out in the wild

I find that as much as I may love a project, I don't really know if it works until I've worn it in real life. You know, for more than blog pictures. For stomping around and eating in and ‪bien sûr‬, drinking in. That's the mark of a keeper or a clunker. Apparently this test run should also be applied to projects I've hastily labeled clunkers.  

I threw this doomed shinariffic polytastic blazer on for a girls' night out with the absolute Good God Perfection that is Sarah Deming (who snapped this shot), and suddenly it's my favorite piece in my closet. Partly because it's now soaked in amazing memories, but also because...it worked. We ate six tons of pork and cheese, we drank korean vodka, we marched up to strangers and demanded to learn their dance moves (happening above). 

This jacket was in my giveaway section five days ago. Never worn, even for blog photos. I guess I threw it on that night because I was already going out of my comfort zone. Party. With complete strangers. WITH NO SEWING IN COMMON. Why not go whole hog and wear a completely uncomfortable, completely untested garment?

By the end of the night I wanted to hug that club full of strangers. We did hug about half of them, before happily stomping off down the street, wondering why New York was so deserted on a Wednesday night at 2 am...

Do you test in the wild?

fugitive no more!

WOW.  thank y'all so much for the awesomesauce words!  i've been laughing out loud and grinning like a fool back-and-forth-and-in work this week, and there are questions to be answered and replies to be made and cocktails to be drunk (always, cocktails to be drunk) but in honor of comic con, and my escape from the law, i thought i'd quickly share a wee gem i found in ruggy's storage loot the other day...

while in LA, i was fond of saying fuck you, i'm batman.  spied it on a shirt made by the peeps behind this superior tom selleck art, and thought it a perfect slogan for going into auditions.  unfortunately it was pretty slow out there, and i ended up directing said slogan at the machine, the cat, the rugster.  still, a delicious grouping of words. 

but did you know, back in the day, batman was not so much the dark knight?  no, our wholesome hero was quite worried about the state of your brotherhood quotient.  GET A LOAD OF THAT LIST.  long hair music! jews! cabbage!

complete with emoticons.  DC, even then, you were ahead of your time.

of course, batman had a li'l prodding from several government agencies.  SERIOUSLY.   it is all so very right and so very wrong at the same time.  were they leading the witness with that list?  or is it just that we don't use certain terms today?  were baptists as a group a hot button?  were they the hipsters of the past?  

the mind boggles.

cinderella had glass slippers, why not.

i look out the window, and i think, what, are we living in seattle now?!  it's rained more in new york these past ten days than it did during the three weeks we just spent in that sunny coastal city.  but it's kind of nice, as if we're being allowed to use spare moments getting the house back together and create and not worry about the twelve million things that need to be done.  i'm not lying.  TWELVE MILLION.  what is it about september?

reminded of our seattle time, i shoved the twelve million in the corner and leafed through my camera.  these shots from the chihuly garden make me want to make a dress out of glass.  the mojo is back (yes, amy, ye olde phase weighs in at an ovulatory stage!), and i'm getting inspired by everything.  

i took so many pictures, i had to remind myself to Put Ze Canon Down and physically look at what was around me.

we began our stroll at six, had dinner in the cafe, and then walked through the whole shebang again to see it all lit up after sunset.  totally different experience.

while we were in the cafe, devouring some delicious burgers with an oregon cab, a museum photographer began to circle the joint, offering pictures to the patrons.  we hightailed it out of there like the new yorkers we are, expecting to be coerced into ten bucks for a crappy disneyland shot or some such.  

well, actually, i hightailed it out of there.  out in the gardens, ruggy took it in a southern way and ventured: i think she meant a free photograph.   i snickered at his naivete.

of course she meant for free, and i watched with a pout as happy tourists smiled in front of her stunning eighty pound camera.  so before we left, i marched up with a toothy grin and asked for a photograph.  for all of the posing and prancing i do on le blog, its actually pretty rare that i'm on the front side of the lens with the man i love.

but i digress.  i want to make a dress out of glass.  speed racers and sight see-ers (and love-givers, thank y'all so much for the lavender dress love!) do you think that's possible?

