What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Remember doing those summer vacation reports in grade school? Me neither.

I'm doing this more for me than for you. I'll be writing more detailed posts on my various blogs. This is functioning as my Table of Contents and link center (adding links as posts are written). You're welcome to come along for the ride!

LAX - BOS
I mended (until I dropped my seam ripper under my seat) and sketched.

Getting from Boston to Providence was an adventure. More on that later.

Providence
A short and wonderful visit with Patucci and Mark, including perusing the Repair and Design Futures at the RISD Museum [museum link] (closes 6/30/19)
My long post about it link.

View this post on Instagram

RISD Museum: Repair and Design Futures through 6/30/19 This is text from the exhibition. #mendingmatters #slowsewing #slowstitching #mending #mendingasmetaphor

A post shared by anne m bray (@annembray) on Jun 13, 2019 at 1:57am PDT

A few tense moments chasing the box of art, which I picked up at the Post Office as I was leaving town:

Vermont
Rendezvoused with Annie at her sweet cabin.

Finished customizing the tiaras for our 45th high school reunion parade.
Covered a random princess (on Annie) and Hello Kitty (on me) with our school's founder, Emma Willard

Got the art out of the box and affixed to foam core for display at the reunion.
More on the art on the On the Edge blog.

Troy, NY
As mentioned, 45th reunion. A small, yet mighty gathering of the class of '74

Ready for the Parade of Classes [photo by Liz Westbrook '75]

Severo showed up Saturday night and he joined us for the Class Dinner:

Barneveld, NY
A few days at Mom's, plus museum visits.

Meetup with Shelbee and Sons at The Adirondack Experience!
Writeup link here.

Tiffany exhibit at the Munson Williams Proctor Institute (through September 8, 2019)

It seemed that every time we were in transit, it rained. The drive from Barneveld to Newark was especially harrowing -- Severo almost hit a deer on US17, a six lane highway.

NYC
William Greenberg Desserts, the Met, shopping -- an ideal day in the city.

Met Camp exhibition (through September 8, 2019) for her:

Richard Quinn AW18-19

Met Play It Loud exhibition (through October 1, 2019) for him:

Posing with Lennon's Rickenbacker

Gluttony East link
Dessert Gluttony link

EWR-LAX
Aerial views and Procreate patterns:

Have a vacation planned? Summer at home? Link!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Linking up with
Patti's Visible Monday
Shelbee's Spread the Kindness
Catherine's #ShareAllLinkup
Ageless Style Linkup

Fluevog Fever

April was a busy month.
Aside from the two day jobs (teaching 3 classes and 3 days of making print designs),
Enid and I created 30 new prints of Fluevog Shoes for two blog challenges.
See them all over on my Pattern Recognition blog and read about the challenges here.

Here are some. #fluevogpattern will take you to the collection on Instagram.

I also did another A-Z with images from my #dailytruck art series on my WordPress site.
[Yes, I'm trying to learn WordPress. It's not as hard as I thought.]
That was mostly pre-scheduled, so it was fairly easy. I even have enough extra images to do the same theme next year, if I so desire. Or will I finally be sick of trucks by then? I keep seeing their butts on the commute, that won't stop anytime soon.

Here is the ever-so-elusive X. I didn't see this one until 4/11/17.

Anyway. Back to the shoes.
Every May 15, there is a big celebration at Fluevog stores with giveaways and deep discounts.
I went for the first time last year, and it was really fun.
This year I'm going to meet up with Wookie's human, who is driving up from San Diego county.

A Fluevog print dress is necessary!

I have this on order and even put in an extra $10 for expedited shipping so that I could also wear it to the Otis Fashion Show pre-show activities. There will be photos.

Redbubble happens to be having another one of their flash sales today -- 20% off everything until 11:59 PDT. Here's the link to my shop (it's hard navigating to specific products -- leave me a comment if you need help finding something). The sale code is IWANT20
*I get a small commission from sales. Thanks for your support!

Linking up with Patti's Visible Monday
Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week
Catherine's #SaturdayShareLinkUp (thanks again Catherine for turning me on to Redbubble!)

Crazy Pants Debut at Otis

Did you see my Crazy Pants on Instagram yesterday?

I've had these since 1997 and have never worn them.
Unbelievable, right?
They've been hiding in plain sight in one of my closets for a while.

Scarves on the left, a quasi "repair and sell" assortment on the right, fabric stash in the back.

I "saw" them every day, but didn't see them on me, if you know what I mean.

Yesterday, I tried them on (for the first time -- I kid you not!).

Wowza!
Aside from the abhorrent fiber content (OG 60's nylon tricot) they are GROOVY, man.
That print is going places!

Curious about my lovely pendant?
Since I lost a very important thumb drive (had all my latest course handouts from my Digital Design for Fashion class, not backed up, of course), I attached another one to the polkadot lanyard that Sue made for our Vancouver Blogger meetup.

(Sorry for the "exposed" USB plug. Kids, avert your eyes).

I managed to not leave this one behind in the classroom. At least for this week.

After class, the Crazy Pants went to Whittier to see Stan Ridgway in concert.
But that's another post for another blog.
"Seems like a pretty good idea to me".

Linking up with Patti's Visible Monday, Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike, and Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week.

Todd Oldham Jean Jacket

What happens when you see the origins of your favorite patterned jean jacket?

You go a little bit insane, that's what.

