Whooosh! Ziiip! fling-flang-foom!

That’s about what it feels like in my brain the last couple weeks: I can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing without immediately getting sidetracked. There are some up sides to it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s sort of taxing. I went to the ABC Sale this Saturday past, and found a nice little haul of goodies no doubt in part because I was too overstimulated to get bored and want to go home. Naturally it was worth it because, aside from getting lots of neat things, I love a good yard sale:

Free patterns! a leather satchel for $5! liberty of london silk paisley tie for a quarter! and a funky ultrasuede purse and a vintage-y white sweater and a nice handful of scarves and kid leather gloves, and I spent about $20 all together. Not too shabby—and next year I’ll know to hit the accessories and textiles rooms first. But even afterwards I was too riled up to just go home and have a nice sandwich and relax for a bit: I just wanted to go out and find more little gems in slightly neglected thrift-store-type places. When I get rewarded for knowing stuff (Liberty of London? a quarter?! wooo!) or being in whatever random place I happen to be in or for having exact change, it’s not enough to let it be: I have to expend more energy to keep my good thing going, or something. Sometimes that works wonders; you keep your eyes open and continue to see fantastic things. But it makes me tired and sort of disheartened with how flaky and obsessive I can be all at the same time. What is my solution? I’m taking a big fat week off work.

Equal parts fabric, coffee, paint, squiggley lines, Golden Girls, working on my tan, petting the cat, and cookies.

I have some tenuous goals for next week. I do want to have something (and some things) to show for my nine consecutive days at home, but I’m going to concentrate the most on keeping anything work-related from entering my head. I will focus instead on:

Eating a good breakfast;

the growing springtime around the house;

the best way to drink a pina colada in the hammock without spilling it;

starting and finishing at least one springy, summery article of clothing (probably with polka dots);

Petting ollie the best love girl;

Playing dress up.

I’m also going to try to blog a smidge every day, if for no other reason than I must document vociferously my “no damn way I’m going in to work today” lifestyle—you know, for memories to hold dear when I finally have to go back.

Heads up Triangulars, the world-class ABC sale over at The Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill is from 9-2pm tomorrow, that’s Saturday 4/12. No visit was as charmed as our first, where we scored a several nice frames, an old projector screen and this lovely deluxe Scrabble board, each one of ‘em for $5 a piece IIRC.

See you first at the farmer’s market and then at the ABC.

p/s. Anyone know where I can score an “Eat Local” and “Buy Local” sticker for my car?

You know what? I think more inspiring to me than anything else is Change. When change happens, when you can sniff it out in the air, when it falls from the sky and lands on your shirtsleeve–that’s what can really get me thinking and working and moving. And of course it’s much more awesome when the changeling matter falling from the sky is like a new pair of Costume National sandals and not hokeberry-purple robin poo, but as sad as it is that the former has never happened to me? Neither has the latter. So it’s all good, I guess.

I’ve been sewing it up a smidge the last couple weeks, and it feels really good. Part of that is knowing, seeing firsthand, that I’m getting better. Better at sewing in a straight line, and a curved line, pressing neatly, and even figuring out what changes to make to have whatever garment it is actually fit my body better. I’m still having some issues at being slightly prompt with it all, but you know what? Stuff is getting done. I’m doing all right. It’s working. And part of that is because it’s beginning to warm up outside–the transition to springtime is at least in full push, even if I might wear wool sweaters a few more times before they get put up for the season. However it happened, I think I realized that the beginnings of change are what gets me going the most: so while I’m not at all organized enough to plan out a SWAP (Sewing With A Plan), I *do* have some ideas about stuff I want to sew up for the warmer days of 2008.

Bright or bold and slightly goony-abstract floral prints.

Seriously, I love that mess. And it can get tricky using them without looking like a cartoon character, but with proper grounding it’s just buckets of fun waiting to happen. Also it makes you want to drink blueberry dacquiris in the park, and what the hell is wrong with that? Full skirts for the heavier weights with big prints, dress bodices and short-sleeved blouses for the lighter weight, sheer stuff, both to be paired with solid colors and my excellent taste in shoes.

Minorly unexpected color combinations.

Keep it safely distanced from that day-glo nonsense of the early nineties, and pair rich tones with more neutrals. Go opaque brights with sheer muted tones, get your brown on with the teal, mix silver grey into the yellow and deep plum. C’mon! Get your chocolate in my peanut butter.

Wear amazing shoes with everything, period.

This may mean spending some money on new shoes. I can totally live with that. And all these totally impractically expensive shoes have nothing really to do with sewing, except that I can be inspired to match my blouse to my colorblocked Miss Sixty wedges or match my saddle brown with black to highlight those fan-effing-tastic Costume National wooden sandals. And if I sew all my clothes and still look like a million bucks, it means that I just saved like two thousand dollars, right? HMM WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THAT MONEY. Hmmm.

So quick question for anybody out there reading in the internetly ether of ten-fifty-eight on a Tuesday night:

How high is this wedge? What’s your estimation, here?

Amazon says it’s three and a half inches; Zappos says it’s three and three-quarters inches; and both piperlime and shoes-dot-com say that it’s four inches. I think it’s gotta be between 3 3/4″ and 4″ at least, so … is amazon smoking some shwag or what?

I must first say that I need no real trigger to daydream about shoes for hours, whole evenings and/or Saturday afternoons, and in hindsight? for many years. But it’s been marked the last couple days, more than normal. I do talk a lot, and I even buy kind of a lot when it comes to footwear, but what I really excel at is looking at them. I can look for hours– deep into the wee hours of the morning, on dozens of different sites– sometimes with nothing more reputable to go on than a vague description of color or the kinda-sorta remembered name of the designer. Yishikomo? Tomorushi? Kukaburra? No no no. Kishimoto, Eley Kishimoto.

I get obsessed with finding improbably perfect examples of footwear (according to my fickle yet exacting tastes) and SALE is like the biggest word in my shoe vocabulary. Because I love them, LOVE them, but to this day haven’t paid more than about $140 for a single pair. Now, I don’t wear boots, because my hulky calves prefer to not be encased in zip-tied leather coffins (and that might be the only way I could get a damn pair to fit me), but I have some snooty damn taste. If money weren’t an issue? I’d be all over Celines and Donna Karans and Roberto Cavallis, with Sergio Rossis and Robert Clergeries getting overtime as bedroom slippers. I’d have different pairs of shoes in the backseat of my car, just so I could put ‘em on to run into the grocery store to buy unsalted butter or some hot dog buns instead of wearing the more practical shoes I had on at work that day. I’d put special, lucite-encased shelves along every inch of space on the bedroom walls* so as to have my lovelies on permanent display without the hazards of dust encasing their tender, satin ruffles-turned-rosettes or marring the petite beaded accents in the center of that crocheted poppy. But one thing I would not do, no ma’am no sirree, is spend any less time admiring the qualities of Fantastic Footwear. Which, more or less, leads me to the real subject of my post.
*I’m sure Beck, my lovely partner, is like all cool with this. Right, hon?

There’s always a little spring in the air in NC, even in January.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sandals lately. Now I’ve worn a few open-toed pairs this quote-unquote WINTER with tights, and I can surely get behind that look, but I really love showing off the little piggies. Mine are several cries away from uber toe modelling capability, but I can appreciate shoes with wide open spaces pretty comfortably. Especially if I have a freshly touched up double coat of polish. I’ve worn a couple pairs pretty much to death the last few years, a pair of Re-mix Picasso wedgies and a pair of pretty simple Kenneth Cole Reaction rubber-soled ankle-wraps. Both black, both with a nice low wedge, both crazy comfy and both, at long last, in a very worn state. I have other summery shoes of course (of course!) but they don’t have the staying power, or the GO-TO status of these two that, if not the dust, then at least have bitten a slipcover that could use a good shaking out. All this plus the fact that I have already filed my taxes for this year and I’ll be getting a decent chunk of change back; or because I just got paid; or because Venus is conjuncting Jupiter today; means that I’m really pretty ready to take the plunge and buy the next pair. Some of the ones I’m thinking about are totally impractical, and I know I won’t buy ‘em. Some of them have a stronger appeal because I walk about a mile to and from work every day and these look like they should hold up all right. Some of them I’m thinking long and hard about because they’re pretty cheap, others because I’m becoming more and more a slave to trendy fashion! Who knew! So let’s begin:

