DIY: potato prints

I was visiting my grandma this past weekend and she wanted to do some crafts. Gma has always been a master crafter. She can sew entire outfits from scratch in a few hours. She has made countless quilts, including one she made for my parents wedding that I now use in the warmer months. She was the one who taught me to sew and instilled my love for DIY.

Gma had a stroke about a year ago and her physical limitations have really frustrated her, she can no longer create and craft and garden and cook the way she used to. I was hoping that a stamping project would be something she could participate in. I thought about a book my mom gave me for Christmas a few years ago, Lotta Jansdotter's Lotta Prints. I think I had done potato printing before, but Lotta makes it an art. Anyway, we got some potatoes and dug up the acrylic paint from the basement where I also found some simple canvas. I drew a mushroom outline on some paper, cut it out, and stuck it to the halved potato, and carved out the negative space with an exacto knife (you could totally use a kitchen knife). Then I put some acrylic paint in a plastic plate and brushed it on the stamp with a paintbrush. I tried dipping it in the paint but that picked up too much paint and produced a messy outline. Then I just went to town stamping the borders of the canvas. I used the shorter length and sewed it up into a simple tote bag, using thick shoelaces for the handle, and used the long length as a table runner. Gma provided technical assistance on using her sewing machine and emotional support. We were all (me, mom, gma) very pleased with the results! 

Studio Life: A Tour of My Stuff

So I did move into my own studio -- first time living alone, etc. I now camp out at boyfriend's house a lot and use the internet, because (gasp) I don't have it at home. No internet, no smart phone (that is now a lie because I got a blackberry from work), and no TV. But really, my sweet little baby apartment is too small for a TV.  

I feel like my windowsills are too cluttered with random stuff. But I like it all! My plants are loving all the sunlight, and I can display all the glass and lantern-like things that I own. You can't really see, but I made hanging vases out of old lightbulbs like the Pinterest-addict that I am. And yeah, I have Christmas lights around the windows. I put them up during the first snow fall in November and I think I'll keep them up forever.

My wee kitchen! It fits in the closet. After much delay and frustration, and with the help of boyfriend who almost gave up, I installed a curtain wire from IKEA and put up these IKEA-via-Craigslist curtains so that when I'm not using the kitchen (aka almost always, basically all I do is use the water kettle I got for Christmas, thanks mom & dad!) I can close it away and not look at it. I think boyfriend worries about the potential fire threat of curtain near the burners but I tell him I move it out of the way (and then I don't, good thing he doesn't read this.) You can also see so many other things I like in this photo-- the great sunlight, the dishtowel I bought at the Appalachian crafts center, the green & blue painting I got at STOP thrift store, and the perfectly-sized wall-mounted dishrack I got at IKEA. We went nutz at IKEA this last trip. Oh, and the keffiya that I use to cover up the random stuff in the bottom shelves of my little kitchen storage/counter furniture PIECE. (What are those things called?) (Relatedly I think its funny to call things a "piece" like they're a piece of art. It's like when the friend of my old hipster roommates said she wanted to open a "space" for artists or performances or whatever and I made fun of her to her face, or certain old hierarchicly-superior coworkers constantly saying "utilize" instead of "use" and I died inside constantly, or basically whenever most people talk about "culture." I am a terrible snob.)

Me, the snob, picking at the broken zipper of an old (vintage. ok, it's vintage) dress I want to sell on etsy. My apartment is tiny, but not too tiny for an ORB and a vase full of Christmas tree branches that I picked up from the ground outside of Big Star. Folding chair and stool: IKEA, blue chair and plaid blanket: grandma's house, bookshelf: left from previous tenant at previous apartment. On the bookshelves are my small collections of cookbooks, journals, fashion magazines I should stop reading, thermoses, and glassware with shiny rims.

Domestic Concerns

Today was pretty horrible and depressing, despite a middling to good day at work, I was ridiculously tired and irritable and impatient coming home. So I cured it the best I know how: a long bath (with school reading to feel virtuous), laundry (new Unique purchases! finally got the plain white button-down every style person seems to think should be a staple of every woman's closet), some cleaning and straightening up, cooked up some healthy food (chickpeas and chard, with onion, garlic, and garam masala) for dinner and for two small lunches in the future, mended a couple things, made some dye from the red chard stems (don't quite know what to do with it, since I added vinegar it might not really work as a food coloring), and orange juice.

