Mother Teacher Scatterbrain

I have natural hair.  Been having it since tenth grade!  Ok, really, I only had a perm from eighth to tenth grade.  However, I wore my hair pressed for years.  So, I feel like I am quitting the creamy crack, too.  Especially now that I seem to have less time on my hands.

I really like this dress.

Since my mom is off work, I decided to draft her to take all my measurements so that I can draft some slopers. With great anticipation, I read the "what you need" post at Ikatbag and tips from Craftsy. Since I have my drafted help, I will go ahead and get all the necessary measurements for my slopers: bodice and skirt, pant, and sleeve.

Tasha also provides lovely charts for you to record your measurements for your your pant block and blouse block, which I put to good use.

Just a quick FYI, for small prepubescent children, use the Ikatbag drafting series. This also has valuable information on using a sloper to create and adapt patterns.

Fashion Bandit also has some nice tutorials on creating patterns.

In case you don't have any yet, you can find free printable patternmaking tools.

**I may have her wrap me to make a dressform too! ;-)

Source: Instruction Book Professor Livingstone's Academy

Immediately upon seeing McCall's 6796, I knew I wanted to lengthen it into a sweater dress.

This year, I plan on sewing my dress if I go out for New Years Eve.  I have found the cutest dress, too: Vogue 1029!  I am in love with this dress, but I have two problems: The pattern is out of print, and my gut is out of wack (shape wise).

However, I do fully intend to wear this dress so I have to figure out the directions, engage in more healthy activities, and figure out the proper undergarments.  (Though not necessary for my New Years outfit, you may like this post on strapless and comfortable bras for larger busts, and I do mean larger!)

I will be back to post updates on the dress and the finished product. If I don't, remind me in the comments or on my Facebook page, ok?

If you read my post on buying a sports bra, you know that I have rather large breasts. (I say it that way so that Googling pervs don't find my site.) In fact, when I went to purchase my sports bra, I was professionally fitted in a shop specializing in larger cup sizes (which I highly recommend for all ladies needing anything above a C cup). Can you guess what size the lovely lady told me I needed?

At her suggestion, I bought one cup size down for my sports bra so that I could have a snug fit: 40G (UK).  This means that all of my bras, ranging from a 38DDD to a 44DDD were all the wrong size!  In fact, most were too big in the band and too small in the cups!  (Check out this bra size converter and sister sizes chart.)

Anyhow, if you are truly "blessed" in this area of your body, you know that finding a strapless bra that will do its job is nearly impossible. In my experience, they slide down from the weight of your breasts or they are too tight for comfort. You see, in regular bras the weight of your breasts should be distributed between your band and your straps with most of the support in your band.  To shift the support to the band, it is tightened so that it won't slide down. So to remove all the weight from the shoulder straps and put it strictly in the band would be to tighten it even more. (Uncomfortable much?)

But what if there is a way to distribute the support without having the pinching bands?  That is what this post is about!

I love cheap plastic jewelry. Ok, so it's not very high end, but it is totally fun! I love upcycling and I love personalized style! I found this video on YouTube and I was like, "SCORE!"

My sister found this tutorial on YouTube and did her twists. So I decided to try them myself. The video is below. For anyone who is in Detroit, the beauty supply where I am buying the hair is listed below, too. It is like $5 a pack so...

I chose this video because her instructions are very clear and she demonstrates so slowly that I found myself frustrated. I understand though.



And here are tips to maintain healthy hair while wearing your twists.

Kay Beauty Supply
7746 Wyoming St, Dearborn, MI 48126 » Map
(313) 934-4922

Will post a pic when I finish.

I saw a gathered wrap dress that was so cute on Facebook.  I want that dress.  I would likely make mine longer.  I need to go to the fabric store and see what kind of material I should use.

