wale- next friday

You've got one week to plan a corduroy-centric fashion statement. Represent. In the meantime, the good folks over at the corduroy appreciation club have come up with 11 worthy diversions for the days leading up to 11/11/11.

best of MN state fair 2011

This is a biased review, limited in scope but totally worth noting.

Travis and I attended the State Fair spontaneously for a grand total of 2.5 hours Saturday night. I do not recommend showing up after 8 PM if you love cruising the Undergrand in search of Sham-Wow . The shopping networks close down by 9PM. But if all you want is a saturation of lights, smells, fried food and- what the heck- fireworks, make a fast and furious trip and do these things.

1) butterfly house

2) favorite fried sweet thing

3) juicy turkey sandwich on bun

4) giant slide- skirts welcome

5) pronto pup

6) sweet corn ice cream- just ask Rick

7) simultaneous viewing of fireworks and dance-off on Grandstand bridge-booties will shake

cost:

$12 entry

$12 parking

$3 adult butterfly pass

$6 fried sweet thing

$6 juicy turkey

$2 giant slide

$4 pronto pup

$4 rootbeer

$5 ice cream

FREE FIREWORKS

__________________

about $60

all's fair in MN

Italy

where I live now

the anti-project

Downsizing. So many projects aren't worth doing. These were supposed to be a Jil Sander style remake of a school marmish Korean wool dress and a trench dress fashioned from original trench coat, the execution of which had me in a state of mild paralysis. I took them both to the Salvation Army.

cactus cupcake

re: pillows

I was wrong.

corduroy hat

Two years ago I purchased a swatch of indigo corduroy from Savers thrift store with the intent of making it into a hat. While it would never cross my mind to buy new corduroy, the vibrant blue and the exclusive nature common to all secondhand finds compelled me. If you are someone readily compelled by corduroy, you might want to consider joining the Corduroy Appreciation Club. As established, I am not.

Procrastination is a complicated thing. I have read many riveting articles about how not to procrastinate and several even more riveting articles about the purpose procrastination might serve. Had I been forced to write a dissertation, 'The Purpose of Procrastination' would be my subject of choice. Exhibits A, B and C: my college education. For the most interesting take in recent memory, read this article by James Surowiecki- 'Later- What Does Procrastination Tell Us About Ourselves', The New Yorker, October 11, 2010.

I finally made the hat.

How to:

I made the pattern above using a universal technique for pattern making. I will warn you up front that it involves dumb luck or trial and error, depending how lucky you are.

-Take the garment to be reproduced and identify all seams. You will be copying each separate piece of the garment by lying it flat on top of mid-weight oversized paper (I use old newspapers, which is not ideal) and using a basic sewing pin to perforate the perimeter of each section.

- Prick the garment right along the existing seams for accuracy. It is impossible to lie most pieces of a garment completely flat. This is the luck part. You must manipulate the garment at intervals to best reflect the shape of the actual garment. For a puffed sleeve, this requires far more imagination and/or luck. A puffed sleeve is a great example of referencing patterns to visualize a basic version of what you hope to accomplish.

-Once every piece of the garment is represented, cut out your pattern pieces leaving a 1/2 inch seam allowance on all sides.

-Cut these pattern pieces out of the desired fabric and reconstruct the garment according to your intuition.

Tip: It is quite likely that your first attempt at copying a garment will be a highly qualified success. The easiest way to modify your pattern is to pin it as you would a garment. My first attempt at making a version of the hat below was a year ago. It was far too big in circumference. A very experience seamstress told me to pin the center back of each of the central panels to achieve a perfect fit, then reproduce those pinnings on the pattern itself. The end result was a marked improvement.

It remains unclear whether my procrastination in this case was

"the kind that's telling you that what you're supposed to be doing has, deep down, no real point." -James Surowiecki

old t-shirts

hiatus

Have fun with your old t-shirts while I'm gone.

Friday Saturday pillows

I visited Jamie in NYC in October. We hit the Flea at Hansen Place. It is top notch thanks to vendors with impeccable style and a well-curated food court featuring kimchi hotdogs and a gelato stand that is willing to sell kiddie portions to anyone who asks. We never leave empty-handed. I bought two embroidered dish towels to craft into pillows. Jamie called me out on it over Christmas. The dish towels were still hanging in aforementioned project closet.

Yesterday was all pillow magic. Two embroidered towels, two pairs of secondhand linen pants (one really huge pair), two thrift store zippers and let's say a couple of hours later...

I love these embroideries. I imagine Sunday is a martini.

How to:

Here is a link to making pillows out of sweaters. You can skip all the felting business, as long as you don't plan to wash the end result in hot water. The premise is universal. I like to add zippers to my pillows for easy cleaning. It complicates the process and may or may not be worth it to you. Check out this tutorial for a basic zipper lesson. If you are shopping deliberately for something old to repurpose into a pillow- shop big. Gigantic pants don't cost more, which is crazy.

chenille bathrobe

Five years ago, the girl I nannied for had a chenille bathrobe that I liked enough to sketch a crude pattern of. Last year, as I was about to donate a chenille bedspread to the Salvation Army, I hung it up in my project closet instead. Last weekend I made a bathrobe. It has a giant hood and accommodating pockets. I plan to fashion a bunny out of white silk to inhabit the pocket indefinitely. His belly will be a zippered pouch to hold gum. Practical.

At any given moment, there is a 50/50 chance I'll be wearing this.

How to:

Any blanket or old sheet is large enough to make into a bathrobe. The pattern shown above is the exact pattern I used. Find an over-sized button-down shirt in your closet, or nab a man friend's shirt, and use its midsection width to find a waist measurement. Each side of the front will be half of this with a seam allowance of 1/2". You can determine the length of sleeves and final length using the button-down as a guide.

Hood is optional. I consider it a napping hood. Pockets are, as always, optional but recommended. I finished the robe by sewing two small strips of fabric as beltloops on either side of the waist and fashioning a long tie of the same material. Basically, each addition takes your original blanket or sheet one step away from toga and one step closer to bathrobe but you can stop wherever you like on the spectrum.

my skeleton closet

I have a closet dedicated to future projects. I entertain an ongoing dialogue with my older sister regarding my fear of the project. She claims she does not suffer from fear in her painting- just laziness. Having mused over this for months,

I am trying to get to the bottom of it.

Fear vs. laziness.

I'll be doing a project a week until my closet is empty. Most of them are harebrained and/or made out of secondhand pants.

Meanwhile, muse on this.

It is the work of Tamar Mogendorff.