Wedding pillow

I made a (clearly very late) wedding gift for Abby and Chris, and I finally finished it and mailed it off. The first time I saw this old transfer (which I got from Floresita's vintage transfers on flickr) I immediately knew that I would use it for a Chris and Abby wedding pillow. They are both cat lovers who also have the best collection of antique everything. I used the coveted bird and wave fabric for the back:

I think I have to use my last remnant of the bird/wave fabric for my very own pillow. I like using the black piping for the edges.

And that is all I have to show for my crafty old self right now. As I recently mentioned we have had illness after illness around here in 2009 (nothing serious, and I am always thankful for that) and our latest bout has been with THE CHICKEN POX!

My poor little guy came down with the chicken pox in the middle of spring break, during a big annual music festival (South by Southwest). Needless to say, I did not get to see any bands. There was a fever, and a lot of waking up at night, and not a lot of sleep for mom or dad. I had intended on getting Harlan vaccinated just before kindergarten, but in a way I am relieved that he got the virus out of his system, since now he will not have to re-vaccinate himself every twelve years. I can not imagine very many grown men remembering to vaccinate themselves, and getting chicken pox as an adult is really horrendous. While Harlan was sick I heard from many friends who got the virus in their teens, their twenties, and even during law school finals! Lucky for us, there were enough parents around who wanted their toddlers to get the chicken pox too, and we were invited over to their homes. Harlan is such a social butterfly, and he hates being cooped up inside (no pun intended). I know some of you may be floored by the thought of intentionally getting your kids the chicken pox, but I can definitely see the benefit of it. I had it when I was thirteen, and let me tell you, I was way more miserable than Harlan was with it at three (which was really no walk in the park either).

So, we are all in a period of relative wellness (I know it's just a matter of time before my allergies return. I just finished a second round of antibiotics for an ear infection) and I am trying to catch up on work. At the end of April I am going to be selling at the Funky Finds Spring Fling in Fort Worth, so come check me out!

One step closer

I had an impromptu trip today to Purl in Soho. I had taken Harlan to the village to visit Grandma and as we left I decided to make a detour to pick up some pierogi. Got to get back to my Ukranian roots.
As we walked out of the store I saw my baby's head slumped over. He never sleeps in the stroller. Never. My heart raced as I saw a golden opportunity to go shopping!!!!! We plowed down second ave. at record speed, dodging hordes of German tourists out on a freezing day (footnote: They are probably not all German but they may as well be). Over the piles of black snow and through the slush we zipped, stopping only to pet a baby border terrier pup. Into Purl we went, and BOOM! Harlan awoke. I knew my time was limited. I tired to remember the yardage for my upcoming pattern projects and ended up coming close, although I may need to go back if I don't cut conservatively. It was so awesome to see all the great designer fabrics in person that I've been drooling over online for months now. So, here's what we have:

I bought a patterned fabric for this dress after all. If I attempt to embroider it I'll never get it done in time for warm weather. I am using this blue ric rack for the trim, but I'm a bit short, so please let me know if any of you have some extra. Check out more "new vintage wardrobe" projects over on Bitter Betty's flickr group:

Here are two types of fabric I bought to make this blouse with. I like the green so much that I may go back for more and make Harlan a summer jon jon from it:

I also applied for a four month stint with nikki-shell's wardrobe refashion project. This is the the pledge for those of you who haven't seen it yet:

The Pledge

• I __________________ pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 / 4 / 6 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoated, recylcled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings! Signed__________________.

This experiment shouldn't be too much a problem for me since I'm not doing much clothing shopping P.B (post baby). If I can lose that last damn ten pounds I'll instantly have a whole new wardrobe, courtesy of my overflowing and unopened closet.

Old & Pretty Things to See

I have been working this weekend on my embroidered valentine (a bit late) for Joe. In the meantime, I went through more of my stuff to weed out what I want to sell/give away and keep. These are mostly keepers, a couple are up for trade (here or on flickr).

First, this autograph book from the late 1800s that my father got for me at a yard sale on the north fork of Long Island a few years back.

I love how people used to write. When did the horrible bubble writing trend begin? I wish so badly that I could master an old fashioned style of penmanship, but my handwriting has always suffered from a bad case of sloppyitis. My second grade teacher would leave the room and come back in with a stethoscope around her neck and speak in a German accent, calling herself "Doctor Handwriting." She claimed to be Amy's (our regular teacher) identical twin sister. We all totally fell for it by the way. Doctor Handwriting taught us how to write our letters in upper case, lower case and cursive. When your writing looked good she would scribble, "You have a case of beautifulitis" on the top of your paper. More often than not my comment included the word sloppyitis no matter how hard I tried. Some things never change unfortunately.

The newspaper clipping below is carefully tucked into the book. I love it because it advertises a sale for clothing on 14th St. off of 5th Ave. When I grew up a few blocks south of there in the seventies my mother used to walk me up to 14th St. for cheap clothes too. Now Union Square is a trendy strip in NYC, completely overrun with so many tourists and NYU students that I can barely push my stroller up the street en route to visit my mother. The cheapy stores have been replaced by Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Diesel, and a few other stores that I'm actually not so unhappy to see (Anthropolgie is a few blocks up at 17th).

Some of the features include long ostrich feathers for $2.79, hot water bottles for .39 cents, coutil corsets for .50 cents, women's lace petticoats .65 cents, and spring suitings ("Natty wool, finish dress fabrics that look like all wool and are in similar designs of checks and plaids- black and white, tan-and-white, and other blendings- 27 inches wide instead of 14.") These suitings are priced at 7 3/4. I can't figure out if that means $7.75 or if they had 3/4 of a cent back then.

The following patterns are up for grabs. I'll swap with anyone who wants, or give them to anyone who feels they must have them:
A cute dress for anyone who can actually go bra less.
Anyone brave enough to make a cowgirl shirt?
Cute things I will never ever make for myself.

The following patterns have been collected over the years when I dreamed of having a little girl. I don't think I will, but one never knows for sure.



These are for me to make eventually:
My dream shirt!
Can you see me and Lucy and Ethel in this one?
Not sure how this would actually look on me. It could end up looking like a grown woman stuffing herself into a little girl's dress. Maybe I could skip the ruffled hem.

Next on my to-do list is buying fabric for the wrap dress with embroidered trim that I'm making (posted a couple of posts below). At first I thought it could be cool to go to the African fabric store a few blocks away on Livingston St. and use some lovely African pattern with a white or black yoke on the dress. My friend Sarah lived in Ghana for a year and came back with so many beautiful dresses that she had made over there. They are all cut just like forties dresses with covered buttons and everything, but they are made in the coolest local fabrics. One is a tan background with weird Coke cans all over it. Now I'm not so sure I want to use any type of patterned fabric for this dress. I might just use a solid colored cotton and focus on embroidering the yoke and sewing ric rack on the edges like in the picture on the pattern cover.

Finally, here are a couple of photos of the neighborhood taken this week. I started posting my neighborhood pics in a Ft. Greene flickr group recently and on Friday I came home to an e-mail from someone at the Brooklyn Paper asking if they could buy one of my photos for the next week's issue. I was really flattered. It turned out that the woman who e-mailed me was on a deadline and I didn't get back to her in time, but she said she'd like to keep looking at my photos to use on in the future. Woo hoo!

Fulton and S. Oxford. I was trying to get a shot juxtaposing the old signs on the corner with the giant condo skyscraper going up in the background. You can't really see the skyscraper in progress, but it's a nice shot anyhow.

These two are out of Harlan's bedroom window. Snow and sleet were upon us.

I have to throw in these pictures of Harlan eating a waffle: