I finally got the Joan pose down!

Definitely having to learn a whole new skill set when it’s just me and the camera on auto. This is how I ended the week, channeling Joan in my Favorite things outift, and this is how I started the week:

Can we say “Titanic”?

Yes, I FINALLY got to wear parts of my Titanic outfit from last year. The $3 Salvation Army linen blouse has seen quite a bit of wear, so much so that when I found another one I snapped it up so I wouldn’t wear them out so fast. I don’t know about you but I trash the cuffs before anything else.

I used the belt from the jacket for a waist belt and wore the same purple/white shoes I wore to Brittany’s graduation. Because the morning was a little chilly I wore a basic white sweater to work but it was quite nice at the end of the day so Mr. Sweater stayed in my bag. The big hat? In the closet. I can’t imagine it would stay on my head while I rode my bike! Even with ties it is so big it would block my vision so no hat. I’m ok with that but when I look at the above pic I start thinking I look like a Cheesecake Factory waitress (no, they do NOT wear the outfits you see on “Big Bang Theory” and yes, I tried to google that for you but nothing relevant comes up. They wear ALL white!).

  We’re still having this weird weather pattern where it’s cold at the beginning of the week, almost raining, and then by the weekend it’s nice and warm. This particular day, however, was NOT warm. I’ve not only got on a long sleeve sweater as my basic foundation piece but I had 2 more sweaters on over it! I’m only wearing one here but wow! What happened to the mid-80 days??

The skirt is the one I made for the Childhood Challenge last year. I love the skirt, made 2 more from this pattern : ) I probably would have made another couple had it not been shredded by puppy teeth last fall. I did get to wear one of my new-ish bakelite pins, a cornucopia with cherries. Any day with a little bakelite in it is a little better day, which leads me to…

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Bakelite galore!! This was just the SECOND outfit I completed for the Sew Weekly challenges. Again, I love this skirt pattern and again, it was shredded by puppy teeth. This pattern, however, is so easy I can probably pull one off the skirt itself. I never would have thought I would love the yellow/black combination of this so much but I do. So much so that I recently found a piece of black/yellow printed chiffon at JoAnn for something like $2 a yard and I bought a piece for experimentation. I recently joined the Vintage Pattern Lending Library and let me tell you, it’s been an education : ) I have several 30’s day dress patterns now that are just BEGGING to be made up!

 And now for the extra special photo of the week:

Four generations.

Grams insisted : ) I guess because Brittany wasn’t around for Mother’s Day my grandmother wanted a 4 generation photo with her so we obliged. My mom thinks my grandmother has a “list” of things to do before she “goes”. I don’t know what to say about that other than “ok” when she asks. I wore my Joan dress from the latest Mad Men challenge. Right color for the day : )

So that’s my collage for week 4. I have to say I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t been able to add more new things to my wardrobe. I’ve got lots of stuff cut out, just haven’t had much time to actually sew. The real challenge has been to make sure I don’t wear the same things over and over again, plan ahead so I’m not ironing a shirt at 5:30 in the morning and make sure I’ve got enough layers on to go from 50 to 80 degrees in one day.

I’m also quite happy that Miss Crayola Creepy has extended the deadline for the Gatsby challenge to June 4. I have a vintage dress that is falling apart that I would love to turn into something Gatsby-ish. Not my favorite era for someone with my boobage but I’d really like to see what I can come up with considering I pulled the dress from the trash. And I’m still futsing over my Lee challenge : )

So much to do…

When we last met I had lost this dress : ( And then I found it : ) I don’t know how big this pic is on your screen but maybe you can see I’m holding the program from Brittany’s commencement?

She’s the one in the red hair smiling with thumbs up : )

And here we are after her ceremony, just after we took our “bent twig” photo.

What is a bent twig?

“Any current Mills student related to a Mills alumna. The term comes from the quote by Alexander Pope: “’Tis education forms the common mind; just
as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.’ “

I’m not usually a big fan of commencements. I would have skipped my own if I didn’t get the traditional “You will attend because I’ve waited for YEARS for this!” lecture. I now see what my mother meant and yes, she is *almost* always right.