Perhaps the easiest, if not most logical, point of beginning is to pick up where we left off. I’ve got two pairs of totally dying black sandals, so let’s see what’s out there in open-toed, low-wedged or -heeled, ankle-strapped black sandal world:

Nine West I can sort of deal with. They’re not my favorite quality-wise, and comfort can be real hit or miss, but they do have their copying little fingers on the trendy pulses that beat loudly with the advent of new seasons. I mean, have you seen their newest creations? Marni must’ve done them wrong in a former life.
These are from last year, actually, but I think they’re cute. That might be a smidge too much of a height-booster, though. Three inches is my max, if I include in my range stuff that makes my feet hurt after a full day. And there is that nice platform to offset at least one of those inches, but you’re still up in the air, there. Maybe not the best choice.

Next up on the choppin’ block is a pair of campers. Now, I have a pair from a couple years ago that I totally adore– a pair of red and black sandals that fall oh so perfectly into my checkboard, Stendhal-esque way of dressing myself in the summer, plus they’re okay comfort-wise and the rubber heel is a humongous blessing. But really? They might be a little too orthopedic-looking. Hmm. Next.

Now these! Oh goodness! I can’t go on enough about how Clergerie shoes are practically perfect on my admittedly less-than little feetsies. They’re a little extra wide at the ball which I need, and in the heel too which I don’t but is all right, and the lasts must have my social on them– I mean, the pitch and overall shape is just right. Plus the quality is top-notch, they’re kinda funky-retro but not in any way cheap or hoochy. They’re pretty damn good Me-shoes…ahh, except that they’re like five hundred dollars. And, you know, I just– I just don’t think I can do it. Previous Clergerie purchases were made on the ‘lectronic bay for about 20% of what they cost new. What can I say? I fricking love bargain hunting. This Rosie style is brand new though, and ebay’s always such a shot in the dark, anyway. Better keep looking.

I’m digging the dark silvery color pretty heavily so far, and this might be a neat alternative to neutral black. Reviews say that this is a pretty comfy shoe, even though that heel is up there; the stacked heel puts it neatly into warm-weather territory even if the pewter color makes you think about Autumn leaves and what-not; and it’s on crazy sale right now for like $30. Uhm, we may have to just get this one even if I only wear it on weekends, maybe? Of course, there are other pewter/dark silver/gunmetal/oxidized chrome color shoes out there, and more than one pair might be overdoing it, so maybe not. In comparison, I think I’d much rather have the …

Ooh yes! Mmm delicious! Lovely silvery strappy low-funky-heeled ankle-straped d’orsay GOODNESS! Seriously, I love these. And I love them in silver lame’ more than any other color. I just don’t know how good they’d be for summery shoes, you know? I may get these just ’cause I love them, and not as my must-wear-for-summer-shoes. Of course, I said that about those Espace Mygne heels, too– and now the zappos clearance bin, 6pm.com doesn’t have anything between an 8.5 and a damn 11.

These Faryl Robins I like, though they might not do much for making my legs look sleek; which means I might not wear them much, after all. I do like the retro attitude, and black and the pale natural woven platform ‘n’ heel is a great way to incorporate a more grounded color scheme to the brights we’re seeing all about this season, and again, super sale. Fifty bucks. Which isn’t really all that crazy inexpensive, like twenty bucks, but they’re still like 70% off. So, hrmm.

Where is my candy?

Of course I wouldn’t just wear any of the above just to work; it would maybe only be predominantly to work because, hey: I spend a lot of hours here. But in all this looking at shoes, don’t we need to see some crazy high heels up in here? I thought so.

Aww yeah! Holy cow! I wouldn’t even be able to walk to the bathroom in these, but I want them. Like, reallllly waaaant them; in part because they’ve been for sale at an online consignment place for a while now, and I guess no one else wants them, and the price has been slashed to three canned goods and they’re my size and they’re in mint condition and– and– breathe. Breathe, now. Maybe I’ll cave in this weekend, or maybe I’ll buy something more practical (i.e. something that I would get real-world, out-of-the-house wear from, instead of breaking them out of their dustbags once a month for three minutes while I coo and whisper to them as I lay incapacitated on the bed).

