This here is a 1960-something Sears Tote Cycle. I have a 1964 Sears catalogue up in the attic that shows a similar bike, offering options in a singlespeed, three-speed, and for an extra $70, you could get a Whizzer motor and have power assist.
The ridiculous ape-hanger handlebars are my addition. The bike originally had bars very similar to those on my little old lady bike, pictured below for reference:
The Tote Cycle is without a doubt my least practical bicycle. Which means it is hilarious to ride it…so long as I don’t have to go over 10 miles in distance or per hour. When you get up any sort of speed, the front end gets a bit wobbly. And the only thing stopping this bike is a coaster brake, which is generally fairly insufficient to my type of needs. I actually tanked into the back of Christi yesterday. Fortunately, she was riding her folder, which is also a juggernaut, so neither of us nor our bikes were damaged.
The Tote Cycle of mine…technically I guess it’s a “break-away” rather than a folder. It is in no way hinged. It’s held together in the middle by a couple of wing nuts, and if for some reason one ever felt the need to take it in half, that’s where the action would happen. But I can’t really see why you’d want to. It would be hell to ship, and even in half it’s a rather long, gawky piece of work. Especially with my Ape Hangers. Which I discovered that when I stand and climb, come just below the elastic band of my bra. It’s a mercy I’m not more chestiferously endowed or that last climb up Strawberry Hill on my way home would have been even wobblier.
The Tote Cycle is in my life for its oddity factor, and that factor is high. Also the integrated rack is exactly the size of a case of beer, so it could be a charming bike to ride to parties.
The jacket, to which I am particularly partial, is a Butterick pattern: #5232, to be exact.
It made up deceptively easily; it looks like it should be really complicated, but it would be a friendly pick for a relatively novice seamstress. I used unbleached lightweight canvas with brown mercerized cotton thread for the topstitch decoration. I wear this jacket all the time to work with more modern gear.
The bloomers were a Laughing Moon pattern, #110, which is a complete suit of 1890s sportswear – one suit for hiking with a short skirt and sailor-ish jacket and the other a cycling suit with a side-closing double-breasted jacket and the bloomers you see below:
I modified the pattern for an elasticated back waist to do away with a side closure, and I added in-seam pockets at each hip.
I figured that if my butt doesn’t look big in these, then I have done something terribly, dreadfully wrong.
Topping it all off is a squashy hat which is actually the only piece of Tweed in my whole ensemble!
I made this hat using an older Simplicity “Junior Trend” pattern and a pair of pants that I hated.
I’d bought this pair of houndstooth check tweed pants at a thrift shop because they were my size, they were wool, and I loved the color(s). I discovered, however, why they’d been banished to the thrift store. They had a ridiculously high rise and a tendency to migrate northward as the day wore on. Every time I wore them, I’d start off in the morning thinking, “Oh, these are nice; I wonder why I never wear them…they look so good with this sweater,” and by 3:00 p.m., I’d be picking them out of my armpits and swearing vehemently. So eventually I cut the bullshit and turned them into the hat you see above.
So, my outfit for the Tweed Ride is ready to roll. Now, I need to see about this “Grand Marshall” sash that Calvert & the Groody Bros. are talkin’ ’bout.
I have been working on some sewing projects lately with jersey knit fabric, which for some reason I had never really used before. I have to say that I am now a very big fan of jersey knits. Stretchy enough that you don’t need zippers, supple enough to drape beautifully but it doesn’t tend to slip or bunch excessively. This is a fabric that works perfectly for many styles of pullover tops and dresses. Plus there are so many gorgeous prints and colors and it’s usually pretty budget friendly. Most of the jersey prints I’ve seen online clock in at around $5 a yard. Most dresses take around 2 yards, so you can make something cute for around a tenner. Hard to beat that!
So, here are my recent stretchy creations:
The fabric is a peculiar blend of colors, but once I turned it into a dress, I kind of fell in love with it. This dress had originally been just to test out the sewing pattern, but this weird fabric actually really suited the design and I expect to get a lot of wear out of this dress. I have a ribbon belt that is the same terra-cotta color if I want to change the look a bit.
The pattern is from this Vogue “wardrobe” pattern, V8679, I had bought it originally for the suit jacket pattern which is really sharp, but so far I have made the dress twice and nothing else. But I think I will use the jacket and trouser pattern together to make a proper ladies’ suit pretty soon.
