Project Run and Play

Hello! I meant to do this, but frankly, I'm too busy blowing my nose to really get obsessive about sewing projects.


It's just so fun. And the flickr group! You have to see the flickr group. I was going to be part of the flickr group but alas. It was the first project actually, I was completely stumped, and unwilling to sit and sew a billion ruffles although I thought it would be cute to do a ruffled samba panty for the baby. Maybe I'll get around to it this week! So... it's Fashion Friday, and we need some photos!

Okay. This is someone I don't know, some prime minister's wife or something, but that hat! The black swiss overlay on her dress! It's Burtonesque only espanole! I love it. Yep. Love. It reminds me of a flamingo, an emo flamingo.

Olivia Palermo. I don't even know who this is but Two birds did a fashion inspiration of her once. Is she a model? An actor? A civil rights activist? Daughter to a hotel franchise? No idea, but I love the fur scarf, the boots, the camel with burgundy accents. Oh no! I have no burgundy bags! What am I going to do? Oh well. There's no way in this whole wide wonderful world I have enough hands to use one to hold a purse. No strap, no way. Who walks a dog holding a purse without a strap anyway? She must be a fictional character. I LOVE fictional characters. Anyway, Happy Friday! Any new fashion inspirations going on?

Fashion Friday: Writing my Wardrobe

First thing I knew I was facing off with my closet, one foot in a sophisticated kitten heel, the other bare on the wood floor tapping in time to my alarming song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPZQ7ZLy3MI . Try to not tap your foot, bare or not.

Second thing, slipping into the silver sleek vroommobile on my way to the Woldemort bazaar for my first spectacle. Wrap skirt of an exceptional singular gorgeousness....

Hold on a minute! What's going on here?

Um. Apparently I crave writing a fashion blog so much I'm starting to fictionalize it. Sad really. Fine. I'll do a fashion blog post but only because my psyche is completely out of control and no one wants a dramatized version of me getting dressed (particularly when I'm doing weird stuff like giving alternative names to Walmart that imbue the evil nature of a certain Harry Potter villain which is also an evil franchise (lots of levels there, don't you think?))

Where was I? Right. Fashion post. I've found the BESTEST (It's cuter when other people use it) blog called, the vivienne files which has the capsule stuff, the 4x4 stuff, which I've never heard of but is most useful particularly when you're starting to go insane about hot pink or ox blood, and you have to do something about it, keeps you from having to do an 8x8, gasp. Or you can do the 2x2. You know I'm doing a 4x4 in burgundy for the sewing competition. You people have no idea what I'm ranting about but it's AWESOME! and I'M GOING TO PARIS!!!! I really shouldn't be so excited but I totally am! So whew! Fashion post out of my system I can go back to being a calm, introverted writerly sewist.

Have you got a favorite fashion blog?

Writerly Wednesday! Is there writing going on here?

This summer has been CRAZY, or maybe I should say, last summer. Sigh. I'm not ready for fall, however pretty the trees and clothes are. I finished writing up a novel I've had simmering for two years, WATERGIRL and it's fun. That's it, not deep, emotive, or anything else, but sometimes fun is exactly what I'm in the mood for. It will come out next spring after the usual rounds of painful editing, and we will have a beach party at one of the lakes round about.

So. That was four weeks ago that I wrapped up Watergirl. A month. Since then I've been spinning around in circles with different ideas, you know, the usual, vampire twilike musical set in New Zealand (youtube post coming maybe in the future) steam punk goblins, dystopian ninjas, you know, normal stuff like that. For some reason none of it has truly captured my obsessive nature, which is a pity because summer is when I do the explosive lots of writing that actually moves my stuff along. Oh well.

Hybrid is coming out December 1st, mark it on your calendars (if you do that kind of thing) and the party will be... I actually have no idea. There is a distinct lack of tangoing. Maybe we could have a hair party! Ooooh! I like that! We could have a best hair competition, (weirdest hair actually) or a wig party! Oh, that sounds even funner! (not a word) Anyway, I will have to think on it. If you have an idea, I'd be ever so happy to hear it!

Write on! (yes. I do think puns are HILARIOUS!)

Mmmmm Monday

Dishing out the dough today, you know, the make-a-man type. I do bread the way my mama taught me, only 5 loaves instead of 7. I still make enough dough for 7 though. Oh! Picture!

