early August (see photos above and below....I Miss You, Seattle!!), I feel like this month has been lingering around for way too long. It's time to kick August to the curb and get around to Fall. There is some house stuff I want to accomplish this weekend, but I mainly want to tackle some sewing projects! The past several weekends were devoted to sewing a gift, but now that's it finished I can go back to selfish sewing. I made a trip to the FIDM scholarship store during my lunch break this week and oooh boy, it felt good. I had a self-imposed ban on shopping there until I finished the gift I was making so it's pro...

I have several Monetas to share with you today. I thought about doing separate posts for all three since they were made with different types of knits and I constructed each of them a bit differently. Buuuuutttt, I figured that might get a bit boring for ya'll. So instead this will be quite a photo-heavy post. I made my first Moneta Dress in a black ponte knit that I got a Jo-Anns. I was so excited to make this dress that I couldn't wait till the weekend to find a knit so I stopped by Jo-Anns on my way home from work one day and bought the solid knit that had the nicest touch. There's not much stretch, but it's really soft. I originally cut the bodice in a size XS, but due to the lack of stretch in this fabric, I could barely fit it over my shoulders and bust so I re-cut the bodice in a size S (I don't know about you, but I find that Colette Patterns suggests a lot more fabric than is needed, at least for the smaller sizes; thankfully this time I bought the su...

Despite my love of beachin' and poolin' I absolutely hate shopping for swimsuits. I am distinctly two different sizes on the top and bottom so I have to be able to buy tops and bottoms separately. Also, I'm a born cheapskate and the thought of shelling out $80 (easily) for a swimsuit that, let's be honest, uses hardly ANY fabric, just kills my soul every time I go shopping for a new suit. I have two swimsuits in my closet. One I bought when I was in high school. HIGH SCHOOL! that was ages ago. It sorta, kinda, not really, still fits. It's a bit tight on the bottom because some areas of my body (cough**my hips and ass**cough) have expanded over the years. The other swimsuit I bought while I spent a summer in Hawaii during college. It has a really cool wrap top, but the bottoms are too big because I couldn't buy the top and bottom separately. I was so tempted to switch out sizes in the dressing room, but I couldn't bring myself to do it so I just always loo...