a blast in black

draping contest, in anything but black

after madly blindstitching the hem on my little black dress, i raced out the door at 5:55 to pick up my date for the evening.  carolyn looked scrumptious in black, green and pearls.  as she changed from work to party shoes, i lamented my motorcycle boots. no black pumps in my closet, but whaddayagonnado.  the fact that i made a black dress was earth shattering enough.

our absolute gentleman of a host

we headed to elliott berman textiles to celebrate pattern review day, and were immediately and warmly greeted with wine, goodies, and a STUNNING view of some of the most gorgeous fabric i've ever seen. although we were encouraged to roam the aisles with glass in hand, i did not trust myself (dropsies, much?).  

to wit: the only runway shot i got of clio.  approximately three glasses in.

although i'm a member of pattern review, i wouldn't call myself active.  no, i think i fall more into the leech category.  there's no other way to describe it, i suck all the information i can out of countless reviews and give zilch back.  that needs fixing, though to be honest, i'm not sure what information i can provide that will actually be helpful.  really, it would just make me feel better about the balance of things.  no matter, i was all too thrilled to escort my girl carolyn!

draping winners nabbed beautiful 2014 yardage...  and YES THAT IS YOU KNOW WHO, THE MYTHICAL SHARON!!!!

in honor of PR, i thoroughly combed reviews for a cynthia rowley pattern, and made a mashup LBD with by hand london's elisalex bodice.  do i have any pictures to show you?  no.  will i be taking it apart this weekend?  YES. dress: check. black: check. I TOOK THE WORD LITTLE WAY TOO SERIOUSLY.  good god, after three glasses of vino, burgers, fries, and a salted carmel milkshake, i felt like a twinkie with too much cream filling.

hostess eugenia, mistress of the fabric guessing game: HOW CUTE ARE THESE CUTIES

my bandage of a dress was not a winner, but i did manage to snag one of the extremely generous and exceedingly beautiful prizes in the Fashion Intelligence Game portion of the evening, courtesy of elliott berman: a huge cut (maybe 6 yards?  it's morning, i'm on the floor with coffee, and the tape measure is oh so far away) of jersey that feels like magic water.  i know because it's draped over my lap.  another reason to not get up.

thanks for the help melanie! GO PR!!!

like the leech i am, i did not snag this bag legitimately.  i simply repeated (BARKED, WITHOUT SHAME) the right answer upon learning that a prizewinner could not win twice.  this did not work the first time; i earned a raised eyebrow from our game hostess, and intelligentsia melanie earned an extra bag.  the second time around, however, there was no refusing my brattiness.  i could only hear does anyone else know the right answer? for so long.  one second, to be exact.  y'all i don't even remember what the question was, let alone the right answer.  

hopefully, i sufficiently embarrassed my date, since SHE DIDN'T VOTE FOR ME IN THE LBD RUNWAY SHOW.

WHATEVER CAROLYN.  I VOTED FOR CLAUDINE.

no, the winner of the little back dress contest wore purple.  oh, you know who she is. THAT CATHY. 

winners circle, style me mary in gold almost didn't even walk...

i just... i don't... i can't.  that collar.  those notches.  i believe i greeted her with you bitch.  the delicious michael, however, was met with glee, i'm not sure how peter lets him out of the house alone with a dame like cathy. WHO, BY THE WAY, WAS MY "DATE'S" CANDIDATE .

she treats me badly, she wins missoni fabric...but i just can't quit her...

what a raucous, awesome evening.  thank you deepika (pictured throughout in knockout red dress) and elliott berman for a wonderful time (i'll be back at a more sober hour of the day...y'all, it is ever so pretty up there), and please do holler if you were at the shindig last night, i'd love to know where to find such lovely company online as well!

cheep cheeeeep

i culled my stash and closet last weekend.

like a greek goddess, eyes aflame, i was ruthless.  i had to be.  inspired by a recent splendiforous sewists' meetup, which provided a bountiful haul of fabric, food, and friendship, i needed to rebalance my karma.  teeny precious scraps went, yards of years-old weirdness went, poorly made clothing--both off-the-rack and handmade--went.  ruggy, i said, holding up a purple lace bought years ago in LA, does this look cheap?

yes. 

no hesitation.  clear quick answer.  do you like that about me?  he asked.

yes.

i feel like i'm better at spotting cheap fabric now... but man, i sure do have a lot of it i ventured.  uh, YEAH, my quick witted husband quipped, the amount of cheap yardage you used to bring home was baffling. 

