52 Pick-me-up: Hat Trick

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED 

This week is all about hats. Judith, the Style Crone, hosts "Hat Attack" on the first of every month.
She asks us to "...display your hat, headwrap, headpiece, fascinator, hair flower, headband or other adornment for your head..." This time the linky parties shall align, despite the fact that Mercury is still in retrograde.

I'm featuring my collection of ribbon hats.
They are made in China, I think with leftovers from apparel manufacturers. I bought them all at the 99 Cent Depot in Culver City, for $1.99!

[Screen capture from my Tumblr]

Here's the first one that I bought:

The ribbon is printed with this: "get wrapped in the fabric of MIMCO...........for frolicking"
What does that mean?

I played "match the hat" with a tee and scarf:

And:

And:

And:

And:

This last look has further permutations yet to occur. When they happen, you'll be the first to know.

My personal ribbon hat stack:

That's a drawing by Cidney Hochman behind the hats, not that you can see it.

What's your hat trick? Link and tell!

When Amaryllis Met TARDIS

PURCHASED/ GIFTED/ 

What happened when I was thinking of the red and white Amaryllis
while also thinking about Maricel's My Closet Catalogue TARDIS Tuesday?
This:

I fear the spandex is dying in the skirt. Tragic.
It's tubular bubble knit nylon/spandex yardage that I bought in the 80s.
I had located a wholesaler for it then, not sure if it's still being manufactured.

Amaryllis inspiration:

[Source: Google Image search for Amaryllis]

You have lots of time to add your 52 Pick-me-up link!

52 Pick-me-up: Transport!

PURCHASED/ GIFTED/ 

It's 52 Pick-me-up time again. This week, an unusual challenge -- dress like your transport. Your car, the subway, your footwear, your imaginary time machine -- how do you get around town?

I use a Prius:

It did a great job getting me around the US and is now back into commuting mode.

The outfit:

Link and tell!

52 Pick-me-up: Minimalism

CREATED/ GIFTED/ PURCHASED/ 

Are you ready for a new round of 52 Pick-me-up? I've listed the 52 prompts (some new, some have returned) on the 52 Pick-me-up page. Every Sunday, I'll post the week's prompt and the link-up remains live until the following Sunday, 5:30am Pacific time.

This week's theme is Minimalism!

Donald Judd, 15 Untitled Works in Concrete, Marfa, TX
See more of my photos here
Read more about Judd's project here

How does the above piece by Donald Judd relate to clothing?
This dress that I sewed is made from rectangles!

With the summer's heat, I'm wearing my loose tunics. Maybe this plain navy linen-blend one is borderline hospital gownish, I don't care. I made it during my road trip -- I needed a dark, non-patterned tunic that wouldn't reflect off the car windows so that I could shoot photos.

Linking up with Patti's Visible Monday.

Have you gone minimal? Link and tell!

Sonic Sunday: Mary Foster Conklin

PURCHASED/ GIFTED/ LINKS/

Meet Ms Mary Foster Conklin:

Isn't she divine?
A voice like velvet, that one.

I saw her perform on a very wet Saturday night with Mark Winkler at Vitello's in Studio City.

Mary hails from NYC, and it was a treat to see her on the left coast.
You New Yorkers -- be sure to get on Mary's email list so you can catch her next gig.
She has CDs/digital downloads available for the rest of us.

She graduated a year after me from Emma Willard (our high school).
Her transformation into a stellar chanteuse was forged through tough life transitions.
I'm so happy that we've reconnected.

this photo by Severo
Mary wanted me to tell you that she's wearing a $20 Norma Kamali for Walmart dress.

Mary is one of my angels. She quickly knit up two chemo caps for me when I needed them back in 2010.

Here's what I wore for the gig:

Glamour closeup for Style Crone's Hat Attack:

My dupatta (indian scarf) is secondhand from Sahara Vintage Boutique, in Artesia.
All items sold there have been donated and a percent of the proceeds benefit the Sahara organization,
which helps battered women in the SoCal South Asian community

Linking up all over the internet, because I'm that kind of gal.
Bella's Secondhandfirst
Sacramento's Share in Style [Music]
Style Crone's Hat Attack

52 Pick-me-up: In the Pink? Or is Valentine's Making You Blue?

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED/ 

Organized holidays try my patience.

Hence the blueness.

Not really, I found so many things that coordinated with these new chenille socks that I bought at the 98¢ and Up Depot for $1.98. I opted for more blues than pinks.

Despite my dislike of Valentine's, I'll do my best to be a good girlfriend.
I'll be in Palm Springs on 2/14 but I have a GREAT card all set to give to Severo:

alternatehistories on Etsy

I discovered the artist through a Tumblr newsletter, of all things.
I love his work, he's got a great sense of twisted humor.

And now some Tom:


Blue or pink? How is your Valentine's shaping up?
Don't get all maudlin, link instead!

Making Things Better

PURCHASED/ GIFTED/ PURLOINED/ LINKS/

The past week, I've been thinking about how to make 52 Pick-me-up a less stressful situation for myself. Trying to sketch on Tuesday mornings before work is not easy. As Greetje of No Fear of Fashion so kindly commented, "...remember... YOU made this list of tasks. So YOU can now: delegate, turn down (as in "sorry, won't be able after all to do this") or postpone (plan further in time). All of them options to make your life breathable again."

I've been mulling it over and here's what I've decided going forward:
The prompt for the week will last for a whole week and end at 5:30am Pacific.
The cycle is Wednesday to Wednesday.
The next prompt will go live at Wednesday mornings, as always.
The sketch will appear sometime between Thursday and Sunday.

Not too much adjustment for all that want to play along. A less rigorous sketching schedule for me. Phew!

