Downtown adventures

[oyceter]

So I went downtown to pick up a cake for the party I'm going to. It's the cutest little cake store ever, Japanese-style Western cakes (it sounds sort of silly, but it's really, really good). They mix ingredients like green tea and kinoko and sesame and chestnuts with the normal chocolate, strawberries and etc.

I am wearing a spiffy little black dress with a v-neck and spaghetti straps; the skirt is very a-line and made of a chiffon-like material, so it swirls out gently. Alas and alack, it doesn't have quite as much fabric as a real fifties-style dress would, but I currently don't fit my real fifties-style dress.

In my weekly recon of Borders, I saw Subversive Cross Stitch, which has lovely floral borders and mottos like "Babies suck." I would totally make them if I still cross-stitched. I only wish that the stitches and the borders were even more elaborate and sappy and flowery, which would make the mottos that much better. There's a website too! As a side note, I forgot the name of the book and ended up finding the site by typing "fuck cross stitch" into Google.

I was going to cease and desist all book-buying activities (you all know there's a "but" coming into this, don't you), BUT....

The new fall issues of Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting were out! I ended up skipping on the Vogue because the patterns didn't look appealing. I wish they stuck more to their current summer issue style, which has so many cute, fifties-style things!

I sense a theme in this post...

Interweave was all wrapped up, so I couldn't browse the patterns, but it promised the second half to their bit on lace knitting -- it's probably stuff I already theoretically know, but I am a total sucker for all things lace. So yes. I succumbed.

On a side note, Borders hates me. In other words: why does no bookstore I go to have vols. 6 and 7 of Planet Ladder?!?! I have finally decided that I will actually shell out money for it! And yet, no copies can be found!

Clearly it is a conspiracy of Machiavellian proportions.

On the way back, I saw the little vintage store down the street, which I've always ogled at and never entered. They had a sales rack in front. Alas and alack, most vintage clothes are not my size. But! I browsed and browsed and found all these beautiful clothes and giant circle skirts, and oh, oh, oh how I want them but they are waaaaay beyond my price range. chi_zu, if you ever come here to visit, we must go together and look at all the cute stuff!

And of course I tried on a $400 dress on a whim, only to find it fit beautifully and was the most adorable thing ever! Navy polka dots on ivory chiffon, an above-ankle skirt that's wide and swishy, princess waist and a navy sash thing right around the ribcage, going to a peasant-esque bodice and slightly off the shoulder puff sleeves. The store owner said it was 40s, probably inspired by the garden gown from Gone With the Wind. I want it so badly.

And I am not even going into the absolutely adorable white lace parasols and the little perchy hats and the Victorian-style lace-up grannie boots (GAH! WANT!) and ohhhhhhhhh......

*whimpers*

But! I have discovered there will be a Vintage Fashion Expo in SF mid-September. Anyone want to go with me? Maybe I will be able to find vintage stuff that I can actually, y'know, afford.

Comments

[kchew.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm...I have a deep weakness for silk velvet, which unfortunately is also one of the more delicate fabrics out there, and getting more delicate by the day. I have a 20s dress (bought back when I lived at home and had money) in a midnight blue in it that I adore beyond all things.
I'm getting a better appreciation for 50s things, which suit me better than 20s, anyway (I'm not built like a 20s girl in any way).

I haven't been able to buy or afford anything like that in many many years. I understand very much wanting the pretty things...empathetic waves!

[oyceter]

Ohhhhhh that sounds so lovely!

I'm totally in love with 50s things, largely because I actually look good in them (hips! I have hips you people!). I'd love to wear 20s and 30s and 40s things, but the hourglass/New Look thing looks waaaaay better on me.

[(Anonymous)]

ummmm hello! it's your favorite cousin from a certain midwestern state. :) i tried emailing you but the address didn't work. i was just emailing everyone in the family my new contact info....can you email me at my old address and i'll send you my details? hope everything's going well for you!!

T.

ps. come visit! :p

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

If you end up in the Bay Area around then, I can show you a great dimsum spot with mango fried shrimp, and possibly introduce you to the Evil POC Cabal (TM)! :)

[oyceter]

Oh that would be awesome! I'm actually in the Bay Area all the time, feel free to email me (my LJ email works).

I would love to meet the Evil POC Cabal (of DOOM. because everything is better with DOOM).

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Subversive Cross Stitch made me want to return to cross-stitching too, for one very long moment. Then I started wondering about crocheting snarky messages into things, à la Mme Defarge--I don't knit--and about how one'd make the messages visible to other people (not at all like Mme Defarge).

Maybe this makes no sense.

[oyceter]

Who's Mme DeFarge? She sounds like a Subversive Crocheter, which is awesome.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Subversive knitter! Mme Defarge is a character in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. She encodes information about those who oppose the Revolution and must die into her neverending piece of knitting. :)

There's an allusion to this in the worked messages that Kate learns to make in The Grand Tour (Wrede and Stevermer).

[oyceter]

Oh that's awesome!

I want sekrit code knitting too.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Yay for beautiful old clothes!

my vintage stuff is more polyester from the 70s, but I love it. If you ever make it way the hell out to where my apt. is I will have to show you my clothes. It took me so long to unpack them because I kept running into the living to show my room mate.

[oyceter]

I so want to drag you to the Vintage Expo thing.

I want to see all your clothes! The pictures were so cool, and it's so fun ooh-ing and aah-ing over things like that!

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

you would not have to drag me. You would begin to suggest the direction of the expo and would be left puzzling at the tiny cloud of dust hovering cartoon-like in my wake as I race there like a shot!

[oyceter]

HEE!!!