Ta da!

I suppose of the deadly sins, pride in having finally painted our bathroom is pretty harmless. But I suppose that's what makes all of my showboating so sad.

Here it is, Benjamin Moore's Aura eggshell in "Marilyn's Dress."



It's really crazy how hard it is to paint a bathroom -- I really had no idea. The molding -- in "Atrium White" -- added to the difficulty.

Check out the supersweet doll with the Princess Leia hair from Susi and Maya -- eyes open on one side and closed on the other. And here is a close-up of the incredible tube boxes that are in the orange cabinet. They came inside tube cases (used for tool and project-parts storage) from ebay.


I wanted to paint the walls "Bunny Gray," but I realized that I was drawn to that largely of the name. The name "Marilyn's Dress" is so stupid that I think it demonstrates my maturity that I was able to pick it.

Valderi

I made this backpack specifically for use while riding my bike. It's based (like practically every bag I make) on a Lotta Jansdotter Simple Sewing pattern. The outer fabrics come from vintage kimonos and the lining is heavy white denim. It has lots of little details that are I think are crazily clever, but it's also missing some things I should have included originally, but I somehow never seem to care enough to add them.



Clever:
- Braided self-loops inside the main compartment and one of the small pockets to which I hook my keys and other hookable things
- The large rear pockets are the perfect size to hold all the things I need easily accessible (my work security card, my bike lights, etc.)
- The smallest pockets are the perfect size to hold my cell phone (but I never use them for that because I'm not fully confident it won't fall out and I never use my phone anyway)
- The long center pocket on the bottom holds pens fairly well
- Between the kimono fabric and the denim is a plastic layer I took from a poncho so it's largely waterproof.
- The braided straps are asymmetrical, which serves no purpose, but I like the look.

Not clever:
- Although that one outer pocket holds pens OK, I really should make a panel attached to the top that would have lots of pen compartments and maybe compartments for my phone and my wallet.
- It should really have a waterproof panel that somehow snaps or velcros the hole at the top shut when it rains so that the bag is entirely waterproof.

Note to self:

The top I'm imagining making uses silk kimono fabric and cotton tape. Most of the seams will have the tape, secured with rectangular X's at each end. Somewhere along the front (either above or below the bustline) will be a series of small knife pleats with a box pleat in the center. A wide bias self-tape with the cotton tape on top will go across the pleats in the middle so they're not blowsy and unflattering. Or maybe experiment with having the pleats on the sides instead, with a fairly tight tape across (connecting with snaps or velcro so you can put it on without other fasteners) in order to show the waistline. This whole look may be impossibly unflattering, but I could also make it as a tunic so it would be more drapey/flowy. Hmm. But try it short first.

Stockholm Syndrome


We used to have one of these toilet paper holders in red. We could never figure out how to affix it to the wall, and eventually it fell off of the toilet tank and broke. I still miss the friendly paper-spewing smile of our robot overlord.

to do

August 2 list revisited:

-- Completed:
- paint bed wall a sunny, not-too-buttery light yellow
- paint bed a laquery dark gray
- make mondo gray pillow (white leather piping)
- reupholster hairpin footstool in mondo gray with white leather piping [I decided against the piping]
- make alphabet apron and patches [I decided against the patches]
- finish white leather wine bag
- get new computer and transfer photos from old one

-- In the middle of:
- make striped apron and patches [but I won't make the patches]

-- Way down the list, if on it at all:
- spray-paint bean's sticks bright green, hang above bed on little nails
- paint ikea deep boxes, mount fake butterflies, typed cursive latinate labels; or
maybe use big evidence frame instead, no boxes? no, probably not
- will i ever learn to crochet?
- will i ever sew-draw a portrait of a walrus?
- what goes into that weird mirror frame?