OH THAT'S NICE HAVE YOU FINISHED THE BATHROOM YET

no no, that's not what i said.  of course his statement is true, the evidence of my dollar yardage days is well documented here in kalkatroona.  but it makes sense.  in my past life as a shopaholic, i always made a beeline for the sales rack, and i don't mean neiman's outlet.  small budget = carefully selected well made pieces, or small budget = huge closet from chain stores?  MORE IS MORE, YO.

but lately, more has ended up in donation bags than on my rack.  

the way i shopped for clothing made an easy, seamless transition into the way i shopped for fabric.  accustomed to cheap material, buy cheap material.  and i don't necessarily mean cheap price tag, you can find bad and good for a dollar a yard, or a dollar an inch (eee, and gads), but my eye usually landed unerringly on cheap quality, even when i started to branch out beyond a dollar a yard.  for example, the tacky purple lace that started last weekend's epiphany was $20 a yard.

i can remember clearly the few pieces of really beautiful clothing in my younger closet.  in fact, i can remember one piece: a gabardine trench coat from macy's, bought on employee discount with many saved pennies from an afterschool job.  it was gorgeous, and a muted army green, which is so not my color.  but gabardine!  i had no idea what the hell that was!  IT WAS THE MOST MYSTERIOUS WORD IN MY CLOSET!  it sat next to four polyester prom dresses, which cost my parents a much prettier penny than they were worth. 

but i'm glad i spent years in RTW clothing that pilled up after the second wear, if only because my style changed every time i went to the mall.  i know, i know, fast fashion, bad oona.  but back then i didn't know.  it morphed into "fast sewing," which maybe isn't that different.  three bags of handmade garments went into the donation pile.  is that the same kind of waste as trendy outfits that last one season?

i don't think so.  like my years of RTW fast-fashion-training (um, ha, i went to FFT) helped me to better understand my style, my years of working on questionable threads helped me too.  because it takes a whole lotta hours to get your skills tight, and that can get Ex. Pensive.

would i say mine are tight yet?  nope, that's what's delicioso, there's always something more to learn. but i've hit a point, this very summer in fact, where i've become proud enough of what i make to want to wear something i make, every day.  not just on a special night out.  i want to feel good fabric against my skin, as well as look good in it.  and 90% of the time, i DON'T want to rush through accomplishing that, i want to make it right.  

working with yummy fabric is bending my fast brain into all sorts of surprising shapes.  

the next thing i need to do is either learn to love making some solid staples, or start saving some pennies for well made (in every sense) staples.  the silk peacock print and gold sequins up at the top were bought after telling fellow sewist devra i really needed some good neutral clothing to wear to auditions. the chiffons and jersey knit above are my "neutrals."  the knit has been put in the corner for a time out, the chiffons are untouched.

but i do feel a bit better about what's on my shelves.  and in a case of coming full circle, i'll be taking all those scraps and garments to one of the biggest enablers of my ex-cheapo RTW habit: H&M.  yep, that's right.  in what i can only think is an attempt to earn better karma, they're running a recycling program, which accepts clothing from any store, even competitors, even the store on your very own sewing desk-- and they also take fabric.  your payoff for this good deed is a 15% off coupon, which i am sure they're hoping will start the vicious cycle of fast fashion all over again...

not for me, i'm being careful.  been there 4 times already, with 6 bags, and haven't picked up a thing. i'm not saying you'll never find me in the checkout line again, or flying through a one hour sparkly poly batwing dress... but i think the scales are shifting.

how about you?  fast sewing?  slow sewing?  on trend?  under trend?  where are you at?

(pictured top to bottom: 1. sequins & silk from chic fabrics, 2. linen & silk organza from mood, 3. raffia & shantung from mood, 4. chiffon & sweater knit from it's a material world & chic fabrics.)

on a mixed denim kick

i don't know why i'm looking away in all of these pictures.

