fashion favorites: orla kiely f/w 2013

Good morning, sunshines!

Today I'd like to share one of my favorite collections for Fall/Winter 2013.

Let's start with a video from the presentation at London Fashion Week!

So adorable and witty.

Here's a closer look at my favorite looks from the collection.

I love this subtle take on pattern-mixing through texture.

An intarsia squirrel cardigan-- of course I love it.

The rounded notched collar and topstitched princess seams keep this feminine, and I love the bracelet-length sleeves. 

I love the combination of the luxurious texture and the modern, graphic floral.

dreamy and floaty and perfect!

The peter pan collar and delicate neck darts on this coat are so sweet.

♥

In other news, Google Reader has been discontinued.  Womp wommmmp.  I'm going to try Feedly to keep track of the many, many blogs I read, but if you prefer bloglovin, you can follow
Julie Rose Sews there, too.

I hope your weekend is off to a lovely start!

♥

confessions of a blog-lurker

Hi everyone!

I hope you're having a great day.

So I know it's a bit late for this, 26 days late to be exact, but I have a New Year's resolution regarding blogging.

I am going to do the unthinkable (to me): leave more comments.

I read a huge number of blogs.  At the moment, my Google Reader has...let's see... 970 unread posts.  Nine hundred and seventy.  If you have a blog and you've commented here before, I'm probably subscribed to you.  But I almost never comment!  It's not that I'm not interested, or that I don't want to participate in the blogging community.  I'm just a shy, lurking blog-reader.  It's kind of ridiculous.  (Fun fact, though-- there is a Wikipedia entry for 'lurker' about people who do this!)  There are blogs I've been reading for years, and that I'm emotionally invested in, like The Little Things We Do, home of the cutest baby on the planet, Fern.  I think I've commented maaaaaybe three times?  That's just silly.  But I worry that I don't have anything worthwhile to add to the conversation, or that I'll be repeating what someone else already said, and I psych myself out and don't comment.  

Note to self:  it is a blog comment.

It doesn't need to be a work of literary greatness.

And anyway, I love reading comments on my blog!  I enjoy each one-- I never think, "Hrmmm, this comment ends with a preposition!  It lacks a witty-yet-relevant pun!"  Chances are that nobody else things those things either.  

So anyway.  I'm going to try to comment on at least three posts every day.  And I'm keeping myself accountable by posting it here. 

Baby steps.

Baby steps to commenting more.

(that last bit is a reference to the movie What About Bob? and if you haven't seen it you really should.)

Have a fantastic weekend!

♥

blog redesign!

Hi everyone!

I did a little redesigning on Julie Rose Sews yesterday.

(If you're looking at this in an RSS reader, click through to check out the changes!)

I kept the overall colors and feeling of the blog, but now there's a horizontal navigation bar so you can more easily find what you're looking for, a cute new banner with some of my little illustrations, and fun new social media buttons so we can be friends all over the internet!

I'd love to know what you think of the redesign!

Have a wonderful day!

♥

i like friends who blog.

photo

Two of my favorite people have recently started blogging!

The first is a lovely boy who has been a close friend of mine since we met in fourth grade, at age nine.  Taryn is articulate, witty, and sweet, and he has a particularly unique sense of humor that manages to be both cynical and optimistic all at once.  He recently began blogging over at So It Goes.

My cousin Monica has started a blog, too!  Her blog is over at 180 Days to Paris.  And that's exactly what she'll be doing-- going to Paris in (slightly less than, at this point) 180 days.  She's quirky and adorable and smart and I can't wait to hear more about her escapades, both preparing for Paris and being there!

Each of these blogs only has three posts so far, so now is a good time to follow their adventures from the beginning-- I can't wait to see everything Taryn and Monica write in the future, and to join them on their journeys both literal and figurative.

♥

new home

Welcome to my new home!

After three years, I've finally taken the big step and created my own site.  Yay!  Now you can follow with Google Friend Connect or subscribe by email over on the left side, or check out older posts and the blogs I read on the right.  I'm still working on fixing some formatting, and I'm sure I'll add some more little features here and there, but I'm too excited to wait any longer to welcome you all to my new little space on the internet.

♥

To celebrate, let's have a giveaway!  One reader will receive two of my very favorite accessories from my etsy shop:

the Summer Morning Button Bobby Pin Set, and...

the Raspberry Snow-Puff Brooch (shown here on one of my hats), plus a little extra surprise from me!

♥

Here's what you need to do to enter.

1. Be a public follower of Julie Rose Sews (it's that snazzy 'join this site' button on the left)

2. visit my etsy shop and leave a comment here on the blog with your favorite item.  In the same comment...

3. Tell me your favorite book!

For additional entries, you can:

1. Tweet about the giveaway (just mention @julie_rose_sews so I can see it!)

2. blog about the giveaway and leave me a link to your post.

(make sure to leave another comment for each additional entry)

This giveaway will be open through January 25th, and a winner will be randomly selected on January 26th.  International entries are welcome!

Update:  This giveaway has been extended until February 20th.  Yay!  More time to enter!  The winner will be selected on February 21st.

I hope everyone's staying warm through this chilly weather!

♥

blog makeover! ♥

hi lovelies!

I gave the blog a little makeover!  let me know what you think?

♥

blogging: meta edition

So you guys, I just checked my spam queue, and a bunch of your lovely comments have been being automatically put into spam.  How lame is that?

Very lame.

So if I haven't responded to you, you were probably among the wrongly spammed.  Unless of course you were the commenter who said, 'preach it, my brother!' and 'properly mentioned & with glorious timing.'  Pretty sure that was really spam.

Anyway, I've been feeling like some freshening up needs to be done around this little corner of the internet.  I like my color scheme, but I didn't realize how different it looks on PCs, very washed out.  And I could use a change anyway.

Any suggestions?  Things you love or hate about my current blog design?  Or things you mildly like or dislike, we don't have to go to extremes.

♥