how ladylike

When I first picked up this "hobby" that has since become an overwhelming obsession passion, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by every manner of estate sale.  Back in the day, LA was chock full of 'em, and they had yet to be taken over by specialty companies that did their market research and jacked the prices up. And no one knew what they had. Including me. I was lucky enough to snag both of these Claire Shaeffer titles for about 2 bucks, forked over the paltry sum simply because "sewing" was in the title, and when we jumped back across the country (neverending, these jumps across the country) I LEFT THEM IN STORAGE. During those three years apart, my knowledge increased, and so did my regret.  She's basically a sewing guru.  

I left a guru in a public storage facility by the airport.  

We were reunited the very week we landed back on LA soil, and since then, I've been using these tomes non-stop. Especially now that I've developed champagne tastes. Every evening in June, you could find me with a Manhattan and post-it tabs, poring over taffeta and italian brocade. Currently, I'm researching silk. OH MY GOD I LOVE SILK. The one I'm fondling at the moment is a thicker silk, like meringue right before you beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Of course, Ms Shaeffer has several tons of valuable information on the subject, and I had to share one of her hints with you. I love her hints, but this about knocked me off my chair:

CLAIRE SHAEFFER AIN'T NO LADY.

I didn't think I could love her more, but now I do. Anyone know if the new & improved reprints have this tidbit? Either way, her entire library is on my christmas list.  

advice for a young kalkatroonaan

if i were to talk to my high school self about the shitty jersey tube mini dress she wore to senior prom, i'd tell her i made this drapey jersey maxi dress for 5 dollars.

she would know that all she needed was a hot iron and an eye for organic placement (read: cocktail) to bling it up.

  

and stink eye, you must have stink eye.   how else do you expect to keep those randy boys in their place.

you could go the demure route.  young high school oona certainly did, as cocktails were not an option.

i'd tell her: if you ain't got it in the front, party in the back.  (and no, young oona, they won't be growing much more.)

and i'd DEFINITELY tell her don't sleep on the 2 dollar a yard bolt found at international silks and woolens, even when the uninspiring shoplady opens said bolt to reveal an oblong hole cut smack out of the middle of it. because, young high school oona, when you take that jersey home, you'll find it's actually a tube, and the oblong hole makes a perfect drapedrape neckline to step right into.  and of course you bought a sheet of iron on studs from fabric planet to play with.  because you're smart and pretty and amazing, young high school oona, and one day you will rule the world.

(or you'll get tipsy on the regular and post stuff on a fun little blog too early and totally gum up the works.  hey by the way GOOGLE READER SUCKS.  my updated promaballoona got bumped to the back of the line.  you could say it was my own damn drunken fault, but i prolly wouldn't listen to you.  check out the new details, including incriminating photographic evidence of ruggy.)

what would you tell your prom (or formal, or grad...) age self? 

*** THE REAL*** PROMABALLOONA

sophomore year.  asteroid blue dress.

If you hung out around these parts last year, you might've come to my virtual birthday party.
Peeps got quite drunk on fresh lime basil concoctions, sang songs, and brought all sorts of favors to the soiree. In the end officer mcnaughty had to be called in. It was BANANAS. Well. This year, I would very much like to have a prom for my birthday.

I went to prom. Actually, I went to prom three years running. I know, I know, I'd have you believe I was a social outcast in my high school career--and in the popular clique I certainly was--but with the "other" crowd I had a certain je ne sais quois that got me invited to prom early.

No I did not put out.

is that a face that puts out?  junior year.  the dress was actually pink.

Mall gowns were bought (that is not a typo), pictures snapped in front of rose bushes, dances danced. Fairly uneventful and nice. No stress, man, it's not MY senior prom. I'll stress when it's important, yo.

And therefore, my senior prom was an absolute bust. Six of us chipped in for a swank ride, and drove around for over two hours trying to find the locale of one of the dates (she was from another school, like eighty six towns away). By the time we got to prom, it was ninety percent over. I had decided to go with a friend (wah WAAAAAAH), and possibly in some stroke of karma, chose an underclassmen. We entered the room, and I didn't see him again for the rest of the very short night.

