fascinators

i have been obsessed with all things fancy dress england for a number of years now.  the best aspect of this obsession is fascinators!! 

over the summer my friends and i went on a mission to find me a fascinator in chi (chichester) for my friends wedding in vt.  what a fabulous day!  it was magical!  we started the day with breakfast at the old navy and proceeded to see every fascinator shop and m+s (i also had a twiggy eco-friendly bag obsession that was happily fullfilled that day). we had such a great time, and i walked away with three amazing fascinators.  i felt like a million bucks!!

ever since then i have enjoyed wearing my fascinators and sharing with others.  my friends and i have said we should import them or make them ourselves.  so this weekend, i decided to start making them!  it has been lots of fun, and i am already seeing results.  i wore one out to dinner last night, and was asked for my contact info for buying, yeah! 

soon to post photos on facebook, and going to get going on etsy.  im excited.  i really enjoy making them, and i stopped by my local sewing store for fabric today.  i stumbled upon beautiful lace from a lingerie store that went out of business.  gorgeous.  im already envisioning the fabulousness to be created!

here is a preview of the fascinators!

St. Patrick's Day Parade

i never had a chance to see the St. Patrick's Day Parade in nyc before.  so this was my chance! 

it was a fantastic parade!  beautiful weather, tons of pipes and drums bands, baton twirlers, i loved it all!

this drummer was my favorite:

a walk

hit the streets with a friend the other day.  we went to the high line and walked around the village.  it was lots of fun, the first hint of spring and all the fun outdoor activities to come!

section 2 of the high line isnt done yet but the glimpse we get of it is so tempting!

a purple door, dark lighting.



librarian's assistant

i really like volunteering.  it was instilled in me at an early age to always help out and it is something that i really enjoy.  i have gone to help out at a school for a class period or after-school program but ive never had time to spend a whole day at a school.  until now!

i spent the day helping out my friend, the librarian at an elementary school.  such a great day!  the kids were adorable and fun and sweet and just wanted attention.  boy does my friend work hard though!  it was a constant stream of kids, books, crying, screaming, hugs, band-aids and questions.  it was an adventure of a day and it tuckered me out, but i loved every minute of it!  i was even able to fix a printer and at least partially fix a computer.  i love solving problems!

a favorite moment was with one little girl who asked me how to spell "chicken nuggets" and "french fries" so that she could write her own sentence about a fun thing she did recently.  i also loved the fifth grader who just wanted to tell me how much she loved reading books and then seeing the movie version.  we both agree that it is definitely worth it to read the book first.

a great day and a lot of great friends, new and old!

art installation

yesterday i decided to check out an art installation that i found through timeout ny's free things to do in nyc section.  off i went for an afternoon with Will Ryman's "The Roses" on Park Ave between 57th and 67th.

it was awesome!  they are gorgeous, huge metal flowers, bugs and leaves that huddle in the medians and tower up into the skyscrapers!  i had a great time taking them all in, and found that i wasnt the only random artfan enjoying them in the middle of the afternoon. 

i especially like this photo with a woman in a red coat walking down the median.  i assume she must have been trying to hail a cab, and she was certainly putting an awful lot of energy into it.  but i loved how her red coat looked like one of the petals. she was getting away.

there were even some petals scattered along, which i found kind of sad as i walked north on the west sidewalk.  walking south on the east sidewalk though they looked completely different in the sunlight.

after that adventure i headed over to fifth ave and got lost in bergdorf's for a while, which was a lot of fun.  if youre going to get turned around you might as well turn into oscar de la renta, chanel and the like.

as usual when i find myself in that neck of the woods i stopped by to see the windows at tiffanys and to say a prayer at St. Patrick's. 

it was a great afternoon, which ended with my happening upon a free wine tasting. fantastic.

i have just gotten back from the library.  a friend who was also on a break last year gave me some great advice: this is an excellent time to read some classics.  so i picked up Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.  we wil see!

red carpet hair

i had never seen the Rachael Ray before, but last friday there i was watching Kyan teach us how to do our own Oscar hairstyles.  his styling of Scarlett Johansson's messy, curly bob intrigued me.  Kyan made it look so easy, simply using a flatiron instead of curling iron to bump the hair.  keep it messy and a little crazy.

my plan for the day was to meet up with a friend to dress shop for her, and then to do a few errands of my own.  i had decided that i was sick of the casual clothes i was wearing day in and day out, and i would get dressed up for errands!  the red carpet hair seemed like the perfect addition to my dress and heels.  also, i had never before seen a how-to hair segment on tv and actually done it at home - perfect!

i heated up my flatiron and started bumping and crimping.  it wasnt looking fabulous but i kept going.  and once i was to the point where i looked worse than i did before i started, i knew it was time to get out the curling iron.  after i curled random sections, things started to shape up!  the curls were really helping out, and the previously random bumps started to blend in nicely!  a touch of hairspray and i was done!