Woo! More pretty green shoes! I’m pretty impressed with Charmone’s offerings, if for no other reason than they’re super high quality and animal-product free. Since I’ve grown into my girly-ass identity, inclusive of the shoes, I’ve been pretty admissive with wearing leather. My standards for quality and appearance are even more unwavering than my hippie vegetarian ways, and while I’d pick the non-leather if I had the choice? You hardly ever have the choice. These beauts not only give you a loophole, but let you straddle the line between 70s glam rock outrageousness and 40s nightclub songstress while you’re being a hippie vegetarian. How cool is that?

These are pretty cutesy, and not in the way I’m always satisfied with. I have some cutesy shoes that I love, but the peeptoe and the bow and the button and the color might put this too squarely on Minnie Mouse for my tastes. But maybe not; it comes in black, too, but I think I like the green better. It’s another one of those they-have-my-size-and-it’s-on-sale-woo! shoes, so it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll buy it. Even if I would wear it about 800% more often than the Vera Wang silk pump up there.

So tell me: what do y’all think?

Look! Look at you! I mean me! It’s about time–I know. I’m sorry, me. I’ll do better this year, ‘kay?

So this is the second year in a row where I’ve prefaced many a January conversation with the phrase, “I think new year’s resolutions are kind of dumb, but x and y and z…”. Last year I really only said that I wanted to sew more, and I did–even by the end of the month I’d made a butchly plaid bathrobe for my butchly darling lady. And while I did grow, I think, in some of my sewingness abilities, I still left country miles’ worth of room for improvement. Some of which I want to address this year, or at least list*.

*maybe not until February.

I’ve always sort of told myself that a reason I like sewing is because you can dress yourself in fancy togs without having to pay the beaucoup dolores. Also because you can sew silk chiffon to shiny yellow vinyl, if you really want to, and your imagination is really the only limit to what wild apparel could be gracing the hangers in your closet. If not your fine self, that is, depending on your day job. It’s also a slight justification of mine for spending many, many hours scouring the style.com fashion show archives and having a purely obsessive relationship with luxury apparel websites. And until now, I’ve only ever exercised the first half of this equation; which is to say, I haven’t actually done anything, but doggone it, I think it’s time. So strap on your Onslow County fair roller coaster seat belt! I think we might need it.

See this pretty thing? I really like it. It’s an Alexander McQueen dress from the Fall 2006 collection (I think?), and I’ve ogled it for about a year now with only vague confidences: that I could ever wear something like it, that I might be able to spend that kind of dough on something so superfluous, and at the very end of the list if I’m being honest with myself, that I could ever, *ever* sew up something even slightly reminiscent of it myself. I looked for home sewing patterns that approximated the design so that I could be a baby step closer to it, but I don’t think that’s the right direction for me. The draping at the waist is going to be the hardest part, and that’s the aspect I can’t find any kind of instruction on–I’m pretty sure the neckline cowl is on-grain, and since I’m full busted I’d have to roughly eyeball the finished drapelines anyway. So what am I going to do? or at least attempt? Sit right there and give a good earful to this: I’m going to try to whip this baby up myself. I might use a pattern from the stash for the back of the dress, to give myself a sort of break, but that’s at least a couple days in the future. A rudimentary draping exercise yielded this, which actually has me a little hopeful? or at least slightly giving in to the thought that maybe I’m not insane, after all. Hey! I said maybe.

And this is what I played around for: to see if I could kinda sorta get the drapey lines I could so easily envision. I think it’s possible; I first tried folding a cowl at the neckline on the bias, but it was way too drapey and stretched out looking. I thought maybe I could pull up enough fabric in the skirt to have the bottom hem on the straight of grain, but it still didn’t look right:

So I guess I’ll have the hem of the dress be off grain…which could be all right as long as I let it hang and settle for a couple days? I guess? I’m also sort of wondering what the best option is for lining the dress: keep it a simple sheath style, or should I mimic the draping so it all wears the same? And I think I’ll have to either put in a cowl stay in the bodice, or else make the lining with that in mind; and then how should I finish off the cowl, too? do I need a waist stay? should I rethink cutting out the front as a single piece?