I DIDN'T EVEN GET A PICTURE.

but i DO have a picture of senior ruggy.

Let's talk about The Dress That Was Not Snapped In Front Of A Velvet Curtain In Some Cheesy Banquet Room.

Kalkatroona, the motherland, is what you'd call the mecca of malls, and the Balloonas took me to Every. Mall. In The Tri-Kalkatroonaan Area. In the endIi decided on the first dress I saw on that three hour tour, and I don't even want to tell you what Nan Balloona shelled out for it. Because I know I could make that jersey knit tube with sateen rosettes and half cape for about 15 bucks. It was the EXACT shade of my skin. Flattering, no? After ten minutes of pseudo dancing, one of the rosettes (which were the size of my head) had wilted right off the damn thing. The storeowner was not amused when we tried to take it back. It's handmade, she said. Um, YEAH, obviously that's the PROBLEM was our uniformed and shocked response. Duh! If only we had known before we bought it! How could anything handmade last for more than one night?!

No seriously that's what we thought. 

So. I want to go to prom for my birthday. I want to go in something stunning, something created in my sewing room and not a mall, something properly handmade (sorry, boutique lady), armed with the man of my dreams, and I would be ever so off the charts thrilled beyond belief if you joined us.

Here's my proposal: make a prom dress. (edit: you may also alter, thrift, repurpose, or wave a bottle of vermouth around a prom dress.) You can go for the era you attended, you can go for the era you wish you attended, but GO. Go with a friend, go with a lover, go with a cocktail, GO BIG, AND GO OUT. Go out in something handmade and rock the surrounding vicinity. You've got the weekend of August 4th and 5th to paint the town whatever color you choose! (Probably don't go for flesh tone, word to the wise). Snap a pic, and post it on your blog. Let me know you went to promaballoona, (yeah that's right I NAMED IT) and I'll do a wrappy linkup here the week of Monday, August 6th. That would be my birthday week. Are you surprised I get a week? Really? You did read that whole promaballoona thing, yes? Good.  

The week of August 6th I'll be sharing your prom pics and doling out awards. That's right. Maybe you'll be voted most likely to succeed. Maybe you'll be class clown.  

Maybe you'll be Prom Queen.  

(*I'm* obviously Birthday Promaballoona Ultimate High Ruler In The Known And Unknown Universe, so yes, I will dub a Queen. Maybe a King too. BRING IT, BOYS.)

(edit: if you're in los angeles, come on out to sew LA for a real life promaballoona!  and don't forget to share your links if you're celebrating virtually :)

a quick note

too much ironing makes brain mushy.

so YEAH if you happen to get my RSS feed (which, what exactly is that?  is it like email?  you can do that here now! it's the little "oona in your inbox" addition to the sidebar.  but isn't that different than RSS?  yes, i know i can google it.  i want a factual and/or made up answer; bonus points for made up answer that is more believable than fact.  at this point i have strayed too far from the original sentence and will begin again).  so YEAH if you happen to get my RSS feed, then you got my birthday post waaaaaaaaaaaaaay early.  like, over a month early.  to be fair, i start thinking about my birthday on january second.  but still. 

this error in clicking could be due to the fact that i have been involved in a self made assembly line for the past four hours, and my brain is a bunch of 1/4 inch lines.  or it could be the manhattans.  ruggy made them with bulleit rye whiskey tonight.  as he called out pour #2, i was in the middle of a brainstorm involving compiling a wee blogger list.  "save" and "publish" are very much too close for comfort.  thwarted!  by my own true love, rye whiskey!  (you know i love you ruggy.)  

at any rate, if you happened to see it during the two seconds it took to correct my error, or if you have this RSS everyone is speaking of (really, WHAT IS IT), mum is le word!  the upside is i realize i need to put up details up next week to give peeps time.  time is of the essence.

ooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooh i am so excited.