I've had a fun time matching my scarves this week. I dug into a box of them and found a wonderful gold + brown diamond weave piece that I only vaguely remembered. I wore it last week, even though it was terribly wrinkled.

This one was in the same box, also still wrinkled:

It's hand painted silk chiffon. I can't remember who gave it to me.

Here's what I put together:

The sweater was bugging me -- too tight. I took some scissors to center front:

Aaaaah! So much better!
I wore this on Friday to qi gong class and to a scanning marathon at Otis.

Here is why I scanned at Otis:

home on the left | Otis on the right

Factor in Photoshop crashing every 3rd scan at home and you have no contest. (My scanner is so old that it only works with my feeble laptop).
I scanned 37 drawings, and I hope to slowly and steadily get them colored up.
So a week that started out badly, ended up very nicely. I found a fun new App too!

So excited!!!! Selfie from 2011 "painted" in Waterlogue

How was your week?


Linking up with Patti's Visible Monday and Seeker's Très Chic Style Bits
And YOU still can link up to 52 Pick-me-up here through Wednesday morning.

52 Pick-me-up: Match Your Scarf

PURCHASED/ GIFTED/

On to a new week! Do you like how I start the week on Wednesday? Or does it confuse you?
If you follow me at all, you know that I will have no problem rising to this week's challenge:
choose a scarf first, then match your outfit to it.

My scarf is a striped vintage silk rectangle that I bought from a boutique on a schoolbus in Portland.
This photo shows 1/2 of it:

Fortuitously, it matches my new plaid boyfriend shirt that I've been wearing a lot.

I tied it ala Diane Keaton-at-the-Golden-Globes:

Even got my outerwear to play along:

Looking forward to seeing your combos!

A Bolt Out of the [Cobalt] Blue

CREATED/ PURCHASED/ GIFTED/

Here is my second blue outfit for 52 Pick-me-up: Blue Hues. I added red to the mix and I couldn't have been happier.
What surprised me was, in the midst of a project at work, I looked at the printouts on my desk and noticed that I was dressed in the same color story as the project!

I'm linking up with Patti's Visible Monday. Patti is having a Cobalt Moment as well, which she writes about here.

It's not too late to add your 52 Pick-me-up link below, if you happen to be wearing some blues.
You just might end up on the Digital Catwalk!

52 Pick-me-up: Blue Hues

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED/ 

It's holiday time -- feeling blue? Or are you happy as a clear blue sky?
Wear your mood on your sleeve this week. The challenge is to wear blue colors.
Texas tuxedos (denim shirt + jeans) are welcome!

52 Pick-me-up: Color Friends

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED/ LINKS/

This week's 52 Pick-me-up theme is analogous colors. What does that mean?
Colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel, or, color friends.

For instance, I'm wearing blue and green.

Are you up for the challenge?

52 Pick-me-up: Tone Poem

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED/ LINKS/ 

This week, go tonal! Mix a bright with a darker shade of the same color.
I went blue.

Album Cover Outfit

I was inspired by an album cover today!

Escape to Paradox Island, by Martin, Luther, Lennon (1999)
has a simple, eye-popping design using magenta and cyan, with some white text.

The inside is equally well executed:

"Armageddon surfer girl, rock on..."

Sunday = Fun Day: Virtual Astro Targets

Today's "outfit" comes from a completely random Facebook Page suggestion!
(Yes, sometimes those annoying FB "improvements" will yield something worthwhile).

Fasten your seat belts, this one has lots of twists and turns!

After "Liking" a RI travel consultant
(because a friend had shared her photo gallery of vintage Naragansett hotel post cards)
some suggestions for other Pages came up (new thing that I never saw until this morning).
I hovered over the target avatar and it displayed:

Arts/Humanities?
HAD to click on it! It was a TARGET! (Colorscope FB Page)
Not only a target, but an ASTROLOGICAL TARGET!!!

link for colorscope

Here is mine: Hard to look at, right?

What can I say, they are my favorite colors... I HAD to create a repeat with them! And mock it up on myself!

I located this photo from a shopping expedition in Venice CA from 2011 -- look how it matches "my" target colors so perfectly!

I first did some Photoshop [PSD] retouching and got rid of the red + blue motifs
I'm not showing you that because it was fast + sloppy

Then I went over to Illustrator [AI] and created my repeat:

are you hypnotized yet?
It's no genius repeat, but it'll do

Then I brought my photo into AI to create the areas to apply the print
(I used the pen tool -- I did it in AI because it's easier to scale + rotate repeats in AI vs PSD)

Here's what I came up with:

The green happened from it being 3 layers of print with a transparency effect applied.
I was OK with it

I then exported just the print layers over to PSD, to soften up the print a bit.
This is my final opus:

ADORE IT!!!
The color didn't shift in the same way, OK by me

Don't be surprised if you find me actually wearing this come summer!

I'm linking up with Patti's Visible Monday -- I think I'll be stopping traffic with this one!

Meanwhile, what's your Astro Target?
Please share on my SpyGirl FB Page!
or
leave a link below in the comments

Have a celestial day!

Crazy Quilt Sketchbook Project

Do you remember me talking about my old crazy quilt back in July?
Here it is again:

I'm using it as the inspiration for my next Arthouse Sketchbook Project.
It will be a trip back to the 70s, SpyGirl style.

The Sketchbook has to be sent to Brooklyn by 1/15. I spent all day yesterday furiously working on it (oh the Sharpie fumes!). I'll post the pages slowly, however. Come back every Wednesday Tuesday and Thursday through February to see how it looks.

Monday, Monday

Hey there!
Linking up with the Visible Ones.