HasBeen Hooey

Looking for something to do tonight? Stop by! See if you can pick out my slender, gory scribbles! Drink beer! Buy T-shirts! Woo!

Sneak preview

Betcha all wonder what I've been doing eh? Eh? Eh? (I continue, assuming your answer is yes...) Teaching German to children? Nope, not yet. Traipsing around in the "good" weather? Not a chance. Pulling one pallid basement all-nighter after the other to give birth to a vampire goddess of the woods wedding dress for a six foot blushing bride? YES. Okay, so the all-nighters are actually just the icing on the cake...Shola and I have been planning this doozy for months. After weeks of fabric store visits (I feel like the ladies at Mill End are now friends, they recognize me, I give them progress updates and we talk silk georgette and taffeta), days of decision making, and hours of draping, onion dying, gathering and topstitching it's finally real! Here's a little teaser in Kelty's gorgeous graphic world...more photos coming after Hannah actually ties the knot in full regalia this weekend :)

Super secret surprise summer sale!

Wheee! September 1st 2009 between the hours of 9am and 9pm PST, prices in my Etsy shop will be reduced by 20%! Yippee! One day only, get em while the gettin's good...

Werkin, werkin...

After three solid weeks of teaching summer camps for kids, I was pretty stoked to have the following Monday off. HAHAHAHA children! Teach yourselves things today! (Although you guys can see some things they learned during Eco-Fashion Camp week on HasBeen Design's Blog and Jewels and Gems) But then it set in that....I have the next two weeks off. I will certainly need this time to follow Hannah's wedding dress along at an exponentially quicker pace (it's taking shape, yay!) There are also some things I need to prepare for, such as teaching German to middle schoolers, but other than that, the time is MINE! Muahahaha. It does feel a bit strange though to go from working full time with a fairly normal schedule (French full time: 35 hours a week) to having...two weeks off. Back to the basement for me! (Which means more dresses for you...) YARR.

P.S. Don't let my expression confuse you. I'm not sad. I'm just trying to concentrate on dressmaking and future plans instead of Edward Cullen and Bill Compton.

I love my bruuuuutherrrr

As a belated birthday gift for our grandma, my mother decided upon adult portraits of my brother and I to cherish for posterity. After perusing Kelty's blog and admiring all of her lovely photos, she was sold and we set up a shoot. Easy enough right? All we had to do was show up. My mom simply requested that we don't make any "goofy faces." We all know it's not that difficult to make me laugh. It's just that my brother has plenty of time to practice. He's been present for twenty three years of my existence and we dedicated much of our childhood time together to silly business (remember playing eskimo/coat monster and tucking Kirby under the afghan to aggravate him?) as well as unintentionally cultivating a rather complicated yet strikingly similar web of "extrapolation humor" trajectories.

Turns out, "goofy faces" are much tougher to avoid than one might imagine. We tried our best to get some classy portraits in, but it's hard when he goes to grab a shirt from the car and comes back with a giant red scratch on his forehead; "Is there a scrape on my head?" "Uh, yes, what happened?" "A tree branch hit me." Or, Kelty tries to take playful shots of us running down a hill, so he leaps into the air to grip a handful of willow branches expecting to swing gracefully to a stop (we did this as children also) and RIPS an entire cluster of tree into the meadow. It started off nicely enough...

And then he starts making faces like this:

Which makes me start doing this:

Which leads to this:

Yay! We're adults. Happy birthday Grandma!

But...I always get like, weird teddy bears when I do the search...

Several people I've been talking to about Etsy lately have commented on the fact that they have a difficult time finding the gems. One even mentioned that she's always looking for blogs that suggest favorite Etsy finds to their readers. Considering I spend copious amounts of time browsing the goodies, checking out the competition, marvelling at the creativity and leaping from favorites to treasuries to blog articles and back, it finally dawned on me that it's time to share the wealth. Boom! I'm not sure how I'm going to organize it, but now included in my blogging content will be Etsy finds from yours truly!

#1: BlueSkyBags
I just ran into this brand new shop today! I remember making a janky plastic satchel crocheted from plastic bags that I grocery shopped with in Germany but...this girl's got it down. Cute little purse shapes with funky buttons and color schemes, it's great. Click on the picture to check it out.

I woke up this morning and I was a new human being.

I had a terrible nightmare about political unrest and my brother. I opened my eyes anticipating violence and experienced only a peaceful, sunny morning with two and a half hours to spare before work. My meat suit felt fresh and flexible, my grey matter was molten and magnificent and OHHH THE DRESSES! I promise you, they're coming to the shop soon. I prrrrrooooomissssse!

Languidly lolling in LA

For most of my trip to California, my little conscience voice nagged me. "I could totally live here, San Francisco is way more poppin than Portland. I miss the vegetation in Northern California. My friends here are ultra rad..." and so on and so forth. I was even feeling completely awesome on my overnight Greyhound bus ride from San Jose to L.A. (12:40 AM to 7:10 AM, woot!). Smiling gently, I partook in one person sleep yoga serenly shifting from side to side, feet on the footrest, feet off the footrest, right foot in the aisle, left knee bent, switch! Left leg straight, right knee bent....all the while the trundling southward together with every possible specimen of American society in the inky blue night. Then I arrived in Los Angeles. I began sweating the moment I exited the bus. After only a few hours of 100+ heat in the smoggy SoCal metropolis, my little conscience voice spoke once more. "GET ME THE CRAP OUT OF THIS TOWN!"

Don't get me wrong, our weekend was rockin. Lorrainne was an amazing hostess and our days were filled with Korean Spa, vintage dress and beach bliss. But actually desiring a return to Portland was a good note to end on.

Confused and Amused in Santa Cruz

Dear Everyone,

WWOOFing is great. The farm is rather formal, but if I aspire to live in a room like that turret one day I must toil on. I have quite a bit to learn about double turning soil, nitrogen, and shepherdessing. Although at first glance they look a bit old-fashioned or stuck up, these guys are my friends. They know a lot about life and really let loose after a couple of elderberry cordials, so don't judge.

Fondly,

Caitlin

Lost in San Francisco...

...dodging piles of trash. This show is now on the road yo! Traveling with me is my recently completed retro onesie. A while ago I acquired a large quantity of Laura Ashley fabric from a wonderful friend (thanks Carin!) and this is my first garment utilizing it. It's also the first time I've made this pattern I created using a vintage romper from my collection as a guide...needs a few tweaks but was otherwise a success!

After celebrating Grandpa's 80th birthday in Ashland, my aunt and uncle were so kind as to tote me southward in their hybrid SUV. They deposited me gently in Berkeley, CA where I glided swiftly over the bay on BART to the glowing pastel concrete maze of San Francisco. Well, it wasn't exactly glowing when I arrived. Night had fallen, so my friend and hostess Ali graciously swooped me up at her station. I had been just been joking that given her neighborhood, the night would probably end in burritos, tequila shots and homeless weirdies. I wasn't too far off. Enchiladas, IPA's and a man bleeding in the street with the police screeching to the scene were the actual events (although reverse that order if its chronological accuracy you're after). Either way, things were kicked off to a jolly good San Francisco start.