(i mean, this one doesn't count, as it's the back view)

seriously, i'm not exactly what you'd call shy.

hey there i am!

nevermind.

the notes

pattern: a mix of by hand london's anna (bodice), plus my own draped skirt

notions: metal zipper from pacific trimming, $6

fabric: embroidered stretch denim from it's a material world (that janky store on 39th, which apparently is "closing") $5 / yd

cocktails: french gimlet

time: about 2 days of sewing

pattern tips

• well, by now y'all are very aware of the wonder that is the anna.  can i just say be VERY, VERY careful when tracing & cutting out your size?!  the uk/us gets me every time, i've traced it for four versions now, wrong twice, and it's highly likely i swerved to another line here.  to wit:
• for this one, i tried sonja's back alteration to reduce the slight gap there.  unfortunately, my slice was a whole inch of overlap, and i think that was too much-- it threw the front neckline off.  this dress has been road tested, with the help of tiny safety pins as bra carriers... i think if i add those permanent like, that will solve the front neck.
• do you spy a back princess seam?  i do.  same thing happened here as in my silk chiffon anna...excess upper and mid back!  this is interesting, my raw silk anna (yet to be blogged) and my polyanna (HAHAHAHA) do not have this issue, just two teeny upper back darts solved the slight gap.  maybe this extra backage is due to the fragility and/or the stretch of the fabric used? maybe it was a UK swerve?  mebbe it was the gimlet.
• have you ever tried to take two rectangles and make a skirt out of them with nothing but pleats for shaping?  you can't just pleat two rectangles and expect the best (at least not with an ass like mine). you have to angle those pleats or add a dart to help it lie right.  this is the first time i think i've done that right-- no side seam stress at the hip!  i always used to pleat the front and back until it equaled my waist, with no regard for curves. i didn't realize what was causing stress on this type of skirt until i had a dress form to look at, and those lovely laurence king books to assist me. this might be common knowledge for most of y'all, but i likes to ramble.  
• i wish i would've added double pleats to mirror the bodice, but c'est la vie.  the wide selvage hem eases my pain.
• you don't have to use facings on the anna iffn you don't want to.  one should always do what one wants.  i like to use self made bias tape (oh be quiet it's not that hard), about an inch wide.  sew right sides together at neck & arm holes, understitch, grade seam allowance, press tape to the inside, and get to blindstitching.  (OH BE QUIET, IT'S NOT THAT HARD.)
  
  
  
  
  
  one more sideways for the road.  oooh...sidecar...there's one i haven't tried...

maddie and maps

this week i had the pleasure of stomping around the garment district for the second time in months with maddie, and later that day with christine.  before miss fish arrived, we had giant portions of espresso, and stumbled into the most blinged out store in town: hai trimmings.  i wouldn't be surprised if you haven't been there.  at the moment it's under scaffolding, and you can't see much from the window, but this long narrow store is the technicolor side of oz.  i was able to snap this one lonely shot before catching the sign NO PHOTOGRAPHS PLEASE.

maddie somehow walked out of the joint with the most romantic and classic piece they had to offer. i walked out with 24 sew on gold pointy studs.

by now, you've heard about THE MAP, yes?  this is why we need it, yo!  i keep slapping myself a la i coulda had a V8 when i see the sewasaurus rexes i've missed while on the lam.  and a joint like this needs a pin too.  a sparkly, twirling, flashy pin.

a few tips if you haven't mapped yourself yet: first, read mastermind vicki's post.  then, if you had trouble like i did, don't go trying to pin yourself via tablet/iphone/gadget.  it won't work.  use le computer, and you'll also need the least fancified of your browsers.  for me, that's safari (chrome and firefox wouldn't let me edit the map). now...some enterprising soul needs to add colors to those pins, like blue for sewists and red for stores...vicki, you've got oodles of time, no?

i say never too much...and "never" too much.

holy hell i appear to be sewing with a plan. what has caused this completely out of character move?  possibly i didn't eat enough red meat last night.  in fact, it was quite the vegetarian day, i don't know what hit me.  cray-cray vegetables and their mind altering powers. 

this morning, i awoke with an urge to finish a beautiful and possibly extremely tacky neon green lace dress hanging over our iron staircase railing (read: garment rack), but had run out of the olive green silk i'm using for interlining.  (or underlining.  which is it?  is it both?) i ran out of it because i bought it without any plans for it.  so back to the district i go tomorrow.  this is slightly frustrating.

don't get me wrong, i like sewing without a plan.  i'm not sure i could completely sew with one, since it's really the fabric that inspires me 90% of the time.  but the tomato soup on my brain and the lace on my staircase inspired this fruity thought: maybe i could look at my stash and pair some stuff together... then collect the rest of the things i'd need if i'm lacking... so i could start and finish a project.

ground breaking, i know.  never been done before in the history of sewists, i'm sure.

so i dove into my stash and started mixing.  

you might remember some chatter about feathers and the entire ruggian clan putting the kibosh on adding them to my anna sui dress.  well, these feathers from mood are destined for a bombshell dress.  and surprisingly, i have most everything i need for it.

