awaiting its turn at the screen burner’s!

ohhhh! i give up.

no i’m lying.

instead, maybe a fashion show in october? we’ll see. and keep you posted.

lord. some days.

a quilted vest for fall.
this is a sample, using pre-quilted fabric left over from previous projects.
the real one will be made from hand-dyed organic cotton (with organic batting) and will be printed, quilted and embroidered by me.

i ordered some dyes last night and ian and i worked on the print a bit more.
no responses to the thermal question! well, i have decided without your help: no thermal.
not yet at least.
maybe a bit for the lads.
but ladies, you’re getting a very nice pointelle.
like it or not.

this was my lunch today.
that’s right! more than just iced coffee and a banana!
i’m home today because i just happened to have the day off, but i would be anyway because i’m slightly sick. boo. nothing major. some girl troubles, if you will.
well, not boo really, as i’m feeling much better than yesterday, in part because i found hello health. because i have already emailed two friends about this place and because i am determined to prevent this blog from becoming an infomercial, i will keep this brief: hello health is awesome.
they serve williamsburg and greenpoint
they are clean, professional and friendly
they are fast yet thorough
they have a “transparent” (and fair) pricing system, meaning you know what you’ll be paying up front
and apparently i was their first patient (!!!), as they just opened today. so obviously, i saw them at their best, all brand new and shiny. but i have great hopes for hello health and think that this is a great idea whose time was long overdue.

huh, in trying to be concise, i guess i ended up writing a little infomercial. ah well.
now a nap and a book and then, then i promise, some sewing.
i have a new vest to show you tomorrow.

also, an informal poll:
do you like thermal knit fabric?
you know…the waffley-looking stuff?
yes or no. and why.
thanks!

ah! it’s been a while. am still working on fall stuff VERY slowly. have been working other jobs a lot too, but am not forgetting dear birthday! thank you so much to all of the awesome ladies who have ordered from me in the past couple of weeks as those orders have been great motivators to keep working hard! i am nervous about fall things as they are something of a departure from the usual dear birthday parade of colors and print combinations, what with my (possibly temporary?) abandonment of liberty of london prints. but! i do believe ian and i are going to have a really great print once it’s completed and my stamping tests have been favorable. so! onward.

no photo today.
but there’s this thing.

also, this made me super happy the other day. (from cute overload) check out the major weasely slinking action around 0:57. holy. crumbbuckets.

uh. and this? HILARIOUS! ian and i watched the nature program this was excerpted from this evening and let me just give you a tiny bit of background info in case you aren’t completely blown away by what you see here: these crazy birds are dancing in what amounts to a giant acid puddle that nothing save for a bunch of sea monkeys can even step foot in. on top of a mountain. in a desert. in complete isolation. can you imagine somehow finding yourself in this otherwise barren and alien landscape only to happen upon the sight of these big pink dorks enjoying themselves so unabashedly and immensely? i think i would die laughing.

tadaaaa!

and now i think maybe some pizza is in order.

also, the stretchy photo thing is incredibly wacky. one of these days i’m going to figure out how to put an end to it. in the meantime, let’s pretend i’m just like, 8 feet tall! hooray!

dear birthday will make no more promises regarding estimated times for site updates, for the universe seems determined to test us and we are in no mood for such trials. perhaps there will be an update later? perhaps not. we are crossing our fingers.

this morning geoffrey unloaded an enormous glob of stinky dog vomit onto his beloved “puff” (a sort of dog cot) and then proceeded to attempt to lie back down in it. there was much griping on my part, followed by much cleaning up and sadly, the puff was lost as it was much too disgusting to be saved. then the dog needed to be bathed. then i did. and finally it was time to finish the last of the tshirt sewing for today’s update! that went along just fine, but when it came time to photograph the shirts, the only working memory card for the slr was missing! no matter. i made do with the point and shoot. finally i sat down here at trusty ol’ lappy only to find that photoshop is apparently very cranky with me today and something about a scratch disk being full and something about defragging and possibly something about throwing the computer out the window…?

anyway. working on the problem. update sometime…soon! probably!

so! as you may know, ian and i are working as valerian to design some textile prints for dear birthday’s fall and winter collections. it’s super slow-going at the moment, as the main print is kind of detailed and we’ve only just settled on a basic combination of things and we still need to find a place that will burn our screens–having given up completely on finding a shop that will do that *and* print yardage. anyway, i want to have a hand-printed gingham as well, but hadn’t quite decided what method to use. at first hand-painting seemed the way to go, as i want a somewhat rough look. i mean, gingham is gingham and lovely though it be (how is it that something so simple can be so very charming?) it’s sort of anonymous. but my hand-painting skillz are lacking and none of my tests were satisfactory.

enter lena corwin’s new book, printing by hand. i ordered a copy from word without having seen it and was totally blown away and pleased as punch when it arrived (super quickly, might i add…i love word) all lovely and useful and spiral-bound. what’s more is that it introduced me to a method i hadn’t yet considered: stamp-making! how these little rubber blocks managed to hide from my sight for so long is beyond my understanding for lo, they are marvelous. ok, granted, i have yet to test the stamping on fabric. but if lena’s tablecloth example is any indication of stamping’s sweet charms, this is definitely to be the fall gingham method of choice.

hooray!

in other news, today’s soundtrack is karen dalton’s in my own time. just in case you were wondering.

*ps, i realize the image here is A. bad and B. not gingham-in-progress, but checks-in-progress. i’m testing both possibilities, but leaning towards gingham (though it requires a bit more work)

two years ago this month: Megaptera novaeangliae off cape cod. no cape cod last year, none this year either. i took a week off from works 2 and 3 in anticipation of our trip to visit my grandparents up there, but it isn’t to be. hopefully we can make the trip in the fall when there are fewer tourists anyway.

le. sigh.

anyway! trying not to be bummed about it and i’ll be taking a *working* vacation in which i try to pull it together and get some fall things really underway. also, my karie friend is coming back from spain that week and so now i’ll be around to drink iced things and travel vicariously through her stories of eco-farms and cottage building! there’s always something to look forward to, even if it’s not the thing you planned on. right? right.

aaaand! on a completely unrelated note, treehouse is having their 2nd birthday party in the branches this sunday! i am most certainly going to try to swing by after work. and! i’m bringing them a replacement batch of valerian cards and another romper (size large, if you’re wondering) this evening. go congratulate those ladies on their anniversary!

sale on etsy, if you please. old sale items further reduced. please take home some summer things and help motivate me to sew fall faster!
xoxo