Textile Porn

Some weeks have a theme. The theme might be something as trite as "I watched a lot of Friday Night Lights" or "I drank a lot of Syrah." Some weeks I eat almost exclusively Mexican food. Some weeks I play an inconceivable amount of solitaire on my phone. This week, however, the theme has been textiles. Which photographs much better, I must say, than Mexican food or video games.

I have Lena Corwin to thank for this week's theme. We have been shooting the how-to photos for her second book (her first book was the incredibly gorgeous Printing By Hand), and for this book, Lena and her team have camped out at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn--a wonderland for weavers, dyers, and screen printers. If it has to do with fabric, they teach classes on how to make it there. The works in progress on the looms scattered about the studio are swoon-worthy.

Also swoon-worthy are the textiles that will appear in the book. Like this screen-printed linen Lena designed. Just look at those crisp lines and that saturated dye!

And these woven place mats, with a solid fabric weft and sweet floral warp.

Even the wash rags at the Textile Arts Center are gorgeous, having mopped up countless ink spills in lovely shades of everything.

Back in my own home, I've had a few less exotic textile moments. Like this vintage dress I recently tried to alter. Check out those horrifying stitches around the armhole, made by the excellent teamwork of myself and the bobbin from hell. Last Sunday I worked up the nerve to take out the rat's nest of stitches, and now the dress is ready to wear. Win!

I also found a use for this funky upholstery fabric I've had kicking around for the last year. I've come to realize that funky fabrics are at their best on the inside of a bag--not all of us want to fly our psychedelic flag so loud and proud.

But on the outside? Why not keep it simple with a coral linen, accented by creamy white cotton straps.

Soon enough, I will start playing with some wintry wool fabrics for my HeyAllday Handmade bags. Not these ones, mind you. These ones are very fancy fabrics that I found at a men's suiting warehouse. Want to know how much they cost? Sixty dollars a yard, my friends. Oh but these cashmeres came in the softest blues and creams. I will dream of these woolens whilst shopping online for their more affordable brethren. (Any hot tips, people, let me know!)

Halfway House

I feel it important you all know that as I begin writing this blog post, the lyrics "Ooooh, we're halfway there, oh OH living on a prayer!" are blasting in my head. That's what I get for trying to tell you the story about my weekend and how I only got halfway along on everything I started.

I think the problem is the dogs. Yes, we should certainly blame it on the dogs.

For one whole fun-filled week, we are watching Camper's friend, Carl Barks (yes, that is his full name.) Camper and Carl spend most of their time chewing on each other's teeth. It makes a horrible clanking sound, but they seem to find it fun. These two have gotten into more trouble together in one week than Camper has ever gotten into on his own. The first night we had Carl, he pooped on the floor. So naturally Camper did, too. I think it was a solidarity thing. They have broken out of their barricades, slept on our heads, chased squirrels to an inch of their lives, whined, cried, been tied up together outside of the fabric shop like a two-headed monster, and together, they managed to get an avocado off of the kitchen counter and eat the entire ripe contents by the time we got home. An hour later, I got off the phone with animal poison control (who informed me they would be a little sick but just fine). Thanks a lot, internet, for telling me they might DIE.

So I was a little off my game.

There were these sunflower seeds that I roasted. Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to roast your own sunflower seeds? Well let me tell you! After you cut the head off the sunflower, you have to go through and extract each individual seed with your fingertips. After a thorough cleaning (and an inspection for worms--GROSS), you then soak the seeds in salt water for 24 hours, then roast them for 30 minutes or so at 350. When they came out of the oven, I put them into a cute little bowl and saucer I made in pottery class. Guess what? MOST of the sunflower pods didn't even have seeds. We were just sitting there, chewing on these salty little shells, and every now and then you'd find a thin little sliver of sunflower seed goodness. I kept thinking, this would be the perfect diet food! You do all that work and get like 5 calories, but the salt makes you feel like you ate something.

Seriously, why do people do this?

Next up were two botched dress upgrades. The first was an attempt to dye a cute little white dress I bought at a thrift store. I was thinking indigo ombre. Doesn't that sound fabulous? All in all, it was a $14, one-hour-long failed experiment, so not a big deal. But let me just give you this word of advice: You absolutely cannot dye synthetic fibers with RIT dye. The box tells you that, and you may be tempted to not believe the box. But seriously, the box means it. So this little polyester Grecian goddess number? Yeah, it turned a color I'm going to call "silvery cream." It's fine. It's whatever. It is NOT ombre. And it is certainly not indigo. I would show you a photo of the "after," but it's, um, sort of the same.