I sound so boring! But really, puttering around the house is a great way to cheer myself up on a dreary day. And tomorrow is supposed to be much warmer so I'm taking hope.


 Took the picture a couple weeks ago on a pretty sunny evening.

Deconstructed Part III: Random Edition

These first two are from Oak NYC, another online store I love. I'm not usually a big fan of the asymmetrical look (are you sleeves or not? make up your mind.) See this article on the insanity of one-sleeved shirts from Allie Brosh, the hysterically funny creator of Hyperbole and a Half webcomic which has pretty much caused me to lose all bodily control on multiple occasions. GO NOW AND READ IT. I'll wait while you compose yourself.

Ok, diversion over. Let's return to the important business at hand, which is looking at clothes. This skirt isn't really deconstructed but I found it yesterday and I want it. It's from Alexander Wang, and you can find it all over the internets, like at Revolve Clothing.

Way over on the other end of the fashion spectrum from Alex W, we have the Brooklyn-based etsy shop ruffeoheartslilsnoty. I found them a long time ago when I wanted some undies produced by someone more responsible than Target and not slimy like American Apparel (turns out that's not that hard, who knew, and instead I ended up just making some myself), and they make a lot of their stuff from deadstock (new fabric discarded from other manufacturers I think) and vintage. So they're actually really deconstructed.

I really want the t-shirt on the jumping girl in the first photo. And the last tank top reminds me of high-school cross-country so hard. And there's a cool Jane Jetson-meets-Wilma-Flinstone minidress that looks like something from an acid-tripping Star Trek.

Don't be scared off by their hipster talk! They've got some more normal (one or two non-neon color) stuff too, like some sweatshirts with cool stand-up turtlenecks and hoods. And crazy neon triangles bodysuits. You know, everything you need.

Getting Organized; Ampersand

Inspired by this image from Friends of Type, found via design is mine, I decided to make a quick label for a box of craft supplies that I recently organized. It gave me an opportunity to use my felt-tip calligraphy pens which I so enjoy. My ribbon used to be all over the place, in about 4 little boxes, and when I got some new shoes, (oops. yard sales are my weakness) then I had a box to give them a home all together, freeing up my sewing box for actual sewing things.
Not very exciting, but it's so nice to have stuff in order. Also, my desk is too filled with sewing machine and paper and stuff I've collected to maybe make hooks out of, so hence the French-English dictionary as a writing surface. And yes, that's the back side of a quilt on my bed. It finally got too hot to even look at my down comforter, so I changed to just my parents old quilt. But I've got enough pattern going on in my room, and I like a white bed, so I just turned it pattern-side-down. It's a great quilt: my grandma made it, and there's pictures of me as a little baby lying on it. Its majorly faded and a little frayed, and the brick red, denim blue, and cream color scheme doesn't really do anything for me, but the stitching is in a really elaborate, beautiful pattern, and I love it.

Listening, Watching, Reading, Wearing, Wanting

Listening: Besides the dance music of the previous post, I've been listening to some mixtapes online: Kitsune Noir has a recent one with my lover Josh Ritter, Deb Oh's got a good set of them, and a girl in my class has one (at least I think it's hers) on Mixtapes from my Ex. I also like the electro mixtapes from The Music Ninja, like this one.
Watching: This video is of a little boy who got a hearing aid. His parents videotaped his reactions as he hears their voices and his own for the first time. Incredible, made me cry.
Reading: I just finished Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami. I've read most of his books. I'm halfway through Edisto by Padgett Powell which I picked up in the free bin outside Powell's on Friday, only because it's about South Carolina lowcountry and I was going to the Point. On my reading list for the summer: Somerset Maugham, Edith Wharton, and Arcadia by Tom Stoppard which I used read while cat-sitting and never finished. I also never finished Demons by Dostoevsky, but it's been so long since I put it down that I might not finish. I'm so excited to have time to read this summer, hit me with suggestions!
Wearing: today, reversible skirt from Old Navy I think, magenta side out, and white three-quarter sleeve wrap top with black lace. Pakistani flats. BUT, last night I sewed some chain onto a white "wife-beater" tank top that I actually found in the trash can in the laundry room of my old apartment building (it wasn't IN the trash, exactly, it was kinda draped over the edge) and I think it looks pretty cool.
Wanting: mostly a letter or email from Africa. But other than that, I want to sell some stuff I don't want to take with my when I move, and for that I need access to a good camera. These pictures from my computer's camera are no good, and won't woo the etsy buyers.

