C is for Sock

In the middle of my weekly ritual of purifying the clearance racks at Michael's of any bargain finds, I happened open some cute little letter patches. Impulsively, I snatched up as many red "C's" as I could find. Six, in all, for fifty cents each.


Eager to find something to put all the "C's" on, I thought I might get some socks. Heartened by the promise of a big bag of Sunchips, Sak drove me to Target to get some black socks. I picked up some for our brothers, as well.


Next, the simple task of ironing on the "C" patches! (All the guys happen to have names that start with "C", interestingly enough.)


Except...the adhesive didn't work at all! Either the patch-glue was too old, the socks were too odd of a material, or some combination of the two - but it just wasn't working.

I tried some fabric glue, and although it seemed to work, the patch would still rip off if given a big enough stretch. I gave up at this point, the guys could just have plain black socks, no problem. It really wasn't a project worth spending a ton of time on.

But the socks snuck off to my grandmother's when I wasn't looking, and she decided to take care of the problem in true-sewing-fashion. I can see her shaking her head at me. Between my veil mess and this, she must think I'm crazy. You know, if the costumes I bring to her every year for advice didn't do so already.


Now, I did try and sew these myself. I promise! But I couldn't fit the sock under the foot! She removed part of the base of the machine in order to get it to fit better, which was a really smart idea! I also couldn't hand-sew the C either, though I tried. The adhesive on the patch was really tough to push the needle through.


Anyway, she knocked them out in no time and they are all complete now, minus the leftover glue marks on some of them from my fail-attempt. I was pretty surprised when my mother brought the pictures and finished socks over!

I know it's just another little detail that no one will see, but I like that my grandmother was able to get involved, and I learned how to manipulate the machine in order to sew things onto socks! Plus, the guys will be able to tell their socks apart from other random black socks in the future! Or something. But yes, next time I'll stick to only ironing things onto cotton materials, and not crazy spandex dress socks.

What have you monogrammed so far? Or maybe - what haven't you monogrammed?

Well Suited - And Well Fitted

Suits. Probably one of the biggest wedding headaches thus far, both on account of Sak's inability to fit anything and his chronic fear of clothing stores that kept him from even attempting to find something.

Sak: "Can't I just wear the suit I already have?"

What? WHAT?

Me: "You...already..have a...suit?"
Sak: "Yeah. It's custom fitted from Hawaii, I wore it once to my job interview."
Me: "You...already..have...a..suit..."
Sak: *blank stare* "Yes..."

Sak ran upstairs and looked into that magical closet of his, and what-do-you-know...one custom-fitted, black, practically-brand-new suit!

I had no idea!

Why, oh why, were we looking for another one, if he already had one? Apparently, because Sak didn't think I'd find his existing suit fancy enough.

But if it ends the suit headache, it's most definitely fancy enough. And it fits. IT FITS.

But of course, there's still more to the story. Sak did end up trying Nordstrom's, and they could fit him, but at a very high price tag. We did look through Chinatown, but forgot to get place recommendations before we went. We subsequently got lost and never found anything. We tried another Macy's and Men's Wearhouse and JC Penney's, to no avail. We even tried a kid's suit, but it was too small in the shoulders.

His existing suit is more than fine.

And now that the groom had his suit, we rallied up the brothers again, this time to find something that matched the color and style of said existing suit.

And it wasn't nearly so bad. We went to Men's Wearhouse in Valley Fair and compared the color to all the suits in the store, looking for that right shade of black. It was determined that Sak's suit was more of a red-black rather than a blue-black, and once we found something, the salesperson let the guys try the jackets on outside so we could see the true colors in the sun. We found something similar, at a decent price and zip, zip, zip - measurements were taken.

Then all three were fitted for white French cuff shirts, and we were done. Now wasn't that easy?

But I should have checked the price on the white shirts before buying them. They were seriously pricey for a plain white shirt. And alterations add up too, but that's a necessary expense for our non-standardized men. Total price for two suits and three shirts? $741.28. That breaks down to $349.98 for two suits, $198.50 for three shirts, $130.00 for alterations, and $62.80 in tax. I think we could have done better had I tried harder, but not that bad, especially if it ends my suit-induced headaches.

