iPod cozies

I'm up at 4am because I can't sleep. I'm turning into my mother. Which, you say, is inevitable and right and good. We all become our mothers. And I shouldn't complain, my mother being an absolutely lovely woman—a princess among women, even. But her bizarre sleeping patterns, where she'll get up and plant bulbs in the garden or bake a cake at three in the morning, is one thing I could have done without. But then again, I do feel rather productive. Maybe I'll bake a cake.

But first I'll tell you about our new iPod cozies. Mine is the gray, Twin's little pink Mini gets the polka dots and stars. I've always been of the opinion that accessorizing iPods is kind of, well, silly. They don't really need the protection. Mine's been going commando for about 2 years now and all he has to show for it is a couple scratches. Now, I don't have the fancy-shmancy color screen, so a scratch is no big deal. We're old school over here, with the girth, heft, and gloriously petite memory of the grandfathers of the Nano.



But even ancient iPods like a little flair and a bit of coziness to keep them snug. I used a light cotton batting to make them cushy and a contrasting lining for a bit of cheer. The moleskine-inspired elastic band works well--it can also keep the headphone cords wrapped up nice and neat. Our iPods have never looked so good.



And before I head off and bake that cake, I'll add that we are officially in Beta now. My overall impression is two thumbs up. Publishing is easier, and the tags are excellent. I had such fun yesterday going back through all my old posts and indexing them. The wee little librarian inside me was just giddy, I tell you. So sorry if you had a zillion old posts pop up in your Bloglines. But you can now, if you are so inclined, read my archives by category. Oooooo weeeee!! For instance, I discovered as I was indexing that I have a strange fixation with marshmallows (literally, obviously, not metaphorically) so you can now see all posts associated with my marshmallow obsession.

I'm not really sold on that whole layout editor thingy, though. I tried it briefly, but switching over to it requires you throw out your previous template. And I couldn't re-create the look of my blog in the new template. It looked strange and different and I felt all wobbly inside. (I wanted it to look like it has ALWAYS looked, I don't want it to CHANGE. I hate change.) And it's harder to futz with the html because they've made the html all but incomprehensible with that automated layout business. So if you're like me and enjoy messing with the html in a purely amateur way, you might be a little lost. I certainly was. Anyway, long story short (too late): if you use Blogger and you're thinking about switching, do it. We can only hold on to our low-techie ways for so long.

Actually, screw the cake, I'm gonna grab a few winks before I have to go to work. Enjoy your Monday!

three good things

They always say bad things come in threes, but this week good things have come in threes for me:

1. I spent the afternoon wandering B&J fabrics with a friend. A project brewing. Nothing bought (gasp!) but many plans laid.

2. I discovered a great eBay seller store for vintage sewing patterns. She has a fantastic selection, and she organizes her patterns by size as well as decade. Fantastic because it always seems like the perfect pattern, the one I absolutely must have, without fail turns out to be about five sizes too big. So I bought a few patterns. Just a few ; ) I'm feeling the early '60s. What about you?

3. And best of all. I met Susan last night for dinner. So wonderful to meet one of my "cyberfriends," as Twin and I jokingly refer to our blog friends, in person. Susan is the keen eye, gentle voice, and creative spirit behind sulu-design. And in real life she is every bit as kind, interesting, and reflective as you might expect from reading her lovely blog. A kindred spirit, I think.

Wishing good things to all my cyberfriends, in whatever number they arrive!

earrings, oh my!

Here are my gorgeous new earrings that arrived in the mail this week from sulu-design. Susan is one extremely cool jewelry designer, and a sweetie to boot. If you're local, she sells in some shops around here, and if you're not, well never fear, she has an etsy shop. Go on! check it out!

I am not much of a jewelry person, though someone asked me the other day if Julieree is a corruption of the word jewelry. Ummmm, no. It's just my name. The "ree" being a corruption of "Marie." Because that's my name, see. I never said I was clever.

I love these mother-of-pearl drops so much. And if you're braver than me, she has a similar pair with 3 drops in the shop. So pop to the shop for some drippier drops. (See? I just THINK I'm clever. It's a delusion that I'm happy to keep.)



And look what I did to my new Old Navy sweater. I covered up the logo with a little patch. Not that it's a bad logo; it's that cute little deer. It can't hold a candle to my most favorite logo ever, but it's not bad. I just find logos on clothing a little annoying.