LOOK AT THE BOW!!! how have i not recognized the awesomeness of this pattern yet?  i found this silk print at paron's new location (i am so happy to see those lovely peeps in their new joint.  way better lighting, and nothing says fabric like window dressings of paper mache rocket ships and working toy trains).  of course i bought it without a hint of an idea why.  i kind of think i'm going to look like david bowie circa velvet underground.  or maybe hunky dory.  hell, looking like david bowie circa anytime works for me.

the first photo is destined to be a vest, oscar de la renta wool & turquoise silk remnants from the mood LA store i snagged this summer during two separate meetups with clio and tigress.  those remnant boxes have magical bottomless holes in them leading straight to some couture house in france. hopefully i'll pair this vest avec shirt, which will REALLY make my david bowie dreams come true.  

will you look at that... i now realize i'm going to need a pair of pants to go with that... maybe i'll need to make another plan...

three first world problems concerning mojo

it's been a month since i've sewn anything other than a baby hem and i'm feeling loooooooow. that's kind of a lie, i basted the blue basement dress together, even serged up her edges with ellie, and i swear, it's like she was made for me, but the funk i felt clearly pointed me to PUT THE SCISSORS DOWN and pour a glass of wine.

perhaps that was my mistake in the first place? my right hand is not complete without a glass of something delicious.  easily remedied.  but the real reasons for my missing mojo, not so much.

1.  I HATE MY STASH

after being away from it for eight months, i was pretty excited to paw through it again.  it had been banished to some bags in a storage closet, to make room for other people's shite.  when i pulled it out, i thought, surely these are my scraps, man did i save a lot of scraps, and after another annoying hour of looking for it, i announced to ruggy: i had lost my stash.  GONE.  evaporated into thin air.  that, or our gentleman friend staying in our apartment suddenly got a hankering to sew up a very bright wardrobe.  it all looks crazy and fun on the screen.  in real life, it's chemical-tastic stuff that will most certainly go all pill-y or plain evaporate after one wash.

there were some gems, mostly from our debimegoonamena meetup last year, and some swap beauties.  the duds were picked with my very own hand.  a hand that was most certainly free of a delicious glass of something, as garment district shopping hours are a little early.

again, drinkless: maybe a mistake.

2. SEASONAL CHANGES MAKE MY HEAD HURT

if you happen to live in a changing climate, you know the change in the air effects many parts of day to day life. shorts are exchanged for pants, tank tops for cardigans, chardonnay for shiraz.  but now i'm wondering if the seasonal shift affects sewing mojo.  especially for those of us who don't sew a season ahead of time. (WHATEVER, WARDROBE PLANNERS. AREN'T YOU SMART.)  when the days are not hot but not cool, i have no idea what to wear, and since i sew for the season i'm in, i therefore have no idea what to sew.

luckily there is always an appropriate alcohol.

3.  I AM SPOILED

this has always been true, but add to the list of brattiness: i hate my sewing space.  it kind of sucks.  i didn't think this before we spent several months in a bona fide house complete with stunt sewing pool.  at first i gave myself permission to use one of the four desks in the house.  then i decided the dining room shelves could hold a bit of fabric.  by the end of it, anything that wasn't sewing related was relegated to a spare bedroom, and i had control over a small country's worth of space.  how am i supposed to get my brain back into the postage stamp i have in reality?  my stash is ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE LIVING ROOM BEHIND CLOSED DOORS FOR GODSAKES.

and let's not get into the maniacal rattle of my ellie as i race through a seam.  i used to think it was so nice that ruggy and i worked right next to each other with our matching old school drafting desks.  now i realize i'm subjecting him to nonstop brain jarring noise.  and i'm not even sewing anything for him.