Next up, I decided to do a little surgery on a vintage dress I bought online. The dress is so cute, but the sleeves were hideous and made me look boxy and frump-a-dump, so I decided to do a little hem at the shoulder and lop them off. The first sleeve went off just fine. The second, I don't know what happened. I think an evil spirit lives in the bobbin of my sewing machine. When I got around the entire armhole, I looked on the underside of the fabric to see the most hideous knot nest looping its wicked way all around the inside of the sleeve. It was so nasty looking that I just set the dress down and backed away slowly. In fact, we might just pretend that never happened.

There was, however, one bright shimmering project that went beyond the halfway point today--I potted this succulent. I had intended this pot and saucer to be a little planter, but the holes in the pot had partially filled with glaze (see: amateur potter). So after we threw out the stupid sunflower seeds, Robb drilled holes in the bottom of the pot through the glaze and I popped this little succulent in place. It took about three minutes, but it was deeply satisfying. With the help of Bon Jovi, I lived on the prayer that I would finish a single project this weekend, and my prayers were answered.

Six Yards

About two months ago, I spontaneously ordered six yards of wool/silk jersey online. The package arrived and inside was a small, tight mound of fabric. I was at first taken aback by how little fabric six yards seemed to be...the bundle was so small! But the package itself had a nice heft to it. Oh, I realized...this is one of those fabrics that has drape. And bounce. That clings and flows. This, I thought, will be interesting.

I bought the fabric intending to make myself an Alabama Chanin dress. Nothing fancy. Just a sweet little thing in gray that I could slip into and feel like a lady on weekends. (Over the years, I'm sorry to say, I've found that I barely try at all on the weekends, typically wearing clothing that is just a notch nicer than pajamas. Showers are optional and hair-dos involve a rubber band and no mirror.) The dress is supposed to be entirely hand-sewn, but since summer was already waning by the time I began, I opted to machine-sew it...despite the fact that wool/silk jersey is delicate and slippery and requires some wrangling. I'm a "just get it done" kind of girl, after all, and this dress needed to be done already.

By Saturday afternoon, I finished the dress! And as I went to put away the remaining three or so yards of fabric, an idea crawled up into my brain: A high-waisted skirt, something super drapey, a little bit full, and a little bit long. Before I knew it, I had wrapped and pinned several swaths of fabric around my waist and was hunting for some sort of cotton to use as a built-in belt. Boom! Five yards later, I had two new articles of clothing...both made from charcoal gray silk/wool jersey. 

With just one last, long section of the jersey left, I had an idea (and here is where I probably should have gone to bed). I decided to make a scarf with the jersey fabric on one side, and a bright orange-and-white gingham on the other. Why did I pick orange, you wonder? I'm not quite sure (see also: I probably should have gone to bed). I think it had something to do with a lust for color in winter, the way we all need a pop of something vibrant here and there. A reminder that clothing can be fun.

Speaking of fun, this final yard was probably where I finally lost my mind: when I wrapped the scarf around my head and turned it into some sort of vaguely ethnic headdress. (I think I was going for a Girl with the Pearl Earring kind of look?) After sending the "can I pull off this turban?" photo text to Julie, I finally turned off the sewing machine. It was 2am on Saturday night (yes I am a total party animal). Six yards later, I finally went to bed. I dreamt of sewing, of course.

Frida's Ensemble

In early June, Megan had a baby, and though I didn't get to meet little Miss Frida until early August, I already knew how much I would love watching her grow up. And how much I would love watching Megan grow up, too.

When I first met Megan, she was 27-years-old and had just returned from a many-months-long trip to Europe. Both wordly and world-worn, she came home to San Francisco to find that her best friend Mark had started dating a 23-year-old SoCal transplant (me). The first time Megan and I met, we huddled together in Mark's bedroom amidst a thick layer of cigarette smoke, surely listening to whatever the newest release from Bloodshoot Records was that day. We instantly became very good friends, not unlike the easy way that children make friends when they are young. Without overthinking, without wondering if the enthusiasm is shared, without wondering if you can trust your secrets, or if you're oversharing. The joy of making a lifelong friend is an instantaneous thrill, and ten years later, I'm not surprised to see the bond is still going strong.

 

In the month leading up to Frida's birth, I knit furiously and thought about who Megan would be now, what her life would look like with a child in tow, and how lucky Frida was to be born into the world of such a strong, interesting woman. I guess you could say I knit my good intentions into it, though Megan reports that they keep finding strands of my long blonde hair knitted into the fabric, so I guess you could say I knitted more than just my intentions into it? (For those with hair phobias, sorry...I know that's sort of gross. We find it funny.)

Because Megan is passionate about hot pink (and most bright colors for that matter), I figured that Frida would not be a pastel baby. But she also would not be a carbon copy of her mother...it just couldn't be so. For Frida, I chose this deeper pink, a vibrant fuchsia...let's go ahead and call it hot plum. And because she will be a San Franciscan and a German (her father is from Berlin), she will need a hood to get her through the damp winters, and she might as well start getting used to wool now. (Superwash, of course...I'm not insane.)

Soon enough I realized that it had to become an outfit, and so I whipped up this amazingly fast and satisfying baby kimono from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing. An old tablecloth and a few yards of bias tape and we had ourselves a matching set. (For those crafty types who need a last-minute killer baby shower gift, I highly recommend.)

Before I mailed the package off to a yet-to-be-born Frida, I did what I always do with baby clothes: modeled them on my old teddy bear. (The effect is a bit creepy, but you get the point.)

Personally, I think Frida is a far cuter model. And in Megan's always excellent fashion opinion, red and hot plum do go together. I'm so glad that I made the sweater in the bigger size, so she can wear it with the super long sleeves rolled up now and still be wearing it this winter as she grows. (For those who are interested, the sweater pattern is called the Audrey Hoodie, and it's from the fabulous book Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren!)

As for meeting Frida? Words sort of can't explain. It's funny how when you meet the baby of an acquaintance, you might feel tentative and not exactly melt into a puddle from the cuteness. Hell, you might even think the child looks like a squirming alien. But when you meet your best friend's baby, you go straight over to her and grab her little hands. You find yourself holding her and bouncing around and singing a little song that you just made up, and you stare and wonder and catch glimpses of your friends' expressions in her furrowed brow. Honestly, it felt like I was meeting a person who  already knows the punchline, who already knows the stories, who is already in the club, even though she has yet to learn any of it. She will. After all, she's one of us girls now.

Last Sunday

Last Sunday started off all wrong. We woke up in the morning and decided to go to the "dog beach" in New Jersey, so from a sleepy state in bed, Robb reserved a zipcar on his phone, and I set about making some iced coffee. We left the house in a rush, took the subway two stops to the most unfortunately named subway stop (Flushing), and then when we got above ground, Robb received a voicemail saying that the people who had our zipcar were going to be late. Real late.

We decided to cancel.

On the way back home--no dog beach, no ocean--I got terribly cranky. I wanted to swim, damn it! And here I was, locked in this ugly Brooklyn jail, all stupid concrete and asphalt. On the way back to our house, Robb noticed some people walking by us with towels over their shoulders on their way back from the McCarren Pool. He made me go ask them if the line was long, and they said, no, there's no line at all. We knew right then that we would go swimming...at the giant public pool that we had never been to! All this time, we had thought that it would suck, figuring it would be crowded, gross, with dirty kids running around everywhere. Not so...it was pretty and blue and big and open, and we swam some laps and snoozed on our towels. From that point on, the day looked up.

And as inspiration for this coming weekend--nay, the last weekend of what truly feels like summer--I wanted to post some inspirational photos from my last Sunday. It is my sincerest wish, dear friends, that your weekend will deliver.

This is a lettuce plant that bolted. Like, beyond bolted. I think it's pretty. It's also probably pretty bitter.

This is a supersteak tomato that soon enough will be ready for eating. 

And these are our wet towels and bathing suits, hanging up after a day of swimming. (The Ciroc towel, by the way, was my prize for winning the Michael McDonald singing competition one night at NitaNita...proud memory, for sure.) 

Here are two rising loafs of bread that I decided to make on a whim. They were very salty. Which is great if you like salty bread (I do).

Here are the almonds that I accidentally spilled in my purse. I had to dump them on the counter, which always feels classy.

