Lyric Embroidery Hoops

I'm one of those people who likes to have everything perfectly organized at all times, or else I get excessively stressed out. So, recently I've been spending a lot of time planning how I will decorate my room in New York City, down to the last detail. I want it to be a lot like my room here in Utah, with my white bedding and my gallery wall of assorted art prints and paintings. However, I'm not trying to make it an exact replica and I'm trying to follow a slightly different color scheme - but more on that will be on another post. The point is, I made these cute little embroidery hoops with some of my favorite lyrics lately to hang up on my wall along with my Daisy portrait and some of the art I've been collecting over the last year and a half. The one above is my favorite, it's from a song by the Brooklyn band Florist. It's the last song on their record and it's called Only A Prayer Nothing More. Their lyrics have been pretty comforting to me lately. Unintentionally, loneliness has been a common theme in the last four books I've read this summer. It's funny how life has a way of highlighting the most relevant things when you need them most. I feel like I've been so hyper aware of my feelings lately, which is probably why I've also been taking my sketchbook everywhere. Anyway, the lyric on the embroidery hoop is the following:

 "slow down watch the sky, you'll be young forever"

This one was the most spontaneous of the two. Originally, when I was planning these out, I made a list of like 10 different song lyrics that I liked or that I thought would be good to hang on my wall, some were too long and some were just a couple words long, so I narrowed it down to my top 4 contenders and this one was actually one of the first lyrics I had eliminated from my list. I was going to go for a lyric in Holly Miranda's song, Pelican Rapids, "There's nothing wrong with the way you feel and everything will be alright," which was a sort of mantra to me last Fall when I was going through a rough moment.  But then at the last minute, I started stitching this Angel Olsen lyric instead:

"I started dancing just to be around you,"

and it wasn't the least bit centered, so I had to reposition my fabric and basically, I came up with the whole design of it as I was making it. I like how it turned out though. I got a lot of nice messages about it on twitter and tumblr, more so than about the other one.

The other exciting thing, that is sort of related to this post, is that I'm going to see both Angel Olsen and Florist in concert this fall, separately of course haha. And I'm going to have to venture out to the venues alone because, tragically, none of my New York friends listen to indie music. I'm excited though!

Alright, well thank you for reading!

Fashion Industry Studies: Cactus Twig Necklace

So as you guys might know, I've been working on and off on my Fashion Industry Studies course from Teen Vogue and Parsons School of Design. I don't actually have that much time left to finish it, so I've been working on it more than usual lately. Anyway, the other day my assignment was to create an accessory using things I had on hand and inspired by a collage of pictures I took off inspiring things directly around me, which I'll show you below.

For this project, I was particularly inspired by the cactus pictures, the lace, and the color of that lovely mint candle. For my found materials I used kitchen twine, a plastic grocery bag, acrylic paint, lollipop sticks, staples, and glue. The flower was definitely my favorite part because I just got to sit there and figure out how to make something beautiful out of something so terribly ordinary and I loved painting it.

For the second part of this project, my assignment was to figure out how much it essentially cost to make by hand vs. bulk production. I definitely expected bulk to be much cheaper, and I was right about that. The first graph below is the cost of it made by hand and using materials I had:

This other graph shows the cost of production if I were to buy materials in bulk and have it mass produced:

What I'm Making:

In October I learned how to knit and I quickly made my first two projects - a grey/ blue blanket and a white sparkly one I gave to my dear friend Caitlin. Now I'm thinking I want to try something smaller and more useful on a day to day basis, so last night I found a pattern from Purl Bee for a pair of handwarmers/ fingerless gloves that I'm wanting to try out! I've tried a sewing pattern from Purl before and it was so easy to follow, so I'm hoping their knitting ones are just as lovely. I'm so excited! I'm gonna go to Harmony over the weekend to pick out some yarn, I'm thinking I want it to be a nice subtle color like a soft pink or an ivory hue, but I might go for something bolder if I absolutely fall in love with the color.

and I might try for the hat as well! What do you think?

picture credit goes to Feeb, from Purl Soho in New York.

Welcome, Welcome

 

Hello lovely,

I want to begin this new project by saying that this isn’t so much about leaving the past behind, I mean it's not like I'm deleting my old blog. It’s more about embracing the fact that I don’t know what is to come, but I'm sure it’s going to be exciting and terrifying and thrilling. It’s the same with starting this blog. There’s all this possibility and, dare I say, hope that maybe it’ll be something I’m so proud of one day. The sort of thing I tell people about, and not just close friends. It kind of already is, but that's because I'm ridiculously excited. Anyway, I’m Ceci, as you might know. I’ve never had an actual blog before, if you don't count tumblr, but if you do count it, then I’ve had two before and the oldest one is turning six this June. But anyway, I’m incredibly excited to start blogging on here because I’ve secretly wanted to start an actual for a ages now but I didn’t really do anything about it, until two Thursdays ago at night when I just got this incredible, frenetic urge to just make one already, so I did that weekend.

Anyway, this is going to be my little lifestyle blog. So I fully intend to cover a wide range of topics, from my personal stories and art to fashion and makeup, as well as the fascinating articles I love to find on the interwebs, among other topics. I'm hoping to maybe interview and feature some of my talented friends as well, and of course I'm still going to keep sewing and making things. I’m incredibly excited to start this new adventure with all of you and maybe make some new friends along the way!

If you want to read more about me, go look under my About tab in the top bar!

Have a lovely evening,
Ceci.