Stitching in Circles featured at Heart Handmade

Mandie of Heart Handmade sweetly featured the upcycled accessories I sell in my etsy shop on her blog!  I am so flattered.

Check out the profile and feature! StitchinginCircles on HeartHandmadeBlog

Rockabilly Street style

Rockabilly Street style by Tina S featuring a cropped jacket

Saw a gorgeous woman with dyed white hair and a style all her own in a black Rosie the Riveter kerchief, cigarette pants, and the cutest polkadot espadrilles on the street today. I didn't take her picture, but I tried to reconstruct her outfit as best as I could here!

A Moment of Reflection and Thanks

Everyone who has been following and reading along and commenting -- thank you!  I am so glad my writing and pics are providing some diversion and entertainment to people beyond just my own self.

The Lovely Cait, who blogs at Book Geekery, recently bestowed upon me and several others the title of stylish blogger -- go check her list out, I found some new favorites already!

 I am very flattered and grateful. So when you win this award, it is said that you should: a) Thank the person who awarded you, b) include 7 facts about yourself, c) pass the award on to other bloggers, and d) notify them of winning the award. 


It's a little like chain mail, I guess -- or I could be a wee bit less cynical and see it rather as a generous Pay It Forward that connects bloggers to each other. So, moving forward in all sincerity and earnestness:

Skiing in Tahoe for Spring Break

Found on Flickr --  by Scott Thompson

I am so excited! My friend Kevin, a whip-smart fellow grad student in English, has invited me and some friends to stay with him for a five days at his boyfriend's gorgeous house in Tahoe. Yay Kevin and his retired-at-30-and-bought-a-house-in-Tahoe-because-he-invested-ridiculously-well-in-the-tech-boom boyfriend!

I haven't been skiing since I was like 16, when my mother sweetly took me, my high school boyfriend, and my best friend up to the mountains. My family used to go up to the snow every couple years before that, so I am hoping it's going to be more like riding a bicycle and less like html coding, which I am truly slow and stupid at when I haven't done it for several years. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see if I can stay upright while charging down mountains. I love the thrill of speed on the slopes, and I will just have to not eat much in order to be able to pay for the ski rental and lift tickets for as many days as possible.  Otherwise I'll have to go cross-country skiing, which is cheaper but  no fun at all, as in my opinion it's like walking, but harder, whereas downhill is more like

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

New Creations, Photography Question, and a Recommendation

A new pin in my etsy shop! 

I built a new photo-taking set-up to help me capture light better and create more neutral backdrops (which I will soon post about in detail), and took some great photos of some of my newest creations. This one is ready to find a new home!

I really like this picture, and I have no idea how I captured the lightness of the layers of the pin. Photography is still kind of magic to me.  Do you all think this is light and bright enough to be attractive to buyers? I lightened the exposure and brightened the colors a little; on my macbook it still looks kind of dim, but I don't want to slam it with everything photoshop offers for fear I might bleach it out entirely or fry it in neon.

The book serving as a prop is a very very awesome issue of McSweeney's Quarterly  that I picked up used on Clement St in San Francisco at Green Apple Books -- aka one of my top ten independent bookstores -- and it has two spines (!) . . . basically, there are two front covers and one back cover, and I love that book design and presentation can be so inventive.

I used to be kind of dismissive of McSweeney's because A) it was started by Dave Eggers, whose memoir title annoyed me, 2) it seemed kind of twee and precious, and iii) because I interned for a different San Francisco publisher and was miffed that Eggers's imprint got what I saw as outsized attention while the publisher I worked for did not (at the time, anyway).  But, McSweeney's Internet Tendency totally changed my attitude, because that shit is funny (especially this one -- warning: a LOT of obscenity deployed hilariously ahead), and mockery such as it dishes out soothed my ruffled feathers. I still am sort of "meh" about Eggers, but his projects have really had staying power and have actually made substantial impacts on his community and on publishing. And McSweeney's Quarterly is a seriously great literary journal, in my opinion.

Fellowship applications are due Friday and my dissertation is begging for attention, so I have had to reduce my time spent on such fun things as blogging and creating. Ah well, so it goes.

Thrifty Fun: A Clothing Exchange Extravaganza

A couple weekends ago, my friend Emily organized a clothing exchange among a bunch of her girlfriends. She hosted it at Oreana Winery, which she and her husband Christian run here in Santa Barbara, which was great because it meant there was tons of space and plenty of wine. I loved the Chardonnay that Oreana was serving that night, and it felt so cool and special to be in there after it had closed to the public! I had so much fun meeting Emily's other friends, trying on clothes, snacking on all the delicious food the women brought, and of course, drinking the Oreana wine! I took some snaps of the outfits I made with my new clothes each day I wore them, but I'm not much of a model and I am definitely still learning how to take pictures. I had so much fun at the clothing exchange, and felt like I had a whole new wardrobe for free afterward. I really recommend organizing a clothing exchange to any group of friends and acquaintances. It was a great way to meet new people, too.
This was one of my finds: a lovely,  swingy black skirt that is full and flattering and just the right length -- a hard combo for someone barely 5'2" to find! I wore it with dark purple tights and a t-shirt from threadless that I adore

I've been wearing all my finds over the last couple weeks and am totally giddy over all the new shirts, skirts, and shoes I found among the large piles. I put a lot of my clothes up for offer that I was always reluctant to just give to Goodwill (even though I hadn't worn them in five years) because it made me a little happier to give them to friends who clearly really liked the shirts, pants, and shoes that I liked but no longer wore. It was also kind of cool to see just how many different body types there are: shirts that would look great on one person would look unflattering on another, or a pair of strappy sandals that slipped off my heels were perfect on another woman with differently-shaped feet.

More pics after the jump!

If wishes were horses....

If I could just pull it together and look more put together more often, I'd like to think I could at least try to pull these looks off. Thanks to The Sartorialist for the inspiration.


I love the nipped-in waist, the cloche, the oxfords, and the RED.


and

I blame my mom for my love of slim, high-waisted, '70s looks. When I was little and in high school, her closet still featured lots of the gorgeous stuff she wore when she was in college and grad school. I purloined some of them, but damn it, was her waist tiny. That flat hair is never going to happen, though.



I love a full skirt, '50s style. And that hair looks like something mine would do if left out in a windstorm. Love it.


Ohhh, my leather jacket! This reminds me of a ridiculously awesome leather jacket I inherited/borrowed/stole from my mom in high school. I had it through college and through the second year of grad school. And then I left it in a classroom and someone took it. I have never been able to find a jacket quite as perfect as the one I lost.... but this one might do as a temporary substitute.

...And lastly...



PDK is already quite dapper, but I would love to see him in try out this sharp, man-about-town-70-years-ago look. He would look so good in a fedora!