sundays are almost always chore days around here and today’s to-do list started with giving ol’ geoffers a good scrubbing. yesterday he and ian walked across a freshly painted metal basement hatch (what are those things called?) and his paws were all encrusted and sad-looking. i let his paws soak a bit in the tub while he enjoyed (ha!) a luxurious spa treatment of orange-mango scented shampoo (what dog doesn’t love orange-mango?) and when he got out of the tub, he left little rust red paw prints on the white bath mat. though the paint had been dry on his paws and the prints were probably just dry paint that had sloughed off from his bathwater, i worried that my beloved $4 white ikea bathmat (that we’ve managed to keep clean for over a year) had dried its last set of paws. but! thanks to my dear friends dr. bronner and baking soda, it came home from the laundromat good as new and i was once again spared that trip to ikea i’ve been putting off.

*****

a few weeks ago i ordered (and then received) a 50 yard roll of 110″ wide organic cotton that was grown, spun, processed all in the states. woo! it is enormous and is still residing in its plastic wrapping on my bedroom floor, awaiting its fate. tonight i played around with some fabric painting on a bit of the natural organic chambray that i’ve had around for a while and a surprise jar of jaquard dye found in my dyes bin. i painted one dry piece and one wet piece and hung them from the shower curtain rod to dry.

however

i forgot to remove the bath mat from its resting spot, draped over the tub edge; the bath mat is now spotted in two places with fabric dye.

it’s funny how you have those moments in which you’re so sure that something is broken and so you steel yourself against the disappointment, only to find the thing isn’t broken at all. and as if you just hate to waste that effort put forth in trying to be big about the disappointment that never came, you go and break the thing anyway, almost out of spite.

it’s just a bathmat, but doesn’t it seem like that sort of thing happens all the time?
or
maybe i just secretly really want to check out that ikea in red hook.

hello weekenders. how’s your weekend going? spent most of mine indoors (it’s technically over since i have to work tomorrow) photographing, editing, measuring, posting, but i did manage to sneak out for brunch with ian AND we walked down to grand street to check out a friend’s bass playing skillz. today was crazy town madness bands playing everywhere day in williamsburg and the weather was amazing. all seemed orchestrated to mock the fact that i have too much work to do to spend much time out there, but what i caught was heartwarming and totally awesome. there were two super loud bands on bedford at one point, maybe half a block away from one another and totally canceling each other out. it was beautiful.

anyway! that’s neither here nor there i suppose. the big news is that i finally updated the etsy shop with some of the renegade leftovers + tons of new undies + 2 new valerian card designs. yes, i just finished and still need to send out an email to the list and no, my work is not done because i have to do as much cleaning/organizing as possible tonight and tomorrow night because something exciting is happening on monday that i don’t want to talk about yet, but will later on. um. yes! so check out the stuff!

and please try to ignore the fine down on those legs in the shorts photo. i’ve decided to emulate this blue furry wild woman in an attempt to attract a unicorn. though now i’m somewhat confused by the endeavor, having been made semi-aware of a certain feminist subset hellbent on banishing unicorns from the archetypal image catalogue that *i* always thought most girls were born with. well whatever. life is far too short (and uh, complicated) to worry about which kind of feminist i am. though “furry blue feminists” has a certain ring to it, no?

and *that* my friends, was a tangent.

goodnight!

the etsy homepage has a collection of strangely familiar (in a proustian madeline sort of way) items that sent me back in time momentarily to my little dorky 15 year old self, obsessed with jean-pierre jeunet and idly rendering my high school into some future/past (and yes, steam-powered) patina green industrial facility instead of paying attention in class. oh. my. gosh. why didn’t little valerie know about steampunk??

i absolutely love that there is a crazy and very specific community for just about any bizarro aesthetic out there. even if i had known about steampunks, i can’t say i would have ever been able to commit myself so fully as to openly claim allegiance; i feel mega strong affiliations to too many conflicting groups (i’m a pisces, what do you expect?) to choose one that’s so specific, but what i wouldn’t have given to hang out with some of those dorks. and i do say that with all intended kindness.

steampunk! oh lord. that just made my day.

EDIT: apparently i missed the nyt article, which ian pointed me to. those dudes look so rad! the kids in the smaller photo, not so much.

taking a tiny little break from sewing (i’m down to three dedicated days a week…not enough!) to share some new apartment additions. next month will mark our one year anniversary here and our little nest is only just beginning to resemble an organized and comfy home-type space. oh! but don’t get me wrong! it’s been comfy and homey for us, surrounded by a cluttery mess of books and stacks and piles of the trappings of making and all. but it’s not really been conducive to hanging out or entertaining guests. for one, there’s really nowhere to sit. we have two kitchen chairs, a tiny ikea loveseat and one folding chair each at our respective “desks” which aren’t terribly comfortable and which are sort of cruel to seat guests in.

