oh yeah-

and how the HELL are these two releated???

this is father and daughter

while im eating my left over curry....

i s'pose i'll do my incredibly overdue post/update/recent projects...


(but just so you know, it is a DELICIOUS curry!)

ok, so what have i been up to since summer.... still trying to live without a *real* job, still surrounded by puppy dogs, still have the best boyfriend ever, still working on the hoarder house... BUT tyler and i are getting ready to move into a house in a couple months!!! i am sooo excited! the yard is HUGE and has a pecan tree and a beast of a fig tree in the back! the house was built in the 1940's- its right up my alley! i recently accumulated a lot of incredible mid-century furniture including a beautiful ceader chest and a black 1950's dining room table! the house WILL be a time machine, dammit!

aside from that... i don't want to get into every little thing that has gone on that i SHOULD have been posting up here... so i'm just going to post things as i remember... but basically just pick up like i hadn't quit writing...

hey! look at this book!

and go 'oooooooooooooohhhh!'

tyler's dad's girlfriend showed me this incredible book that belonged to her mother- it's her work book from the 1930's from her sewing school in (i think i remember this right) new york!
the pages we full of different stitches and detailing, mostly all hand done, but a few were by machine. each one was on a pretty pink silk swatch, and then labeled:

 

perfect. 

 

 perfect. 

 perfect. 

 

also perfect- look at the shadows!

i loved this. i wish i had gotten better photos, but this was post-funeral and we had done a little bit of grievin ' drinkin' so... you know how that goes. joann (jerry's girlfriend) said that her mother was a master seamstress! she is in her nineties now, and apparently is also a badass. i like her already!

super burfday grape time!

this past sunday my great aunt rose put together a big birthday party out on our creek to celebrate half of our family having summer birthdays... good news- ITS GRAPE SEASON!

omnomnomnomnomnom

only too bad because they are mustang grapes and they aren't really good for anything except imagining what eating an eyeball is like.

you cant even eat the skin. it will fucking burn your mouth. wtf?

any who, team girl cousin went out on the hunt for some grapes to eat. after swinging a shovel at a bunch up high, we saw these grapes within reach. after wards, we saw some even closer.

here is super-fox katie picking some treats

and we pretty much felt like goobs. then we played washers and tyler strutted around all handsome-like in his halo of super brownie points he earned this weekend helping my mother and i at a yard sale.

its not a party without parrot ice!

kathy, like always, made her over-the-top birthday cake with very meticulously cut little green leaves and tiny little bows and flowers and i think she spent too much time on this...

but it was sooooooooooo good!

also in good-ness, my other brother got engaged! well, he finally got engaged... after dating for years and years and years- 8 i think... he popped the question with a BEAUTIFUL ring! here they are reenacting the proposal.

the real one had less dogs and less overacting... i think.

so it was a pretty exciting weekend. also i got a new dress form... for FREE! hot damn! this homegirl is named Lenore. shes got some curves! its nice having a plus sized form, so etsy store, prepare to be plus sized!

puppy dogs and what-not

so this week we are dog sitting for my brother... and i am in love with this little lady!

awwww.......

meet jenny- the toe biting, shoe chewing, super shedding new addition to the baker family! she is very playful, and also very clingy. before she came over audrey had been following me around like a shadow, and once jenny showed up she joined in. kathy keeps calling me the pied piper of dogs.

dick.

also dog related, i noticed this similarity yesterday:

just missing some spots!

i wish i could find a better photo of spunky, but tyler and i recently watched a whole lot of rocco's modern life and when ol' waddle-a-jara made this face i immediately thought of that cartoon pooch!

and now in non-dog related news- i got a little side job as a wedding-helper-sort-of. i am in charge of all floral arrangements, table settings, boutineers and what-not. i finished all of the boutineers already, and they are badass!

taaa-daaaaaaa!

the tables are all gonna be covered in old books and neat vases and what-not.... im excited to be putting this together! hopefully, people dont steal all the cool shit i bought.... if they do ill just have to knock some skulls together or bring on the thunder or something like that.

