Long time no sew

Well, no sooner did I write that last post promising my imminent return to regular blogging than my life was shaken up rather dramatically! After a rather disheartening few months on the job market last year, I had finally made peace with the idea of spending another year in Ithaca (and in grad school) when I got a job offer in September. The job was fantastic but required me to be able to start in January, so I kicked it into high gear and started putting the pieces of my dissertation together to get ready to graduate.

Between writing, revising, preparing to move and other things, I had basically no time for any of my usual hobbies. I did manage to make a few things in the precious few days off that I had, like this houndstooth skirt:

After sending the full draft of my dissertation to my committee, I headed straight to the sewing machine and whipped this skirt up while I was waiting for their feedback. I wore it to one of my defenses (yep, that's right, our department has multiple exams!).

I intended to make a new skirt to wear to the final defense as well, but unfortunately I was too exhausted by that point to make it all come together. Even though I didn't have a snazzy new outfit, I got the most important job done: I passed! You can now call me Dr. Biketopus :)

The other big news is that my SO and I got married in a lovely, low key ceremony in Ithaca. Since I was rather stressed out with other things I had initially planned to just wear something I already owned, but about a week before the date I decided I really did want to sew something. A lot of late nights were spent making this dress come together, but in the end it turned out quite well!


I've already started my new postdoc position in the fabulous city of Montreal while my SO remains behind in Ithaca to finish up some of his work at Cornell. Since I'm now free from dissertation writing and alone with my sewing machine, I hope I'll have some new things to post in the near future!

Hello and goodbye

I think that it's about time that I introduce my new sewing machine, the Pfaff Expression 2.0! Yay! I brought it home about a week ago, and already it's looking right at home in my kitchen. Behold:
My parents bought this for me as a graduation gift. Yesyes, I know I haven't graduated yet, but a trade in came into the sewing store, and I couldn't resist asking for my present a little bit early so that I could snag this great machine. It's just less than a year old and looks totally new. It has so many features and things that I hardly know where to start, and probably couldn't do justice to them all right now anyway since I haven't spent enough time sewing on it yet. I finished off the remains of a few projects as soon as I got it, and now I'm working on a silk blouse. This will be the first project done entirely on my new machine, and I thought it would be a good test to see how the machine does with a fabric that is difficult to work with. I'm almost done with it, so I'll probably post it sometime this week. Yay!

With the possibility of me getting a job in mind, I decided to sell off the old machine right away, so I wouldn't be tempted to think up a use for a "backup" machine and end up dragging it with me all over the continent. I posted it on craigslist and it sold tout de suite, for $50. I'm a little teeny bit sad to see it go, but honestly not very much. I'm kind of surprised about that, really. Whenever I get a new computer, I always find myself lingering over the old one for a month or so, because the old one is set up just the way I like it and I hardly have to think about using it, and the new one is, well, new. Somehow that doesn't seem to be the case with the Pfaff... maybe I spent so much time visiting it in the store before buying that it's like I'd had it for months! Still, respect is due to the little Kenmore that I essentially learned to sew with. Bye, buddy.
So, what to do with the proceeds from the sewing machine? I'm not sure yet, so I put it in a jar to be saved for something good.
I think that I'll keep all of the proceeds from selling stuff off in this jar, which will hopefully encourage me to get rid of a lot of stuff before we relocate. I still have a few semi-valuable things that I'll try to sell on craigslist, and I'm making a biiiiig garage sale pile. I'm going to try to get my SO to hide stuff from me when I put it in the pile so that I don't start having second thoughts and rescue it later on!