while the seating situation probably won’t be remedied soon, we are well on our way to finding permanent homes for the floor-dwelling book stacks and errant cds and records. ian designed and made the little bookshelf above, which sits/fits perfectly behind the tiny sofa. check out the tiny, slanted foots! i’m super impressed and have bombarded him with a ridiculous onslaught of furniture and cabinetry requests, which i will not actually hold him too, but which would be awesome! though, more paintings would be even awesomer. awesomer??

oh! and the plant life is multiplying! i bought a banana plant on sunday when ian’s parents came up (they brought the pretty red vintage table in the corner there) and his mum helped identify some mystery plants on our coffee table and gave me some tips on how to keep ferns from dying. she said all plant caretakers have an achilles heel and i think ferns must be mine. it seems so cruel and unfair that the plants i find the prettiest should be hardest for me to keep! i’m sure it’s not some sort of bad vibes thing though; me and ferns just need to have a heart to heart.

a few things!

1. in honor of yellow pants everywhere (and daffodils a’bloomin’) i posted my first wardrobe_remix shot since moving to brooklyn:

2. my dear friend genevieve is a founding editor of the new online magazine triple canopy and will be among those hosting the launch party this saturday night at the gowanus studio space. a $7 donation gets you in for an evening of art, beer and rad timez!

3. i ordered a bike helmet!
that is all.

have a great weekend!

hehe! my friend amelia sneakily purchased a top from my etsy shop last week and sent me this amazing thank you note yesterday! she is kindly allowing me to brag away by showing it off here…but seriously! it’s too cute to keep to myself. thank *you* amelia!

in other news, i finally got those new liberty print undies in the etsy shop! the print is called “Amberina” and the undies come in three sizes and three color combinations. ive been told the print is not being made any more, so this might be it! i managed to order more of the blue, but wasn’t able to snag the multi or pink, so if you dig ‘em, have at it before they go the way of the carousel horse! poor carousel horse…

lastly and randomly, you know that (admittedly awesome) must-have poster that’s making the rounds with the slogan “keep calm and carry on”? that’s all well and good, a fine motto really, but somehow it hasn’t really Stuck with me. what i do find myself repeating (silently, mostly) is the slightly wackier version offered up by Of Montreal in their song, “forecast fascist future”; “may we never go go mental, may we always stay stay gentle” yep. find myself repeating this probably more often than is healthy. such a good message though.

sewn yesterday, in the etsy shop today

it’s rainy today, but at least it’s warm…ish. had a small lunch with kathryn at roebling tea room. nice and cozy. we groaned and griped about jobs and sounded like a couple of old ladies, but really it was awesome and life is good. sometimes a good, solid complain-a-thon is all you need to realize that there’s nothing to complain about. ha!

thank you to everyone who wished me well on the thirty trip–so far, so fine. no major freak-outs or mourning of missed opportunities of youth, etc. ha! seriously, it just doesn’t feel like the big deal everyone makes it out to be. so i’m old, so what? i can still read moomintroll books and ride a schwinn stingray. who makes these rules anyway?

well, for my day in the sun, ian and i made the long journey up to the the cloisters, which was a great time. i almost took home a lop-eared bunny, but apparently it was someone’s pet (who lets their house rabbit hop around the city?)…shucks. also, we ate ice cream sandwiches and sat on a park bench and oh yes, saw some unicorn tapestries. later k and e joined us for some malai kofta in manhattan and then for some lambic back in greenpoint. all in all, a pretty much perfect way to spend a day. yes!

and now it’s back to work. and sadly, i think back to reality and the deepening realization that i will, indeed, need to be finding myself another little part time gig to fill the gaps. but! these past months of working to get dear birthday back and running have been awesome and i do believe that in time i can make it work full-time. i’m kind of like an awkward water fowl, trying to get the momentum to fly. wow. that was lame! haha! i am getting old. anyway!

enough nonsense! there are four new pairs of undies in the etsy shop, three of which are The Very Last of the carousel print. that’s all there is, folks. some of the best looking prints i’ve seen are on their merry way to me from jolly old england, but sadly, no more ponies ponied up. get ‘em while they’re prancy!

happy purchase things to prove your love day!

i’m such a scrooge, i know! but hey, i love love as much as the next lady, so here’s my valentine to you–my boys, doing their respective things. geoffrey, turning tail at the sound of bert jansch, then wagging into the dark; ian, writing emails and listening to tootle-y music. hooray!

*it’s snowing today! snow! wonderful snow.

*ian and i are celebrating our eighth anniversary this evening and i’m actually really looking forward to walking the mile to dinner in the snow. though i guess cute shoes are out.

*i spent most of yesterday cleaning and arranging/rearranging. the apartment is looking much better, but if you were to visit, you may still think we’ve just moved in. there’s not enough storage, surface space or seating just yet, but little nooks and corners look somewhat finished when vignetted as above.

*dear birthday’s schedule is all set. the spring site update will occur march first. i’m excited for our photography trip–there’s an arboretum on long island that looks lovely. i expect there will be visible goose bumps in the shots, but a tropical business trip was just not a possibility this year. hm. maybe next?