Part of my reluctance in attending these things are the speeches that I never seemed to have a connection to/with. I remember suffering through high school speeches while sitting in blinding afternoon sun (yawn) and don’t even remember who spoke at my own college commencement but I DO remember being very happy I was done!

Brittany’s ceremony featured Holly Gordon, the woman who helped produce the award winning documentary “Girl Rising“. Her message, which you can see in a podcast here, boils down to this “Just do SOMETHING”. She told stories of her own travels, how she got her start and even though her journey has not been what you might think of as a “straight” line it was what was necessary to get to where she is today.

That’s what she wanted to tell everyone that day. Take chances, take a trip, take on something that may not seem to be in your path because your path may change. One thing is almost certain and that is life isn’t linear.

If you click on the link it should bring up a page with 7 webcasts – Graduate Student Speaker Steven Drouin was GOOD. And at the very bottom is an 18 second clip showing the students “flinging” their tubes full of pieces of tissue paper in their class color of red, with some gold and white thrown in for good measure : ) I have a handfull of tissue pieces in a bag in my drawer that in 30 years my grandkids will pull out and ask about…I hope.

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 I wore my dad’s mother’s high school graduation pin on my dress. I can’t help but think she would have been as proud as I am of my daughter and this was my way of taking my grandmother with me. The dress I wore she would have LOVED because of the purple but the other reason I wore it is because purple was my class color when I graduated. And because of the purple and the amount of walking I did I decided to wear my new purple velvet shoes:

Of course I took these pictures somewhat after the fact and someone had to check things out:

Then she moved right into the middle of the action:

And the she flopped down on the deck as if it was all too much to bear : )

While perusing the Mills facebook page I came across this picture of my daughter, who was sitting about 30 feet away from me. Because I’m an alumna I was able to march to the ceremony with the rest of the alumae who attended. They gave us caps and gowns and had us line up in order of our class year (one woman said “We’re getting closer to the front!”), and handed me a banner with my year on it that I made back when I was pregnant with Brittany! When the other women found out I actually had my daughter graduating they made sure, when she was in line to get her diploma, to cheer! Did I cry? Yep.

Lined up…

The site they use for graduation is where the Costume shop I lived in many years ago used to reside. Now they have an area they plant with an “M” and surround it by the graduating class color.

This journey, for both my daughter and myself, has not been linear. But it has brought us here today which is exactly where we both should be : )

I decided, with the very busy weekend we have coming up that I would do a mid-week post so I didn’t get overwhelmed. My daughter is graduating from Mills College this Saturday!

This week has been weird, weird, weird weather-wise. We started out in the upper eighties so cotton was in order. I wore my “Quilt” outfit and it was perfect.

Tuesday was blustery but warm-ish so my St. Patrick’s blouse was in order. I’m back in jeans while it’s windy : ) I got tired of fighting my skirts a la Marilyn in “The Seven Year Itch” on my bike and at BART. It’s also tough this time of year because it can be 57 degrees in the city in the morning but 86 when I get home. It’s all about layers…

Wednesday was shopping day!

Brittany needed sandals to wear for the ceremony along with a correct bra for her dress so we met in the city to shop. I HAD to check out the Fiesta display at Macy’s to see if they had any special pieces to add to my collection (they didn’t!) and then we hit the shoe section. Imagine shoes as far as the eyes can see…

And neon vinyl.

Cal Trans orange neon vinyl. Just say no. I made her try them on just because. We laughed. Then we bought some pretty shoes : ) She took me to Uniqlo, sort of like a Japanese H & M.

