happy birthday mom!

there had best be flowers..... here is one from me in case there aren't!

love, oona

i swear i'm still here

as evidenced by my sporadic comments on other peeps' blogs...

but i have to come out of the woodwork to give a HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout out to big daddy! here's the patch of east coast sky i'll be seeing today, big daddy. hope you are sitting under it with a gin & tonic.
love, oona.

what had happened was.....

march? really?

but it was just christmas, and i was in snowy new york, in the middle of hundreds of people flying around city streets...

ho ho WHOAH!

all i wanted for christmas was r...but r was naughty...

and brought me a new laptop.

i hope santa was nice to you!

sealed with a kiss

and guarded by a very large cat.

(cody is ready for the recession.)

i am still adjusting to new york air. which is apparently adjusting to itself. it has been negative 72 degrees one minute, the next, it's acapulco. i'm in a little apartment the size of a shoe, and when not at work, i spend the balmy frigid hours sewing. my goal is to finish a holiday dress made partly from this pattern swapped by the awesome emilykate, and partly from the bouncy tiered skirt offered by weekend designer.

i am a firm believer that one should dress up for the holidays. way up. bordering on costume, if you will. i even went so far as to ask my awesome mom-in-law to send me her gorgeous red velvet floor length vintage coat to finish my christmas look-- a look which, admittedly, would be better had i not left my ten dollar baby blue sparkling vintage dress in LA. so sad. even sadder, what with the move and the new job and the healthy diet, i am now actually able to fit into its wasp waist with none of the intended refashioning required. wait! saddest of all! i am 80% sure the same will not hold true next year!

sigh. it'll be me and the fat cat, guarding the laundry quarters.

why thankya again....

for wondering about my wanderings! i am just now coming up for air... new york air, to be exact... and will be back with a real live post soon (i actually made some stuff from my birthday fabric before the world went upside down).
s.w.a.k., oona

why thankya!

and here you have it, mom and dad: proof that i used my joann's gift card!

(my mother has this strange fear that giftcards-as-prizes are never actually used. which i guess i can understand, as it took me two months to use mine. but it was fun knowing it was waiting patiently in my wallet, like a little birthday pixie.)

i would also like to note that this shopping spree was part of an attempt to buy some solid material, as everything i own has some sort of wild pattern on it. three out of seven ain't bad, eh? i hope my support group leader will be pleased...




i'll try to carry my love for the maxi dress into fall with the red knit (which is a nice deep color, way more orange-y red than the pic) and a knee length version with the crazy-crazy i-don't-CARE-if-it's-not-solid! blue knit. the chocolate brown print is fairly stiff, i think it might look great as burdastyle's anda à la the M.I.A. incurable homebody's big floral print (where you at girl?), and adding a wide belt as nikkishell did. the flowery wash is quite silky... no idea what it should be. and i'm not sure what to do with the yellow eyelet (but i need a good solid top!), the salmon cotton (the ladies in line at the cutting table said it matched my cheeks, damn heavy-handed blush) or the white & gray flowers... maybe this tunic dress?





actually, i'm not completely sold on any of my choices. suggestions anyone? emilykate, any flashes of brilliance?

delightful don

i finally tried out a weekend designer pattern, after many week-days of bookmarking and hemming and hawing and not wanting to do ANY MATH. this camie pattern was about as much addition and subtraction as i was willing to handle on my first drafting.



i added a stretchy band of unknown material to the bottom to appease r's constant desire to see my figure. (nice, that.) the blouse-y top efficiently handles the belly's inevitable expansion when dining out (one must always think ahead).

it took about 30 minutes to make 2 yards of thin ribbon out of the very slippery body material for the keyhole opening. and about 4 minutes to hack it off and go with a vintage button instead.









oona: do you like this picture?

r: you should add bitemarks to your neck before you upload it. like you've been bitten by a vampire.


BOYS.

nacho libre: the cheese stands alone

i do believe i should be thinking at this point: oh how i miss cheese. but i don't. it's astounding.

we mixed up some fresh guacomole (used lemon instead of lime, SO good); r sauteed some yellow squash, orange peppers and baby carrots:

oona: "what did you put in this? it's fantastic!"

r: "i don't know."

(oona scrunches her face in frustration at r's mad improvisational cooking skillz.)

i browned up some ground dark turkey with the help of simply organic's seasoning packets (yeah, no improv for me, actually i used a packet on the guac too) and topped it off with vermont's own green mountain gringo salsa (they are known for mexican cusine in the snowy mountains of vermont, didn't you know that?), then made each nacho right at the table for the perfect bite. i must also bow to the prowess of r's perfect bite skillz. that palm-sized nacho you see pictured above? that, my friends, is the perfect bite, and was consumed whole. repeatedly.

goodies!

it's a good thing i don't obsessively collect things, because stamps would be next on the list. what's that you say? i am delusional and am already a hoarder of whatever tickles my fancy? oh, alright.


my swap from emilykate arrived today (all the way from australia!) and i am so excited... this awesome pattern is one size too small for me, but i am hoping to make some adjustments and have a clone of this:



see mom? i didn't cut it! i love this dress. it was swiped from my parents' magical attic closet which always seemed to produce some new retro item every time i'd come over and get everyone drunk enough to not mind me rummaging through their things. so that i might collect them. ah, this post's tiny circle is complete.

(ps: if you'd like some swap goodies of your own, come join our flickr swap group!)

because i said scout's honor:

i would like to provide evidence that i did indeed sew this weekend. though not until the very last minutes of sunlight of said weekend. i spent most of it at, god, yahweh and yoda save me, THE MALL. nothing was fully accomplished, and now it is time to have a little wine and nachos.

(i'm not sure where i got this attachment to the honor of a scout needing to be upheld. i was a brownie for about ten minutes when i was a little girl ((the precursor to a girl scout on the east coast)). i think my mom & i were supposed to bring cookies to the first meeting, and we brought brownies instead-- you know, in honor of brownies. as i recall that was all the Powers That Be needed to oust us from the group. but on the other hand, i do remember being part of a weekend girls' camping trip, which had to be well into a scout's career, no? i cried about being away from home, i cried about our troop leader losing our way in the woods, i cried about peeing in the dirt, i cried about the tarantulas my fellow brownies promised me were clinging to every treetop...)

(clarification, mom?)

eeeeewwwwwwwww...

i imagine us, one day, as parents, yelling at our kids: "dammit, drink your vegetables!"

r has made this green drink for many years now, and has never been able to coax any guest into liking it. it consists of a bag of organic greens, lemon & lime juice, tart green apples, and amaranth grain, all blasted together in our industrial strength blender. it is actually quite tasty.

no, really.

hana, what was your tasty green treat?

sewing is promised this weekend, scout's honor!