So the question is: are you sick yet of the extreme Julie close-ups? There have been way too many of them this week. You're probably singing to yourself, "You're so-o vain. You probably think this blog is about you. Don't you? Don't you? Don't you?" So I will leave you with that song in your heads and promises of a self-portrait-less week next week. For now, I got a baby quilt to make. In a very short amount of time...

Happy weekend!

good good mail

Don't you hate it when the mailman leaves those little notes on your door that tell you that "well, I've brought a lovely package just for you but no one was home to accept it, so I've taken it away again." I hate that.

But he was finally able to deliver it yesterday: my package from Hannah. I sent her some cards and look at this rockin' package she sent me. Such incredibly cool stuff, I can't wait to use it all. The patterns and the fabric and the vintage buttons. Thank you Hannah! I love the cards too--that postcard is soooo funny.

And now I have a crafting to-do list a mile long, and Twin wants to "cozy up" the apartment. Which I think means cleaning. Hmmmmm...cleaning doesn't sound nearly as fun as crafting...

making-along

I finally got little Olive done. Not that she's all that time-consuming or difficult to make (although that whole leg business was a tad tricky), I just haven't had a lot of crafting time recently. Work, commuting, errands, blah, blah, blah. I also really am a sucker for new fall tv. It generally takes me a couple weeks to realize that no, none of these shows are going to be interesting at all. I wonder to myself "where did the week go?" and I realize that it was sucked into the bottomless pit that is primetime television. I know this to be true, but, well, I am weak.

I got Olive's arms made one evening, then her legs another, and it was quite funny to have little Olive body parts kicking around the apartment all week.

If you haven't read the story, go do it now!! It is endlessly charming, and I have to say Hilary is freaking brilliant.

My Olive is digging her little outfit, and now it is definitely time to accessorize. Happy Saturday!

bedroom is definitely getting happier

Project Trying to Make my Bedroom Look a Little Less Sad is coming right along. Helped in large part by my new print from the Black Apple! She put a print up in her shop last week called "Acorn Twins" and I had to order it immediately because it was so perfect. I happened to mention in the email that I had a twin, but that I was going to be selfish and keep the print for myself rather than give it to my twin. So it arrived yesterday and what had that lovely Emily done, but gone and put two prints in—one for me and one for Twin. How nice was that!?

I had picked up the old frame at a stoop sale this summer. It's actually a window pane that someone converted into a frame. I put two fabrics on either side of the twins print. It's making me very happy.



And I made new curtains. Now it was a bit tricky to photograph because my room is really more of a glorified closet than a proper room and because, though I guess the sun still exists, we haven't seen it here in Brooklyn in, oh, about an eon. But it's a lovely eyelet with delicate blue stripes. I like the way the light twinkles through it. They are very simple panels with a band of the charcoal gray (same as the tuxedo pillow) at the top.



And look what else came in the mail yesterday? My gift tags from Tammie's swap! So many incredibly cool and creative tags. You can see them all on the flickr pool.

We're keeping indoors until this cool, rainy weather finally passes over us. Perfect weather for sewing, or maybe a bit of crochet. Happy long weekend to all!

tag swaperoo

This is my contribution for Tammie's Gift Tag Swap. I'm very close to the deadline, so these are getting popped in the mail tomorrow. (no excuses, julie. mail. tomorrow. do it.) (HA! I just realized I'm a week early! I'm never early for anything. hee hee!) I've never done a swap before so this is very exciting. Hope everyone likes my tags and agrees that tiny imperfections are charming.



I covered the backs of the tags with fabric to make them sturdier and a little bit more special. I've been wanting to sew on paper for a long time, so this got that out of my system. Though I like the way it turned out so much, I think I'm going to have to continue my experiments.

And the best part of this project was it was a perfect excuse to go to my favorite trim and paper shops. I got these at M&J Trim, the mecca of trim in nyc. And I wandered through all the paper shops on 18th Street. Maybe sometime I will make a crafter's guide to the paper shops of nyc like Liesl did with her nyc crafter's guide. Then I can rationalize visiting them all in the name of "research."

south pacific apron

A Bali Ha'i apron for Tie One On. I have to say the musical challenge was a tough one for me. Because I am a total musical dork. I love them all. Can't think of a single exception. Because where else in life is it perfectly acceptable to spontaneously bust out in song with maybe a bit of tap-dancin' to go with it?

At first I was going to do an Adelaide apron, all glitzy ritzy 50s style. Then I was going to make Jennie a Madame Librarian apron. But then I saw this fragment of island luau-y fabric in my stash and I knew there was only one musical apron in my future. I won't say South Pacific is my absolute favorite musical; I find it a bit overly melodramatic. But the music is so classic. I mean, Some Enchanted Evening. That's all I have to say about that.

I didn't have much of the luau-y fabric so I added the ruffle. This kind of makes it look like one of those skirts that are so popular with the tweens nowadays. Apparently there's a little shriveled-up old lady inside me that thinks "the CLOTHES these young people wear today. Might as well run around naked. In MY day, we dressed properly." But I try to ignore that little old lady inside of me because those little tweens should be able to enjoy their little tween stick legs. Puberty will bless them with hams soon enough.

That fabulous fabric flower is courtesy of Blair's wonderful tutorial. So easy and so beautiful, I'm gonna make more.

Jennie exacted a high toll for the hula pose in the top picture. She's becoming one expensive model. Soon we'll be moving out of baked goods and into cold hard cash.

bobby

I made a Wee Wonderfuls bear! When Twin saw the pattern book arrive last week, she said she wanted one. Surprising since this is the girl who is beginning to despair of all the "chochtkes and other shit" that is beginning to overpopulate our small apartment since I started getting into all this crafty business. Her prior rule that I can only make things for other people (thus getting them out of the house) is apparently suspended for this bear. Such is the cuteness of this bear. He is just so incredibly and irresistibly cute.

Jennie named him Bobby. He is definitely a he-bear, despite the fact that he is wearing a dress and red mary janes. The mary janes had to be red, of course, per Jennie's instructions.



But I also couldn't resist making the loafers. So now he has two pairs of shoes, as any self-respecting glam bear should.

I couldn't believe how easy he was to make. Hilary did the most wonderful job with the instructions, etc. An absolute joy of a project. If you're interested in the pattern, I believe Hilary is planning a reprint sometime soon. Check out her web site. Also check out the flickr group she set up to see more bears, kitties, and bunnies, oh my!

(Oh, and I obviously jinxed poor Andy Roddick the other day with my prediction. Sucks for him. Sucks for all the americans, actually. Great to see such a variety of countries represented though. My second underdog prediction is Baghdatis. He has a nice face.)

red

Friday is red. Not too difficult to find red in this apartment as Twin has an absolute passion for the color. This is the miniature sailboat she got in NC on our beach trip. Neither of us knows how to sail, but we both have it on our list of things to learn some day. Or maybe we'll just hire someone else to do the sailing while we relax on the deck of our yacht, touring the Greek Isles. Yeah, that would be good.

Tomorrow we're off to Renegade! Yippeeee!

blue

Thursday is blue. They always hang ginormous movie posters on Madison Square Garden. And walking past a 7 story tall Jack Black dressed in this get-up everyday puts a very big smile on my face. I have no idea if this movie is any good, but I do know that Jack Black is a funny, funny man.

gray

Wednesday is gray. A few seashells from our trip and a dress. One of those dresses that we couldn't not buy because it's so beautiful, but haven't yet had occasion to wear. Some day soon.

Today's a gray day in NY, and I think the gray thunderclouds are soon going to burst. A very nice summery kind of feeling.

brown

Tuesday is brown. Isn't Tuesday also self-portrait Tuesday? Not sure who started that or if it's still going, but here is my self-portrait/brown week of color photo. (Who knew I was such a joiner?)

I've got four eyes. I've worn contacts for so long that I feel as though I've got giant hubcaps attached to my face. But oh, I can see. I can see every tiny leaf on every tree and each individual tile on each roof even on buildings that are stories and stories tall.

We were watching Superman last night (the original with the ever so yummy and charming christopher reeve) and were remarking that he really does look different in his Clark Kent persona. And it's mostly to do with the glasses (which were, in his case, about the size of hubcaps). So perhaps this glasses-clad person in the photo is really my alter-ego. She certainly looks smarter.

She also, unfortunately, looks very much like Twin. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, of course, twin being a very pretty little thing. But the glasses/contacts divergence was one of the things we always preserved to help people tell us apart. But I'm really tired of foreign objects in my eyes. This can probably be traced back to all that fungus mess people were getting a while back. After reading that NY Times story, (sorry can't find the link but you don't really want to read it, trust me) the tide of my attachment to contacts started inexorably drifting outward. And very likely never to return.