*************************************************************************************************
UPDATE: all this tech talk pushed me over the edge and i've finally gone all custom domain.  SMELL ME.  ruggy has been holding oonaballoona.com for years (seriously, i do love him more than rye whiskey) and i finally switched. this shouldn't gum up the works for anyone except moi-- when you go all custom, you lose your blog roll.  i'll be adding that back this weekend. please let me know ifyou have any problems! 

some rules are good rules

so that's why you always sew with your fabric to the left.

three squares a day

i think three day weekends are all the more delicious when you unexpectedly have them OFF.  walls are coming down at my place of work, so i'm free.  freeeeeeeeeeeee!  we left the house at 10am and had an (also unexpected) adventure day.

breakfast:  coffee in our new favorite shop.... greg's garage, also known as trystero, where he serves up macchiatos in twice a month tastings, made from beans he roasts himself (that he will gladly deliver to your door).  this beat intelligentsia, yo.

what do you spie with your little eye?

lunch: pulled pork sliders and cheddar burgers in a converted warehouse, also known as golden road brewery. ruggy won with his choice of meat, but i won with my choice of brew: get up offa that brown english ale.

we parked our happy asses here.

dessert:  VINTAGE FABRIC FROM 1976 AT FIVE BUCKS A YARD.  in between beverage adventures, a sign proclaiming "a thousand fabrics" caught my eye (i yelled when i saw it).  on the way home, ruggy was happy to listen to the top 100 albums of all time while i greedily devoured my dessert.

don't ask me how i missed the floral awesomeness underneath, i was blinded by the all the sunshiny wovenosity (and tipsily concentrating on my host's hand, who delighted in showing me the year).  still thirsty, we grabbed some vermouth on the way home.

you know, for dinner.

saturday morning cartoons

ruggy:  why am i on the diving board?

oona:  you've been drinking.

miss crayola creepy sent me off the deep end with her link to making your own wee mad person.  of course i had to photoshop it and get my man in the scene and tweak the colors and shite.  here, i have just returned from a saturday morning shopping spree with the ladies.  knowing ruggy would be out by the pool, i mixed myself a martini before joining him and showing off my wares.  i found him further into his cups than expected.

make your own madness here.

finished

dear babyville boutique,

thanks for making such an incredibly shitty project!  it really made all the difference in finishing these wee dresses. attaching the plastic snaps was an exercise in fascination: they warp when your piss poor gadget shimmies under the slightest bit of pressure, yet they require herculean strength for removal.  god knows how the lucky recipient will ever get them unsnapped!  well done!

at the finish line of hemming, you gave me another sixty minutes of pleasure.  it's like you knew i'd rather be sewing for children than sewing for MYSELF.

and would you look at that-- it's noon now.  you truly are the gift that keeps on giving.

with admiration,

oona 

a kalkatroonaan croquis

so i was thinking.  we're going through all the trouble of getting into our skivvies and angling the camera and cropping and tracing and obsessing, why not have a little fun (read: booze) with it?

le coquette croquis.

le pantalon croquis.

("oh, is that my ass?" shot appropriately named by nettie, patent pending.  quelle naked!  after my muppet bombshell shoot, i figure you've seen the goods.)

le couture croquis.

okay, yeah, i did a straight one too.  this shot was actually the reason i finally broke down and did it; specifically alessa's body proportioned croquis got me off my ass and into my skivvies.  it went south from there.  

i used lladybird's awesome tutorial to make the oonies, but with photoshop.  if you have it, you can follow her steps, but use the magic pen to select your outline, and photo filters (poster edges and stamp) to finish the job. i'll add a little tutorial to this if anyone's interested, but as photoshop is a rare creature these days i'm not sure anyone else is using it...  

now really, WHO KNOWS where the top of my head is, but i marked where i thought it was hiding and barreled on.  my true waist is almost a head short, which seems right, but i'm not sure i've got the high & mid hip marked properly.  i think i'm equal proportions in terms of my top half/bottom half ratio.   i'm like six and a quarter heads out of eight, which actually seems tall to me (the 8/8 hash mark at the bottom marks the start of the 8th head, the end mark was so far away from m'feets i didn't include it.)

et maintenant, i want to make a book of the funky ones and start sketching my own stuff!  of course it would be easier to sketch on the straight version, but we don't stand around perfectly straight all day.  oona, we also don't pose like a trollop all day.  no, smartypants, no we don't.  but we do after a few manhattans.

the only way i can think of is ditto copies and a three ring binder.  but what i really want is a fancy spiral sketchbook with ruled lines on the side of every page for notes.  cause i HATE it when my notes go slopey. anybody got an idea on how i could make that happen?

