the true monster in my closet

but hell if it isn't still in my closet, five years after making it.  cause, you know, i made it.

yes, damn it all to hell, i'm throwing my hat in the me made ring.  why must i proclaim it in such an irritable fashion?  because i need a kick in the ass to get my closet straight, it has been weighing on me forever, I DO NOT WANT TO FACE MY CLOSET, and zo's MMM is the perfect way to make  this mountain of an activity happen in a fun way.  as much as i need to cull the RTW stuff, there are some me mades that just don't get worn as well.  so, here go the pledge:

 'i, oonaballoona of www.oonaballoona.com, sign up as a participant of me-made-may '13.  i endeavour to take control of my beast of a closet, taking out the filler and leaving it filled only with things that i will actually wear/look good on me.  by the end of may, i hope to end up with a closet that's 40% "me", 60% "them", with an end-of-the-year goal being a closet that's 80% me.  i will wear a piece of "me" three times a week for the duration of may 2013, more if possible.'

so yeah, i haven't amped up my personal challenge wearing-wise, but the closet challenge is really going to be troublesome.  i sense much gnashing of teeth in my future.  mais, ruggy has a pitiful amount of space, and i've heard tell it's easier to dress when everything in front of me is a winner.  i'm not sure how i'll document my participation, but it will probably have something to do with alcohol.  maybe cocktail closet hour.  YEAH THAT OUGHTA DO IT.  game on, baby.

raise yo bloggers up

well hello there.  i want to thank everyone who left a comment on my last post-- i actually typed your last post, because the thoughtful comments were truly posts in themselves.  wonderful stuff.  thank you.

high time we got something happy up in here, and i don't know what says happy more than this shot of my girl meg the grand unexpectedly hoisting me up in the air at mood during her NY visit.

MEG IS QUITE TALL.

it's been said many times, and bears repeating many times again, the sewing blogisphere rocks the world.  our corner of the internet is the most supportive, encouraging place on the web.  we're fairly left of center when you consider the environment.  i think it's because we know how long it takes to create a garment, and how long it takes to get good.  let's face it, we're always good, just by the virtue of what we choose to learn, and the wonderful thing is, we can always get better.  gooder, if you will, and i will.  there is no ceiling to how good you can get.  maybe that's why there's no ceiling to how supportive we can be-- for the most part, of course, there's always a little salt to go around, it's what makes the sugar sweet.

so can i admit i was a wee bit salty when i saw maddie's shout out about a new huffington post article  giving props to their top seven sewing blogs?  YOU KNOW I'M A BRAT DON'T BE SURPRISED.  some of my very favorite ladies are there... did you make that, lucky lucille, tilly and the buttons, madalynne, lazy stitching, seamless, and new-to-me gorgeous murmur (love finding a new-to-me blog, it's like a prize).  and what's cool, and completely indicative of our community, is that we know most of these ladies by name: karen, rochelle, tilly.... and we call them friends.  friends that will hoist you up in the air, on the web, and in real life.

go check them out at huff post, my sugary, elevating cohorts!

(ps: just in case my tone isn't clear, i'm thrilled for the gang.  you know that right?  okay. good.)

flux

on monday morning, we listened silently to a detailed recap of our visiting family visiting the new freedom tower, and the various monuments to the world trade center.  later that day, we were watching the news coming out of boston.

i don't know many new yorkers who want to talk about that day.  at least, i think i don't-- perhaps it's because i don't want to talk about that day.  we were here, and to be honest i was asleep until ruggy raced home and woke me (i was keeping late night working hours at the time, and still feel like a heel for being asleep).  a few days ago, when asked what i did, i said i went to find a blood donor site, and the memory of there being no blood needed made me, in the same breath i started it, wave my story away and clamp my mouth shut.  the moment anyone begins to re-live that day, i see them falling over and over again, i remember my parents calling and being so thankful to hear our voices, remember feeling like a child that just wanted to cross the closed bridges, remember wanting to vomit when the constant stream of news flashed a fireman walking slowly amidst running throngs, throwing his helmet down, in disgusted defiance.  his defiance looked like defeat.  he went there to save lives, there were no lives to save.