And here is the binding on my newest Alabama Chanin dress. It's sloppy and it looks like straw, an aesthetic choice that I feel okay about.

Instagram Meets the Animal Kingdom

A couple nights ago, I was stuck waiting for the G Train at Court Square. Robb and I had just come back from the city and we ran into a couple of his friends who were also on their way back to Greenpoint. While we waited for MTA to clear the body off the tracks (ok, ok...they just called it a "medical emergency," which really could be anything...let's assume some woman had a miracle baby at the Flushing stop!), me and this girl started talking about Instagram. She was all dolled up and had just come from an event where the most popular Instagram photographers in New York City were being honored. One of them was her friend. But that didn't stop me from saying something fairy uncouth, like, "But doesn't Instagram require no talent whatsoever?" OK, I didn't say it like that. I think I said, "Huh, I didn't realize that people could have careers taking Instagram photos. How interesting!" Yes, it was definitely something nicer like that. 

Out of curiosity, I asked if her friend had any photography background. Maybe he is an expert in composition? Lighting? Nope, the guy has had no photography training at all. He just got really into taking Instagram photos and lots of people started following him and now his work is lauded at champagne events. Fascinating!

Truth be told, I had just the week before caught up with the 21st century and downloaded the app on my phone. (And just a month before that, I buried my Blackberry and got an Iphone.) I am pretty far behind the times and I still don't understand half of the functions on my phone. But I must confess this: I not only understand Instagram....I LOVE it.

My photos--like, the kind I take on a real camera--are not great. My husband, who went to school for photography, has probably explained the concept of ISO to me 32 times. I have retained none of what he has taught me. I like to shoot things really really really close up, so you don't even know what they are. The horizon is often iffy. My sense of lighting is deplorable. The adjective I would first choose to describe my photos is "grainy." The second would be "underwater." So, it is fairly amazing to me that a device exists where I can take a mediocre photo and then make it look interesting. Give me your filters, give me your frames. Lighting schmiting...I'll Instagram it! 

So this last weekend, I went out to take photos of some bags I made. They have little whales on them! Isn't that cute? And after Robb took a whole bunch on the camera, I had him take a few on the phone. Once I Instagrammed them, the photos were suddenly transformed! They had personality. The daylight had depth. The bag had a shape and a story. A quick trip to the park had suddenly turned into what looked, on my screen anyway, like a memorable day.

This shit is magic.

So...I'm late, it's a fad, and I'm not really convinced that there is much talent involved other than picking an interesting subject matter to photograph and a filter that flatters the shot. But I'm a fan. And now you know how I feel about Instagram.

Incidentally, I put up photos of the two blue bags on Etsy and they both sold that night! (The red one, above, is still available...if red corduroy whales are your thing. And you know they totally are.) But I'm thinking that I may have finally found the winning formula: make animal-themed bags, take photos on the phone, and then transform them on Instagram.

Speaking of which, what has four legs, a trunk, and feathers? Possibly the new HeyAllday Handmade palette.

España Bound

The first time I traveled to Europe, when I was 19 years old, I remember having an irrational fear of gypsies. It's those guide books, I tell you! They devote whole chapters to the art of gypsy pickpocketing, which consequently makes young American girls feel as though, if they don't have a money belt slipped down between their underpants and their low-rise jeans, they'll find themselves penniless and passport-less in a train depot in middle-of-nowhere Tuscany. On the train from Paris to Rome, I remember waking up in our sleeper car throughout the night, and each time I woke up I was dreaming of gypsies.

Flash forward 15 years and I am still finding myself scared of gypsies! This time I blame Rick Steves, who wrote my current guide to paranoia in Spain. (Did you know that there are gypsies who will ride by your car on a scooter and reach in through your open window to steal your bag while you're stopped at an intersection? Thanks a lot, Rick Steves! Is nowhere safe??)

To that end, as I have been preparing for this trip to Spain, which I am about to embark on in just a few short hours, I have spent many an hour looking for the perfect pickpocket-proof bag. And when none of the bags in the shops met my qualifications, I decided I had to make my own. It needed to cross over my chest (no purse-snatchers for me!) and have a zipper, of course. And it needed to be made from a lightweight material so at the end of the day I don't feel like I've been carrying bricks. And it needed to feel happy--but not too happy--so I chose this tribal print for the outside of the bag, and a happy yellow for the inside.