And most importantly: isn’t a little bit too late to be thinking about all this mess? Shouldn’t you be in bed watching futurama? Who would win in a battle to the death, Turanga Leela or Captain Kirk?

So how often does it happen that you’re all dumbfounded for gift ideas? Massaging slippers are sort of dumb, retro Anchor Hocking highball glasses on ebay are crazy expensive, and Chia Pets are inedible and therefore even worse than light-up yo-yos. Am I right?

So I decided for the most recently completed Round O’ Holidays that I would make all kinds of things for people: quilts, pajama pants, holiday napkins, slippers, aprons, slipcovers for various appliances and/or items of furniture, bathrobes, jaunty little scarves, and so on. And while I do enjoy some aspects of holiday mayhem, more often than not I bake a couple different kinds of cookies, in plans of gift-giving on the personalized and cheaper end of the spectrum, and then eat myself into a mild sugar coma while watching cartoons on the tee vee. Alas, the end of 2006 was no different - at least, almost no different. I did make a couple things, of which I was pretty proud and were well received, but it wasn’t as much as I’d reckoned on. One item which wasn’t whipped up in time for xmas/new year’s, but was whipped up eventually, was The Morgan Apron.

I originally intended to make this as an xmas/seasonal/new year’s present for my good friend, Morgan, but it kept getting pushed back. Luckily, the month of March saw her moving into a swell new place with her lovely gf *and* her birthday, so a convenient subsitute of gift-worthy dates arose. Lucky me!
Anyway, back when it was supposed to be a December-gift, I asked Beth (the lovely gf) if she thought an apron would be a good gift, and she was all OH YES. TOTALLY SHE WOULD LOVE IT. And I followed up with, Well, what kind of apron? And I don’t think she said “funky,” but that was the subtext I picked up on. I bet she said colorful, fun, maybe crazy, but definitely not faux fur and oilcloth . Yet therein lies the beauty of subtext, gentle readers; without it every performance of The Glass Menagerie would be sterile and predictable. And perhaps without it, also, Morgan would’ve gotten a very nice apron for sure, but it may not’ve been half made up of inch-deep thick pile bright blue fuzzy-wuzz, with the opposite side wiping clean for splatters of tomato sauce and strawberry milkshakes.

The most fun part was probably the idea hatching stage, because how often, really, do you get to buy kelly green satin blanket binding and bright blue depp-pile fake fur in the same shopping trip? It went together relatively easily, though there’s always room for improvement and/or creative variation. Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonated/sets/72157600052316992/ for lots of pictures of the Morgan Apron Makin’ Process.

The Ides of March has a bad rap for denoting impending doom, or at least imminent discretionary events. But what about the folks who thought Caesar was a jerk? Maybe the IoM took on a celebratory nature in 43 B.C. and thereafter; maybe Brutus cranked out some handmade notecards and invited people over for finger foods and mead. Well, that’s what we’re doing anyway – it’ll coincide nicely with St. Patrick’s Day because Saturday nights are better for light partying than Thursdays.

We’ve planned for some months now to launch Various Pants on the Ides of March, but if ever there was a well founded reasoning behind our chosen date it’s gone to me now. I suspect it was chosen because it’s a good middle-ground date, the 15th, in a month notable for its bringing of the New. Plus it was also six or seven months ago, which at the time was even before the holiday mayhem that blossoms in late November. It’s here now, though, and gentle reader, what shall you expect in the coming days and fortnights? Hopefully you will long for DIYs, covering ground that diverges from building your own compost heap to making your own bias tape. You will wonder about shoes, and whether or not you can pull off mustard-yellow fluevogs if you work in a library. You will increase your maximum braining power by taking our weekly, yes weekly! SmartyPants quizzes. And I haven’t even mentioned the mail art.

2007 is all about being the year of VARIOUS PANTS, and we’re taking the Ides of March for ourselves. No longer shall we tremble at the vision of some soothsayer; we’re fishing around in Caesar’s pot and snatching out March 15, so you don’t have to be afraid anymore.

And Paul Newman, if -nay, when- you read this, we’ve got a great idea for a salad dressing.