porter flea holiday market

It's that time of year again! Tomorrow is December 1st, which marks the annual Porter Flea Holiday Market. I will be present with a bunch of newly sewn and dyed items in tow including dip dye blouses, totes, and more. Some of my vendor friends will make an appearance as well like Tuft Design and Tiny Boot Vintage.

A favorite booth I always have to check out at Porter Flea each season? My Favorite Plum. The shop is filled with an assortment of delicious cookies and cakes all made by Rebekah Turshen, pastry chef at City House. That lady has a gift.

Hope to see you there, locals!

on film: autumn

A Charlie Brown Christmas was on television tonight during dinner so Neil and I got festive and watched it. TV knows it; the world is officially in holiday mode.

So, this is my goodbye to a frantically short fall, a season that seems to fly by within hours now - my favorite time of the year. Here are some shots Neil and I took over the last few months.. bonfires with friends, walks through Percy Warner Park, coffee at Barista Parlor, even a trek down through the bowels of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky this September (where our guide showed us the importance of a single small lantern in one monumentally sized cavern).



I'm busy again - as everyone is this season - this time with school applications and preparation for Porter Flea this weekend. I will be back soon! In the meantime, I will be surviving on coffee and essay writing. Fortunately, Neil is brewing a chemex of special Counter Culture coffee in the kitchen and I have the debut of Josie's latest Frances Baker collection to keep me distracted.

abstract

Thrifted graphic silk shirt, vintage leather backpack
H&M faux leather oxblood trousers
Madewell zipcode boot

Back! In the last week, I made a giant checklist and cleared maybe a quarter of it. But hey, progress is progress. It felt good to take a future-focused break.

This fall has been the season of the oversized silk shirt. More and more, dresses have dwindled in my closet and given way to fitted trousers and big silk button ups. My uniform for home wear is almost always a pair of leggings and a sweater or shirt (just ask Neil), so maybe it's a comfort thing.. although as I type this I'm finishing the most feminine and fitted dress I've ever sewn for myself, probably. The brocade dress from last Sewing Saturday, in time for Thanksgiving festivities.

Something else I've been into fashion-wise is the graphic, abstract print - both in tops and bottoms. I'm currently studying up on my art, mostly expressionism, as I apply to schools for both arts administration and game design grad programs (strange juxtaposition I know but I love both programs and I do feel they're related), so the concepts have probably weaseled their way into how I look at clothes. All of this reading up has certainly given me inspiration for my next round of marble dyed pieces to sell at Porter Flea next month.

Twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, I allow myself one major shoe purchase (major to me is anything over a hundred dollars).. which means they have to be something exceptional to last throughout the season, given the way I treat my shoes. Last spring, I bought a pair of Dolce Vita coral wedges. This fall, I chose the Madewell zipcode ankle boot in black leather and I have no regrets thus far. They're extremely versatile with a low enough heel to be worn comfortably all day. Plus they're 25% off right now in stores and online, so grab them if you can.

Packing our bags tonight in preparation for a drive down to my parent's house in the morning - Happy Thanksgiving, US friends!

wish list: german expressionism

From left to right - 1940s starburst velvet evening gown, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff woodcut featured at the Frist Center, SheInside abstract southwestern sweater, vintage platform leather boots, Yochi rhinestone burst earrings, vintage Fritz Lang university program, Milan Design leather tote

The Frist Center in Nashville is hosting a German Expressionism exhibit until February 10, and in celebration of it they're also sharing free screenings of old Expressionist films including Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and The Blue Angel (which I've never seen). I swear I'm almost as excited about these screenings as I am about the Grace Coddington interview coming to the Frist next month, which should be spectacular.

News of the German Expressionism exhibit inspired me to put together a small wish list of pieces that remind me of screenshots from a Fritz Lang film - or rather what a modern-day Lang film would look like, in my head. This abstract movement in art and film is easily one of my all-time favorites, especially since it gave birth to film noir. See my Metropolis screenshots here.