I must say, I was very pleased with my zipper work! Actually, I have a confession to make: I had never installed a zipper before this one. And an even bigger confession: Before installing the zipper, I consulted my Reader's Digest Sewing Book--the be-all-end-all of sewing technique guides--and the diagrams and whatnot for how to install a zipper kind of gave me a headache, so I just sort of winged it. No idea if I did this right. But I like how the patterns on the panels line up on either side of the zipper, so that was cool!

But my vacation sewing didn't end with the bag. In a less paranoid sewing moment, I also decided I needed a new tunic, so I whipped up this little halter. Though I've never been to southern Spain, I do have a funny feeling that these colors and this print and the weave of the fabric is how it will feel. Close to Morocco, but not quite, and with floral swirls and punchy reds that have a sort of flamenco clickety-clack-with-a-rose-between-your-teeth kind of feel. But who knows if this is true...I'll let you know how it actually was when I'm back!

I tried to go out in the backyard to take a photo of myself wearing the tunic, but the dog was jumping around at my feet, and the light setting was all wrong, and then the upstairs neighbor in our apartment building opened the window and his little 5-year-old son said "Hi Wiana! Hi doggy!", and, well, that's hardly a time to continue taking glamour shots of yourself out in the backyard. But then I decided that blown-out photos can actually be quite kind, and so I share this little photo (note that I'm also wearing my gypsy-proof purse), with promises of more photos to come when we return. Adios for a bit, my friends. See you in April!

Cheater Scarf

This has probably been one of the dumbest winters ever (at least in this California girl's opinion.) One of the great perks of growing up on the West Coast and then moving to the East Coast is the magical appearance of this white fluffy thing we call snow. This year, however, I have seen none of it (except for on Halloween, which made no sense.) I have two pairs of Sorrel snow boots and nowhere to wear them, people! Instead, I've been bundled up like I'm in San Francisco--layers of dresses, sweaters, jackets, and light scarves. Even hats--my beloved hats!--are more of an optional accessory than a must-have line of defense. Crazy town, I tell you. 

From January until last night, I have been pretty much living in my purple/gray tie-dyed scarf. Truth be told, I AM STILL NOT SICK OF IT. Other people might be sick of looking at it, but not me. All the same, I got to thinking that I should maybe have one other scarf option to get me through the rest of this stupid winter. And so I decided to turn a crummy old short scarf into a ladylike cowl.

I'm not going to lie to you. This scarf came from the lost-and-found at the bar where Robb works. And no, it's not the first item of clothing I've worn that's been left behind by drunk people. Ever wonder where your favorite hoodie went after a murky night at the bar? The bartender's girlfriend is probably wearing it. 

This scarf was a little scratchy, a little synthetic, and the edges were raveling just a bit. Plus, it was way too short to be worn as a scarf--48 inches! Four measly feet!--and so it was literally good for nothing. But Robb brought it home, and I went ahead and washed it, and then it just sat there doing nothing. And I hate it when clothing items (or items in general) just sit there doing nothing. So last night, in what can only be called "a fit of clothing repairs" (seriously, I fixed ripped pajamas, tank-top straps, holes in sweaters...I was on a roll), I took some white yarn and sewed the edges of this scarf together. (For those who want to try this trick at home--even non-knitters--it's super easy and here are some tips. Though you can always hack it and sew the ends together any old way you like--the seam goes at the back of your neck, so it can be as Frankensteiny as you please.) 

Once the edges were sewn together, I could slip the thing over my head and wear it like a big loopy necklace (which provides zero warmth). Or I could wrap it around my neck twice, like shown above, which is an awesome cuddly way to keep your neck warm (plus it looks all fancy and twisted.)

And if the wind picks up and my ears get cold, I can lift up one of the loops and slide it over my head like a hood. It is surprisingly warm! And when I look at my reflection in car windows as I walk by, I feel feel very glamorous, and maybe just a little bit "old Hollywood insane."

Of course, you could also go ahead and knit yourself a simple little scarf and sew the ends together, but my thinking is this: we only have one more month of this silly little winter to endure, so rather than spending that month knitting the scarf, why not grab some old ugly thing and turn it into something a little fresh and useful, something to give your purple tie-dyed scarf (or your equivalent of a purple tie-dyed scarf) a time out. And then before you know it, it will be spring, my friends! Spring!