IN CONCLUSION

i've been delusional about my stash, spoiled in my sewing space, and my seasonal switches are shorted out. when i lose my mojo, i pour something stiff and cut into something pretty.  as the only Something Pretty i had on hand was the mood velvet deliciousness, i stopped by chic and paron and picked up some new pretty, in the form of three silks and two wovens.  and ruggy made me up a new cocktail (for now, dubbed the Autumn In New York. WHAT.  how else am i expected to cut into the velvet of awesomeness?)

what do you do to get your mojo back?

catioonasaurus rex

oh hello.  though i've been MIA, i've been lurking your blogs on my tiny phone and writing comments in my head! what, you didn't get them?  note to self: check internet connection in brain.  but i landed back in civilization yesterday and met cation! 

you know this sewasaurus rex, yes?  she is delicious.  wildly funny.  makes dresses out of fire.  and AP in just about subject you could think of.  at several points during our catioona extravaganza, i lost the power of speech and she still knew what i was trying to say.  and to top it off, she totally has me beat in color.  though in my defense i DID have a neon yellow belt on.  

at the end of the day i was also wearing guacamole from my bacon wrapped hot dog, making it hard to disguise my choice of lunch upon my return.  ruggy finds it difficult to get down with cart food.  but lookie there!  do you spie that overstuffed baggy!  look what i had to distract him with!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCK SHE MADE ME A SEWASUARUS REX BAG

jealous?  i know.  you should be.  and it was stuffed with that orange printed jersey gorgeousity.  don't hate.

as for myself, i brought nothing.  nada, zip.  i stammered out an excuse involving being parted from my true stash, but really... at this point can i use that line without my nose growing several hundred feet?  (eww, that image is disturbing.)  between the levine loft and FIDM's shop, i'm acquiring a stash that puts my NY shelves to shame.  but unlike my bratty self, cation is a giver.  to everyone! she's got a fancy and be-a-yoo-ti-fully drawn tutorial up on her blog right this very minute so that you can haz your very own sewasaurus rex bag.  go see! EDIT: i should tell you, this is one of them fancy collapsible tote bags that squeezes in on itself like a science project and hides in your purse.  for realz.

but before you go, i'll throw you a bone.  wanna see some of the pretty pretty stuff i snagged?  all in all: about 50 yards of fabric, for about 35 dollars. i shit you not.  

after strolling through the FIDM museum, we thought it best to have a gander at the shop's offerings.  everything was on sale at a dollar a yard.  thaaaaaat's right.  and the lovely ladies there tell me that will be the price du jour henceforth.

there are no words.

we hit levine's loft next, naturally, where we enjoyed imagining what might be at the bottoms of all those long languishing boxes.  several times, she had to restrain me from finding out.  what if there was gold at the bottom of one?  the only sensible thing to do then would be to dig to the bottom of Every Last Box.  you'd be there for all eternity.  i failed miserably on all counts of non-enabling... cation will suddenly run to the register and check out, abruptly and confidently, her rule being if you check out, you stop shopping.  good rule, doesn't work.  my giggles only supported the breaking of this rule.

at this point in the day we were quite loaded up, but still managed to make our way to my favorite ghetto dollar a yard joint.  this place has a permanent Everything Must Go sign up.  as cation pointed out, this sign is misleading, as everything is Still Very Much There.

and you never know who will be around to ring you up.  last time it was two young easygoing chicas.  this time, several older lethargic and shifty eyed gentlemen roamed the periphery, and lucky us, the one with The Plague did all the cutting!  i'm talking Stephen King Superflu.  he took this gauzy stuff and place it over my head, pronouncing eeeh, you are briiiiiide in wheezy tones.  after he cut it, he used it as a napkin to politely cover his mouth as he hacked part of a lung up.  he was in the middle of folding it when the fit occurred, it was handy, can you blame him?  suffice it to say i will be washing this in water heated to Surface Of The Sun.  whatever, at a dollar a yard i'll take my chances.  i'm not catching the plague for the sake of three bucks.

now, there's plenty i'm not showing you, as it's meant for long promised prizes to other bloggers.  it's high time i completed a few items on my to-do list.  

as we got into our cars and parted ways, we ended up behind one another the light.  i spied an antique store going out of business on the opposite corner.  i was all i could do not to lay on the horn and gesture wildly, hoping to entice my new friend into more hours spent.  but there's a fine line between "oona's awesome" and "oona's batshit crazy", and i though it best to practice a little restraint in hopes of more catioona activity.

say cheese, for realz.

bag of cheap baubles from the jewelry district.  they put them in a plastic bag to be sure you're not making off with more than you paid for.  i need them, you see, for accessorizing.  i also like to act shady and make them keep an eye on me while i shop.

this week's oona does it! is up.  i wore the purple-y accessory.  and i do have a bit of story to tell you that's not in the column.

sis-in-law and i were at mood, me in my challenge dress, she ready to photograph me after our garment district spree.  for this challenge, i went with a pattern instead of a self-drafted dress, you know, to change it up a bit.