More Space Prints! Great Clothes Online! Great Blog! Tomorrow's Saturday!

I saw this awesome nebula-print tank top on Academichic. It's from All Saints, and they also have a bikini and one-piece swimsuit in the same print. I just looked around that site, which I had never seen before, and holy moley, I want everything there. Studded biker jacket, plaids, draping, crazy cuts, a gold dress, a fireworks print... I just watched like 5 episodes of Project Runway and everything on this site is super creative and interesting. And I was only looking at their "vintage" section-- the new stuff looks good too. Tomorrow I'm going to blow off reading and work on my sewing projects. Got to finish sewing the roses on my blue top that I started way back in December, at the very least, and tackle a pile of mending/alterations: a vintage dress I bought in Mississippi and love, only it's see-through and kinda frumpy on me, a huge men's striped button-down that's totally threadbare with a rip in the elbow, some old jeans that probably should just become cutoffs, polypropelene leggings that I was obsessed with until I melted them on the space heater (noooo!!!!) and now have big plans to cut up in some exciting way, a huge heavy turquoise circle skirt that I made with grandma but then got caught in a bike gear so it's permanently stained and also has some bizarre bleach spots that I'm going to ruche up in some way inspired by this skirt I posted earlier, something out of these too-small nehru collar kaftan-like things that I bought at Unique, and something out of a Japanese-garden watercolor silk shirt that I bought at Unique even though it is huge and ruffly and hideous, just for the fabric. Whew!

I meant for this post actually to be an endorsement of Academichic. It's three women PhD students somewhere in the Midwest, and I really relate to their concerns with looking professional, staying warm, dealing with bizarre temperature changes, and so on. Also, they're quite creative without being hipsters, showing ideas I hadn't thought of like unbuttoning a shirt and wrapping it with a belt and high-waist skirt (also picture above, wearing a cardigan as a wrap, and love that skirt!), wearing full skirts with blazers, and layering with dresses, something I find very difficult to pull off. They're also smart and quite thoughtful, discussing things like the cultural appropriation of Japanese floral motifs by Anthropologie, or how professional women project those two parts of themselves (professionalism and/or femininity) publicly through clothing. And, they can sew! Some altered clothing and some embellishment projects. This is one of the few realistic-fashion blogs that I find continually interesting. 5 stars!

Daily Outfit

Here's a rather boring thing that I wore on a weekend.
Sperry Topsiders that the dog chewed the tassels off of. I just wear them without the leather laces, and I kinda like them that way.
Gap jeans that I bought at a yard sale because they were the exact size and cut that I bought two pairs of the last time I bought jeans, only they were too short and flares, so I cut and sewed them in to be straight leg jeans, which look ok if they're a bit too short.
A free t-shirt from high school "CHS Unity Day" that I cut very fitted with a scoop neck and wear with the kinda ugly logo on the back.
The same green and white space-dye knit blazer that I posted yesterday. I love it.
A sweet necklace I bought in Dahab in Egypt. I've never seen anything like it ever. Someone told me it looks like a dreamcatcher and it sortof does, if dreamcatchers were satin and covered in sequins and beads and hanging from a pastel wrapped thread chunky bead choker. Unfortunately in this lame photo you can't see the sparkly green and red beaded tassels that hang down from the big disk, there are a few escaping out, but the rest snuck in the neckline of my shirt.

Summer! Biking! Pilsen! Rooftops! Elation!

