Caution: Embellishment Underway

I'm always interested in the discussions that pop up periodically on sewing sites and blogs about why people sew....even if I seldom take the time to answer directly myself.  Personally, I just love clothes and like having garments that fit me, my lifestyle and my budget.  I like having tried and true patterns that I can pull out and make up quickly but add my own touch of personalization.  So I sew quite a bit but don't sew a huge variety of patterns.  (Of course, that never stops me from buying them.)  Once I get a pattern to fit I like to make it a bit more special and unique.  One of the things I always notice when snoop shopping is that high end retail fashions use nicer quality fabrics and have more detailed and elaborate embellishment.  For example, one of m pet peeves is when embellishment is only on the front of a garment and is not continued in some small way around to the back.  Last summer when I made several versions of Simplicity 2409 ( Five versions of Simplicity 2409 in my PR review)   I made sure that my embellishing continued over the shoulder to make the back and front of the tops read as one fashion statement, front or back.

Another embellishment of a TNT pattern was behind purchasing this little gizmo at Joann's last week when it was 40% off.  I collected dupionis and cotton silk blends to make  yo-yos to arrange on my garment.  This template is a slightly modified yo-yo maker, with a petal design but I'm not sure it is worth the effort....or maybe I'm just not doing it right.  So I'll make a dozen of these shaped versions, then a dozen regular round yo-yos and see what I think of this idea.

Yo yos in progress

Some silk ribbons that might end up in the project.

Since there are no garment pics, I'll leave you with some of our Baltimore summer fun.  Downtown Baltimore is built around what's called the Inner Harbor of the Chesapeake Bay.  There are many different neighborhoods, business and entertainment venues but this is one we enjoy weekly.  At the end of an old pier in Fells Point there's an outdoor movie shown each Wednesday night.  You can bring a chair or blanket, sit along the waterfront and enjoy dusk falling all over town.  By the time it's dark enough there are more than a few hundred people under the stars ready to enjoy another show.  This summer we've seen The Fighter, The Social Network, and Ironman 2.  

The pier with a movie screen on the side of a truck at the end

Across the harbor is Domino Sugar, with a ship unloading into the storage units.  On a hot summer night the air smells like cotton candy.

An unrestored pier with a grey heron and in the background, Federal Hill with the large American flag...yes, "by the rocket's red glare."

For all I know, there could be other Baltimore sewists in the crowd!