But my new glasses are brown, which may be my favorite color. I know, Jennie, this may be even less exciting than navy blue, but, well, I just can't seem to help it. My teddy is brown. It's a very friendly and comforting kind of color, I think.

I could use a little positive reinforcement on this glasses thing. I don't really look like I have hubcaps on my face, do I?

white

Stephanie and mav have organized a week of color. Today is white. I should confess that I took this picture a couple months ago (is that allowed?) but am so glad to have this opportunity to share it. I liked it then and I still like it now. It's a house down the street that is in need of a little love. Our neighborhood is undergoing a slow transition that I won't call gentrification because that sounds negative. It's more like everyone is just painting and planting and beautifying—but without stripping away the heritage and character that lies underneath.

Peeling paint, I think, can be completely beautiful. As can the color white.

dolly's smock is cuter than mine

This is my first contribution to Tie-One-On, Angry Chicken's monthly apron challenge. The theme for May was a "Smock to wear out" and I was really excited about this given Twin and I have long had a yen to make moo-moos. You know, loose-fitting, tent-like, completely unrestrictive but also somehow cute summer wear. In theory, at least, tent-like and cute are not mutually exclusive. So the smock challenge seemed like a good chance to make a moo-moo-like garment.

I should caveat this by saying I don't think my creation really counts as a smock. It's not open in the back and goes on over the head. I was going to try to alter the pattern to button in the back but feared that if I went off-pattern, I would end up with a great big mess. I almost ended up with a great big mess just trying to follow the pattern exactly, so this was probably a wise decision.



I used an old pattern from the 70s I got off eBay. I knew I wanted a yoke-style smock—I was inspired by the 70s Vogue Sewing book I borrowed (i.e. stole) from Mom. The book is not only the greatest resource for basic sewing info, it is also endlessly amusing. In the section on pleats, it reads, "The Perky Pleat: There's nothing like the snappy swing of pleats to put a lilt in your walk and a gleam in the eye of a passing gentleman..." So THAT'S the secret. Why did no one tell me sooner?

Alas, I'm not completely happy with my smock. I think it pushes my cute factor over the threshold into the realm of obnoxiously cute. All the pink didn't help. The general shapelessness of it didn't either, I think.

I used a pillowcase that I found at a thrift store for the front and back. It wasn't quite wide enough so I added a bit of white at the sides. I have since discovered that the pillowcase was vintage Vera—and I went and cut it up for a shapeless, slightly wonky smock. Oopsy. The gods of vintage linens may smite me down for such blatant sacrilege. I can only plead my complete cluelessness as humble defense.

Dolly saw the smock Amy made on Angry Chicken and liked her interpretation of the smock so much better than mine. So I made Dolly a smock a la Angry Chicken. I used the scraps from my quilt in progress and have to admit it turned out absolutely adorable. See, Dolly has no issues with cute overload. 8" plastic dolls apparently have no ceiling on cuteness. Twenty-something women, however, dressed in pink who still play with 8" dolls, well, that's when cute begins to turn into something else.

a spotty pointy kitty

I recently discovered a community of incredibly creative and inspiring crafting bloggers (or maybe I should call them blogging crafters—they are first and foremost the creators of some of the most beautiful handmade crafts). I've added a few of them to my links at right, but once you begin blog-hopping, you will travel far and quickly, around the world several times over with only a few clicks.

It is from one of these crafters, Hilary Lang of Wee Wonderfuls, that I got the pattern for this kitty. I recently bought a ton of felt and had a severe hankering to do some felt applique. This is a completely unseasonal urge—I should be wanting to work with light, airy muslin or something in celebration of the warm weather, but there is really no arguing with hankerings, so I bought the felt and got out my book of basic embroidery stitches. (I did, at one point last night, when the weather had finally—FINALLY— reached a point where flipflops were necessary and a balmy breeze carried the voices of kids playing in the street into my living room, only then did I feel the need to fold up the felt and stow it away on a shelf lest it suffocate me with its fuzzy closeness. Luckily, I had just finished the kitty.)



The kitty is named Callie, short for Calico, of course. I tattooed her on her rump so there is no mistaking the matter. She's a little bit saucy, and enjoyed her photo shoot immensely.



She has joined Hilary's Pointy Kitty gallery on flickr, where you can see other people's interpretations of this fantastic pattern.