So now I have some suits lying around my house until I see our brothers again. Hopefully they will still fit in a month or two!

And I still can't believe Sak just happened to have a suit sitting around all this time. It looks good on him - I should convince him to wear it around the house more often!

Sak: International Man of Mystery.

Do you know what's in your significant other's closet? How many suits should one man own?

DIY Cuff-links

With Sak's brother visiting for part of his spring break, I thought it would be a good time to pull out one of the more interesting projects I've been wanting to try: cuff-links!

A few weeks ago I snatched up this book called DIY Bride at the library.

The customized cuff-link idea in particular was very interesting to me, so I started gathering supplies. From Fire Mountain Gems, I ordered a bunch of cuff links (only $1.73 a pair!) with bezel cup settings already attached.

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From Michael's I grabbed some 2-part epoxy resin, for about $10.

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First, I asked Sak, his brother and my brother what kind of cuff-link images they'd like. Penga brother wanted some cool-looking crosses, Sak-brother wanted the first character of his Japanese name, and Sak (naturally) chose to use Keroro and Tamama's heads. After they had all decided, Sak went to work scaling the images down to a half inch diameter circle. We printed that out, and cut out the circles.

Sak decided to make everything black and white so as not to stand out too much, but really these can be as colorful as you'd like.

Next, we pushed the image into the bezel cup. If it doesn't stay on it's own, you can use some glue to keep it from moving.

Then Sak made a little stand for the cuff links to sit in so they could dry evenly.

And now it was time to mix the resin! We kept a window open for ventilation, and used a plastic cup we could throw away later.

Following the directions on the box, we mixed equal parts of each solution together. Then we mixed it together...

...and poured it into the cuff-links!

We accidentally poured too much the first time, while trying to create a nice round meniscus.

Oops, right? Well, since the resin doesn't set for a good 24 hours, we had time to clean it up. But it turned out there was another problem, because after the day-long curing process, the cuff-links still hadn't set! We deduced that we hadn't measured the resin and the hardener in at exactly-equal amounts, so we started over with more precision. The second time it hardened perfectly!


I'm quite pleased with how simple and effective this project turned out, but if I could add one more bit of advice - let the ink on your printed pictures dry completely! Some of our links look a bit "fuzzy" due to paper bleeding, so I might try a couple over again once my second shipment of cuff-links shows up in the mail!

Will your men be wearing cuff-links? What kind?

By the Power Vested

A while back, Sak realized he didn't fit any suits at the store. Sadly, we have yet to resume the search, due to his bruised ego and our mutual discomfort around pushy sales people. It's led the family to jokingly say, "Why don't you just make his suit then?"

Hmm. Why don't we? I think I can handle at least part of it, at least. So like the talented Miss Poodle, we set out to make a vest.

I picked out Vogue Pattern 8048, and we decided option C would be the best.



I found some awesome tropical plant overlay fabric for the outside, and Sak chose some crepe-backed satin for the inside lining.

First I cut out all the pieces. Unfortunately, Sak is smaller than the smallest size on the pattern, so of course I had to adjust for that.

Then Sak ironed on the lightweight fusible interfacing for me. This gives the vest a crisp look.


Next, I went through the somewhat arduous task of putting on pockets. In theory it was not so hard, but the drawing direction was vague and I ended up sewing the welts on upside down the first time around. This is why technical writers are oh-so-very important!

Cutting open the pocket was the best part!

Next came the back-waist-cinch-tie thing. I'll need to find a nice clasp for it I think.

We made sure to press the seams down as we went, so the vest would lay flat!

Time to sew the liner and the front together!

Once it was sewn, we flipped the whole thing inside out, and pressed down the edges!

Finally, I sewed the shoulders together, and voila!

One vest for Sak. (His shirt in the picture is a more of a light grey, which makes the vest look a little odd. The wedding shirt will be white.)