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The stairs LIGHT up and change colors! We quickly took this photo just like the rest of the tourists : ) The mannequins you see on the left side of the photo turn in unison and there are a couple dozen of them. Very avant garde. I wore the top from my 40’s outfit with my Target red sweater and polka dotty shoes. It was VERY windy out! I will admit that it was a chilly ride home which explains why I bundled up Thursday…

The red wool sweater was a $3 thrift store find and the plaid coat was from the Twin jackets post I did last October. Jeans again and it was windy AND rainy AND some random guy decided to dance on the BART tracks during the morning commute so it took twice as long as usual to get to work. At least I was bundled and comfy during my wait!

I finally decided to wear my Grandma Bertha dress to the graduation. Because I’m an alum I get to sit in a special section and get breakfast ahead of time. Once the ceremony is over Brittany and I will take an official “bent twig” portrait. When a relative graduates they are called “bent twigs” and the moment captured on film. I figure we worked hard for this and I’m getting that picture! The purple/green dress would have been perfect!

Notice how I said “would have been”? Went to pull the dress out tonight and no dress to be found. It must be with the blue Joan dress that is AWOL as well. Either we’ve been hit by a thief that has a fondness for vintage-style clothing or I’ve had a pretty good brain fart and they are somewhere very safe. Both Jim and I have looked in ALL our closets (all 4 of them!) and can’t find either dress. I’m not sure if I’ve got anything else quite appropriate for a spring graduation in the sun on a large grassy meadow. I’m also not sure if I’ve got time to make anything since I need to be in Oakland at 8 am in 36 hours!

Time to panic yet?

The week in pictures : )

I actually made it all seven days but the day seven pic…I’ll save that for the end. There’s a few new pieces here and some “old” so to make it easy we’ll go one day at a time. The one I’m MOST excited about was actually my Tuesday outfit and since the inspiration photo is just too cool we’ll start there.

This remarkable woman is in Finland! She did a blog similar to my tablesetting blog only she did a different vintage outfit, with very few repeats, for 365 days. You read that right, a different outfit every day for a year. Amazeballs. I think it took me three days to read each and every post because of course I discovered her after she was done. She still posts on a blog called Fintage, along with a few other women, who are *just* amazing. If I try to describe the delights on those pages I’ll not do it justice so to cut to the chase you can go here to see the rest of the post about this outfit and here to start with the most recent post. If you have ANY interest in the 30’s to 50’s GO, just GO. Now.

Tuesday:

I have been looking for a green/purple polka dot fabric for MONTHS. Haven’t found one I like. Last trip to Stone Mountain I found the blue/green polka dot I finally bought for this blouse. I liked it so even thought it wasn’t “perfect” it was good enough. If I ever do find my green/purple then I’ll have two awesome blouses : )

The linen skirt is from the same 30’s pattern as my Pomegranate outfit. I tapered the skirt a little and put the slit in the center back. Silly thing took me a whopping hour and a half. The sweater isn’t quite the same as the inspiration shot but here’s the deal – it’s cashmere. It was $2. I had several sweaters in my stash (for making Katwise coats!) but none were big enough for me to make into a cardigan. It took two of us looking at this sweater to discover a small green stain on the right sleeve. For $2 I’m ok with something that took me 10 minutes to find. I have no cha-cha belt…yet…but I will : ) I do have a cool pin:

Lucite “feathers” with a stylized bakelite fleur de lis. Or so I think. It was a mega deal at the flea market a few months ago over which my mother raised her eyebrows. I knew it would find a place. The earrings are vintage but so painful I wore them for photos only.

Monday:

Still one of my favorite all time shirts, I made this last year and call it my “Fiesta” shirt since the print is all the colors of the original Fiesta ware. The sweater was a Target find and I decided on jeans because it was in the low-50’s at 5:30 am. While I love my skirts it can be tough to psych yourself up to get on a bike at 6 am in one : )

Wednesday:

This actually IS my Pomegranate skirt! I made the blouse this week, finished it Tuesday night. Because the weather was still being temperamental I not only wore my purple sweater over it but a long, heavy black one as well. There is a belt there, it’s the same linen as the skirt with a black bakelite buckle but amazingly the sweater is such a good match to the skirt it’s all a little hard to see!

