and she's shorter than me.

i forgot

that tonight

is oscar night!

i meant to watch the red carpet fashion, but i was too busy reading about lady gaga in vogue.

she's crazy. i like her.

she's probably there right now.

she likes to support young unknown designers. maybe ones that didn't know much about her before a twelve dollar subscription to vogue.

 (TWELVE DOLLARS!)

one day i'm going. when they ask me what i'm wearing, i'll say:

  

ME.

(lady gaga can wear me too, if she wants. although, she'll probably actually wear me, draped around her neck like a human stole.)

don't mind me, i'll just put this in my bag

my camera is giving me hella problems, so i went all rinky dink retouch on these photos... it might have been better just to have taken them with my iphone and used freaking instagram, in retrospect.

i took these awhile ago in a happy balloonaan shoot (grapes, sparkly jewelry and dave matthews) and was so depressed by the results, they sat neglected in my iphoto for two months. i thought my camera would magically repair itself if i just let it sit awhile, but weirdly that didn't work out.

i like my toes.

even if the elves had fixed my camera, there's no hope for a reshoot, as back to its owner this dress must go. it was made for a wee pixie of a girl. (oddly enough, my camera began its breakup with me when i shot the dress that made wee pixie commission the gown. there has to be some sort of plot in there.)

unfortunately i never did get a good shot of her in it. brought it to work and spent an hour shooting her to no avail. then ruggy accidentally brought it home with him (i SWEARS) when helping me clean out my work digs. i couldn't resist trying it on. it does fit me but it's certainly off. i had a duh! moment when i found i could indeed zip it up; of course it makes sense, we both buy the same size in RTW, it just looks different. her waist is even higher than mine. and let's not talk about the rest of her dimensions. i love my body and i love her body and i love every-bodys' bodies. bodies are nice. seriously. i'd just like a shot of her body in it so you can see how it's truly meant to fit.

see that wonky ass zipper? peeeee-YOOOH! invisible zip on bias cut silk. which i had to reinstall SEVEN. TIMES. i am not even shitting you. originally, it hung down nice and straight, but le client wanted it tighter on the derriere, so a curvy zip that wouldn't pass a breathalizer is what came to pass. i guess it's okay, since the dress is pretty flowy anyways... 

geez, grumpy much, oona? i think i'm mad that this has to leave kalkatroona. yes, that is the proper diagnosis. i want it to stay! it's exceedingly hard to make garments for other peeps. this took about a month to make, swearings at home and fittings at work. i've only done it once and i'm not sure i'll ever do it again. 

that said, it provided me a lot of firsts. it was the first thing i ever draped on a form (i mean a real live wolf form, and not my pin pricked body). the first time i ever worked with silk (at a whopping 8 bucks per yard. the thought of it!). and i learned so much from the aforementioned Amazing Lady, whose exclamations of glee gave me the confidence to sew the damn thing instead of offering to buy the silk from wee pixie and call it off. and, i wouldn't have done any of it if wee pixie hadn't requested a gown. 

what do y'all think? have you made garments for anyone else? and have you found yourself plotting how to steal them ask for them BACK?

but first, i pause before i put an eye out

i absolutely cannot wait to finish this and put it up on ye olde blog. hopefully ye olde camera will be excited as well, it's been very temperamental lately. but as it's 9pm, and my dinner so far has consisted of a glass of red wine*, and i've managed to barely miss losing an eye over a flying leather machine needle head, i'm closing up shop for the night.

*not to be taken into consideration when pondering the flying machine needle. kalkatroonaans are very good at holding their liquor.

and afterwards, we took a nice little nap

this weekend, ruggy and i became members at the museum of modern art.

i think this means we are grown ups now.

it went something like this. our out-of-town friends wanted to go, and we like it there (you know, the two times we'd been). i'd handed out hard candies (grown up? more like senior citizen) as we stood in the admissions line. when the friendly ticket man asked for our zip code and learned we were, ahem, new yorkers, thankyouverymuch, he quickly embarked on his membership spheel. ruggy smacked on his mango sucker like we were at a county fair discussing the weight of the winning pig, working out a deal where our friends could get their money back and we could buy them fancy five dollar guest passes. we were sold and directed to refund line, which ruggy proceeded to jump--twice--and without flinching. it was like he had a cloud of membership privilege around him, didn't even garner one dirty look. 

being out-of-towners, it was friends' choice for exhibits, and well, we're members now so moma is our daily bitch. they chose "design and the modern kitchen", which was fairly cool-- above is a close up of a solar powered cooker. it was taller and wider than me, although the same could not be said after lunch later that day.

did you know the army was semi-vegan? for the cause? i did not know this.

maybe it was the hard candy, maybe it was the hard plastic card, but i was really drawn to this old timey display. i love the organization of it, and the labels. i wouldn't call it appetizing, but it's appealing.

there was a neat "material lab" in the education building that we didn't make it to, we were tapped out. well, they were tapped out, i was frothing at the mouth, there was wire and foil and stones and thread and you could MAKE STUFF... we're going back. oh yes, it's probably for kids, but these grown ups are members now. we do what we want.

