okay you win.

firstly, thank you all so much for the happy birthday wishes! i would add a grinning emoticon here if i knew how.

so here's the story. one hot day in downtown LA, i decided to take advantage of a long lunch break and frolic in the garment district. there's a 4 block radius of fabric shops there, surrounded by several streets straight out of the crackhouse scene in jungle fever. one wrong turn and you are truly in some kind of danger. i know this because i made about twenty wrong turns. luckily tank was the perfect disguise. 

i arrived safely, found the only unclaimed metered space (it was my birthday week, after all), and put my game face on. it was a busy saturday, with shop owners vying for attention. one particularly shady dude whispered as i walked past: "a dollar a yard. a dollar a yard." i pretended, in my best new yorker fashion, not to hear him, and casually fingered the bolts at the edge of the shop meant to lure you in for the more expensive stuff. i glanced inside, sure that i would be on my way quickly, and almost dropped dead on the spot. along the walls and down the middle of this tiny crowded shop were bolts and bolts of the Coolest. Fabrics. EVER. from behind me, that whisper again... only this time he added that most beautiful of words: Everything. my game face cracked. suddenly shady dude was positively russell crowe-ian. "a dollar a yard? i'd like... three... of this one..." i managed to stammer out. russell immediately offered me six yards for five dollars, and we were off to the races. i left the shop with a sack half my size for only 30 bucks of birthday money. i floated down the street, beaming at everyone like i was from kentucky and goin' to the fair. 

now, that might have been my downfall. i should have stopped there and grinned my way right back to tank, made some time to actually eat some food during my lunch break... but no, i pushed it. i walked into the biggest, prettiest corner store on the block, just to see, and was immediately accosted by a salesman. did i say my dollar-a-yard beau was shady? feh. THIS dude was shade-apalooza. he honed in on me & the mod silk print i was eyeing and pronounced it twelve dollars a yard. i politely declined. he brought the price down. i told him i had 23 bucks cash and two pennies. he badgered me to use a credit card. i said no. he badgered me to use the ATM. i said no. my elated mood wearing thin, i bade him farewell. he told me to give him the 23 bucks and he'd give me four yards. i twirled and handed him the cash. he told me to give him two more dollars. seriously? we ACTUALLY HAD A TUG OF WAR WITH MY MONEY. i'm not even lying. the new yorker in me finally came out and i left, with my money, amidst some shocked stares. it only took several seconds of walking with eight hundred glorious pounds of russell's fabric on my back to get me in a good mood again. 

i tore into it this weekend and made this!

and this!

and this!

and very soon i'll make lots more, what with my fancy new BWOF birthday subscription... THAT'S RIGHT! but more on that tomorrow. now it is wine-thirty, as sugar mama would say, and time to sign off. 'night!