The shirt is cute but slippery. I dug out some sale poly I bought at Joann’s months ago, I like the colors but it drove me NUTS all day long! The collar and facing on the right side never seemed to work well, I spent the whole day futsing and tugging and vowed when I got home I was throwing it on the mannequin and figuring out WHAT was up once and for all. I actually changed out of the skirt to walk Chloe, pulling on a pair of jeans and suddenly…all was well. WTH??? I have no idea. I put the skirt on to do photos and we’re all funky again. I was too tired to try to figure out the dynamics of skirt/shirt but did find some moderate amusement in the whole situation.

Thursday:

New skirt, old sweater, new purse. The skirt is Dia de los Muertos cards : )

The sweater is another $2 cashmere that I remodeled for the Black and White challenge last year. I found this fabric at Stone Mountain & Daughter a few months ago and snagged the last 3 yards : ) Originally I wanted the color version of this but they had run out : ( I used the skirt pattern from Vogue 8811 and made SURE to match the print where I had to piece it at the bottom as well as down the side seams.

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The purse came from the Alameda Flea market a couple of months ago. Again, my mother thought I was a little crazy buying it but I bought it from the original owner (who had used it in the 60’s) and on the inside it says “The Original Box Bag by Collins of Texas. Hand decorated for You! copyright 1966 enid collins” Did I mention that it’s wood? It’s wood.

Friday:

My Kazz top : ) Black jeans. Easy peasy. We went from rain in the morning to 78 degrees in the afternoon. We’re calling the weather menopausal since it’s going from hot to cold to hot again.

Saturday:

I LOVE this dress. I made it for the Make-this-Look challenge last year and when it came time to get dressed to go to my mother’s house for a Mother’s Day brunch on Saturday this screamed “wear me!”.

My aunt came up to see my grandmother so it was decided to celebrate all the Moms in the family a day early. I was still staining and working on the deck-that-won’t-be-finished (you can see my dirty knee in the picture) so I threw this on and jammed over for lunch.

My youngest sister, Erica, is on the left with Grams in the middle. It’s pretty awesome that she’s chugging along the way she is. She’s a little frail physically now but mentally she is ALL THERE. Not bad for 93 1/2 : )

Four generations here : ) My niece is on my grandmother’s right (in front of me), and my sister and mother are on her left. My own daughter was off camping this weekend. She finished up her classes last week, turned in her final projects and is DONE with her bachelor’s degree work! She graduates officially next Saturday and I can’t tell you how proud I am : ) In a few weeks she leaves for her summer hiking experience (from the Oregon border back to the Bay Area!) but there will be plenty of time later to talk about that.

All in all a pretty festive week, eh? But there is one more…

This is how I REALLY dress on the weekends : ) I did a cheesy mock sexy pose since I’m in just about the least sexy outfit possible. The shirt sort of fits into the MeMadeMay parameters – I got it at the swap last fall (free) and then had the image screened on right there. One of Brittany’s friends has a silk screen business so whenever they do the swap Raquel brings 5 or 6 screens that you can choose from. This one is her version of a scantron:

“Homey Grown” is the name of the business : ) They also have a screen that prints the images of a nickel and a dime for the 510 area code. If you didn’t get it for a few seconds don’t feel bad, no one does : ) But then you do and you’re in the “know”.

So there’s my secret – I spend 5 days a week in cute clothes and the weekends in funky t-shirts and boxers. (These are my favorites, they have skulls on them.) Stacey and Clinton would be appalled. The animals still love me.

Because this post is so long I’ll post mid-week with more Cake in a Mug recipes and maybe, just maybe, the deck will be done. Here’s a sneak preview;

The staining is done, the bench has been re-painted and I pulled out the cushions. You see the stuff all over it? Squirrels. They mock me and throw all kinds of “stuff” on the new deck and furniture, sort of a two steps forward, one step back sort of deal. Sigh…so close and yet so far.