I have always wanted to have the option of wearing Chinese bangs, but I hate being locked into certain styles.  (This is why I don't have a perm or locks.  They reduce options.)  I also often wear my hair natural.  Chinese bangs would look a mess on my natural texture.  So, what I want is a way to wear my Chinese bangs only when my hair is straightened.  This means that I have no intention of cutting my hair, for that is far to permanent!

The solution lies in adding fake hair.  I am going to make a clip in bang.  I am going to attempt to even create a part for myself by using wig lace.  (I am going to experiment with synthetic hair and tulle the first time though.)

Materials:
Appropriate colored tracks (the weave)
Three snap clips
Tulle (or lace)
Old coffee
Weave glue
Wig hook or ventilator

What to do:

1. Cut the lace or tulle to a proper size. (Mine is something like a half circle with a diameter of about 2.5 inches which means it is about five inches wide.)
2. Glue two rows of tracks to the front of the piece and two to the back.
3. Remove some hair from the tracks.
4. Use you ventilating needle to attach the hair to the middle of the piece.
5. Sew the clips to the piece: two in the front and one in the back.
6. Put the piece on, part, and cut the bangs.

Fashions by

Before we try to address cellulite, let us try to understand what it is. According to this picture, it is simply bulges of fat between fibrous cords. In short, reduce the fat and firm the skin, and cellulite should be reduced.

So today, I made my feet beautiful and soft using four ingredients: water, white vinegar, coconut oil and sugar. Here's how!

I washed and trimmed my hair today. I had intended to do it on Mother's Day, but all plans went awry! So today I decided to just do it.

So, in looking for styles to try, I had three qualifications:
No, loose ends
They had to keep during a workout
They had to be pretty quick

In the last post, I described how to go from wash to flatiron in about an hour. I did highlight ways in which you could reduce the heat in your hair during initial styling, but now I want to explain how to keep straight hair without adding heat daily as so many of us do. So this post is all about styles and maintenance

Back in the day, I used to get up at 5:00 in the morning, knowing I needed to wash my hair, and be out the door by 6:45. I mean I would wash, condition, blow dry, press, and flatiron my hair in additions to showering, eating breakfast, getting dressed (and I was a slip and pantyhose type of girl), an making my lunch. And this post is on how I did it! And just to warn you, it involves looking like a pickaninny between the wash and dry.

In my first or second blog post, I stated that over the next six weeks I would find go to healthy meals, but what good is all this fly (I mean beyond obvious health benefits) if my hair looks like rats been sucking on it?

I have been looking at natural hair care regimens and this is what I am finding:
Friday: Pre-poo overnight (put grease and conditioner in your hair and sleep on it.)
Saturday: Co-wash your hair. (Wash with conditioner which no cosmetologist will tell you is a good idea. They suggest using a sulfate free conditioner.) Do whatever you plan on doing to it so it can dry.
Sunday or Monday: Take it down! You are fit to leave the house.
Somewhere in the middle of the week: You require some sort of hairdo renewal so that you can make it back to...
Friday!

So, I have been looking for a few go to styles for when I go back to work and just in general. I need to bring sexy back! I have been considering how I will maintain my fitness routine when I go back to work. One issue that I will face is maintaining my hair-do. A lot of black women don't workout because it will totally ruin a do. (I know! I was one of those women for years, but all that changes now!) We don't have the luxury of having hair that is well accepted in its natural state within the workplace. You can do semi-natural--you know all the styles with all the products all over YouTube. That is what I call semi-natural because there is nothing natural about all that work! So, I began my quest for a few low-maintenance hairstyles that will allow me to work out and not look like the 70s THREW UP on my head (although I have donned that look on many occasion).

So tomorrow, I have a plan! This is something that I need to have perfected before I go back to work. I am no fan of doing big work to my hair more than once a week. Even when I wore my hair pressed straight, I never did more than wrap it at night to maintain. Never put heat in more than once. In fact, contrary to popular belief, my hair grows really well pressed! but is isn't so good for my new active lifestyle. Anyways, I refuse to spend too much time getting cute. There are too many other things I would rather do!

So, tomorrow: