that special time of year...

from here, via little chief honeybee

     That little picture?  It is 100% accurate.  But it is finals time, so the sleeping part?  Not so much, although I'm not anticipating having to pull any major all-nighters.  Plus side of being a senior in college:  learning that procrastination does not work for you and sacrificing a social life for sanity.  And anyway, I love everything I'm working on.  two girls from my portfolio fall/winter collection...

One of the seams of the bicycle-print raincoat I'm making for my outerwear patternmaking class-- isn't it cute?

I especially like the tricycles...

...and the unicycles!

And one of the welt pockets on my woolly blue coat for tailoring...

Surprise! It's lined in bubble-gum pink!

So that's what I'm working on!  Blog posts might be a little scarce for the next few weeks while I finish up my second-to-last semester ever.  Ooooooh.

How are your finals going?

♥

i like bows.

1.2.3.4.5.6

I just love bows.

I guess that's evidenced by the fact every one of my portfolio collections prominently features them.

They're just my favorite.

♥

it's the last night to get 15% off at my etsy shop!  just enter the coupon code 'CyberMonday' for 15% off any order.

also, the lovely Chelsea is having a giveaway for a pair of Ugglebo clogs! yay!

♥

sunflower

♥

Sunflower Sutra

I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and

sat down under the huge shade of a Southern

Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the

box house hills and cry.

Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron

pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts

of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed,

surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of

machinery.

The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun

sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that

stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves

rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums

on the riverbank, tired and wily.

Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray

shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting

dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--

--I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower,

memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem

and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes

Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black

treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the

poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel

knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck

and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the

past--

and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset,

crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog

and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--

corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like

a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face,

soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays

obliterated on its hairy head like a dried

wire spiderweb,

leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures

from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster

fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,

Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O

my soul, I loved you then!

The grime was no man's grime but death and human

locomotives,

all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad

skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black

mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance

of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--

modern--all that civilization spotting your

crazy golden crown--

and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless

eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the

home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar

bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards

of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely

tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what

more could I name, the smoked ashes of some

cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the

milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs

& sphincters of dynamos--all these

entangled in your mummied roots--and you there

standing before me in the sunset, all your glory

in your form!

A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent

lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye

to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited

grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden

monthly breeze!

How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your

grime, while you cursed the heavens of the

railroad and your flower soul?

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a

flower? when did you look at your skin and

decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive?

the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and

shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?

You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a

sunflower!

And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me

not!

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck

it at my side like a scepter,

and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul

too, and anyone who'll listen,

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread

bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all

beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed

by our own seed & golden hairy naked

accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black

formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our

eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive

riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening

sitdown vision.

--Allen Ginsberg

♥

the cyber monday sale has started at Julie Rose Sews on Etsy!  Enter the coupon code 'CyberMonday' at check-out for 15% off your order.

hugo ♥

This has not been a great year for me.

It started out with two heart-shattering break-ups-- the really, really bad kind, where all you can do for a week or two afterward is cry and get sick.  One was with someone who I genuinely thought was the love of my life. The other was with my exact opposite. I was his anima, he was my animus.

The summer culminated with the sudden and devastating loss of my dad.

I'm emotionally exhausted.

Life doesn't feel magical anymore.

Tonight I saw Hugo with my mom.

It's such a beautiful movie, visually and thematically.  It felt so poetic.

It was reminiscent of Amélie, especially in the color story and the mix of reality and fantasy.

It made me feel more alive than I have in months.  I plan on seeing it at least two or three more times.

Have you seen Hugo?  What did you think of it?

♥

also, the Cyber Monday sale has started at Julie Rose Sews on Etsy!  enter the coupon code 'CyberMonday' for 15% off any order.

♥

fill-in-the-blank friday ♥

via the little things we do

1.   Waking up at the break of dawn to go shopping is my idea of fun, but not something I've ever actually done.  And it would only be fun if the store wasn't too crowded, because I have a feeling sales bring out the worst side of humanity.  Oh, and I'd only want to go to Anthropologie.  ...Actually, maybe the whole break-of-dawn shopping thing isn't for me after all.

2.   If I were to go shopping today I would be on the hunt for  pretty dresses and cozy cardigans, as per usual.

3.  The best thing I ate yesterday was  a thanksgiving sandwich and hot chocolate with my brother at 1:30 in the morning.

4. Something I've been learning lately is that people are much more forgiving and understanding than I usually give them credit for.

5.  I cannot start my day without  tea and Google Reader.  My poor Google Reader is so neglected right now from doing so much schoolwork, I'm up to something like 900 unread posts.

6.  My nighttime attire consists of ....hm.  That varies according to temperature and location.  This time of year it's usually a hoodie, pj shorts, and woolly socks, because I hate being cold but I also hate not being able to sprawl out due to bulky pj pants.

7.  I am looking forward to  being done with my portfolio!  That thing is like my child, I'm so ridiculously protective of it.  And I love it very much, but I am ready for it to be done.

♥

Don't forget to check out the Black Friday sale at my Etsy shop!  Enter the coupon code 'BlackFriday15' to get 15% off any order.

♥

happy thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope it's full of food, fun, and family.

♥

pssssst.... the Black Friday sale has already started at my etsy shop.  details here.

♥

...can we rename it pink friday?

technically we're still a few days away, but I, for one, will be busy enjoying Thanksgiving leftover sandwiches (seriously, anyone else think they're they best part of the whole holiday?), so here's a jump on the Friday festivities over at my etsy shop!

. The coupon code is active as of Wednesday 11/23. Check back on Sunday for a coupon code for Cyber Monday!

♥