the night of the day we met

a little late to the valentine party, but here's the story of oona and ruggy:

oona was on a mission. after years of preparation in her earthbound hometown of orange, she had been sent with instructions to entertain the inhabitants of Louis (who apparently was a saint). on her very first day there, on her very first coffee break, she encountered a man, in a green room, peering into a refrigerator, holding a blue gray ceramic cup of tea. he had quite ingeniously fashioned a tiny plate to keep his tea warm.  it was the coolest travel mug oona had ever seen, held by the most beautiful man she had ever laid her very big eyes on. he wore a tweed coat that oddly reminded her of her father's kalkatroonaan dress coat. a faded blue bandana was wrapped around his forehead, more to keep his long blond hair out of his eyes than to keep out the cold. 

unlucky in his frigidaire search, he stood up... and they caught each others' eyes.

oona's earthling coworkers slowed their boisterous chatter as they realized the little kalkatroonan was staring, quite unabashedly, at this man. they turned to study the stranger and realized he was staring, quite unabashedly, right back at her. after a minute or so, someone cleared a throat, and declared into the silence a challenging: "HI." (these earthlings were protective of oona almost immediately, being successfully fooled by her diminutive stature.) "what's YOUR name."

the stranger broke his gaze with some difficulty, and quickly introduced himself in a very pleasing and gentlemanly manner. the green room earthlings were soothed by the hint of his southern accent. oona found she couldn't stop grinning long enough to introduce herself, so her coworkers did it for her. but, there was only time for the two to learn each others' names, as the short coffee break was over for all.

later that day, they searched for each other. oona tied on shoes with wheels (a fascinating and fun invention), and rolled around the sainted town. ruggy stomped about in his tweed coat. although the search was fruitless, oona was strangely content just thinking of the few minutes with ruggy, and she drew happy little doodles to pass the time until the next day, when surely they would meet again.

 

and indeed, they found each other the very next day, and with a little nudging from the green earthlings, oona walked right up to ruggy. he caught her before she could run away, and he bought her snapple, and stood with his legs wide apart so she could be at eye level with him, and she sang to him, and they listened to marvin gaye, and he stopped her from cutting vegetables with the wrong end of the knife, and she bought him a samurai sword for christmas (cause that's what you do on kalkatroona), and they have been together ever since.

homestead hoedown!

emilykate and i are swapping crafty goodness! and lucky me, it's something to brighten the home. i SO need help there. for all my yammering about my mad decorating skillz, i have done next to nothing so far.

it's a little sad that this is one of my favorite places in the house, considering it occupies 12 inches of windowsill. telling, really, that i have yet to get my decorating mojo on. i've been going in very small spurts, so there are small blurbs of pretty, and big old swaths of "you've been back for 10 months now, when are you going to unpack."

anyways... this spot for a sprite has my vogue magazines, a vintage pack of playing cards from a wonderful friend (i coveted them, ruggy threw me under the bus), chalk pencils from etsy, and a little plant stand that used to hold a terrarium. it was a gift from me to ruggy, and when i accidentally broke the terrarium, i shot him a look that said it was completely his fault. he understandably accepted blame.

it's also my grandmothers spot, i guess-- the little egg cup was my nana's, and the little note was from my nan. that's her in the photo. i think the note sums up my nan perfectly. it says: the sun is shinging here at last. i know she meant shining, but i like to think she was thinking "singing" too, and so she put those two words together.

and this here is our stairwell to the bedroom. or should i say our stairway to heaven, baby. aw YEAH.

when first settling back in with just two chairs and a coffee table, i was at a complete loss at where to begin. there was so much to replace that i couldn't start anywhere. i found these huge ass pillows at urban outfitters--they're like 4 feet square--and i cut them up into various shapes. there are so many of them, it's like instant decor for about 60 percent of the living room. plus, they keep the blind cat from choosing the wrong path down the stairs and falling to her death.

the yellow painting is a large copy of a happy doodle i made the day that i met ruggy. i found it in a journal years ago, and timidly made a pale green canvas out of it. when we moved back, i decided it needed to be a lot more joyous, so i sat on our bare floor and had at it.

the amethyst was a christmas gift from ruggy's mom, and the metal cat was a vintage find with my mom. mom!! when are we going vintage shopping again?!

see what i mean about those pillows? there are THOUSANDS of them!

during the day, if i'm sitting, this is my favorite place to be. it is also cody's favorite place, and due to the size of this 23 pound beast, there's no sharing. he knows i'm coming for him here.

this hard won couch faces the windows, and our desks, so i can watch ruggy typing away, and eek some little bit of sunlight out of our street level apartment. we spent seven, yes, SEVEN months deciding on this couch. our cats immediately got sick on it upon arrival, and so now the cushions are completely misshapen from washing. hooRAY! but i still love it. the crocheted blanket is from a swap with a crafty friend (i traded her a painting). 

and i love that one of these areas... or maybe some other sorely lacking space in our home... will soon be host to an emilykate creation!

(speaking of sorely lacking:

i know! we said three pictures! but aside from a bed, our bedroom doesn't look much different than this. i couldn't not show you this. this is pathetic. seriously.)

GO STEELERS.

that's ruggy on your left, if you're wondering.

superbowl sunday started with oolong tea and homemade cherry peach scones (both at ruggy's request), complimented by a little classical music (oona quickly nixed that), then onto jazz, capped off by beatles breakfast on KLOS (both parties dancing a jig to the playout of hello/goodbye).

i think ruggy is the only steelers fanatic in the world to begin superbowl sunday this way.

football and sewing all day long! GO STEELERS!!!!!

you will thank me, i pinky swear.

have i ever steered you wrong video-wise?

if you want more of these guys (frat boys, to be exact), and some very freaking awesome kick-idol's-ass-all-OVER-the-place singing, just youtube "the sing off".