K-K-K-Kick It Up A 4" Notch

I saw these shoes, somewhere during blog surfing. I love these canvas wedge platform shoes. The shop's description tells you to "think LL Bean," but I'm not a fan of LL Bean. So I wish to "think" this:

Dress of Italian viscose knit fabric from Sawyerbrook

Vogue pattern

Bag from 6pm (really Zappos on deeper sale) with casual feel

Oh, this bracelet -- if money were no concern, I'd pile 5 of these Hermes babies on like very polished Ann D. But you could copy this look with heavy leather and some handbag fixtures.

Olive toenails to match the dress

This nice clean look is only a wish today though. Today, I'm doing heavy duty digging to move really good dirt to an area where I'm adding a raised bed. It's sweaty dirty work. But brings beautiful things!

R U an X Hourglass or an 8 Hourglass?

All hourglasses are not the same? All hourglasses are not the same, apparently. And this explains a lot. For one thing, it explains why despite recommendations that I, as the owner of an hourglass shape, should wear A-line skirts, I hate how they look on me. I feel like A-line shapes make my hips and thighs look bigger than my house. I've always preferred pencil skirts and straight skirts, but thought I wasn't "supposed" to wear them.

This explains why -- if you are an hourglass shape, you can be an 8 or an X shape. The difference is, the upper hip curve of an 8 shape flares out from the waist while the hips of an X shape have a straighter slope out to the hips.

How to make an 8 shape look its best.

How to make an X shape look its best.

More explanation of an 8 shape -- I'm off to study this!

Twist and Shout!

Burberry Prorsum twists ... this would really add interest to a basic black jersey dress, skirt, top or cardigan, wouldn't it?

I love to wear black but hesitate to sew it lately because it so often feels boring. How could you be boring with these twists?

Here's a how to, but it seems you need a fine light fabric so the twists don't turn out chunky and cheap looking.

Shirtdress Inspiration at Anthropologie

Anthropologie has a shirtdress category showing nine shirtdresses -- check out the details for sewing inspiration!

Knocking Off Those Cool Indian Prints on Yoga Tops

I love-love-love print yoga tops like these at Athleta.

But do I have $49 to $64 to spare for a tank top? Nope.

However, I do have yummy cream knit from Vogue Fabrics. It's bamboo, it's incredibly soft and I can't wait to play with it and sew it up. And I have a mile-high stack of scrapbook papers, many of them with Indian and Asian-inspired prints. I go gaga over paisley print paper. I have a scanner, photo editing software, a printer and transfer paper for fabric, and of course there's an iron or two around the house. If you have these things, you have what you need to make a one-of-a-kind printed top.

I've also gotten into hooping so I need some close-fitting comfortable knit tops. My sister, who is a fitness instructor, plans to teach hooping as a certified instructor, and when she told me about it, I thought (as you may be thinking) what the heck is hooping? Well watch these videos of hooping -- it looks like great fun and fabulous exercise! So I now have a Hoopnotica hoop -- I got The Vamp and my sister just ordered yet another to add to her collection, The Diva. Check out these LED hoops -- imagine a bunch of people out in the yard at night using these, what a sight!

And yes you do break a sweat when hooping. You feel it in your torso, hips, thighs, arms. Put on some music, start playing, it's fun!

So tops like the Athleta print tanks would be perfect for hooping. Here's what I plan to do:

1) Grab my favorite Kwik Sew TNT tank top and knit pant pattern, 3115. I may modify it to a scoop neck:

2) Pre-wash bamboo knit from Vogue Fabrics. They have many colors (check out the celery & olive colors, yum!!), I picked mine up at the Evanston store after petting the fabric. So so soft. Good recovery and the cream is thick and opaque. That's hard to find in a cream or white knit. I snapped it up. Bonus for working it, it's microbial fabric?!?

3) Choose a piece of scrapbook paper with a print that I'd want on a top. Something with paisley like this:

4) Scan the paper, or you could photograph it at hi-res with a digital camera. An iPhone or other camera phone probably wouldn't deliver good enough resolution.

5) Open the image in photo editing software. I use Photoshop, and I would remove elements and rotate some, enlarge some elements, and play with the image until I got a pleasing design. Who knows, I may even combine and layer images from different papers. You could do symmetrical or assymmetrical design.

Here's some inspiration, big and small prints:

Athleta

Prana

Prana

Asana Green

Gaiam

Paragon Sports (unfortunate hummingbird positioning?!)

6) Print the image on T-shirt transfer paper. Some papers leave a big unattractive plasticy splotch on the clothing. Some transfers do a better job of transferring just ink. I am not an expert on the best products but will certainly be researching this before I get to this stage. Anyone have recommendations? Also unknown is how durable the ink is over repeated washings.

