I went to visit Steven for his birthday, and we drove from where he lives (Sugar Land) to Austin for the weekend. Here we are at Lake Travis on his 25th birthday. I wore this cute Anthropologie dress for the first time since I bought it massively on sale. Many compliments on the dress ensued.

We bumbled around town, visiting shops and being silly. Austin sure has a ton of vintage shops! For all of the shops we hit up, I didn’t end up actually buying very much. One of my favorites was definitely the store to the left of Mom’s Tattoos in the photo below, Room Service. That is where I bought a deadstock acid-washed black denim cropped jacket, complete with the original Dirty Dancing movie tag and plastic gem buttons. Official movie merchandise, people! I had to cut the tag off to wear it, though.

This is my favorite photo from the weekend. It makes me smile

Austin is a lovely town, and it reminded both of us very much of Portland, from the geography to the demographics. We both enjoyed our visit, but then he had to return to Sugar Land and I to San Francisco. Sad

Skirt

I feel like I talk about what I want to make, but then forget to post photos of the finished project. Part of the problem is taking good pictures, but I hope to improve at that with practice. This weekend I bought a little gorillapod tripod, and it’s great, especially since my boyfriend is not around to take photos of me wearing my creations.

I sewed up this little skirt last week from a pattern I’ve made before (I’ll add the pattern number when I’m home to look at it). It’s such a simple, easy pattern, and I wear the other skirt all the time, so I figured I was due for another. I’m also hoping that, since it has a box pleat, I’ll be able to wear it on my scooter. I discovered this weekend that pencil skirts and scooters, sadly, do not mix.

The fabric is vintage, but reminds me of a newer fabric I’ve seen around lately.

I’ve been tipped off to the fact that next time I take pictures without a flash, I need to change the camera location so that I’m not backlit.

Close-up (with flash):

I haven’t worn it out yet, but I’m happy with out it turned out–other than the fact that the lovely invisible zipper I’d installed got stuck at the top (while I was trying it on!) and I had to tear it out and replace it with a regular zipper because that was all I had. And I didn’t do that great of a job putting it in. But no one except me would notice that. Hopefully.

Haramaki!

Aren’t these bellywarmers the cutest? Pingmag, which looks like an interesting site, brought these to my attention via an article touting the function and fashion of haramaki. A while ago a friend of mine mentioned that back in the early 1990s she was fond of wearing her sister’s “unit,” which I had never heard of. She explained that it was a leftover from the fashion of the 1980s, and that it was really good for layering for warmth without the bulk of extra sleeves. Whatever you call them, now I want to make one!

It looks pretty simple, but here’s a tutorial that seems easy to follow.