feeling fabulous i set off on my day of dress up errands.  my friend noticed my look and asked me where i was going later.  after replying "no where, im just sick of jeans," she laughed and agreed that it was well worth it to dress up for the heck of it!  and i felt fantastic.  its more fun to click around the grocery store in heels, the post office seems fancier when i swoosh through the door in a dress. 

fresh off the heels of my successful friday, i decided to Kyan my hair again on saturday, this time curling first and then bumping.  i think it was better bumping then curling, but i still liked it!

all in all, i may watch Rachel again, i will definitely try more do-it-yourself hair and i will never hesitate to dress up for the heck of it!

website

as i embarked on another chapter on my life, many people said "why dont you blog?"  so i said, why dont i? and why dont i just commit to a whole website?  ive never made a website before, but people do it all the time.  it cant be that hard.

so i dove right in to godaddy, got myself a domain (ilikeyourvans.com) and all this hosting, make a website tonight stuff.  i know how to follow directions and i can call a help line when all else fails.  i tried, i tried really hard, only to realize, it really is that hard. 

so here i am, easily making a website and getting content out there via blogspot.  yeah!

perhaps at one point my old website will get up and running, but im not worried.  i tried to do something ive never done before, and even though i failed in one respect (godaddy), i am winning in another (blogspot)!

first up: sewing!

the number 7 item on my bucket list is "learn to sew clothes that i would actually wear."  i know how to hand stitch, as well as how to basically use a sewing machine with lessons from my Mom as a kid.  i didnt have my own machine, and constantly looked at the machines at target, but just never committed.  i decided around the holidays that it was time to actually make this happen.  and then, as luck would have it, my Nana gave me her vintage elna sewing machine.  my Mom sent me her vintage patterns in february.  so as it would seem, i was all ready to go.  i, however, never got to a fabric store until a week ago with my new found free time.

i jumped right in with a McCall's dress pattern from 1973, a sleeveless caftan, adorable.

i went to Mood for fabric and picked out a fantastic lavender with navy flowers and light lime accents.  i chose a couple ribbons as well for fun, just to add to my outfit once it was together. 

getting my fabric home and diving into the pattern, i got a taste for just what i was in for: a lot of work. the pattern was a size 8, but from the measurements on the back i thought i would be a 16, so just cutting the pieces was a challenge!  i talked with my Mom and decided to add fabric to the sides, leaving the neck and arms the same.  i dont have a big apartment, and no such work space to speak of, so the cutting of huge floor length pieces was done on my coffee table.  that first night i said to myself "i really went for it with this one!" but i stuck with it.  on the first night, i got all of my pieces of fabric cut, and as much as i wanted to start sewing, i knew i was too tired. 

my first bit of sewing went alright, but i fancied myself a better seamstress than i was, not really looking at the instructions for the machine again, as i had "learned" everything i needed to know in my self-taught sewing machine 101 class  when i brought it home a few months ago.  i was not as adept as i thought.  i got a few pieces sewn, but kept catching threads and mixing up the bobbin thread.  once i had the two front panels sewn and the two back panels sewn, i held the pieces up and knew i had vastly overestimated the necessary size.  so i did resew the pieces in the middles and cut off the excess. again, knowing my own limits, i called it a night at that point!

learning from my previous mistakes i read the instructions again before i started in on day 2 of sewing.  with new found confidence, i attacked the sewing.  i was able to create the neck piping and ties, turning it inside out and feeling great!

without seam binding i happily ventured back to Mood.  once home, i got my seams all set and felt fantastic! here is a photo of the seam binding in process.

i next carefully stitched on the piping around the neck and was feeling like a million bucks right up until i broke the needle!

and back to Mood the next day!  without vintage needles, they nicely sent me on to a machine shop on 38th.

flash forward to this evening, after many trying on's of the dress, pinning of the sides and general fretting, i finally committed to stitching the sides.  luckily it fits and i can get it on and off!  big night.  the arm holes are making me a tad nervous, since i questimated the size and then recut as i felt appropriate.  a project for another day, im going to spend a little bit thinking things over and maybe tomorrow i will have a revelation about how to finish the arms.  but all in all, feeling very accomplished!

here we go

i was recently forced into a work hiatus, and all of a sudden i have lots of time on my hands.  in order to not fall into a 24-hour sweatpants funk, i set a few guidelines for myself.  i decided i would put on real clothes everyday, and get out of the house, even just for a walk.  except of course for the weekends, because i never really did a lot on the weekends anyway.  i love doing nothing, and think i am quite good at it.  but back to the guidelines, i knew i needed to constantly and consistently job search, but i also decided to pursue all of those bucket list items, home projects and diet/exercise pursuits i never really had time for previously.

i was walking around nyc two days ago, with plenty of time on my hands i decided to turn down 29th street since i saw an interesting roofline i never noticed before.  a little light bulb went off, i said to myself "wow, i have time to just turn down any street i want, no place to be, and everything to see." it was as i went to check out the gorgeous, oxidized green roof that i realized that all of what i had been doing for the last couple weeks was things ive never done.

so yes, i am searching for a job, but that isnt fun to read about, so herein i will recap my adventures in new things.  cheers!