Fit vs How you feel wearing your clothes

Maybe I'm totally off base here, but how can you say something fits if you don't feel good wearing it?   This is something I've come to terms with over the last couple years while trying to make a decent pair of pants for myself.  I've talked a lot about this process over the years as I shared my trials & errors, disappointments & semi-accomplishments, but it always came back to one thing, even if I was happy with the finished product at the time, I never wore it in public.  They "fit" (according to all fit rules) but they didn't make me feel good.  In fact they made me feel like I was wearing a tent.  I'm a big gal, so I don't go for skin tight, but I also don't want clothes that I feel like I'm drowning in.

Many of the pants I made, in order to get them as wrinkle free as possible, I had to lengthen the crotch which made the crotch sit about 3 inches lower than where I wanted it.  I had to add width to the hips and thighs making the legs very wide; which also added inches to the waist.  To fit them to my waist I had to put in multiple darts, which looked like pleats, which emphasized my stomach making me look much bigger than I already was.

I kept going back to my RTW jeans, and wondering why what I was making was so far from my RTW jeans.  And then I realized it was because I wasn't makeing jeans; I was making slacks and there's a big difference.  I don't wear slacks and even though they "fit" I wasn't comfortable in them.

So this year I decided to change direction and instead of trying to turn a slacks pattern in to a jeans pattern, I took apart a pair of RTW jeans and created a pattern from them.   There's still a little bit of work to do, but this is as close as I've gotten to what I was hoping to accomplish in the first place and I feel good in them.  If I feel good in them, I'm going to wear them; even if they may not "fit" perfectly.

 Excuse the mess in the pics.  It's my daughter's room.

Going on a prom dress hunt...I'm not scared....Well, maybe just a little

My daughter has announced she's going to prom.  She doesn't have a date, but that's not going to stop her.

Why am I scared?  I like to think of myself as thrifty.  I hate to spend a lot of money on something that will only be used once.  Case in point, my wedding dress was under $300 and I thought that was a lot of money.  I liked how we did it last year.  She didn't have any particular style in mind, so we went to a used dress sale, and she was able to find a brand new dress (still had the tags regularly marked at $500) for $30.  Then while we were at Goodwill, we found another dress, that I liked more, for $30.  So for $60 she was able to get a dress for morp (kind of like prom but for the freshman & sophomores) and a dress for prom.

Morp 2014

Prom 2014

This year she's decided to more picky about her dress.  It has to have shoulder straps (nothing halter top or spaghetti straps.  Nothing to low cut in front or back and must be about knee length.  These are all her requirements for the prefect dress, so I really can't complain about modesty.  And it must be alternative, whatever that means.  She showed me one she found online some where, but I've never heard of the site before and was a little leery about buying one online because of some of the horror stories I've heard.  I'm trying to talk her into a cute vintage inspired cocktail dress from J.C Penney's.  If I'm going to spend the money it should be something she could wear again.  We'll see how it goes.

Makin' moonshine in Minnesota and grabbing ass in Iowa

The hubby and I have a new hobby, and not it's not what you're thinking.  It's visiting small independent distilleries and wineries in the region and sampling their products.  It actually started several years ago on a romantic weekend in Wisconsin Dells; where we visited our first winery Wollersheim.  Then a few years later we visited the Amanas in Iowa where we came home with I think 6 or 7 bottles.  But it's just within the last couple years that we've really picked up the pace.  We have hit just about every winery in central Minnesota and many along the Wisconsin border.  In just about every one we've visited, we've brought home at least 1 bottle, usually more.

Panther Distillery 

Friday this week, we took a drive out to Osakis, MN (about a 2 1/2 hour drive) to visit Panther Distillery; the first legal distillery in Minnesota in 154 years.  There we learned the whiskey and bourbon making process, toured the facility and got to sample.

While chatting with our tour guide, she told us about the role Sterns County played in the production and bootlegging of moonshine during prohibition, and how the Catholic church was even teaching people how.  I knew that the Minneapolis/St. Paul area was a haven for gangsters during this time; Al Capone had a hide out in Hayward, WI; but I had no idea ordinary citizens were involved and found it fascinating.

Minnesota law still prohibits distilleries from selling their products to the general public, so we weren't able to buy any spirits there, but I couldn't leave without picking up a copy of Minnesota 13 Stearns County's Wed Wild Prohibition Days.

Then Saturday, we headed south, to Iowa.  Hubby had found Bel-Aire Estates online and with wine names like Happy Ass, Wild Ass and Grab Ass, he just had to go try it out; and it was well worth the trip.  The wines were great, we came home with a bottle of each.  They had an apple wine,  a grape & apple, a peach,  a rhubarb (and I'm not a rhubarb fan but this was good), and a wild grape wine.  All locally gown, except the peaches.


But what do asses have to do with wine; you ask?  They have two donkeys that are kept as pets.  It was 2 degrees with a windchill somewhere below 0 when we visited, so we didn't go see the donkeys, but if you visit the winery in warmer weather you can visit with the donkeys and go for a stroll in the apple orchard.

We also picked up an Iowa Wineries guide, so next year I think we'll be making more trips to Iowa.

If you want to see a list of all the wineries we've visited so far you can find it on my Pinterest board Booze Travels.