Pictures of You .....

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you.... That I almost believe that they're real...I've been living so long with my pictures of you... That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel..

I don't play catch-up, all I can do is move forward.


The old living room. Don't get excited kids, that's painted particle board, not a combo floor. It's what I came home too, at 11pm at night a month a little more then a month ago.

And thanks to my wonderful housemate, this is what I wake up to now. The Little Brown Dog and the new laminate flooring.

Viva La Deco Dirty City Casa.

Shoe Drool... Not So Random

It's a quiet night here in BHC... I'm too lazy to change the foot on the sewing machine to tackle the zipper I decided I had to have a couple of hours ago... The new little addition is sleeping quietly at my feet and Big Furry Dog is snoozing in the entrance to the office. I'm not sure there's anything on the boob tube I need to watch right now, and thus, am reduced to surfing the Internets.

Invariably the Internet surfing turns to two things, shoes and patterns. Occasionally underwear. Tonight it was shoes and more shoes...

First there are these, by cute quirky company Penny Loves Kenny. I think they are on sale at Mod Cloth. The only thing i like on that site are the shoes.. Seriously... And boy do I like these. So cute.

So I bopped over to Zappos to see if I could find the PLK shoes there, maybe a little cheaper or in another color (read: black).. No such luck, and I found that while Zappo's brand list is now even HUGE-R then it was, they don't have some of the brands they used to.. Poop..



These were cute though, and made by STEVEN. The grown-up Steve Madden line. I have a pair of STEVEN shoes I bought for $30 on Amazon a few years ago. I love them. They are my favorite pin-up shoes.. As a result, I almost never wear them, for fear they will crumble off my feet and disappear the minute I look away.

Then it was over to old stand by, Forever 21.. I actually ventured into the one here in the mall the other night. The store was a disheveled mess. Seriously, it looked like a pack of teenagers had gone buck wild in the place. They pretty much had and the staff looked a little run over and run down as well. Some time, when it's not 30 minutes until they close, and I have money, I'll go back. In the mean time, I'll keep staring at the website.

These were cute. I found them in another store, but with a lower heel and more of an 80s look. These are higher and look hot in person...
And these:

MEOW! I Oh so hot! And yes, I will go back and get them, because they are so cute. And them come in solid black. I don't care that I never make it out of the house. I will wear them to wash the dishes in.

And last but not least...

By Remix Vintage shoes.. Available at their site and at Anthropologie stores. Dear after Christmas sale, where is the 75% mark down that I need.. That would make them... about $60.00... And yes, they are yellow... And I want them any way..

The Noir Goddess or the School Marm...

It's a tough call.. 

Once I got my new patterns in my grubby little paws, I could think of little else and so I immediately started working on the 1937 Simplicity Pattern... 

This one: 

So of course I made up a test version: 

With a zipper closure on the right side and four fabric covered buttons on the front. 

It's not perfect... The welts on the pockets made me a little crazy, 

From a distance they look okay, but up close, meh... 

Face on it's not so bad: 

But it's not really me.. the first thing I thought when I saw it on the dress maker's dummy was "Victorian school marm"... It's not what I was going for. I haven't finished the hem on it, I did put the zipper in and now it's back on the pile of "needs hand stitching". 

I did manage to get a zipper in one high waisted skirt and then button holes in the other one.  I'm not really sure that I like either one of them. The pattern is cheap and wonky and really requires a lot more drafting to make it fit well. I don't feel like putting that much work into it. I think I'd rather just go back to cranking out pencil skirts. 

I'm in the process of moving and re-organizing all of my Retro-Fitted photos from the PC to the laptop. I've lost a ton of images and the organization of a lot more and i'm reduced to trying to reorganize them via mouse sized thumbnails. ARGG. 

On top of that, the new laptop has NO PHOTO EDITING SOFTWARE... I had gotten so spoiled by Photoscape. They don't make a MAC friendly version, so it's GONE! I looked at iPhoto but it's not downloaded to this one and tells me I need a new version of quick time before it can download. Maybe I'll do that today... I really need a better way to view and store stuff, not to mention crop and edit photos. 

Narf! 

* Garments listed and promptly (mostly) sold on Etsy.com... Check.

* Timing belt on car changed.. Check...

* Oil leak on car as a result of faulty timing belt part, fixed.... Check.

* Coming to the conclusion that I should really consider buying a new(er) car, even though I love my little Honda... Begrudging.... Check...

* Call NMSU to talk to their wonderful advisor about transferring to their BA program. Check..

* Find out 24hrs after sending in transcript that Dean and Department head have done away with program in it's current form. However a new program will be started.. NARF.

* Steam clean carpets to remove built-up smell of dogs/cats/smokers and day to day life.. Check and double check.


It's been a busy month, what can I say. I'm sewing full bore an will have new pictures up soon. I've gotten these two patterns recently.... Not sure which to make first...

I saw something tonight that was very old. At least in a contemporary kinda way. For a minute it made me really home sick. I wanted to be that again, just for a second.
The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that I was happy that it was the past. Happy to have been a small insignificant part of it, and happier still to know where I am today and where so many other people are today.
And that given the choice, I don't really want it back. Not a bit of it. I'm glad for it's happening, I wish none of it away (well almost none) and I wish never to go back to it again.

Cryptic enough for ya?

In other news... I have been feverishly sewing and working on my new little site over at pinuplifestyle.com.. Mostly I've been sewing. And sewing and sewing...
Observe...

More of these:


These:



And this:


It's leopard print fleece and oh so snugly soft and warm... Mmm... warm...

Patterns:

It's either very late 1930s or very early 1940s, I can't tell yet from the picture. I can tell you that it is NOT from the 1950s, which is what it was listed under. I'm still waiting for it to come in the mail box. Happy Belated Birthday to Me..


late 1940s. The hem line falls a LOT father then I think it should. It's ankle length, almost. I think it getting shortened to just below the knee. A girl only needs SO MUCH drape. Eef...

And I've been dreaming about red chili and mi casa in Deco Dirt City...
It's almost Dia De Los Muertos, and I have no plans. No beautiful parade to attend. No one other then best boy to go eat dinner with. No beautiful costume to wear.. Sigh....

Six Degrees of Separation

It's 1988 (give or take a year) in a small college town in the heart of coal country. There's not a lot to do. This one horse town has one two main streets, one named for a TV star and one named for it's place in the towns geography. In between the two mains streets run a few side streets. The biggest of which houses the town's only club. The club will under go many names in it's history but today it's in it's original incarnation. Named for Harriet Tubman's famous trail. The club hosts heavies in the underground music scene, as well as local performers. A local band, naming themselves after a character in a popular TV show hangs out there. Along with the lead singer's younger brother, and a recent high school graduate, among many others. They listen to lots of music, drink under age, and generally cause mayhem.


Flash forward to 2001. A young woman finds herself in the same town at a Christmas party, brought down from a dying industrial city 800 miles to the north by the guy she's been dating for a year or more. She meets a dark grumpy punk rocker at the party, along with his very sweet girlfriend. They become fast friends. They take her to the same club, it's latest incarnation, this time named only for the street address it occupies.


Flash again to 2004, in a desert town in a dusty valley surrounded by mountains and mesa(s), a short lived marriage is about to fall apart. The girl's burlesque troupe is holding a meeting to meet and greet their newest member, a puppet master and ventriloquist who happens to love both Burlesque and Vaudeville. The girl's troupe takes him on immediately. Over many conversations and meetings the girl finds out the puppet master lived in the college town in coal country for a little while. She mentions that her now ex-husband hailed from there as well. They compare notes and realize that her ex would have been far too young to have known the puppet master. Life goes on.

2008.. Over morning coffee and email. The girl reads her email from the puppet master, who is now living far away. The email brings news that his wife is pregnant with their first child. She mentions this to her boyfriend, the dark haired punk rock boy that she met at the Christmas party so long ago. She mentions too, that the puppet master and the boy's brother are about the same age. Give or take a year. She mentions the puppet master's "real" name.

I know him, says her boyfriend, I know that I do.... She dashes off an email..And in the late evening the reply.... Yes, her boyfriend is right... He did know the puppet master. The puppet master knew his brother, they hung out at the club for a summer and caused various amounts of insanity. How odd... That they should all cross paths so differently...

Ahhh....

That was a sigh of relief. Tomorrow I box this up an send it Bettie's Sister and her boyfriend, so they can award, raffle and otherwise do with as they need to.