On Thursday I biked to my internship in Pilsen. It was 80* and sunny and on the way back, incredibly windy. I went up the lakeshore path from 47th to 18th, and then got really confused trying to cross over Lakeshore Drive and the Metra tracks. Some nice runner ladies pointed me in the right direction. After you cross the Metra tracks, you're in this surreal place with castles, which turn out to be townhomes and the US Soccer Federation. Then, after some industry and a terrifying bridge made of metal grating, the river glinting below your lurching tires far below, you're in Pilsen. The tamales vendors smile and wave, mothers take their kids to school, stores are opening. By Damen, the street smells like tacos. Later in the day, I went for a walk to the park, bought some pastries at Central Bakery, developed my photos, bought ice cream, ate a salad outside in the sun. In the afternoon, I biked into a strong wind full of dust and blowing trash and "hola, guapa!" to Little Village, where I bought some incredible coconut water with pulp (from Thailand via Mexico) which was summer in a can, along with some chilis and granola, and sat on a front stoop talking and people-watching.

On the way home, I biked down Cermak to Halsted, and then took Halsted south to 31st St, where I passed what I think is the hill from photographer Paul Octavious's daily photo essay (he took a picture of some hill in Chicago every day for a year, photo above, found via Cup of Jo). Then through more blowing grit and a strange conversation at stoplights from a guy on a motorbike (my word for "not as loud as a motorcycle should be but didn't look like a moped") who just seemed to want to share his general elation. I went through Bridgeport and across the Drive onto a grueling ride into the wind down the path, where I got smoked by some guys in matching spandex uniforms and even, hilariously, by the pudgy one who brought up the rear. I blame this on having small tires. Even 53rd street was hopping; what used to be a generic movie rental place and was closed for a long time is now open as a garden shop with a hand-drawn sign. Adorable!

My roommates and I spent the night drinking on the roof, where we stayed for varying portions of the wee am hours. Yesterday afternoon I spent on the roof in the sun with more drinks (gin & tonics, strawberry daiquiris made with fresh strawberries!) and a rotating cast of passer-by friends. The buds on our front yard tree that had been closed shut the night before had little lime green filaments escaping out. We stayed up until sunset, watching the birds reeling out of the west and the streetlights turning everywhere below us a cozy summer orange, the sky turning purple, the clouds dividing the sky. Today it's raining, so it's back to the glowing rectangles and reams of papers for me.


I was reading blogs, specifically Bliss, and came across this cute skirt, which is part of Frei designs, sold super-sustainably in Chicago by designer Annie Novotny at her storefront Workshop, which is on 18th Street and I must have biked right past. This is from the Frei website, can you believe it?:

"Supporting healthy labor practices and environmental sustainability.

Made with carefully-chosen materials:
• 80% organic
• no agrochemicals
• fast-renewing resources
• low-impact or no-impact dying

Sewn in Chicago by workers who receive a fair and living wage.
Shipped using recycled materials"

And to keep it fashion-blog-esque, what I wore:

To work on Thursday, a green-ish gray corduroy knee-length A-line skirt that I made with my grandma probably when I was in early high school and have mended and patched countless times (perhaps the most worn and most versatile thing I own besides jeans), and a blue & yellow striped v-neck t-shirt that my grandma made me recently from a pattern I adapted from a dress (bodice & neckline lowered). I also brought a thin, long, (holey) mauve cardigan I got from Unique not long ago but only had to wear it for half the morning ride.

Thursday night on the roof: the shirt and some tight jeans that I bought at Unique and cut off at the knee, maroon suede bedazzled flats that I found in a free bin in my boyfriend's apartment building.

Friday, before I realized what a perfect day it was outside: jeans & piggly-wiggly tshirt. I have been offered $50 for this t-shirt after a show in Wrigleyville from a guy at a Taco Bell, and regret to this day having not sold it. I could always get another one for $5 at the grocery store back home. The Piggly-Wiggly also featured prominently in the conversation of the Dirty Hippies of Memphis, more information on that later.

Friday, after I realized it was a perfect day to make strawberry daiquiris and lounge on the roof: ragged old hand-me-down Abercrombie shorts, which are perfectly too big and threadbare, and a white eyelet camisole that I got from a roommate who was purging possessions. Blankets: my mom's floral comforter from high school, an unfinished piece of blue & black buffalo plaid wool that I liberated from grandma's fabric stash.