 - or -

An alternative is to have your design printed on knit fabric by a digital fabric printer. Make sure you layout your design so you can cut the pattern so the design is placed in the location where you want it. Many samples shown by these services show designs covering the entire fabric, but you don't need to do that. Fabric on Demand will print on lycra spandex. Karma Kraft has a cotton jersey knit. Spoonflower has organic cotton interlock knit.

7) Sew your creative, one-of-a-kind printed yoga top!

My creation coming soon ...

Shopping the World. In One Insomnia-Fueled Night.

My credit card may very well be shut down for suspected fraud, as tonight's journeys have taken me to Germany, Australia and the UK. A last hurrah before there's no more fabric shopping for me for awhile. A few unique things I've had my eye on for months:

This cutwork cotton from Germany (Anita Pavani):

It will surely become a summer tunic, as previously featured in a Stylin' Series post.

This cotton from Australia (Tessuti):

Destined to be a shift dress or shirtdress. Previously featured in a Stylin' Series post.

Finally, I've salivated over so much at MacCulloch & Wallis (UK store) for so long. So many unique bag fasteners, rivets, buckles, cord locks, many styles of leather buttons (even hook & eye wrapped in leather!) and so much more.  My shopping basket always got more full than I can explain to the DH. So I never completed a purchase. I like to stash these sorts of supplies in case they're needed in the future, because they're not easy to find. Instead, today I chose a few pieces I will use for current projects, thus, careful choices. I got these bag fasteners:

Silver handbag chain:

Some coat chains for jackets (OK, I lie, this is for the stash "in case ever needed"):

And I love love love this fastener:

Also got jeans buttons and rivets. Due to the success others have had with the Jalie jeans, I will attempt them too with some stashed denim. I got copper-color rivets and buttons.

They have yummy fabrics too. Including a black linen jersey I'd love to do into a summer sweater for the city...

AN IDEA ...

If you like the cool fasteners like those shown above, but don't want to tackle a handbag, use fasteners on a belt, like this MICHAEL Michael Kors belt at Zappos:

Stamping & Scrapping Rock Star Discovers Tinsel Trading

Another passion of mine is scrapbooking. I like vintage (rusty and slightly decrepit even better), I like metals, darker colors, travel and navigation themes, bits n' scraps of old prose in many languages, layers and layers of various papers. My favorite products are from 7 Gypsies and Tim Holtz -- they both fit my aesthetic.  I buy papers from many lines and wind up mixing them in a layout. Like I said, I like layers. I have about an 18" tall stack of papers to choose from right now, all categorized by my favorite topics to scrap about, each of which have their own colors and style.

Right now I'm working on more of an art piece book -- it's a journal that Amelia Earhart would have written if she had landed on an island in the Pacific and had survived for a bit. It fits my loves of navigation, flight, travel. And it's giving me a challenge to try to channel the imagination I had in childhood. It seems to have gotten beaten into submission by adulthood. What is it like to be in Amelia Earhart's shoes, stranded on an island? I'm still trying to reach that place. Right now I'm finishing the visuals of the pages and researching about Amelia to kick my imagination into gear for what she would have written.

I started this book on Mother's Day weekend, when I visited my mom and sister for a scrapping weekend. We had three fabulous days of scrapbook binge!!! Fun. We went to the Mega Scrap Meet in Novi, Michigan. My sister and I stalked the Stampers Anonymous booth to see Tim Holtz. His classes sold out within minutes, literally, so no chance of taking a class, but we did watch his demonstrations at the booth. And got a pic on the iPhone, of course! So now his blog shows that he discovered Tinsel Trading. Oh man, if he likes Tinsel Trading, that's even more reason I must get to NYC soon! They sell some products on the website but you know there are many more tantalizing vintage metal things in the store.

For now, I have pllllllllllllllllenty of new scrapbooking toys from the Mega Meet -- many new Stampers Anonymous stamps, pile of exotic papers, I am loving the Perfect Pearls product which I'm using to layer snippets of words and writing on papers. Vintaj Earth also has fabulous vintagey metals and looks like they're expanding into scrapbooking, with some products at Archivers stores.

But a really strange thing happened with this Amelia Earhart scrapbook. Flying and travel internationally are two of my loves. My husband has an airplane, a Piper Arrow, so I've dressed as Amelia for Halloween in the past and posed with the plane dressed as her because we happened to fly on Halloween!

So I'm researching Amelia's disappearance, as part of my background homework to figure out what to journal and write in this scrapbook. And I find this group, TIGHAR, that shows plausible evidence that Amelia in fact really may have landed on an island. In fact they just landed on the island for their ninth or tenth mission there to uncover more evidence. This time, they'd like to find DNA for indisputable truth about what happened to Amelia. Wow, what timing. This is giving me lots of material, so I'm pretending she did in fact land on Gardner Island, which it was called in 1937 when she disappeared, and the pictures and details about the island online give good inspiration.

I'm finding my natural aesthetic and interests work well for this project: metals, old looking stuff, navigation, travel ...

So, back to working on the book so there will be photos to post soon ...