THE TRAVELLING YELLOW SKIRT FREAK SHOW!!!

What is this, you ask...I thought she was telling us all about the wedding? Well, until I have some beauteous photos to share with you, we'll take a little detour here and see what other kinds of fun I've been up to!

 

                                           photo by Melanie K

One of my favorite bloggers, Melanie of Bag and a Beret, started a "Travelling Yellow Skirt" project last year...for those of us who enjoy stepping way outside the box, you sign up to be on the route, and the yellow skirt, in all its glory, is sent from one blogger to another. Each recipient styles the skirt as she pleases, takes some photos, possibly adds a "little something" to the skirt, and sends it on to the next one in line. The journey started in Vancouver, Canada (where Melanie lives) and continued on to Australia, New Zealand, Italy, California, Ontario, Canada (3 times), Montreal, Canada, Maryland, USA, another USA,
another California, and now, to me! (also in California). Be sure to click on the link above to see the pictures of the previous Yellow Skirt people...

When I first heard it was coming the week of the wedding, I thought,"oh, no",
how untimely. Then I came to my senses and decided to include the wedding decor in my styling. I guess you'd call the wedding "theme" Indo-Asian-African...I have a lot of beautiful textiles from those parts of the world, and Maggie is as big a fan of India as I am...(I took her on one of my 7 trips). I'll show you when the wedding pictures come, the beautiful magical fantasy that was created. For now....

Here I am on Liu Xiao, a terracotta warrior horse we brought back from Xian, China. He guards our property and we decorate him according to the season.Here he is decked out in mirrored and marigold garlands. I am wearing
 some tribal Indian jewelry I brought back on several of my trips...

a mirrored embroidered vest , also from India, and some fabulous antique slippers from Marrakesh, Morocco.

In my right hand, I am clutching a staff I made with a  plasma cutter and welding equipment...it is a symbol that's very meaningful to me, and it usually lives right outside my studio door...

On to the "Bedouin Love Bower" (Maggie's wedding designer has a marvelous imagination)...

The cushions and pillows were all made from textiles I brought back from India.
Here is another picture of the BLB from a different perspective:

The lanterns are from India, the fabulous hanging in front is from Kyrgystan in Central Asia. Here is a picture of me, circa 2000, on an unheated bus in Bishkek, using the hanging for warmth! OMG, the wrinkle-less face!

This turned out to be kind of a long post, but I had several weeks of being AWOL to catch up on.

The next Yellow Skirt blogger is Sheila, from Ephemera; I am sending the skirt off tomorrow.

Oh, I almost forgot...my little "addition" to the skirt is a pocket (I always need pockets) made from a vintage Indian embroidered and mirrored piece...

I promise to come back with wedding pictures soon, and also an in-depth review of my MOB jacket as requested by several readers.

TTYL!

IT'S OVER!!!

Here are a couple of non-professional pictures: the bride and groom

and  the bride with her dad, about to walk down the "aisle"

I'll post more pictures when the photographer gives them to us...suffice it to
say that it was a picture-perfect day...the weather was glorious, the food sublime, the ceremony throat-catching, and the bride most beautiful. Her dress, made by a seamstress friend of hers, was ivory charmeuse with a lot of lace that has been in my family for a long time.Lots of music, toasts, wine, dancing,
(even moi!). Truly a day to remember!

And the MOB outfit? I don't yet have a full length picture, but here is the jacket

It's my beloved V2607, by Guy Laroche, in a gorgeous French Silk Brocade from Marcy Tilton. The colors are a little unusual for me; I fell in love with it at first sight. The pants (my Lynda Maynard custom pattern) are in a slightly iridescent dupioni from JRB Silks in a silver/blue tone.

You can see a little sliver of them here, and the backside, here:

Here is a picture of them hanging on the fence

along with the ECCO sandals I wore in a light gold. The wedding was largely on the grass or on the gravel driveway, so flat shoes were a necessity.

Both the jacket and the top were lined with a luscious orangey-red stretch silk charmeuse from Emma One Sock; it was heaven to wear. The pants were underlined with silk organza and the jacket was underlined with a wonderful top-quality lightweight fusible from Pam Erney at Fashion Sewing Supply. She was her usual fabulously helpful self in advising me what innards to use.

It was a beautiful event, and I'm glad it's over...it has been at least 6 months of hard work preparation, and now we can get back to our lovely lives. The Bride and Groom flew off to New York today, for a two-week honeymoon.
Yay!

COMING UP FOR AIR....

Two weeks from Saturday, a countdown for sure! MOB outfit is finished, last WWWWW (wedding work weekend, etc) over, I won't see the worker bees till a few days before the wedding!

Positions for the wedding arch were set...

mirrored garlands were placed in the oak tree

(Mirrored garland placer extraordinaire...)

I supervised in my NEW SHOES...

Table decorations, lanterns, favors, all lovingly crafted by friends on many "craft nights" in Los Angeles...

I did my usual "Keep those workers fed" ...

Breakfast, courtesy of Dave

Burmese umbrella lights...

yummy Indian colors...

The B2B drinking OJ

Kelly in her matching kimono...

General Kelly, preparing to motivate the troops

Breakfast chef, Dave...

Dessert one night, walnut and fresh-figs-from-the-garden cake...

The redwood grove where the ceremony will take place...