'cause i will.

hot damn my magazine came out!

check it out beezees!
i got my copy yesterday from tyler! im all giddy.... oh geeze...

i also snagged up a lot of great vintage clothes from a girl i found in craigslist- which never ceases to amaze me! AND i got some new patterns!

i couldn't not get them...

plus these go well with a few others i snagged up this weekend:

the reproductions are both patterns i've been looking for for ages- score!

and in other news, some sort of monster beast ant bit my god damn foot and now i have the foot version of sausage fingers:

sausage toes

maybe they aren't that dramatic, but my foot is all poofy and i am upset. i literally JUST got my other foot to where i can wear normal shoes again and this is what happens!
this is why no one likes ants.


...bunch of assholes.

leeches and fireworks

i was so on a roll. i was doing so good posting on here fairly regularly and then... ugh.
well, here is a wrap up of my weekend before the new weekend starts!

first, here is my fourth of july dress! i finished it up on the 2nd and wore it out friday night to a big art event in town which had some amazing highlights! my favorite was a large woman in a denny's uniform who kept whipping tyler in the ass!

stars and stripes baby!

i made it from this butterick reproduction:

shortened length... trains aren't practical in the rain

and then i ended the night with two HUGE blisters on the bottom of each foot from my super wedges i wore. sucked.

so then saturday was 'nurse a hangover day' and sunday i went to the river with some friends, audrey booboo and tyler's family. it was sooooooo nice and the weather was beautiful! after that we went to see fireworks which was also beautiful.

on monday me, my momma, my sister and our brother's fiancee roxy all went to blanco state park where roxy and i developed the most mad crawfish catching skills of all time.

oh wait, that was us being total whimps! f those pinchers!

we did catch them eventually! we made a system- i would pin them down with a stick and roxy would pick them up! shes braver than i am... but in my defense, those were friggin' lobster sized beasts!

yeah! like tom and huck!

it was pretty nice out there. a couple of fellas came by to do some fishing... i think our high pitch squeals ran them off, so we had the whole dam to our selves! it was best that way, because after mom and kathy had been laying down in the stream for a while and then realized they were COVERED in leeches, they were able to scream and run and freak out in private.

it was hilarious. luckily for them it wasn't this kind:

best. dog. ever.

isnt he handsome?

hoarding house sneek-peek!

so, here it is after WEEKS of cleaning, organizing and sorting.

weeks.

so here is wall one:

here you can find every sewing notion ever created

wall two

every color of the rainbow represented in thread

wall three

magazines from the 80's on

wall three continued

more magazines, needlework, ribbons and more

and in the livingroom

we have elastic and serger thread mountain!

now keep in mind, there is still a patio and barn full of fabrics! plus, pretty much all of those drawers in all of those dressers are totally packed with fabric! so, again, if you need ANYTHING i am selling these all for cheap! shoot me an email at
crissy_baker (at) yahoo (dot) com

photo shoot pictures!

i got some of the photos back from the magazine shoot this week! i dont look like a melty tornado at all! hot damn!
im pretty excited so here is the one i think is going in my article:

and here is a great photo of me and tyler

and of us and our 'baby' which was totally delicious!

well done josh huskin, well done indeed.

tagged by clare!

the lovely clare tagged me in the 8-questions to answer chain letter thing yesterday. im pretty sure i know how this works. if i dont answer and forward it to 100 friends by midnight, the ghost of a 12 year old girl who was killed by a train will sneek through my window and suck my soul out of my nose and eat my eyeballs and i will never find true love, but if i DO, i will win the lottery, someone i care about will reveal something totally important to me in 5 hours and my clothes wont shrink in the dryer or something like that.
so, here goes!
1. Have you ever had a sewing-related injury? Give gory details! If not, any irrational fears?! if i had a nickle for every time i have slipped my finger into the moving needle on my sewing machine, or sliced into my own leg with a rotary cutter, i would have at least $10. the rotary cutters are the worst, they just bleed and bleed and bleeeeeeed! i also have burnt myself with the iron about a billion times. i seriously have some sort of non-sexual (i swear) iron fetish or something where i HAVE to iron every pattern piece, inch of fabric, bias tape-- everything!