and then there's an asshole in every walmart waiting to buy an assault rifle, and look: i've fired guns, it's fun, i like them, but not at the cost they bring, that frivilous banal entertainment is not worth it, and then there's a bomb, and then there's the next assault, from here there or everywhere, and it could be a lone jackass or it could be a war, and then you're in a shooting of an altogether different kind, on a movie set, mincing around personalities, and watching your words, and truly?  screw all that noise.  there are wrecked families unable to fathom how to move into the next minute, and these families are not only in boston, or new york, or columbine, or newton, or oklahoma, THEY ARE ALL OVER THE WORLD, and while you're hoping you made a good impression at your job, they're hoping they can get through the night.  and you're really hoping the subway car hurling you to your job doesn't explode.

i took these pictures on set today.  we're shooting at an abandoned facility, the site is strange and crumbly and beautiful, and most of us (me included) were probably way too worried about trivial things.  but years ago, when these grounds were filled with life, those people worried too, about a whole different set of huge, and tiny, issues.   they survived it, in whatever way.  even if that survival was just time moving on without them.

on the radio to work, a DJ said i don't think everyone should get debbie downer about this.  this from a station that used to be the great 92.3 k rock.  it is apparently now a "positive energy" station.   it struck me as the most assinine, thoughtless statement i'd ever heard.  is this sort of tragedy becoming normal to us now?

but i will feel better about it tomorrow, or maybe even tonight, because you have to.   does that mean it becomes trivial?  or worse, normal?  so i'm mentioning it here, in my very small way, in order to remember: it's not either of those things.  it is a part of our lives, for some undiscernable reason.  but i look at ruggy and think about all the cogs that had to fall into place for us to meet, and i believe there is a reason for everything.   which is harsh and lovely and entirely impossible to comprehend.

on project runway, the finalists:

it is late.  oona and ruggy lie in bed, fighting felines for footspace.  with a roll of her eyes, oona presents ruggy with a recap of the latest project runway, via beau baby (her favorite way to "watch" this season).  they share a grimace.

oona:  i could totally make something better than all of those contestants.

ruggy:  but then you'd have to sell your soul.

oona:  yeeeaaah.

ruggy:  don't sell your soul to anyone but me.

oona:  i would sell my soul to you.

ruggy:  noooo.

oona:  i would sell my soul to you for twenty five cents.

ruggy:  noooooooooo you can't sell your soul to me you can't sell your soul to anyone you have to hold onto your soul--

oona:  but you could hold onto my soul.

ruggy:  i already have your heart.  you have to keep your soul.

grinning like a fool, oona turns the tablet off.  best episode of project runway ever.

make mine a double

tools!  tools!  tools!  WHAT POSSESSED ME TO SHIP SO VERY MANY TOOLS!!!!!

ahem.  and now, chickadees and chuckaroos (yes kristi, you may be a chuckaroo, i quite like the ring of it myself), for the winner of the fifth and final toolin'-around-fifth-bloggy-birthday-slap-me-upside-the-head giveaway extravanganza...

lucky number 13!  Sallie.  OH!!!!!!!!  this is almost like getting to hang out with you, girl!

if you want a tiny chompy stapler of your very own, muji has an online store.  at the moment they seem to be out of this li'l guy, but their desk and accessories page features cat shaped sticky notes.  so, you know, all you crazy kitty sewists out there can have an enjoyable browse while you wait for them to stock up...

thank you all for bearing with me in my meandering, and not-always-timely, bloggy birthday giveaway series.  i'm headed to the post office today like my name is kris kringle. and thank you especially for hanging out with me in kalkatroona!  it's lovely to have you here! 

put on your red shoes and dance the blues

I love every glittering hard edged sexy speck that is David Bowie. In fact, I've been known to get into serious arguments with close friends about the neverending cool that is Bowie. I defy you to find a rocker that has always been as undyingly cool as Bowie. I'll fight you. EVEN LABYRINTH COULD NOT STOP HIM.

