**Tap Tap Tap** Is this thing on?? Becca here, coming to you from the Sew Along blog for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER.

But not for long. Oh no no, I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying put right here. But the "Sew Along" blog is! I am changing up this feed! Breathing some new life into it, and giving you all a front row seat as I meet my social sewing goals for 2015.

This means you can check in here to see what other blogger's events - sew alongs, tours, linkies, we're participating in... and you'll ALSO get to see some of your favorite sewing bloggers strut their sewing on our feed in a brand spakin' new sewing contest I've crafted for your viewing pleasure! I'll tell you all about that bit in the weeks to come... For now, I thought I'd kick off this social sewing revolution with my entry into my friend Karly's Taylor Swift inspired sewing contest! Time to get groovy!

For those who haven't heard, Paisley Roots invited us fans to link up our outfits as inspired by the music video for miss Taylor's 2014 mega hit, Shake It Off.

Now. I love Taylor Swift. And I love this song. My summer in San Francisco spent rocking-out-on-repeat may or may not have caused the bay area earthquake. We may never know. In any event, it's a contest that totally spoke to me!

So I broke out some pleather and my Megan Nielsen leggings pattern (great for fabric with 40% stretch!) and busted out a pair of leather pants like the ones Taylor wears in the video...

I mean really, who doesn't have room for a pair (or two or three) of leather leggings in their closet?

Then I thought... to fulfill the contest requirements of using a sponsor pattern, I broke out my all time favorite lounge raglan pattern (Pattern for Pirates) and made my own version of the crop top Taylor's sporting in the video's intro scenes.

I don't quite have Taylor's affinity for cats, so in lieu of the kitty face, I drew up my own design. And yup, I hand embroidered that puppy. You can pretty clearly see where my motivation for embroidery stitching waned over the course of the night. But my sewing machine died yesterday (CURSES!!) and the replacement won't be here until the day this entry is due (2/7 at midnight!) so my grand plans had to be throttled back a bit. The idea was solid though! I chose between this silly ribbon-leap scene and the backwards-ballerina-bunny-hop.

And while I only had scrap sequins to work with, I payed tribute to the metallic track suit with sparkly shoulder patches!

Throw in some bright red stripes (modified Jocole Racerback Tank), red lips, and mega gawdy gold jewelry, and you've got a great Taylor Tribute sew!

Special thanks to JaNette for letting me swing by and hem the stripe shirt after my machine crashed! And I hope Suzanne's photoshopping made you giggle :D

Did you enter a Taylor look?? Spam me with contests and sew alongs you think I should participate in! I just love this stuff :)

Until next time my fellow shakers!

PS: I love you forever for not mentioning my wind-blown cowlick. You're real pals. SMOOCHES!