I love me some Flight of the Conchords, and this one’s about fashion! Thanks to Sadie, one of my 5th graders, for sending this to me. 🙂
song
bill murray sings bob dylan’s “shelter from the storm”
I get mesmerized by this video. Maybe it’s the Dylan song I never heard before that kinda makes me want to Commit To Bob Dylan. Or Bill Murray, who continues to be a completely unique person and fascinates me, and also said this amazing quote: “The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything.” Or maybe it’s the photography, the whole video done in one shot that doesn’t move and captures the beauty of an ignored house.
i don’t want to be shy
This is my cherry blossom silk blouse, finished and styled.
It was frustrating but I am happy with it, as long as I wear it with certain things.
I rather regret not having taken any photos of the blouse without the jacket, since the sleeves are my favorite feature, but alas, the underarms are my least favorite part–all bulge-y and puckered–so I didn’t take the jacket off.
Fortunately, my other favorite thing about the blouse–the silk!–is still there. I shan’t button the jacket since I want the silk to show.
I have a little secret: I had to literally tape this blouse on. It turned out so low-cut (and that was after I modified the pattern) that I can’t wear a bra, and the top slides around rather easily, so I taped it to my chest and shoulders.
I feel it is cheating to tape one’s blouse to oneself–if the garment was well-made tape wouldn’t be necessary, or so my self-critical thought process goes. However, in my Fashion Illustration class last week, our instructor told us models often have to walk down the runway literally holding the clothing together!
Not great, but at least I’m not in the boat alone.
The skirt is also self-made, sort of. It used to be my sister’s A-line bridesmaid skirt from my wedding. She didn’t have plans for it, so I hacked it into a pencil skirt (rather crappily, but I was brand-new to sewing). This marks the first photo shoot I’ve done with more than one item of self-made clothing!
My photos were inspired by the beautiful Anthropologie April 2014 catalog
Petal jacket: Cabi
Pink and velvet heels: Macy’s
Bracelet: boutique on Queen Anne.
work in progress: ‘beauregard’ blouse, step 23/27
Project: Blouse, style 1 from The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook
Phase: Sewing, step 23/27
Makin’ some cuffs, makin’ some cuffs, this is my song about makin’ some cuffs!
I folded the cuff pieces in half, short sides together, then pinned, then stitched.
Then I trimmed the seam allowances and pressed them open. Moving right along here!
raccoon club
This photo was from our latest raccoon encounter: a mom and her two babies wrestling in the parking lot.
It didn’t help that the humans who lived in the complex left all the dumpsters open (or that they put cat food in their storage closets, heh heh). One woman regularly fed them.
Raccoons are not pets, people! They’re cute, fuzzy, and they have FANGS! I heard a story on NPR once about a lady who got attacked by a raccoon who wouldn’t let go of her leg for minutes on end, and then she had to rush to the nearest hospital because rabies sets in very quickly.
Here is a song about raccoons:
flour sack towels…amen
My bonus mom blanket-stitched a pair of flour-sack towels for my husband and me, as a Christmas gift. They’re beautiful! I’ve said it before, folks, and I’ll say it again: I love a home-made gift.
She used a green embroidery thread (a lucky guess, since our kitchen will be green-themed once we’re done with the remodel*). She ordered the flour sack towels online, and they’re very generously sized; I love a huge kitchen towel!
Bonus mom, I forgot to ask you how you kept it looking nice all the way around? Meaning, when I’m doing a blanket-stitch and I run out of thread and have to start a new piece of thread, I don’t know how to pick up the old stitch, so then the new stitch doesn’t connect to the old one and it looks hideous. How did you do yours? Did my question make any sense at all?
*BTWs, I think this is the first time I’ve declared in a blog post officially that we’ll be doing a kitchen remodel. We looked at our finances last night, and we had been planning on doing it in the summer of 2014. But we figured out we can actually do it in the winter of 2014–in other words, next winter break, in one year! I’m super excited. And my bonus mom and stepdad also gave us two kitchen books for Christmas, chock full of ideas. So pretty soon (once progress reports are done and I finish reading the world’s longest–but really quite useful–book about working with spirited children) I’m going to crack those babies open and start taking some notes! Already in my head–picture this if you can–a garbage disposal that works! An actual microwave! Maybe even a lazy susan!
A final note about flour sacks in general, because the phrase “flour sack towels” makes me think of this: when my sisters and I were younger, my dad would take us on road trips, and we always noticed in eastern Washington and also northern California, from the highways we would see all these foothills shaped like–well, big flour sacks. Like big puffy pillows, with a crease between each hill. Anyway, we composed a song (since that’s what everybody does on road trips, compose songs, right?) called “Flour Sack Hills,” with the following, brilliant (and subtle) lyrics…clearing throat, ahem…:
Flour sack
flour sack
flour sack hills!
We are in the flour sack hills!
(Grand finale: to the tune of “Amen” from any church hymn, to be sung slowly and solemnly)
Flour sack…hills!”
We had a four-part harmony and everything, that’s right y’all.
CUP AND PENNY 