Thanks to the friendly folk over at WordPress, all you faithful followers should have been transferred across from my old site to this new sparkly, rainbow skied and fairy dusted website of mine. From what I can tell, you’ve all been accounted for- including the new followers who joined mid-renovation (hello there!). All of you…apart from Tree?! [For new readers: my husband]… Suspicious that…Perhaps he’s weary of what I might write about him?
Anyways, on to today’s post/rant/rave.
When it comes to what clothes I wear, I have a few more requirements than the average high street shopper. I cover my legs and arms and keep the neckline high (or at least coverable by my headscarf). Over the years, even before I started wearing a headscarf, I learnt the tricks of the trade for suitably modest clothes, like making simple tweaks; pulling up the neckline here and there; buying a bigger size and taking it in, and layering. And trust me when I say, layering is every hijabi’s best friend, especially in the summer when the amount of material put into clothes seems to dwindle as the temperature supposedly (this is England after all) increases. With cardigans, maxi skirts and long sleeve tees, I tend to get by for most day to day needs…apart from special occasions. Special occasions are a real pain, a pin in my pin puff if you may. There are some gorgeous maxi dresses out there but they all tend to be sleeveless. Which is fine, but sometimes I don’t feel like layering it over a long sleeve tee (of which I have a wide variety of colours- yet don’t ever seem to get a perfect match?!) nor do I feel like layering over the beautiful detail of the dress with a cardigan/bolero. Sometimes I just want to be able to buy something without thinking: “Now how am I going to cover up x/y/z body part?”
Is that too much to ask? Apparently, yes.
So with years of experience behind me, I knew that graduation dress shopping was never going to be done in one girly outing to Oxford Street, the week before the big day. No no. This would take careful thinking and planning waaay ahead of graduation day. You know, like a year? Perhaps that was a tad excessive of me, but I wanted to have an idea of which companies do nice long sleeved maxi dresses, or catch that one off piece I might just stumble across. So for the last year, despite having oh-you-know, a few hurdles like sitting exams…and passing exams ahead of me, I started to keep an eye out. And it paid off a few months back when Tree’s grandma handed me a magazine to tidy away, when lo and behold- on the page she had it open on, there was a long sleeved maxi dress in my favourite colour: purple! Obviously I shrieked a little, held it in front of Tree and my Brother-in-law’s faces whilst they were playing FIFA and shrieked some more. Seriously, this rarely ever happens. Last time I got excited about a long sleeved maxi dress (an ASOS dress, also in purple), I clicked on the ‘see more images’ button and realised the dress was completely backless. Not much I can do to cover that one up…
Having checked the price tag wasn’t more than a house-I bought it, all the way from Down Under. And it arrived in all its flowing chiffon glory. But then, I got this some what crazy idea that I wanted to make myself a dress. A beautiful pattern off Burdastyle to be more precise. But as an ‘advanced’ pattern, and my sewing status being can-barely-sew-a-straight-line-on-a-sewing-machine-beginner, I figured baby steps. Start simple and build up.
Now we’ve seen my mixed sewing results so far, so we’ll have to see how realistic this aim is (there’s also just over 2 weeks until graduation). But for now… I’m keeping true to my six years at uni and aiming high! (Ha! If only that were true…).
Keep posted as I continue The Little Chronicles of a Small Time Sewer.
love,
little pomegranate