New list:

-- Things still on list from last time:
- paint bathroom light gray
- reupholster drafting stool in white leather
- make camera bag (what fabric? kimono? ikea? superbuzzy?) [now I'll use old neoprene computer bag]
- make mittens from felted brown sweater [but now I think it will be a hat instead]
- refashion felted gray sweater into cropped cardigan
- shorten brown cashmere cardigan
- learn to use my camera
- refashion veruca t-shirt

-- New:
- Reline hood of toggle coat
- Repair vintage suede coat
- Make pants from kimono
- Make computer bag
- In the near or distant future: Yohji Yamamoto crazy mystery shrug
- Learn to do weird textury fabric manipulations
- Hang pictures of presidents and prime ministers
- Hang Sitzmoebile piece
- Hang drying rack
- Make some sort of interesting Japanese-ish top using kimono fabric, basic Butterick pattern, and fabric manipulation technique
- Research serger, eventually buy one
- Find interesting, superlight road bike frame for fixie conversion
- Think about light touring bike -- Electra Amsterdam, men's Classic 3, minus the skirt guard?
- Research clothing/supplies for riding bike in winter
- Choose and buy spray paint for lamp (Montana Spain probably, or, less appealing, Montana Germany from Blick)
- Paint lamp -- light turquoise-ish, or maybe something graphic (geometric, not like, porn) in orange and white

Mondomaniacal

I'm totally in love with mondo black fabric from reprodepot and have finished making a pillow and reupholstering a footstool out of it. The pillow has white leather piping (oh my god that's hard). I was going to put similar piping on the footstool but decided it was better to be smoother and cleaner (and oh my god that would have been hard).

The pillow:


The footstool:


Both, in situ:

Great Wednesdays in History, Volume 1: November 8, 2006

On Wednesday, November 8, 2006, it became clear that the Democrats had trounced the Republicans in the midterm elections and were poised -- pending a couple still-contested races -- to take over both houses. Also on that day, Donald Rumsfeld finally resigned, after the imprisonment, torture, and/or deaths of untold thousands shocked and awed but failed to secure his legacy as the author of a new, easier form of war. Finally, on Wednesday, November 8, 2006, the Times published Mark Bittman's article on no-knead bread.

There's really nothing I can add to the discussion of the midterm elections, the Rumsfeld follies, or no-knead bread. Still, in the ten months since the recipe was published we've made at the very least 50 loaves of it (a loaf a week, often two, and missed only a couple weeks). Each time we take a new loaf out of the oven we say "A.L.L." -- another lovely loaf. That's A.L.L.:

My First Wine Bag

That's the name of the children's book I'm writing. Well, no. But here it is:


It's a little bit too narrow (you could never carry white wine in it, e.g.) and pretty messily made, but I love the pattern. It's from a vintage kimono, but what sort of groovy do you have to be to wear a kimono like that?

Not for Sale

For some reason I just remembered this amazing dress Cat Chow made several years ago, constructed of 1000 $1 bills donated to her by 1000 people (including me):


It's displayed with a list of the names of the 1000 donors and is called Not for Sale. Her work requires such painstaking, highly skilled craftship and she creates these amazing well-formed pieces of clothing that manage to gracefully convey a "message" (something art usually does so clumsily and which I normally think is stupid and pointless). For instance, she's made wedding dresses called "Bonded" out of a single piece of 100-foot long coiled zipper:


This dress is made from measuring tape:


And here is a picture of Cat (real name Catherine) wearing it:


She has just scads of other amazing things, like chainmail made of not just shredded dollars, but also of photographic slides and of snaps joined together by little metal rings. And look at the form of these dresses:


I always just make things to solve a problem -- way way way more craft than art. It just blows my mind the way people use traditional crafting techniques and ideas to make real art. I mean, yes, of course, I know that craft-making is seen as less than art-making because the former was typically done by women and considered the latter only when done by men and that maybe it's inherently anti-woman to draw the distinction. But look at those fucking dresses!

nancypants

I'm totally inspired by the long metal zipper on this tunic from Acne Jeans:


I think to work, though, it really does have to be on a piece like that, which is likely to look really sack-like or very little-girl-play-clothes-ish on me. Still, maybe something good could come of that zipper for me.

I have plans to make my first pair of pants ever. I want something wide-legged, but no so wide I can't use fabric from old kimonos, and easy enough that it won't turn me off of sewing pants completely. I think my first pair will be these pants, from a free Burdastyle pattern:


Those are wide but still narrow enough to use a kimono. I'm also interested in trying these, from an out-of-print pattern I got from LanetzLiving.


The pleats and interfacing on these might place them out of my league for now. Also, I'm not sure they won't look like a pair of pants I bought at Urban Outfitters a billion years ago and recently made into cut-offs because the drawstring bottom was just too too goofy.