Fur Real and Faux

Shelbee and Nancy are presenting their monthly Good Buy/Goodbye series with the theme Fur next week. They are soliciting outfit photos involving fur items.

I realized I have quite the collection!
I gathered up All Most of the Fur Things.
Put them in a heap, Marie Kondo style.

Mr Lou, my favorite Fur Thing, escaped when the pile got too big.

Assessed my collection!
Do they "spark joy"?
Oh, YES!

Shelbee style, I'm going to show you some "greatest hits" from the past:

2/6/2013

1/26/12

10/23/2013

3/24/2012

11/19/2012

12/9/2011
I gave this one away, it no longer fit.

Here's one particular item of note that I got from my Great Aunt Carol:

A grey cashmere cardigan trimmed with fake fur binding, buttons, and mice.

By some miracle, it has only one tiny moth hole.

It's also too small. Marie would say "take a photo and give it away. I say no.

And a blast from the past from high school:

11/1973
As part of our senior yearbook photo package, we had both informal black and white pictures in a location of our own choosing
and color formal posed "studio" style portraits. Guess who didn't take the studio portion seriously.
Wearing a mink-lined coat that belonged to Cousin Hitch (my paternal grandmother's cousin, I think).
My mom put the coat in fur storage when I moved to CA -- I wonder if it's still there?

Check out the Fur edition of the Good Buy/Goodbye Book.
There will be a new photo of the Big Pink Shawl Rug, as seen in Inglewood.

Linking with
Patti's Visible Monday
Catherine's #shareallLinkup

FierceCon 2019 -- the Power of Kindness

What? FierceCon was last weekend? Where does the time go?
WHAT is FierceCon? The tag line is "It’s not a Conference. It’s a Connection! Celebrating and empowering women at Midlife & Beyond." It's the brain child of Catherine Grace O'Connell and I encourage all of my over-40 female friends to consider attending in 2020. It was amazing. Yes, I've imbibed the Kool-aid.

I will probably [read hopefully] write more about my experience eventually.
[Including my project to sketch everyone that attended].
This post is about what I wore, as documented by others [credit given if I recall photographer].

Friday. The Fluevog Dress.

With Rena Perez of Fine.Whatever
We are brandishing the mini cards I had printed of the sketches I'd completed in time for printing.

I had a professional photoshoot with Courtney Paige Ray and wanted to have photos in The Dress, wearing Fluevogs, and showcasing my Fluevog Shoe Art.

photo by Courtney Paige Ray

Saturday day. The Kimono fabric Tunic

We are the Leopard Squad!
Lana Lindgren, Jill Lorentz, Amy Kennedy, Deb Gutierrez [shoes, can't see]

Saturday Gala. The BOOM! tunic.

In the hotel bar before the "Gala" party.
photo by the bartendress

Barbie Holmes, Sophie Davies, BOOM!

Sunday. The "tribal" tunic. The one I hand sewed on a bus.

photo by Paula Griffin

With Theresa Martin and wearing her super light leather earrings [gifted, link to similar].

The Faces of Fierce on Sunday morning. Catherine is reclining center front.
photo: Mike Castagna

Looking at these photos brings back the super fun time that I had and all the new friends that I've made. Really, consider joining in next year! I'll sketch you!

Linking up with
Patti's Visible Monday
Shelbee's Spread the Kindness
Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike

A Shoe Is Born #otisshoeworkshop

I MADE MY OWN SHOES!!!!!!! (In case you hadn't heard).

The right shoe is still on the last. The left one is more or less finished. 

I took an amazing week-long shoemaking workshop with Chris Francis at Otis, through the auspices of the Continuing Ed department. [Thank you CE, for underwriting my participation].
Seven of us worked 9-5, Mon-Fri, and 8-11 Sat and all made at least one shoe.
I'll post more about some of the amazing women that participated in subsequent posts --
this one is all about the process!

I'll show you some highlights -- get comfortable, kick your feet up, shoemaking has a lot of steps (harhar).
[I'll keep the images small, for easier scrolling. You can click on an image to see it bigger].

Day One: measuring

the last is first

foot tracing and measuring

comparing the tracing to the last, marking areas to extend

Day 2: Midsole

creating midsoles from scratch
leather is sandwiched between layers of a paper product called redboard

phase 1 of midsole nailed to last

adding steel shanks

adding more redboard to bottom of midsole

 Day Three: uppers - designing, patterns, painting

last covered with masking tape, design worked out

masking tape carefully peeled off last

truing up paper pattern

cutting the uppers from raw vegetan cowhide

folding the topline

stitched dart shapes back of heel

paint it RED!

adding leopard pattern

cutting pigskin liner

Day Four: sewing upper, lasting

attaching upper to liner at topline

covering the edges of midsole with vintage Thai silk

ready to begin lasting

first nails

oops, heel dart not in center. oh well.

prep for gluing in toe box

the pair is lasted

Day Five: heels, soles

prep for gluing upper to midsole and adding cork

next the nails will be replaced with tacks, which stay in the shoe

bottom is smoothed with sander and dremmel

we used plastic heels

plastic covered with pigskin, then dyed black

heel glued, it stands!

[Chris didn't want us sharing his method of making the soles.]

here, I'm waiting for glue to dry to stick the sole to the heel

I wrote a secret message inside the right sole

Day Six: delasting, insole, done

lining trimmed from topline
ready to delast!

tada!

after sinking screws into the heel and nailing in tap, the insole pattern is refined
I didn't catch what kind of leather we cut the insole from
I painted mine purple

it's a shoe!

Did you have any idea that all this went into the making of a shoe?

Linking up with
Patti's Visible Monday
Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week
Catherine's #SaturdayShareLinkup
Rena's Fine-Whatever
Cherie's Shoe and Tell