It's that time again....thinking about what clothes to take home in July. That sounds obsessive, but the thing is our washer only has one water line running to it and that's hard cold water. We have no dryer so we hang dry everything (this is all normal here because of the energy it takes to heat water and run a dryer for 1.3 bil people) so you can imagine how "great" our clothes look after six months all crunchy and gray. This is a con to apartment living in Ch!na, but the upside is you can buy fabric and have clothes tailor made for a pretty low cost.
I'm working again for Plaid at the Craft and Hobby Association convention doing the jewelry make and take. Yay!! I always wear Asian style clothing because I love the styles and cuts...or should I say silhouette like they do on Project Runway. This snazzy red and white fabric number will be transformed into something kimono-esque. I've got a whole stack of fabric to take to the tailor. It's sort of nerve racking because there is no guarantee that the fabric you love will look good in what you want to have made---this is something I take for granted when shopping for clothing back home. Thank you fashion designers! Boy, I've had some doozies over the last few years where the clothes just don't look right. The agony and excitement of scissors and beautiful fabric, I tell ya.
And then of course you need some jewelry to match. The fan necklace is one of the pieces I made to wear at the show in February featuring Plaid's new Connect line--glass links and beads in fabulous colors. You can pick your own links up at Michaels. I glued the silver fan to the square link and added a string of seed beads to tie it on at the top with nylon cord. The clasp is from Beadalon. I wear this piece all the time and get tons of compliments and it was SO EASY to make! Somehow that makes the compliments sweeter. Maybe I'll take a picture of all my fabric and show you some before and after shots.... that could be fun.
I hear the fabric is inexpensive as it the tailoring..oh lordy I'd be going crazy with my vintage pattern magazines and Fredericks catalogs if I lived there! I've have the best vintage repro wardrobe ever!!!
No hot water for washing?? ouch, thats one thing I would really miss, I love the smell of hot bleached white laundry!
and hte necklace is lovely too-how fun to work a booth for Plaid!!!!
Posted by: barbe | June 20, 2008 at 04:03 PM
I love that red print.....I would have 200 shirts made up by now if I had access to a tailor....
Posted by: Carmi | June 21, 2008 at 05:52 AM
I bought tons of beautiful embroidered fabric when I visited Hong Kong in the mid-90s, and it's all still sitting in a chest somewhere, because I don't sew, and I haven't found a tailor local to where I live to have something made up with all of it. So silly, but it was too hard to resist. I love your new print fabric and the necklace, as usual, is fab.
Posted by: Melissa J. Lee | June 21, 2008 at 03:04 PM
I bought tons of beautiful embroidered fabric when I visited Hong Kong in the mid-90s, and it's all still sitting in a chest somewhere, because I don't sew, and I haven't found a tailor local to where I live to have something made up with all of it. So silly, but it was too hard to resist. I love your new print fabric and the necklace, as usual, is fab.
Posted by: Melissa J. Lee | June 21, 2008 at 03:05 PM
How is it that I love everything that you do??? AND write!!!
Posted by: Jean Yates | June 22, 2008 at 11:05 PM
I'm not going to go to CHA this time :( Sounds like you have a good gig going with Plaid. I saw you working with them last time and kept hoping to be able to stop by and chat, but you were always busy...and I'm also gotta be on the down low and everything since I'm technically competition. Oh, well. Hope you have fun. D-art is going to be there, but more doing scrapbooking stuff. I really wish I could go, though.
Posted by: alexa | June 23, 2008 at 11:58 AM