2. What would be in your perfect picnic basket?
a bunch of cheeses, but none from cows (allergies), fruits and berries, this really good peach and chicken salad my sister makes and a bottle of wine. but i would like with my basket, tyler, my doggies, a big hat and a croquet set

3. If you had to spend 3 consecutive days on the same train, who would you want with you and why?
definitly tyler! we are equal assholes and can have a good time anywhere we go. plus a train sounds like it would be awesome to go on!

4. What garment/accessory do you wear the most?
easily, my crinoline. i wear it probably 2-3 times a week! i love it soooo much! i got it super cheap on etsy from this fine woman and it has been one of my best vintage purchases so far!

5. What’s your “desert island” book/movie and why could you read/watch it over and over?
the book i choose is easily the little prince. i am *obsessed* with this book. i even have a tattoo on my arm of the little buckaroo!

my pasty-ness keeps it lookin' new!

my movie would be metropolis. there is nothing about that movie that isn't absolutely amazing. last year tyler and i saw it with a live orchestra, it was amazing!

6. Which pattern/vintage style have you been thinking about lately?

tap shorts. they are all i want to wear- if not a skirt or dress! this morning actually i finished up these pretty little shorts for my etsy shop!

from one old pillowcase!

7. What’s your sewing threshold? As in, what will you let go, what must you absolutely fix?
anything that still has life in it. right now i am putting a 1930s/1940s evening gown together again. all of the thread dried out and the dress fell to pieces, but the pieces are still fine so its going to be brought back to life! thats also why i use almost exclusively old linens to sew from. as i see it, there are enough beautiful fabrics and materials in the world already, so why not use those up before we make new ones?

8. What are your favourite / least favourite words? These can be connected to sewing or not!
i call people 'buster' and 'buckaroo' a lot... tyler is always greeted as 'handsome' and my sister and i make that weird noise master pain makes in 'kung pow' all the time... you know, the one that goes, "meeeeeggggghhhhheeeeeeerrreeeeeee!"

ok, so girl from the ring, back the fuck off! im passing this on to:

molly at molly's sewing and garage sale adventures
debi at my happy sewing place
vivian at vivian von dimples
tilly at tilly and the buttons
and
sarah at rhinestones and telephones

so ladies, if you ever want to go on a date or kiss a boy or win the lottery or get both socks out of the dryer ever again, answer 4 of those questions and these 4 below!

1. What wouldn’t you be caught dead in?
2. What is your favorite holiday?
3. How do you relax?
4. What is one place that you really want to visit that you haven’t been to before?

freebies and not-so-freebies!

so in the last week or so, i have continued accumulating more crap that i do not need...
b u t . . .
it is all totally awesome so check this out! here are some treats from the hoarding house:

i did need more tracing paper, and i am a total sucker for packaging...


and this cool-tool for marking patterns without destroying them with a tracing wheel!


a button spacer (awesome!) and button holder


seriously- its like they invented this for carpal tunnel. if you have it, you need this tool!


and the best. apron. ever.

and then i went estate/garage sale-ing and to the flea market with tyler and i snagged up these treats and more:

$10 for all these hats!


tons of new brooches and pins and sweater clips... even though it is currently 100 degrees outside with a heat index of 4,000, they were all maybe $15 total!

and i also got 4 skirts from the 1940s, an evening gown from the 1930s, a party dress from the 1950s, a robe from the 1940s, a fonzi puzzle, some necklaces and a chef hat!
now, here is the BEST FREEBIE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE:

i KNOW! its friggin' awesome!!!!!

the woman who i am cleaning the hoarding house for *gave* this to me this weekend! pretty much made. my. life.

just wanted to brag....