Everyone is DYING to find out what I do with the extra dough, so I will start by telling a long, convoluted tale about Chaucer, ready? OK! So, there's this medieval cookbook that I stumbled upon at some point in my life, and I made a good deal of Chaucer inspired pasties and meat pies, although honestly, everything else in the book was absolutely VILE but back to pasties. I feel positively medieval when I make a pie that isn't sweet, after all, no one says, "As American as a meat pie", but I think they shoulde. (yes. I added that e on purpose!) And now I'm going to the theatre! You see how great this cooking thing can be? It automatically makes you multicultural, and multi-time-dimensional... anyway.

So... for music Monday I have my Favorite station on Pandora, "Via Con Me" radio, which brings up the loveliest mix of tango, spanish,  jazz that I've ever heard. It makes me weep nightly to hear it. That's a good thing. Have a great week! Do you have a great Pandora station I should try?

It's a CONTEST!!! I'm totally going to win

One of my favorite sites for sewing is www.patternreview.com They have pattern reviews that are so detailed and thoughtful, plus I get to see how stylish and awesome real people are. Sewer people. Like me. Some of my favorite wardrobe/capsules have come from their site because the people there sew because they know what they want and you can't always buy what is in your head, but you can make it. That's where I'm at.

So, they're having a mini wardrobe contest. I have a button!



I have problems with buttons, particularly the square ones. Just a thought--there should definitely be more round buttons. Anyway, I'm kind of getting psychotic about burgundy this fall, ever since the Vogue origami incident. So, basically it's burgundy with black, which is so awesome, only for all the chic fashionistas we have to call it (ew) oxblood. Burgundy and maroon are so passe.

This is my inspiration board.

The central dress is how the lace will look like, but it will be in a cascade cardigan as seen top left. No taupe here. This is me doing Polyvore pretty boringly. The skirt... well, I love it. But, I'm not sure if it won't morph into something a little less time intensive. 

The contest runs from September 1- 31st. Four items that are supposed to work with one key item. The key item would be my last month's masterpiece, the origami blouse. So... wish me sewing luck, which I need because school is in, and my time is suddenly consumed with that homeschool thing. Today was the first day. Actually, it was marvelous because I have this book about all the days of the year and what exciting thing happened that day... so September is sewing month and Breakfast month. This morning I had all the children make breakfast, and they LOVED it. I mean, if you're going to teach something, it may as well be how to make a nice three course breakfast;)

Happy September everybody!!!

Monochrome and Vogue

Hello! This is a sewing/fashion post, so whooo hooo! You know I'm having a good time. Vogue 1259 is a DKNY pattern that's all sculptural and asymmetrical. I don't usually do this, but last year I swooped up the pattern the first time I saw it with the burgundy spandex there, on their discount clearance table, back when I was allowed to buy fabric (nostalgic moment).

Anyway. This last Friday I was looking for something to whip together, and I pulled this sucker out. It's spandex. Knit. How hard could it be? So what if the pattern was labeled 'plus dificile' and 'advanced' it would be a cinch.

Um. Spandex might be cinching my waist but that's the only cinching going on here. So that's what I've been doing non-stop, well, as non-stop as every day existence will let me.

This is the pattern picture:

Cute, right? Yes, right! And she looks so elegant and demure and AUDREY FREAKING HEPBURN   I could just die.

And here's me:

I am so gorgeous I can't even open my eyes to see because I'll be struck blind at once. Oh, the divinity. Oooh that reminds me of divinity candy, you know, the kind we put black walnuts in as a kid but could never get all the shells out of so eating divinity was always a spitting kind of occasion (gave me weird ideas about heaven and angels spitting on people, but you know, I'm mostly over that).

So nothing about divinity, but Turkish Delight! I am going to make some. It is going to be delightful and probably nothing like the kind you could get in Turkey, you know, munching as you stroll towards the Hagia Sophia, which we all do every other weekend at least.

And... this is my monochromatic outfit because it's actually a shirt and skirt, which you'd never know because who knows what is going on with this thing? Seriously, hardest thing I've ever put together. It made no sense at all logically, so I had to let go of logic and use Daisy, my body form to pin seams together so they wouldn't get twisted without me realizing. Oh, the mental anguish.

Anyway. This works really well with my perfectly perfect boots, which is kind of sad because I found some jaw droppingly gorgeous shoes at 6p.m. that needed me until I found my shoes in my very own closet. Two pairs of burgundy shoes. Still. I obviously need more.