David Guetta - Titanium ft. Sia

Reina Sofia

Settling in nicely here in Lagny. It´s turned out to be quite charming and quiet. Three times a week there is a huge market on our street where we can get rotisserie chicken, fish, cheese, fresh veggies, housewears, music, books, everything! Also I´m taking advantage of the miles of bike trails that lead into Paris and surrounding towns. Today I got a little lost and found a golf course in the neighboring village.

Last weekend we took a 48 hour trip to Barcelona for a baptism and a barbecue. The weekend before we took advantage of a business meeting to spend a couple of days meandering Madrid. In addition to checking out the museum of costumes I spent about half a day in my favorite museum Reina Sofia. The 2nd floor houses my favorite pieces of art including works by Picasso, Dali, Juan Gris, and Miró just to name a few.
I picked up a few prints to go in the house. I like the soft brown and blue tones of both paintings.
Dali´s Woman at the Window (1925)

Juan Gris´ La Bouteille d´anis (1914)

Some other honorable mentions from the museum:

Rosario de Velazco

¨Adam and Eve¨

Picasso

Cat and Crab

Alfonso Ponce De Leon

Self- Portrait (1936)

Miró

Hirondelle

Juaquin Torres-Garcia

Paisaje de Ciudad (1928)

Somewhere along the way of searching for these images I stumbled across this website. http://www.coldbacon.com/tshirts.html In light of the recent shooting in Aurora, Colorado and the ongoing arms debate I can´t help but find these shirts appropriate. I get so angered by the people who defend the right to purchase heavy ammo and rapid fire weapons. I wish they would wear shirts like these so I would know to steer clear of them. They claim only crazies kill people, it´s not the guns´fault, I can´t help but think why a sane person feels compelled to have to access to these types of guns. 

Gérald De Palmas - L'étranger (clip officiel)

Taking Paris by velo - day 1

Transistor- Living

Laura Amiss

I just returned home from my journey to Barcelona, Paris, and back to Barcelona again. In my mailbox waiting for me was something I´ve been excited to receive,  a beautiful graphic print that I found on Etsy from English artist Laura Amiss. I can´t wait to put it in my sewing room in our new Parisian apartment.

http://www.lauraamiss.com

Shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lauraamiss

She even surprised me with an extra print that I LOVE. Red is my color so this is just the cherry on the cake. 

Thank you Laura!

When you love what you have, you have everything you want

My Anthem

Spent all day sewing.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have my party dress and a new skirt to showcase. In the meantime here is the new lining I´ve added. I had to recut the skirt pattern, but make it a bit longer.

 

 Lining is attatched, now time to shorten the hem & add straps. 

 Two weeks until we move to Paris. Nothing but heel heights & hem lengths.



The series finale of Gossip Girl was killer, can´t wait to see what Blair does with her new home. My money is still on Chuck for being the ¨real¨ Gossip Girl.  Now that it´s over there is just one more show finale left until the summer. Can´t wait until Sunday for Game of Thrones.....

Radical Face - Welcome Home

Party Dress

Working on my party dress because I finally picked out the material!

I start out with about 10 pattern pieces and will end up with  about 27 pieces of fabric to put together. The bodice has 7 pieces alone and with 3 layers of bodice including the outside, the lining for structure and the interior pieces, that comes out to 21.

My monster hanging,. Not too bad. Now it´s time to stitch her together. 

Later I will add some under layers to the skirt to give it more volume. 

Watching C.D. for inspiration.  How do they get so much volume into those skirts?

hablas español?

Weird dreams last night, in spanish.

You And I - Ingrid Michaelson

Regina Spektor - "Samson" [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

Frida and Crafty Chica

I got my amzing hard back book Self Portrait of a Velvet Dress finally, and I was totally inspired but had not idea how to incorporate what I know about sewing with the things I want to do. That´s when I found Crafty Chica´s Guide to Artful Sewing. Kathy Cano-Murillo is evidently the latin sew goddess I´ve been needing all along. She loves to spice it up and offers some really cute ideas for bags, clothes and house accessories that I can wait to get into.

Love Sponge - Gianni and Sarah

Pardon Me - He Is We Lyrics

Juices flowing

Today I´m studying up on sewing. I´d consider myself a novice at this point in the craft but now that I´ve got several projects under my belt it´s time to go to the next level. My good friend and partner-in-coudre brought over a wonderful book called Built By Wendy Dresses in which she describes so clearly all the important steps in making clothing. I´ve racked up a collection now of pattern books and others that don´t nearly explain so clearly how to go about sewing something you´re actually going to wear.

In addition to this book my Mary Thomas´s Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches just arrived. Because of my love all things Mexican I really want to learn to embellish clothing with colorful designs by hand.

Once this little gem below comes in I will be up to my ears in inspiration! Really I think I am Frida reincarnated or at least I wish I was so I could wear all these amazingly beautiful outfits everyday. Modernizing them will be the challenging part of the projects.

Feeling so Mexican today, I think we will break in our new pressure cooker with some Carnitas! 

Diet Days

So, I´ve been feeling sooo out of energy lately and my schedule has been all over the place with travels and such. I think it´s time to finally get into the health kick for summer and start eating a little better. No more crackers, cookies, breads and all those other things that drag us down.  Today I gave our new food processor a spin and made this yummy shake. Surprisingly I couldn´t taste the spinach.

I´m not a stickler for measurements so basically adjust the following to your liking.

Small low-fat yogurt
Banana ( I used about 3/4)
Crushed pineapple
1 cup of water
2 handfuls of baby spinach

Then mix and sip. Soooo good.

Source: greensmoothiespower.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Pillow

On Monday we visited a Japanese fabric store in Barcelona I´ve been dying to go to for a while now. There was so much beautiful fabric that was quality that I just couldn´t decide on what to get. So I picked up a couple of pre-squares for about 4 euros each and put together a little pillow at home today with some gold bordering I picked up at Toto.  http://www.nunoya.com/  I know it´s just a couple of squares but I put in a zipper and a separate pouch with the stuffing. I´m really pleased with myself.

Song of the day. So haunting. So beautiful listening to this in the park on this warm sunshiny day.

and for good measure, some of The Cure.

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes