Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Belated Holiday Goodness

I almost forgot to post some of my favorite Holiday pictures!
As per my favorite Christmas tradition, I went to Fifth Avenue and looked at all the Holiday window displays-Bergdorf Goodman being my all-time favorite.

.....you can see why, right?
I would suggest not doing this on Christmas Eve-it was super crowded, and by the time I wandered down to Rockefeller, it was more crowded than I have ever seen.





The outfits are just gorgeous!




I would willingly give my right arm to be able to work on these window displays. Also some toes.

The Van Cleef & Arpels displays played a little melody that sounded like something from Danny Elfman. It was magical.
The Henri Bendel displays decided to go with a Black Swan theme, and strung up some ballerinas. I was both amused and disturbed.

Anthropologie had the most delightful windows, I was surprised by just how delightful. They really played with scale, from pine cones with tiny houses all cozily lit and giant pines with dining rooms all set up amongst the roots.

And best of all.......Santa on a vespa.
Okaaaaaaaaaay!
That is it! Next time will be an outfit post, for sure! Promise!

Holiday Pictures

Every time I want to do outfit pictures outdoors, the weather is terrible! Its this awful kind of rain today, that turns the streets to ice. Ugh! I know this is woefully behind, but here are some holiday pictures!
Way back to....November. Hehehe!
This is me cooking for Thanksgiving, in my beloved herringbone trousers!

I discovered that having fresh cut flowers is such a nice thing to have in your own home. I'm resolved to try to have them, not just for holidays! I heard tell that in Manhattan there is a flower district, and that the fresh flowers come in at 2 a.m. and THAT is when florists swarm and get the best picks. I think it would be cool one night to hang out at a bar until 2 a.m. and then get the best flowers!

We went to a holiday party at this awesome Brownstone near Union Square. I've never been in one of those houses before-they are very narrow, and beautiful, and have many floors. If you have ever seen "The Devil Wears Prada", a Brownstone is the house that Miranda lives in.

It was a fancy sort of party to me because they had a bartender that served you drinks.
I really loved the kitchen, because it was HUGE. It had two ovens and like six stovetop burners.

I tried my hardest to be outgoing and I found a new friend who is awesome! She likes British shows like I do, so it was really a great party.

For Christmas I catsat. Catsitting. Sat on cats. Whatever you call it!
Whenever some friends go upstate, I watch their two cats, Hopper and Vincent.
They really loved the tree and would sit under it, and Hopper loved to perch on top of a boxed gift.
The day after Christmas, there was the huge snowstorm. I have never seen so much snow in NYC!

This is what the storm did to our windows!

This is what my neighborhood looked like. Our street was not paved...it was crazy to see cars trying to drive down them.


Sorry if this was a boring post, the weather has postponed lovely outfit pictures!
Stay tuned!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Applied Girl

Well, hello beautiful bloggers! Well today is the last day of my pseudo vacation...and even though I didn't do as much as I had imagined...(I always imagine that on my vacation I will wake up at 7 a.m., do yoga, eat a nutritious breakfast, get projects done, work on my writing, jewelry, sewing, etc.).
Anyway! I'm not beating myself up for my not using the time the way I had thought I would.
Buuuuuuuuut I DID finally send in my portfolio to FIT!
As promised, I will show you guys some things from it.

Be gentle, my friends! Hahaha


These are designs that I wish I could see out there...designs that I would love to wear...

During the making of these, I realized: I am obsessed with herringbone, I love exposed seams and cutouts and I feel that the back of a design is just as important as the front of it and should be just as interesting.

For me, the part of the portfolio that was the most challenging was when I had to make garments from scratch. I mean, I definitely use my sewing machine often ,but its usually to hem pants or to take in the sides of a top!
Its pretty easy to come up with a simple design like this one, above. Its basically a tank top with fabric from the front and back tying together at the waist. Easy, right? But its tough, the measurements, making sure its symmetrical, making sure it fits right at the waist, but flares enough for the hips, and hemming! So simple, but still so tough!
This was my favorite, I just really liked the different, unique collar. Why are collars so boring most of the time?? I think my style point of view is....why just have a boring, plain t-shirt when you could have a small detail in the shirt that makes you feel special? Why do you have to accessorize a shirt when it could be beautiful all on its own? But thats the great thing about fashion and style-everyone does it differently, everyone does what they like best, and no one is wrong!
I really fantasize about making clothing to sell on etsy...and thats my job, my career. Not going to happen, but a girl can dream, right?
Making these garments was a great challenge but I learned tons.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Pretzel Girl

I have uploaded all the files for my FIT portfolio except for one part.
My goal is to upload the final part, and hence the entire portfolio by midnight tonight! Its taking a lot of courage...I think the reason it has taken me so long is that I psyche myself out...