Instead of buttons on the front, I'm thinking of buying some frogs instead.

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Or do would that be too much?

Sak also brought up the idea of maybe doing the outer layer of my corset in the tropical overlay fabric instead of the lace, so that we would match. Would this be a good idea? I really love the lace, but I love the idea of matching as well! Maybe we'll make two corsets for my indecision!

Will you match your groom in any way?

Well Suited - Or Not.

Ready for some more fail? I've got plenty.

My grand-master-plan before Thanksgiving was to get pics of Sak and our brothers trying on suits in Monterey so I could post some awesome pictures.

Well, that didn't happen, for two reasons. First, apparently most shops don't let you take pictures.

Huh?

I guess it's similar to how some bridal shops won't let you take pictures in the designer dresses, but Macy's said no pictures. I didn't bother trying at Men's Wearhouse, for the second reason.

Nothing fits my fiance.

Macy's took one look at him and said, nope, not going to happen. Men's Wearhouse put three different jackets on him before coming up with some elaborate tailoring scheme I'm convinced would not be worth the effort. Banana Republic had nothing smaller than a 32 waist (we need a 27).

His chest is too flat (can I say that about a guy?), so he couldn't "fill out" any of the jackets. His arms are also too short, but that (I'm told) is an easy tailor fix.

So I tread lightly across poor Sak's masculine pride and asked the salesman - "Do you think I could try a children's suit?"

Luckily for his pride (and only his pride), his shoulders happen to be normal-man size, so a boy's size probably wouldn't work.

And since the boys want to match, we ended up not getting anything for Sak-brother or Peng-brother either.

So what do we do now?

The salesman at Macy's suggested Sak try the Nordstrom's in San Jose. We both supressed an inner snark-laugh at this, but it makes sense despite the stereotyping. Of course you'd send the small Asian man to an area with plenty of other small Asians.

So the new grand-master-plan is this: Sak and I go to Nordy's in San Jose, and after we find something that will fit him, we'll take down the "part number" of the suit, and have Sak-brother try on the right style at Nordy's in LA. Peng-brother will just have to spare a weekend to come up to San Jose himself, since I don't think they have a Nordy's in San Luis Obispo. I wonder how hard it will be to fit my 6'3" bean-pole of a brother? Hopefully easier than my 5'2" FI. Sak-brother is the only normal sized guy around, it seems.

Penga-brother and Sak, two extremes!

And if, for some unforseeable reason it doesn't work out at Nordy's - we're going to the Chinese Bridal shop in downtown San Mateo, and have something custom made.

Any other options you can think of? How are you getting your men dressed? Any difficult sizes to accomodate?

Well Suited

Well, now that Sak-brother has decided to come visit us for Thanksgiving break (he goes to school in L.A.), Sak and our 2 brothers can go suit shopping!

All three boys are fairly skinny. One is tall AND skinny. So I think we'll be needing a more "fitted" suit. These go by many different names: modern fit, European cut, slim cut, etc. And they are really snazzy looking! Here's some samples (click the images for the source):


Aren't they awesome? I can't wait to see them in them! We'll probably get them from Macy's, since we have an awesome Auntie discount we can use! Thanks for that! Here's two I like..

The top image is an Alfani 3-button in black, and the bottom image is an Alfani 2 button in charcoal. I think I like the 3-button better, but I can't decide whether I like solid black, or charcoal black. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I'm envisioning the brothers wearing red vests and ties, with a nice red pocket squares instead of boutonnieres. Sak will have a white vest and tie, with a white pocket square. He decided early on that pocket squares (to him) are much more manly than a flower, and it's one less floral arrangement I'll have to think about.Similar to this vest and pocket square?

Black or Charcoal? 2-button or 3-button? Should I give up the hunt for dragon-embroidered silk vests? Do they need fancy hats? Suspenders?

Or maybe a better question - is all this fanciness going to make them pass out in the hot Hawaiian sun? Air-conditioned buildings are a must!

What are you doing? Going for a certain look regardless of the weather? Or keeping it practical and comfortable?