I did not make this dress

Thanks to Robin for pointing out this eBay listing to me -- this totally looks like something I'd make, doesn't it? I didn't, unless Future Me gets that time machine I've been noodling on (I have very elaborate diagrams, drawn on a cocktail napkin; the problem is finding a battery the size of a chest freezer and made of highly purified unobtainium) and goes back to 1960-something (and, evidently, loses her iron). The spooky thing is that it's totally my size ...

Hmm. Anyway, if you buy this dress (click here), would you check and see if the hem is finished with bias tape and the notches are clipped in instead of out? That would help me figure out if Future Me ever made it back. Thanks!

Ideas I Am Going To Steal

Eirlys sent me this fantastic Etsy skirt, by deciduoussoul:




I love this skirt, but I don't wear wrap skirts (that is, I haven't worn a wrap skirt since about 1977) so I have put this on my list of cool ideas to steal someday. Banding alphabet fabric (of which I have a gracious plenty) at the bottom of a plain A-line skirt? Genius.

Ktbb sent this link, in a comment a few days back:



I've done rickrack on skirt hems before, but not on midriff bands. I think I see a Duro Jr with this effect coming up ...

And Lisa sent a link to this eBay auction for a terrific rocketship sundress ... the dress itself is a bit banged up, but the fabric is so darned great I see another Spoonflower order in my future:




I don't feel bad about this at all -- we get inspiration from everywhere, and there's a bright line between inspiration and slavish imitation. (I was going to throw in the Picasso quote "All art is theft" here, but I've looked that up in both the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (and the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, just in case) and in the new Yale Book of Quotations, and can't find it. So I'll just have to steal without the glamour of Picasso having said it was okay.)

What good ideas have you wanted to steal lately?

Ridiculous(ly Expensive) Shoes

I saw these shoes in a shop window a month or so ago, and they looked so cute. Then I saw them on the street, on a real person, and they were even cuter. So I went into the shop (Prada, a place where I don't remember ever going into before -- what would be the point?), took this surreptitious picture, and am now posting it. I would link to them but I can't find an online seller.

They caught my eye, of course, because they are RICK-RACK SANDALS, and as such, absolutely gorgeous. They're also $495, which puts them WAY out of my budget (that is, if my budget were at the Equator, this pair of shoes would be at Alpha Centauri) which is sad.

My hope is that I can outlast everyone else -- in six months, these shoes will be "so last-season," whereas my love for rick-rack knows no season. There will be pairs going begging, and I will snap them up, preferably on eBay. At least, that's my fantasy.

There's also a high-heel version, but I didn't bother taking a picture of those. (I was terrified of the salesladies, frankly.)

(If you look at the reflection in the chrome edging of the table, you can see my stripey seersucker dress. I'll try and post about that dress towards the end of the week.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I admit, I am kinda a fan of Valentine's Day. (And not just because I got woken up this morning by a seven-year-old giving me a card and a heart-shaped box of See's. In my house, if you haven't completed your celebration of any particular holiday -- Easter, Christmas, Arbor Day -- before seven a.m., you obviously shouldn't be allowed to participate.)

I like Valentine's as an excuse to wear red, obviously, and also because I think it's a great day to just be nice to people for no reason. Pick the grumpiest-looking random person you can find, and hold a door open for them today, or pay them a compliment. You can find something to compliment ANYONE about, I promise. (I'm very much looking forward to being an cheerfully eccentric old lady and can give people pieces of candy out of my pockets without them thinking it's creepy and weird.)

If only it were warm enough to wear the above dress in Chicago today (projected high: 39) I would be all over it. You should really click on the image to see the full effect, because this photo concentrates on the glorious rick-rack to the exclusion of the equally magnificent bandanna-print ruffle at the hem. Rick-rack and bandanna: does it get any better? (Well, I don't see any pockets on this one, but otherwise ...)

It's $50 at Penelope Pup's Vintage. B36/W28. I think that if there's someone who was going to send you roses today (ESPECIALLY if that someone was yourself -- hey, we've all been there, and it's not a bad place to be; when you're buying your own Valentine you never give yourself scratchy cheesy underwear) you should hint to that person to send you this instead. It will last longer, and probably isn't drenched in pesticide. A win all around!

If you want to see my last-year's Valentine's Dress, please to be clicking here.