After all, I'm applying to the Fashion Institute, FIT, of f-ing New York City. Thats huge. Its intimidating. What do they want?? What are they looking for? Is it me? Am I good enough?? I've been a coward, too scared to be like, HECK YEAH FIT would be lucky to have me! Which is how I made myself upload everything that I have already....

My sweety thought this outfit was soooo adorable.

The reason I wore it was because we had an eaten a huuuge meal with our friends the night before-salad and shrimp scampi and this kind of italian dish? It was like some kind of sauce-less, cheese-less pizza topped with onions. It was so delicious that I ate way more than I should have.

So it was a sweatshirt and a loose skirt, all the way. I don't normally dig clothing with writing on it, but the bow on the back of the sweatshirt sold me. Too cool for school.

I'm in love with these shoes. Unfortunately, the NYC pavement ate off about 1/8 of an inch of the heel the first day I wore them outside. Le sigh. I still love them!!

I always find it difficult to find a top to wear with this skirt...but then I was like, why match it?
Works for me!
I don't know if its because I haven't been wearing much makeup or because I've been working out, but my skin isn't breaking out so much. Yaaaaaaaaaaaay.

I also made pretzels recently. Its really fun! And they are sooooooooooo goooood. This is a close-up of yeast, isn't it neat-looking??


Pretzel dough ball!


Kneading the dough and forming the pretzels is the toughest part-I highly suggest that you never make pretzels on your own! Enlist a friend's help!


I was really fascinated by the boiling them part, for whatever reason. Eek, our oven is messy, sorry.

They're done!! Beautiful!

Next time, I would like to also make different kinds of pretzel dip! Mustard, cinnamon sugar, etc.

Outfit details:
top: f21
skirt: f21
shoes: f21

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Wifi Girl

So I am dangerously behind in my blogging. As Inigo Montoya says, "No, there is too much. Let me sum up. " A quiet Christmas, a quiet New Year. Snow like crazy. I joined a gym. I was going to go to LA to visit some friends, and it fell through...because of me. But I learned a life lesson, and will go later...maybe April!

An important thing to happen, which sounds small, is that we FINALLY got wifi in our apartment...I had been using my sweety's puter. So, whenever I wanted to blog, I would take pictures, upload it to his computer, then thumbdrive it over to my laptop if anything needed to be sized or photoshopped...and then thumbdrived back to his compy in order to put it up on blogspot. I think its why it took me so long to post...hopefully now I will blog more!


This week is supposedly a pseudo vacation for me since I didn't go to LA...though I still have my private client that I see at night...five nights a week. Bleah. I am mostly working on my FIT portfolio-which I should share here. SOON. As soon as I send it in to FIT! Though it would have been interesting to sort of get feedback through my blog first...oh well! Next time!

I wanted you all to congratulate me on not having stopped in to the New Urban Outfitters store right around the corner from me that opened up! But then today...I sorta stopped into Anthro to look at their headbands (I adore theirs)..and there was kind of this huge sale...I ended up buying some things....oh dear. Le sigh.

I think that maybe this tuck-your-scarf-into-your-vest maybe used to be a hit on the fashion internets, but I was only there for the belt-your sweater/cardigan phase, so I felt original in this outfit, even if I actually was not.

I love the proportions of a long sleeved dress with a knee hemline. There is something so great about it.
My friends introduced me to two new games-one is a board game and one is a PS3 game. I've been super tired ever since I started working out and so I was nodding off during the board game and then got super hyper during the PS3 game. But now I really want to buy a PS3 station just to play it. I usually stick to PC games, since I already have a computer.

I really adore this combination of graphic colors and patterns. Its houndstooth and some crazy kind of herringbone, correct?
While this jacket is nice, its somehow the least warm coat in the entire universe. Instead of deflecting wind, I think it sucks the cold air into itself. The wind makes a detour to funnel through the coat and my skin.
And it has a charming pregnant silhouette, none of which deter me from wearing said coat. Until now, I don't wear it now, its banished to the Fall Season from now on.

Outfit details:
shoes: anthro
socks: uo
tights: uo?
dress:h&m
scarf: thrifted
coat: free people
hat: uo