Where the sun will be during the ceremony (4 PM)

My sewing activities were focused on making slip-covers for outdoor furniture out of wonderful, hard-to-sew Sunbrella...now, my time is devoted to all the little details that are required to make this production  wedding a success!

See you when it's over!

TWO YEARS!

Two years ago, I hesitantly stuck my toe into the blogging world, not sure if I had much to talk about or to "show and tell"...I didn't realize that the best thing about blogging would be the wonderful people I would "meet"... and get to know, both virtually and IRL.

This was in my first post, on September 8, 2011...later, I learned (from Shams
at Communing with Fabric) how to take pictures of myself in the clothes I sewed.

This morning, my blog views for the last two years passed the 300,000 mark; I'm not particularly a stats junkie, but I do find that number amazing!

I have enjoyed planning and sharing my various travel wardrobes, to Ethiopia, Sicily and Iran, and setting up a separate travel blog, which has had some problems due to internet service in other countries!

I am now coming down to the wire in planning and getting ready for DD's wedding, 4 weeks from yesterday...and while I DID finish the MOB jacket yesterday, (YaY me!) I'm not going to share it until the actual day!

So here's a picture of me in my silver vest so that I have a picture to share
with Patti's Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style...another lovely site where I 

have "met" so many more wonderful bloggers.

Thank you for coming to visit me...I treasure your friendship and love your comments!

TTYL

Margy 

IT'S ALL MY FAULT...

Sharon (Communing with Fabric) and I have been promising the results of our most recent challenge for WEEKS now, and I think she finished hers at least 7 days ago. I was stymied by only 3 of 5 zippers I needed, and had to wait till the zipper lady returned.

So, our latest challenge was to use a crinkly, embossed raincoat fabric that Sharon bought for US at Fabrix in San Francisco.

I wanted to use a very special RiRi zipper, so I picked a pattern with FIVE zippers...KwikSew 3764...AKA MOTO! Here she is, folks...

I had, of course, made this before,...

I lined it with a printed silk twill I had in the stash (nothing fabulous like Sharon used)

and think I'll love it when our weather changes (hot and humid every day, lately).

We had our usual good time doing the sew-along...lots of phone calls, texts, complaints, etc...it really is a fun thing to do. We get glimpses of each other's work, but don't see the final piece till we post on our blogs.

Be sure to go look at Sharon's Jacket!

Didja notice my new glasses? Matchy-Matchy!

Meanwhile, while I waited for the zippers

I did some more cooking from the Ottolenghi books, asking my friend Joan to dinner so I would have an excuse to try more recipes (as if I needed an excuse!)

First was Roasted Chicken with Clementines and Arak

OMG, people, this was fabulous! If I do say so myself... I also made Sweet Corn Polenta with Eggplant Sauce again, and for dessert, Cardamom Panna Cotta with Honeyed Figs

not only was this delicious, it gave me an excuse (there's that word again) to buy some cunning Weck Jars to serve it in. At this rate, I'll have to change the

name of my blog to Fool4Fabric'nFood....

Here's a close up of another Charlotte Valestra piece I love...

and here's a photo for the Style Crone's Monthly Hat Attack...

The hat is a marvelous one brought to me from South Africa by a friend; the neckpiece is another one by Charlotte Valestra.

Now I MUST get back to the MOB jacket...no more excuses! and it's 5 weeks from yesterday...

TTYL

AWOL, MIA, PLAYING HOOKY...

Did you miss me? I was busy with my WWWWW#3 last weekend, and while there were lots of things accomplished getting our place ready for the wedding, 
there was no sewing and I took the week off, blog-wise.

Here are the girls...

and here are the boys...lots of heavy-duty work, from post hole digging to
lots of pruning

tools were used

handsome men were put to work

magical spaces were readied

pool breaks were taken

and over it all, Sarah ("The Boss") cracked her whip and aimed her glue gun with charming insouciance...

My job was to feed these wonderful workers...

Table set for breakfast...

Breakfast (compliments of Dave)...

Dinner one night was Salmon Steaks with Chraimeh Sauce

and another night was Soba Noodles with Eggplant and Mango

both from the cookbook Jerusalem, mentioned last week. Yummy!

and a French Prune Crumble to take advantage of more of our lovely harvest.

Since no sewing was done, I decided to show you two of my recent eBay scores...

This is a very interesting, very lightweight shirt/jacket from babettesf, one of my favorite designers. The fabric is "unknown", is sheer, black and white, and perfect as a topper in our warm evenings. (check out the zebra-stencilled calf- hair wedges...)

Me 'n The EUC!

The onyx and crystal beads are a collection I've amassed (mainly from eBay and Ruby Lane) over the years...

and THIS was a major score...a hand-dyed asymmetrical shibori jacket

from Doshi, wool crepe lined with silk...these jackets are WAY out of my

price range, but I found one on eBay and pounced...and got it for about

20% of the retail price.

and there's that dog again! Can you tell I'm one of the Queens of eBay?

I'm showing up for Visible Monday at Patti's Blog, Not Dead Yet Style, so come on over to see the beauteous women!

My good friend Sharon, from Communing with Fabric, and I are doing another little sewing challenge, using the same fabric which she graciously found for us at Fabrix, one of her local stores. I can't tell you how much fun it is (and what a drain on my credit card) when Sharon hits Fabrix on a good day...luckily, she has exquisite taste and knows what I like only too well...I am temporarily side-tracked as I wait for a couple of zippers...but keep checking, we'll show our goodies as soon as we can!

TTYL...