The Todd Oldham All Is Everything exhibition at the RISD Museum had examples of all the components:

Todd Oldham, Pantone Dress, Spring 1996 | Todd Oldham, Pantone Print, Collage, 1996 

Detail of Pantone chip collage

The jacket is a double printed denim, with the Pantone print on the outside, and a tufted upholstery print on the inside:

The original "Tuft" garments were in the exhibition as well:

And that's not all!

Back at Patucci and Mark's place, a similar vintage wallpaper was in a panel of the armoire next to my bed!

Pattern heaven, my friends, pattern heaven.

See all of my (unedited) Todd Oldham exhibition photos in my Flickr Album here.

[8/12 update]

Links à la Mode, August 4th

This post was included in IFB's Links à la Mode, a compilation of their 20 favorite links of the week. I share the honor with:

• Al Balsam Life: The Ultimate Summer 2016 Bag Guide
• Cat Eyes & Skinny Jeans: {What’s in My} July 2016 Pool Party Glossybox!
• Elements of Ellis: Black Vest
• Epouser La Mode: Double Denim
• Everyday Starlet: Kylie Jenner Snapchat Makeup Routine | Using All Drugstore Dupes
• Five Feet Five: A Black Striped Maxi Dress
• Five Foot Nothing Shopping: The Petite Girl’s Festival Look
• Goldwill Digger: 3 Easy Ways to Spread Your Wings and Break Out of a Style Rut
• High Heeled Vogueaholic: Ditch the Dresses | 4 Ways to Style Rompers
• In a Nutshell: Don’t You Want to Go For a Swim?
• Life in the Fash Lane: Hat Attack
• Lil Miss JB Style: Repetition
• Purushu Arie: India Can Emerge as the Saviour of Couture on a Global Scale
• This Season’s Gold: Heat Wave | Strapless Sheath with a Touch of Gold
• Splash of Teal: Style Report | Most Comfortable Work Heels this Summer
• Spy Girl: Todd Oldham Jean Jacket
• Sweet Tea Salvage: DIY | Vintage Botanical Print Collage
• Tales of Two: Styling a White Leather Skirt
• The Wanderbliss: Monochrome
• Wish and Wear: For Work and Pokemon Hunting

SPONSOR: Shopbop Terez, FRAME Denim, Fjallraven Backpacks, Driftwood, La Vie Rebecca Taylor, laContrie, Denim Rompers, Bucket Bags, Choker Necklaces, Men's George Brown BILT

[Enid] Carpet Diem

ENID/

Design to Reality

As many of you know, I design prints for underwear for one of my day jobs.
Sometimes I also work on prints for the company's loungewear.
Yesterday, I saw a rack of lounge pants in the warehouse with my print on them:

Using this design created almost a year ago:

Something about seeing a rack of multiples vs a single random sample -- so gratifying!

Once they get shipped, I can tell you where you can find them.
For now, it's "on the QT and very hush hush" [as James Ellroy writes in L.A. Confidential].

Gluttony in Little India: Shopping

In Part 1 of Gluttony in Little India, I showed you some of what Deborah, her husband David and I ate at Jay Bharat.

Now, let's shop!

We always stop at Cottage Art.
On my last visit, I saw these vintage purses. I had to get one this time before they were all gone: 

Mirrors, cowrie shells, silver tassels, embroidery, pattern mixing... LOVE

We usually venture no further than the one block of Pioneer Blvd between 187th and 186th. Call us lazy.

There are many sari shops, ranging from fancy encrusted wedding ensembles to more quotidian styles. New-to-us is Sahara Vintage Boutique, which has a huge array of tunics, scarves, saris and even some household goods (why didn't I get the cute yellow orange squeezer? WHY?) All items have been donated and a percent of the proceeds benefit the Sahara organization, which helps battered women in the SoCal South Asian community.
There was way too much to choose from...

Tunic too small (curse you fat arms).
Tie dye pattern caught with trusty iSpyPhone

Another too small tunic, grrrrrr.
Don't you love the beaded tassels?

New scarf -- I never have size issues with scarves
$8!

New sari, which I'll probably refashion into a tunic.
It has a transparent black/white windowpane plaid with strips of printed cotton (more solid white ground area at bottom)
only $10!

Here's the scarf from the ensemble that FINALLY fit...
3-piece set: tunic, scarf, and pants for $15!!!

Styling experiment #1 -- too matchy matchy.
Maybe what I'll wear for the OTIS Benefit rehearsal on May 4th...

What I wore to teach in on Saturday -- you can't see the orange skirt/dress that I'm wearing underneath.

One of the things I love about living in Los Angeles are all the ethnic enclaves.
We are able to (almost) travel the would, without leaving the LA basin.

Throwing Caution To the Wind

Close up of my skirt print. In my mind, it's all the road sign colors:
Stop Red
Exit Green
Info Blue
and
Caution Yellow

I wore this for both Qi Gong and a routine checkup appointment at Harbor/UCLA on Friday, it worked out great.
Not so great was the interminable wait to see my doctor -- 3.5 hours!!!!
(I'm on the dole, so I pay with my time). I became REALLY REALLY bored, so I played with my kaleidoscope app:

upper right is original shot used [same as close up] to make these images

and took random photos:

Actual face time with the doctor? Maybe 10 minutes!
Ah, Harbor General, teaching me patience yet again.
ps: I'm fine!

Linking up with Patti's Visible Monday. Because it's Monday!