So when that wildfire storm of a bloggess Tempest Devyne announced a Bowie sewalong, I was aaaaaaaaaall in.  Bowie sewie, baby. The only problem was too many ideas. Glam rock outfit...punk acid rock leather...slick R&B gospel suit...I landed on the look from "Jump They Say," from the album Black Tie/White Noise. VERY COOL VIDEO. He's on skyscraper rooftops, being pushed and pulled in medical rooms and elevators by sharp suits and pale nurses...the tune was written about his half brother, who, i believe, did jump. To me, it always sounded like an admonishment, a commendation, and a warning at the same time. VERY COOL SONG.

But I couldn't seal the deal, as the fashion was clean lines, tailored coats, and, well, black and white. 

Summer's coming, I can smell it in the air, it makes me feel alive, and I'm hellbound for color. Enter Nicole's (of You sew girl!) holyfrig amazing Drape t-shirt dress pattern. This is "pattern magic," with no magic required. I'm of the no-thank-you camp when it comes to figuring those bad boys out, so imagine my delight when I had an artsy draped dress in UNDER AN HOUR. My first crack was made up in silky grey jersey, in the hopes of a slim resemblance to Monochrome Tailored Jazz Bowie... and I would've went with it, but I really needed to shoot it on top of a building (seriously, you gotta watch the video).  

But then I remembered this magnificent print, picked up at Spandex House. Or maybe it was World. Whichever one, IT HAS A SIX DOLLAR A YARD RACK. I had enough of this fabric fulla colors-to-light up-your-face to extend Nicole's pattern to maxi proportions. I believe there's even some serious moonlight in there. Definitely some blues for those red hues. And nothin says sway like jersey. The "Let's Dance" dress was on.

Big Daddy was always quite fond of this tune, we'd duet often. And Bowie is just, as always, the coolest. I revisited the video: a sweaty, white gloved Bowie lolls against a plaster wall with a lone upright bassist, a disinterested yet slightly worried singer, squinting into the sun bleached distance, as bar patrons of all ages drink and shimmy. You feel like you're in a mix of present and past Mexico, and Bowie is so cool, he doesn't even need to be in the video. You leave him halfway through the first verse and follow a young girl who happens upon a pair of patent leather red shoes, and then it all goes wrong in that Bowie video way: a mushroom cloud blossoms in the distance, and she and her beau are transported to some kind of New York (I may be projecting here), where they find themselves scrubbing streets, thoughtlessly spending, and dragging mechanical factory inventions around like packhorses. In the end, she ditches the shoes, and they snap out of it, back dancing barefoot atop their mountain, the sharp city intact in the distance across the water, the red shoes abandoned.

Appropriately, I went sans shoes for these photos, taken while away this weekend with Hollow Leg Dad, Hot Mama, and The Child(ren). Also appropriately, I would rather be dancing barefoot in their sun bleached backyard than heading back to the sharp city.

I'll put some Bowie on tonight for sure. It's the best for dancing when you have the blues.

no man left behind

yep, that would be me. for many and varied reasons. let me count the ways:

1. i did not pick a winner for my last toolin' around series yet.

2. i therefore did not mail out any of the previously won packages before we headed out of town for a long weekend.

3. indeed, i was in the air when the glorious joanne of stitch and witter interviewed me for her wonderful handmade style series. LOVE this series!!! i was crazy honored to be asked, had a blast doing it, and waited for the reveal like it was christmas.  mais, did i set up a timely thank-you-and-linky-dink post? non. have i responded to joanne's blush inducing introduction, to any of the awesome comments left there, to any of the comments left here for that matter? non. have i instead been silently and happily lurking the sewing web in the early morning hours before all other human beings arise? oui oui. actually that's like four reasons i'm a loser in this paragraph.

4. finally, and most horrifically, the glass of wine pictured above is mine. it was abandoned at our very late bedtime, accusatory "good morning" note left for me by Hollow Leg Dad (husband of Hot Mama). but in that, i actually win (read: kept the ability to wake up early, lurk your blogs, and hold my own with The Child(ren).

i'll be back in the mix soon, but for now if you'd like to know a little more about the insides of my brain, hop on over to stitch and witter! and have a glorious weekend... spring has well and truly arrived where we are, and today i plan on drinking EVERYTHING.