Highs and Lows in New York City

We went to NYC during my Spring Break to see Andrew's fam and celebrate his dad's birthday.

While there, I had the opportunity to go to Mood, delight of delights!

Chicago is just starting to sort of become spring, but I am ready to sew some cute dresses and things! So I went looking for lightweight, happy fabrics with Andrew's sis. It was so fun.

I bought four pieces of fabric, one and a half yards of each. That's a reasonable amount of fabric for me to make a spring dress from, I think. Simple ones at least...

These two are both cotton knits: one is brown and white with a sort of plant print. The other looks like snakeskin print on a black background with the print in pink, purple and blue. It's cool.

 Close-ups:

 The one on the left is a cotton knit in a sort of tie-die pattern and the one on the right is a silk chiffon. It's animal-print-esque wiht pastel pink, green and coral. Me likey!

 Close-ups:

 The low, low, low of sadness:

I was walking around and it rained a little bit and the leather loop on my purse strap gave up the ghost and snapped. Now it is safety-pinned together and I am so sad. La tristesse.

All of the leather is very brittle and now its cracking. Any thoughts? Just use it until it all breaks? Condition it and pay to get the loop fixed? Buy a new one on Etsy and have the same thing happen in a month. I have grown to love my picnic basket and it has earned many compliments. Plus, I feel like a level-10 hipster carrying it around.

I got new glasses, too(new lenses in old glasses). I will post about them soon. I bought them at an estate sale in New Orleans, pre-2009, as they are NOT on my blog! How am I supposed to remember things if they are not blogged and searchable? Yikes.

Estate Sale Loot: a wicker purse

On Saturday, we went to two estate sales. It has been a long and cold winter, so we haven't gone for months. Especially since it is "a thing" here to make you stand outside in a line as they let people in one by one. That is always annoying, but the cold makes it unbearable.

This wicker purse reminded me of something Camelia Crinoline would have, so I bought it to sell on Etsy. Andrew said it was ugly and looked like picnic basket, so that made me want it more. As I carried it around the sale, I grew to like it. Now it is my purse. It makes it easy to find things because it folds open like a suitcase. I feel like a giant hipster carrying it around, but oh well. Only five dollars!

I also finally sold all of my Swirl dresses on Etsy and now I listed some estate sale fabric I will never use. Go check it out, if you're interested!

An overly large green purse

I did make this purse very quickly. It has no closures, just a flap. It's a little too over sized. I would make it smaller if I made it again, both for the sides and the straps.

Here is my dog-model ignoring me. Andrew was out of town on Monday and I had to work a double, so TT was boarded at a doggy day care. Crate free, very clean, lots of dogs to play with but he still spent Tuesday pouting and ignoring me to express his displeasure. 

 I had to make siren noises to get him to even look at me. Such a brat!

 I added two pockets inside, as I try to keep my phone separate from all my junk so it doen't get scratched.

So this is kind of meh, but I want to do some more practice purses and then make some out of leather. I refuse to pay 100 + dollars for a leather purse. I have no interest in purses, I just want a brown one and a black one to hold my stuff.

Next up: Making a Purse

I really like this style of purse, which Lucky Magazine calls saddlebags. I have some green cotton twill and some brown plaid cotton to line it. I think it will be pretty easy to whip together.

What do you think should go inside of it to make it kind of stiff? I'm trying to think of something around the house, so I don't have to spend any money. 

I thought this leaf was funny because its shadow looks like lips! 

I should be able to make this soon, I hope!