(oona and sis stand in the woolens section, carefully weighing the pros and cons of a beautiful mohair with the charming and chatty todd, when a second clerk comes a running.)

clerk deux:  TODD.  wrap it up, we're closing.

(it is 11:30 am.  the ladies blink.)

oona:  oh, we had no idea you close this early on saturdays--

(second clerk sighs: a resigned sound.)

clerk deux:  nooo, we don't.  we're taping.

oona:  oh.

yeah, project runway called and said they were on the way, CLOSE THE JOINT.  apparently this happens all the time, and at a moment's notice (news to me; i shop at paron & chic).  sis snagged the mohair and we waited in line.  they nearly wouldn't even let us do that (though they were supremely nice and apologetic).  as we waited, i inwardly lamented the fact that the ONE TIME i had decided to wear something NOT self drafted, tim gunn and crew were about to storm the castle.  what would i say when they saw me?  most assuredly they would fall to their knees in adoration, ready themselves to declare me the winner of the current season, and ask with baited breath if i was wearing my own design.  i was screwed.

as credit card was handed over, a second call was received.  they were not coming.   crisis averted.  i wondered about all the customers mood had just ejected for nothing.  

i guess that's why they say thank-you-mood.

sew weekly sunday: got a black magic woman

on my sewing list:

one (1) maxi dress, wedding guest style, for a best friend who is shortly packing up and leaving town

one (1) jungle gym "roof" with ten (10) grommets measuring six by five (6x5!!!) feet for another friend's child

one (1) invisibility cloak to throw on when peeps ask me to sew for them

i was really excited about the current sew weekly challenge: finding inspiration in album art.  album art, like music videos, used to be the BOMB, y'all.  i would sort through my parents' collection in a mixture of fear and amazement.  (ahem, that is, when i reached the age of understanding and appreciation.  apparently, before that, brother beast and i used the two-record set of "the white album" as carpet ice skates.  in our defense, the album cover was white.  just white.)

it's a mystery to me why i would want to put this on my blog.  this cover scared the bejesus out of me.  it's reminiscent of blue meanies... ehhhh, those things REALLY scare me.  i just googled them to jog my memory.  i'm not putting them up on le blog.  no, my brotha, you must go google your own.

ah, that's better.  a little phoebe snow.  she is a warm summer night with a gin and tonic.  i loved this one because of her freckles and curls.

but my favorite was santana's abraxas.  you'll excuse the naked women and the strategically placed dove.

i loved the blue tattoos on the red angel, and her fantastic wings-- i mean, she's riding a STRIPED CONGA DRUM (although daughter fish tells me it is a congo. i am sure she is correct).  all that pattern and print and cloth kept me fascinated every time.  telling?

weirdly, my stash full of prints didn't have anything near enough wild for this.  i had to find and then wrestle this yardage away from a small woman.  

in the garment district, stores will often have a large cardboard box filled with remnants at awesome prices. usually, several customers elbow each other over one stuffed box.  my favorite remnant store has two such boxes, which is handy.  on this particular occasion, Small Woman pawed through one.  i could see treasures at her fingertips, but i decided to take the other box.  how civilized.   

but the minute i began to sift, she dumped her finds and walked over to my box.  she didn't dig through it, nooo, she just waited for me to find something good and then grabbed it.  and forcefully pulled.  while inching ever closer to me.  in disbelief, i asserted my rights:  excuse me, but you're way too close right now. silence, and continued pawing.

i stepped forcefully into her side and shoved my hands into fabric, coming up victorious with 6 yards of silk chiffon.  her greedy mitts were on it immediately.  i got loud.  HONEY?  THAT'S MINE.  the small woman cared little.  can i see, can i see.  not a question so much as a statement.  you can SEE...  knowing she did not infer my meaning to be:  but you cannot HAVE,  i kept a firm grip on my prize as she pored over it.  i gave her three seconds to "see", then pulled it out of her hands and walked away.  surely there were more treasures in the box, but i didn't want my prize ripped in half.  when the proprietress paused in checking me out to help another customer, Small Woman actually picked it up AGAIN and began to walk away with it. at this point i just rolled my eyes and watched as the owner wrestled it away, in a weird emotionless silent dance.

that's abraxas in silk chiffon, yo!

i was going to make a simple summer halter dress, but when i draped it over my shoulder it told me it was too hard won to be an everyday something.  it wanted to be an evening gown.  for like, a gala.  i hope that it will be.

i just need to get on that invisibility cloak.