I'm taking the next week off from blogging for a small recharge break, mainly to get my act together and turn in some grad school applications. See you guys next week!

sisters

Being the youngest of three sisters, I never grew out of looking up to my two older (and cooler) sisters - even when they were a million steps ahead of me and already listening to good music and wearing cute thrifted clothes (while I was still dressed in Abercrombie and listening to boy bands with barbed wire tattoos around their biceps), I knew they were cool - so whenever they wear something I make or approve of something I did, it gives me a sense of pride that I don't get elsewhere. Last month, I marble dyed a silk top in thanks for my sister Rhiannon's help styling my fall/winter collection, and she recently wore it during a Mississippi road trip to William Faulkner's home in Oxford (thanks for liking my stuff Rhi!).



 See the post here, photos by Drew.

sewing saturday! brocade holiday dress, part one

I've been really bad at keeping up with Sewing Saturday posts lately (the last one was back in September), but now that the holidays are coming up I intend on sticking to a weekly project, I promise.. this is the best time of the year to sew, after all - holiday dresses and jackets and velvet and wool!

So I'm skipping ahead to a seasonal project I'm excited about. After starting two different projects and not having the drive to finish either of them, I thought I would take a break from them and sew this dress for Thanksgiving wear. Simplicity 6788 is a fancy cocktail dress pattern from the 1960s and while the Thanksgiving festivities at my family's house aren't that dressy, I hope to dress this particular ensemble down by wearing a white button up underneath and using the dress more like a jumper (in true Alexa Chung style).



The fabric is a navy and gold brocade purchased from Mood Fabrics. It was the other half of my order a week or so back when I bought the metallic silver linen. It has a great medium weight for a structured dress, so the soft pleats at the skirt will suit it really well.

What you need.. about two yards of brocade, a 16 inch neck zipper, lining for the bodice, and interfacing for the top half of the skirt. The pattern suggested lining the skirt with taffeta but I had none, so I'm using good old-fashioned interfacing. Honestly the skirt probably won't need it because the brocade fabric is so stiff on its own (and I believe the point of the interfacing is to give a stiff feel to the skirt), but I went ahead and added it in anyway.



First step, I cut out all the pieces including interfacing for both skirt pieces and bodice lining. Then, I sewed the bodice pieces and bodice lining pieces together at their shoulder seams, and sewed the interfacing (non fusible, by the way) to the wrong side of the skirt pieces at the top, within the seam allowance.



Then, dart time. Total of 12 darts including lining. I marked the darts in place using chalk then sewed them up and pressed them flat and inward with an iron.



That's all the progress for this weekend.. next time, I'll finish it up by piecing everything together, sewing in soft pleats to the skirt, and adding the zipper to the back. It's actually a pretty straightforward pattern, can't wait to see how it turns out.

And just because I'm way too thrilled with this 1920s sewing pattern to keep it to myself anymore - here is a sneak peek of a future project!

tinsel dress

Handmade metallic silver linen dress
Thrifted vintage fringe loafers and black cardigan
Vintage straw tote, geode necklace - flea market
American Apparel black tights

I wasn't feeling the greatest yesterday so I made this dress in response, and it cheered me up. The fabric is a metallic glazed linen that has the best shine to it. It was a part of my first Mood Fabrics order - this linen and some navy and gold brocade - and it didn't disappoint, so now on the top of my Christmas list is a gift card to that wonder of a store. I never knew so many amazing fabrics could be under one roof (nor could I have predicted in my school years that I'd get so excited over fabric), some favorites being this pop art silk print and this out-of-my-price-range silk brocade from Oscar de la Renta.

Lately I had been searching for metallic fabrics to sew with, but most everything I found was made from some random blend of polyester and man-made fabrics with strange names. When I found a pure linen counterpart, I chose it and am so happy with the result.. a tinsel-colored dress festive enough for the holidays.



Happy Wednesday! So happy election day is over, maybe people will start being nice on Facebook again. I wrote in my preferred candidate at our local voting station this year.. Ron Paul 2016!!

shop update

I have been accumulating massive amounts of vintage clothes and accessories and it is time to put them in the shop. A few pieces have hit the store already including the 1940s navy wool cape and southwestern denim skirt, and more on the way this week and next - plus I plan on marking down all of my summer pieces, so look for some serious markdowns tomorrow.


All of the above (and more!) will be in the shop tomorrow. Thanks to Maria for modeling!