Happy Snapshots: September

A few days late, but better than never. :-) I love these photos of the last days of summer. October is going to be a fun month as well. Happy fall season!

Family

Cousins - the next generation of techies

First day of school and already digging into the toy boxes

My teary-eyed brother with his newborn twin boys

Beautiful, beautiful babies

Bonding with one of my nephews

My husband with both of his new nephews

Food

Antipasto salad

Spices for the chocolate chili

Yummy garlic fries at The Counter

Delicious rice, grilled chicken, salad, and sangria at Lala's Argentine Grill

The Wilds

At the Carpinteria Salt Marsh preserve

Bee going after some lovely-smelling nectar

xo, Gladys

Fluevog Love: Fall Collection on Melrose

My friend M and I went back to visit Fluevog so that she could pick up her new shoes on layaway and I could get new holes punched in the ankle straps of my new Qtees. Of course, we couldn't leave without trying on the shoes that we missed last time. Luckily, plenty of new styles in the fall line arrived at the store during the month-and-a-half since we last visited. Many thanks to the awesome Kate for helping us out!

(Click on the photos to see the shoes on the Fluevog website.)

Remember how we loved the black-on-black Sharanpal maryjanes in the Miracle family? Check out this new style in SILVER and GOLD. Wow. Just wow.

Here's a better view of the heel on the silver Sharanpal. I think it's incredible how the design continues on the heel. (Not sure what I was doing with my finger there.)

And sorry, here's another shot of the Sharanpal, but actually I'm sharing because the photo also shows me wearing my Qtees, all fixed by Kate! I love my new Qtees and I can't wait to wear them out soon!

M tried on these boots and they looked so great that I tried them on too. Our verdict: comfy and beautiful. The soft, scrunchy green leather is fantastic. This new family (I tried on another style besides the Kanawa) is one of my favorites in this fall collection, and the calf-high length is actually something that I'd love to have more of in my closet. I already have a green calf-high boot, however (the Operetta: Mirella in olive), so I'll have to pass on these particular boots. The black colorway is also lovely, though not quite as fun.

This is another boot that M tried on. I love that the leather looks like my purple Radio: PRI knee-high boots, but I have to say that the Luna is a lot sexier given the curvy shape and 2-inch heels. This is one of the more generous boots for larger calves, although she said she had trouble getting her foot in the shoe. We thought it looked a lot sleeker without the removable harness (not pictured).

This dark-chocolate color in the Nico doesn't seem to be available online yet. And I believe that these are one of the new smaller sizes, either 5 or 5.5. I've always admired this family but was never able to fit in the shoes properly. I'm hoping that the Benatar maryjanes also come in the smaller sizes soon!

Kate made me try on these crazy-fun platforms. I have to confess that I'm starting to get drawn by animal print, but these are a little too much! They're surprisingly comfortable though. The pitch is not very steep at all because the front platform is quite substantial. When I walked around the store, it didn't feel like I was wearing much of a heel at all.

There were other styles that I tried on and liked but didn't get a photo of:

• Big Presence: Davis loafer heels in black and cheetah - If I want to get cheetah print in my shoes, I'd buy these instead of the Arc platforms. These are very classy AND they're named after activist and academic Angela Davis. These run less than half a size large, so I could pad the size 6 with an insole to make them more wearable. Very lovely shoes.
• Encourage: Kathryn boot in green, yellow, and burgundy - lovely combination of colors and it zipped up beautifully over my calves. I had some toe room in the size 6, which means it runs true to size. For a boot, however, the extra room is a good idea in case one wants to wear thick socks inside.
• Hopeful: Luxon maryjane in black - I see this as a more casual, perhaps even more comfortable version of the very-popular Operetta maryjanes, Malibran and Illeana. However, my relatively-flat arch/insole makes it so that there's a weird bunch on one of the elastic bands, on both shoes so it's not just a case of one shoe being defective. But apparently this can be fixed by their cobbler (for free, I believe). Given that the size 6 fits me, this style (and family) seems to run half a size small.
• Hope: Promise oxford in black (the link is for the purple colorway since the black isn't available online yet) - Some styles in the Hope family now come in smaller sizes as well! The family generally runs true to size, so I am a 5.5 in this shoe.
• Wearever: Gracias in black - This is another older family that now comes in smaller sizes in some of the styles. It still runs a half-size large, however, so I would wear a 5 in these (just as in the Bellevue and Operetta families).

xo, Gladys

Star Wars Tee

I've been having some trouble getting my act together this week after the excitement of last weekend when my twin nephews were born (!). I barely got anything on my to-do lists done while we were waiting for news at the hospital, and then this past week the kiddo has been acting more needy and childish -- most likely a reaction to my oohing and aahing over the new babies -- so I simply haven't had the energy to do more than the bare minimum of chores. I didn't even get to sew my 3-year-old nephew's birthday present, which I'd planned to finish and mail by Monday or Tuesday. (Fun fact: I now have three nephews with birthdays within three days of each other.)