EDIT: so many wonderful ideas!  thankyaverymuch, i'm researching like a banshee.  and a tutorial is coming, i swear it won't take as long as the last one.    

nothing says christmas like 36 inches of steel

ruggy learned fairly early on in our relationship that i adore, with the passion of a pit bull, all aspects of the gift experience, which frightened him a little bit.  i learned he called them prizes, which thrilled me to no end.  our first christmas together occurred two months after we met.  i bought him 18 prizes, including black silk pajamas and a samurai sword.

i have no idea why i thought he would want a samurai sword.

but i felt christmas would be ruined if i did not buy it.

we're surrounded by some of our dearest friends in the known and unknown universe, celebrating a birthday and starting christmas off very right.  i've been paging through the holiday issue of real simple, our friends' adorable baby (Child The Second, to be exact) in lap and drink of the moment in the other fist.  drink of the moment is ever changing and completely up to the whim of Hollow Leg Birthday Dad. over a peach bellini, i read letters describing the best present you've ever given someone.  i thought that was interesting; i'll frequently ask what's the best you've received but not the other way round.

i'm not sure what that says about me.

but i do love to give, even when it's a borrowed minivan full of prizes having nothing to do with the intended recipient. (really, i'm shocked ruggy didn't wash his hands of the whole situation that first christmas.  samurai sword?  appropo of nothing?  psycho.  thank god i met him six days after his birthday.)  but i don't think i've ever given a best gift.  thoughtful, yes, storebought or handmade, but nothing like these folks have done.  dog dna tests,  a single singular chocolate from childhood, a recorded set of recipes for an elderly relative.  i couldn't think of anything i'd done that fit the bill.  and because i like to win, now i really have to give the best prizes i've ever given this season.

dammit.

what's the greatest prize you've ever given?

hey thanks karen that was GREAT.

miss didyoumakethat asked if anyone has had any sewing stress related dreams.  and then listed all the other normal stress related dreams she's had. of which i had had none. since i like to win in EVERYTHING, my brain decided to put me and ruggy in a rental car all night long while monstrous universe sized tidal waves engulfed mountain passes, valleys, living rooms, you know, wherever we happened to be on our wild trip. and each time i'd see the wave coming i'd know, ALL OVER AGAIN, with abject horror, in a moment we would not be able to breathe.  eventually america was the only joint left above water (perhaps having something to do with my u.s. specific shabby apple giveaway?  yeah, i threw that in there.  don't hate the playa.  hate the game).  but we knew the waters were coming, because, you know, it was the end of the world.  and oh did i mention pentatonix's rendition of "video killed the radio star" was screaming through my head all the while?

they are jaw droppingly talented.  we're catching up.  only on episode 5.  don't tell me what happens, or i will come to your house and hide under your bed and give you nightmares (karen's already on the list. even though she likes my ass.  juliet liked it first though.  hey, thanks for the ass love y'all!  my eyes might be sleepy, but my booty feels fantastic.)

i haven't got a thing to wear!

good lord, party guests are on their way and i'm nowhere NEAR ready!  my skirt isn't even HEMMED!

it's all ruggy's fault.  he's become way too good at the birthday week.  tonight, he whisked me to moma to see the most-awesome-band-we-did-not-know-about ever, chico trujillo.  moma never had such a throwdown in their backyard.  the lead singer stomped about like he was at the most drunken party driven political rally in the world. and i'm talking about the good kind of party.  they had a horn section.  THEY HAD A HORN SECTION.  

i know i should be polishing the crystal and pressing my party frock, but i'm too full of wine and ska beats to get my ass in gear!

don't worry though, i'll catch my second wind.  this place will be lit up like the fourth of july for your arrival. you're coming from many corners of the globe, i hope, so please, don't feel the need to be right on time.  we allow for all manner of party guest chez kalkatroona-- night owls, early birds, and twelve hour time differences-- this is a BENDER, people!  i'll expect you anytime from friday morn till saturday night.  weekend house party baby...

just knock REALLY LOUD and let me know you've arrived, i wouldn't want to leave you out of sunday's "who's who" post!!!

hipper than hip

i am feeling like the most perfect birthday brat there ever was.

last night ruggy surprised me with tickets to death cab for cutie.  we found out about the concert after all the scalpers had bought up blocks of tickets, but ruggy waited patiently and on the day of, he pounced.  face value, peeps!  take that scalpers!

i wore my "new" flouncy pleated skirt.  this was a RTW dress, a dress sized for a pixie, and the zipper never even came close to fulfilling its life work.  i hacked off the bodice and voila!  new skirt.  by the by, my most recent oona does it! features a maxi denim version of this trickery.

  

the top is burdastyle's cap sleeve dress, bodice only.  well, let's face it, the bodice is all you get in this pattern.  if you've made this jammy (and a lot of peeps did, for sew weekly's kiss the cook challenge), you know there are hella fit issues.  i lowered the waistline, raised the neckline, and gathered the sleeves at the shoulder seams, which keeps them where they should be, rather than down around my elbows.  how unseemly.

and because it's made with le stretch jersey, no zipper.

do you listen to death cab?  when we arrived at the waterfront concert in brooklyn, there was a line of people snaked around ten blocks baking in the sun.  practically all of these people were under 18.  we often find ourselves in this time warp of age.  at the last peter gabriel concert we went to in jersey, everyone was of the over 60 set.  

ruggy spied a happy gentleman in a brooklyn brewery t shirt and asked him for the skinny.  what's on tap tonight?   we're thirsty.  brooklyn man grinned  (they all do; brooklyn brewery must be a very happy place to be) ipa, summer ale... lemme get you guys a wristband.  i'll just check her ID.

who, ME????  pshaw.

this little refashion comes complete with lining and taffeta flounce,  which indeed was its saving grace.  someone put a lot of work into this.  i couldn't abandon it on account of a tinkerbell sized bodice.

it's nice to be the big people at a concert like that.  the first thing we did was grab some alcohol and sit by the water, fuzzy bees getting drunk in the grass at our feet as we looked out at the manhattan skyline and shared a pork sausage sandwich.  we could hear the kiddies clamoring behind us to get close to the stage.  remember when we'd push to the front?  i chuckled. this is so much nicer.  

sixty seconds into ben gibbard's vocals, i grabbed ruggy's hand and pushed through the crowd like the teenaged fan i am.  admittedly, the proximity of hipsters did wear thin, and a few songs later we returned to a calmer spot, bouncing and smiling and occasionally turning to watch the sun set behind us.  

they were amazing.  ben gibbard didn't stop moving for two and a half hours, running back and forth to drums, keyboard and guitar, at one point banging away with the drummer, facing each other on two kits and looking like a couple of muppets.  every ten minutes, ben told the audience to turn around and look at your city NOW! like a giddy tourist.  they closed with this song, which goes from a couple of soft notes on a piano to a walloping chest thumping skyscraper of sound that makes you want to scream in joy.

the waistband of this skirt wasn't sturdy enough, having been dissected from its bodice appendage, so i threw some twill tape in there, sandwiching in some red circle-y dollar a yard trim, and then topstitched some triangles for good measure. 

egads, triangles.  do hipsters get a dress code mailed to them or something?  i lost count of the number of cut out dresses.  specifically ones with an isosceles triangle sliced out of the back of the dress, from waistband to bra closure.  these sharper edged cut out dresses make me think someone forgot a pattern piece.  they also make me think buffalo bill is lurking around waiting to make him a woman dress.

hey, what a great creepy segueway to say i'm THRILLED y'all are coming to my party!  i hope you're getting your dresses ready!