Today in the rain: pink Minnetonka moccasins I got at a thrift store, jeans, lacy pink cami from Unique, boyfriend's old threadbare blue and white striped buttondown.

Oh, and on Tuesday, I went to Village Discount in Pilsen, and got huraches from Brazil (which I'd been wanting since last summer) and are going to take some breaking-in, some Capezio dance shoes (practically new! magically comfortable stay-on-your-foot black heels, my work shoes for all the non-summer and non-snowing days), a textured off-white old Ralph Lauren scoopneck t-shirt, 3 children's books (only one of which I could bring myself to donate to the book drive I bought them for, the others are too gorgeously illustrated and strange to get rid off) and a 2008 planner featuring Japanese woodcut prints that I plan to cut out and use as postcards.

Sequin Dresses

In grandma's "larder," I found a big length of all-over sequined black fabric! I can't find a good pattern to make it with, and it's such thick and intimidating fabric, with no stretch, that I don't really want to wing it. I want a simple racer-back tank dress, short and sparkly. French Connection had one, but it appears to be sold out. This is a less-good substitute for the one that I saw in a magazine, which was shorter, lower-cut, with narrower straps, and racier in all ways.

I like the back of this tank from Urban Outfitters.

But this one is even better! Because it's black, I guess. I can't find a pattern for a basic but modern tank-- not too wide of straps, placed just right, and cut narrow in the back.

This is from Anthropologie. I think it fits better with my last post about embellishments but I thought I'd throw it in here with the sequin inspiration.

Another perfectly-cut tank from JCrew, with all-over sequins. You can't see it so well in the black, and they look like softer, smaller sequins, but it deserves to be included for the shape. Just picture this, (slightly) longer, with huger, more gaudy sequins, and that's what I want.

This dress is looser than what I'm going for but gorgeous. It's by Hoss Intropia’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection, which I learned from the blog Lace & Tea, and I found it originally on {this is glamorous}.

Draping & Fabric Flowers

I'm visiting my grandma, who is an excellent seamstress with two sewing machines and a basement full of fabric and notions, but I needed a lot of inspiration-gathering. I'd like to make a soft knit jersey top with some kind of embellishment-- gathers, flowers, maybe sequins. These pictures are from Anthropologie except the ones on models, which are from JCrew. This top one I found a year ago while I was doing the same thing. Last year I learned how to make millinery flowers out of fabric, and I made a few. One simple one out of felt is pinned to my hat, but the more elaborate one sits in my drawer because I made it out of an old dingy white t-shirt. Gross.

Love this one below because of the defined waist.

I love the drippy look of these sequins. We saw dozens of shirts similar to this in the stores recently.

Way out of my skill range, but lovely.

I think this red one is my favorite.

I saw this one in the store! It is bits of folded fabric appliqued on, rather than embroidery. Unfortunately the underside of the embellished part is very stiff and bumpy; it should have been lined on the inside.

The smocking is a little too much, but the flowers are pretty.

I tried on a lot of on-sale printed knit tops, which are no longer up on their website. Grandma doesn't have much fabric in soft, printed (florals, bright colors, abstract designs) knits that are so popular in stores. They are probably pretty cheaper-- grandmas prints are often woven in, and the knits are more substantial. In a way, I like the thin drape of the "store-bought" fabric, but I tried on a top in Anthropologie that had a cowl neck and wide bat-wing sleeves, and it doesn't look very good when the wrong, unprinted side of the fabric shows in all those drapes. Nevertheless, I like the drapey front of this blouse and the fact that it has a defined waistline. (My cousin says that because I am young and skinny I can get away with all kinds of loose blousy styles, but for sex appeal I still like a defined feminine figure.)

Speaking of retro sex appeal, I just saw a blouse a lot like this one on a picture of Joan from Mad Men. Did you know the actress is not a natural redhead?

Another secretary-ish blouse, now from JCrew. Very pretty, no?

I've mentioned before that I am sick of JCrew's obsession with ruffles, but this is just over-the-top enough (pink! ruffles! flowers!) to be awesome.

This is the first shirt I downloaded, and is probably closest to what I'm going to come up with: a simple tee adorned with fabric flowers. But none of that scratchy-looking tulle, yuck. And in light blue. I'll post pictures when I'm done!