So yesterday, I chose to wear something slightly out of the ordinary to kick-start my day. For one thing, I wore a skirt on a weekday (it's usually shorts or jeans). For another, I wore this shirt:

Dress: Star Wars via Zulily | Skirt: Old Navy | Flats: Blowfish via Amazon

It's such a great shirt and would be perfect if it included Princess Leia (a terrible oversight, I know!). Anyway, it's a pretty simple outfit, but it made me smile. :-) We love Star Wars in this house in case you hadn't noticed. Along with a couple of long-sleeved Star Wars shirts for the kiddo, I bought this shirt via the discount program Zulily (similar to Gilt but targeted to moms). It's actually a child's XL size, so the neck is a little narrow, but it was fun to wear even though hardly anyone outside my family saw it except for, briefly, the teachers and other parents and children at the kiddo's school. I was in there just long enough to sign my name in and out; there's usually no dawdling.

As for the rest of the day, I managed to get my eyebrows waxed, then fold three loads of laundry while watching the Netflix movie I'd been putting off for the past month.* But way more fun than that, for breakfast I made some blueberry waffles with the waffle iron that my mom gave us a couple of weeks ago (she also gave us a panini press that I love -- I'll talk more about these two appliances another time). I'd never made waffles before and it turned out to be quite easy, which was a welcome surprise. And the kiddo loved the waffles. I'll be making more and freezing them for my brother and his wife to help them out these first few weeks of taking care of twin babies. I can definitely recommend the Cuisinart brand Classic Waffle Maker if you're in the market to buy one.

xo, Gladys

* In case you were interested, the film I saw was Shame with Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, rated NC-17; don't worry, I watched it while the kiddo was in school. There are lots of scenes that are basically porn except there's no "money shot" and it's really sad and sometimes tragic. So yeah, definitely not porn. It wasn't very pleasant to watch, but it did make me more empathetic to those suffering with sexual addiction. The director and writers did a pretty amazing job toeing the line between gratuitous porny sex scenes and telling a sad and difficult story about a man who (it's implied) has had a horrible, probably-abusive childhood and who is painfully lonely (even if he looks like Michael Fassbender!).

Sewing: Twinsanity and Newborn Pants

Sorry this post is a little late, but I just came out of a very special weekend: I whipped up four newborn pants (free pattern and tutorial by Made-by-Rae) while waiting to hear word about the birth of my twin nephews! They were born very early Sunday morning, and it was truly amazing to see them for the first time. My brother -- the new father -- was teary-eyed and so very happy. The new mom was incredible during her long labor.

Aren't they adorable? I know I'm biased because I'm their aunt, but seriously, they are delicious!! They are perfect. I can't believe how big they are ... my sister-in-law carried them to full term, and one was a whopping 7lbs 2oz while the other one was 6lbs 1oz. (They're fraternal twins, just in case you were wondering why they looked different.) She's not a super tall lady, maybe 5'5", but she managed to carry over 13 pounds of baby plus all that extra weight somehow. Incredible.

Anyway, the pants sewed up more quickly than the last time I used this pattern, in part because I didn't "pimp" them out with pockets or bias-tape hems. Instead, first thing after cutting, I simply hemmed the legs with a narrow double fold -- with wrong side facing up, fold over and press 1/4" then fold over and press another 3/8" before edgestitching the hem closed. (See below.) Easy as pie. At the very end, I sewed a tiny line of stitches at the very bottom of the inseams, to make sure that the hems don't unravel.

I used cotton flannel for the first set of two, and plain woven cotton for the second set. The flannel sewed up very easily because the nap on the fabric makes it more stable. The flannel will be good for when the weather cools off a bit, but I think the owls are much cuter. I can't wait until the babies fit into them. :-)

Special thanks to all my models for this post! I love them all!

xo, Gladys

Recent Haul

So ModCloth had its summer clearance sale recently, and I couldn't help but indulge due to the fantastic prices. (Check out what I got from last year's summer clearance.) It's been a while since I've done one of these posts, and that's a good thing! Moreover, this time, I only bought a dress, a top, and three very cute pairs of shoes. I already showed off the white Salt Water Sandals (an amazing deal for $13) in an earlier post.

However, I have to confess here that about a month earlier, a couple of ModCloth items that I'd been eying went on sale briefly, and after trying them on at home I decided to keep both of them. These two black-and-white dresses have everything I love: nipped waists, fun patterns, and pockets! And the colors are just classic. I couldn't resist. You may have already seen the polka dot dress on this blog, but in different colors. I wasn't joking when I said that it's one of my favorite styles. (This dress is still available if you're interested.) The striped one needed to be shortened at the shoulders since the bodice was too long for me, but it was a very quick sew that turned out wonderfully. I decided not to cut any fabric but just folded and sewed in case I wanted to sell/give it away later -- which made it a fast alteration.

Summer in my part of the world will be still be here in October, and with all of my Saturdays from now until Halloween booked for get-togethers, parties, and a vacation (YAY!), I'm looking forward to styling all of these pieces in the next month and a half.... Stay tuned!

xo, Gladys