This is the other dress I made with that pattern. It is amazing the difference a fabric choice makes! The dress on the pattern envelope looks so classic and proper and preppy, whereas mine is raucous and silly, with this crazy graffiti print. It has Vikings and spork-wielding robot monkeys and stripey-tongued alien monsters…how could I go wrong?
It also looks surprisingly good with my cycling helmet!
I wore the dress and the zig-zag-stripey tights to work last Friday, and on the way home realized that my helmet made the whole affair into a surprisingly co-ordinated ensemble.
The last of my trio of Jersey successes is a dress that I think has a sort of mid-1970s feeling, though that may be on account of the fabric which is another odd mustardy print. I’d bought this fabric off the internet and it can be kind of hard to judge colors via a monitor. I’d been expecting something more brownish from the first print, and something much more yellow with this one, whereas they’re both in the “Grey Poupon With Flowers” family. Which is acceptable, but not quite what I’d originally envisioned.
Anyway:
This was another “test dress” which turned out well enough that it will be in regular rotation in my working wardrobe.
It’s basically View A, but with the skirt length from Views CD&E. I like a knee-length skirt, which is what you get if you use the cutting lines for CDE. I discovered that the neck-band as drafted, is about 2″ too short. Instead of cutting a new one, though, I just gathered the center front of the neckline a bit. So the dress has a little bit higher neckline than it shows on the pattern envelope. Next time I will just cut the neckband a little bit longer, but it is okay this way, too.
The next time I use this pattern, though, I think I am going to use the cross-over bodice instead. I bought it to use the crossover bodice as a shirt pattern, which I probably will do eventually, but I like it as a dress a lot, too. The fitted midriff with a flared skirt and slightly gathered bustline really suits my figure. I think I may make it up in a piece of leopard-print Jersey fabric I have on hand. The leopard print had been going to be a couple of pullover tops, but I think I found some fabric that will work better for that project.
I don’t remember now if I had mentioned it, but at the end of last summer, Griswald developed an “overgrooming” habit which left all four of his legs and his stomach all patchy, as he’d literally licked all of the fur off.
I took him to the vet, and after $250 worth of science, we learned that he didn’t have fleas, mites, fungus, or the mange, but was probably just a little bit defective in the brainmeats department and was compulsively grooming himself to a point of nakedness.
I was offered two options. Medicate him, or “wait-and-see.” I chose “wait-and-see,” because pilling this energetic, neurotic, and very pointy cat is toward the bottom of my “things I like to do when I have nothing else better going on” list. I have a scar from that time he had the bladder infection and I had to pill him twice a day for a week-and-a-half.
The scruffy picture you see above was taken on 11-7-10. I took a new picture last night, and while it is grainy, because I wasn’t using a flash and was trying to not get Zombie Laser Pew-Pew-Pew-Kitty eyes, you can tell quite clearly that he has an entire coat of fur once again.
Waiting and seeing ultimately proved much less traumatic to all of us, and Griz is as close to “back to normal” as he’s ever going to be. At least he’s entirely furred up once again.
Minnie is doing pretty well. She’s actually snuggly and friendly pretty frequently, though every day she has at least one, but usually two periods of going bug-eyed-crazy and rampaging around the house knocking things over and chewing on inappropriate items.
The other night, I was brushing my teeth and Minnie was sitting on the toilet seat, gnawing vigorously at the toilet handle. She managed, during the course of her mastication, to actually flush the toilet, whereupon she was startled and summarily raced from the room with her tail inflated to three times its normal size. So I posted about it on Facebook and was rewarded with a link to the following video:
Here’s Ruby, doing one of her favorite things – going for a run alongside my bike. We go most evenings, especially since the time change, when there’s plenty of daylight. She gallops along like this for quite a while, though I managed to catch on video her seamless transition from gallop to trot.
I’m sure there are some show-dogs who’d be proud to have such a good gait.
Or a tail this floofy. This picture is from last May, but right now she’s at about the same level of furriness. She gets super fuzzy during the winter, then sheds it all off in wads come mid-June.
She gets a big, fluffy mane, her ears are so covered in fuzz you can’t really even see their outline, fur sticks out between her toes, her elbow-tufts are impenetrable, and her belly is so well insulated that she loses her ticklishness.
Elbow-tufts.
So, that’s the State of the Beastlies address. They’re all doing pretty darn well at the moment.
So, on my ride to work today a driver pulled a nasty trick which seems to be a particular Kansas City specialty.
This guy took a wrong turn…pulled in to the Community College campus off 31st Street when he probably meant to take a right on to Broadway. So, instead of cutting through campus to 33rd and coming out on to Broadway from there, he decided he’d just throw the Taurus into reverse and backtrack half a block.
I don’t know what you think, but I personally think that driving the wrong way up a street in reverse is not only dangerous, but is also completely fucking obnoxious and an indicator of bug-eyed craziness.
Fortunately for my own safety and wholeness of being, I noticed that this guy was fixin’ to do some stupid before he’d really committed to reversing his way back out on to 31st Street and so I took evasive action. I also flipped him the bird as he went whizzing backwards past me.
My analogy, though is this. Taking a wrong turn, then reversing halfway up a block in order to have another go at it is pretty much like me walking into the Men’s toilets by mistake, saying, “Oh, my bad,” then, instead of just leaving and going into the correct restroom, just deciding I might as well drop trou and piss down the floor drain.
It’s antisocial, obnoxious, stupid, and could get your ass kicked for you.
My favorite of the three groups was Odoru 11, with “Shiawase Kyouryuu Ondo”…The Happy Dinosaurs March.
About two years ago, I went fabric shopping with a friend – I was making some cushion covers for her, and we went to the ever-fabulous Urban Arts & Crafts to look for fabric. They stock a range of gorgeous and colorful craft, apparel, and upholstery fabric, including a nice selection of Amy Butler prints. In fact, it was a pair of Butler prints we ended up using for her upholstery project.
But while we were there, I made a purchase of my own:
I saw it and immediately thought of the Odoru 11 costumes, and thought I might make something for myself that was somewhat inspired by the 1960s go-go-girl style dresses the Odoru 11 group wore. But not quite as extreme or as revealing, since I am a grown-up-lady and have a proper job and all. (Also a horror of appearing to be “mutton dressed as lamb!”)
So, this is what I ended up with:
The pattern is from 1966 – it was one that my grandma had made up for my mom when Mom was in high-school.
(Mom had the long-sleeved version with the box-pleated skirt, in a cream-and-brown plaid polyester twill).
I’ve made this dress before in red-and-white polished cotton with a machine-crochet lace waistband.
This red dress was an experiment and I learned that this pattern is about 2.5″ too broad across the chest, so before I cut the pink floral, I adjusted the front of the dress accordingly and the new dress fits just like it was made for me…go figure, right? To make the red dress work, I introduced a row of ruching to the center of the neckline and then hand-stitched a lace “collar” on either side of the ruching so as to make the whole affair look intentional.
So, now I have a very cheerful, bold, 1960s-style dress, the season for which will soon be upon us, and I will wear it with a smile.
Well, well, it took a few days to “come down” from our trip to Austin, TX to the NAHBS of 2011. Lots to see and think over…and a crap-ton of pictures to upload, edit, and pick through.
I’m going to start out right off the bat with my favorite bike of the show. The wife of the owner of Independent Fabrications is the lucky, lucky owner of the Caffeine Racer, a lovely little purple-black-and-Ti mixte with a matching travel coffee cup! Of all the bikes I saw at the show, this is the one I can remember remarking aloud, “I’d totally ride this bike!”
Here’s my crap pic of this sweet bike, but if you want to see it done justice, you should click here. I just can’t get over how beautifully proportioned this bike is. It looks like it’s a complete flying rip on the street, and I hope the lady who owns it is out there having fun on it daily!
There were plenty of really sweet girl-bikes at the show. I think these were the ones that caught my eyes the oftenest. Back when I was road-bike shopping, I found a real dearth of interesting, desirable WSD bikes. The Burley I bought is proportioned almost exactly opposite of what I needed, though it was supposedly a women’s bike. As a woman who rides pretty much all the time, I find myself more and more enthusiastic about girly bikes done right.
As to be expected, Bilenky Cycleworks knocked it out of the park with Shelly Horton’s art-deco influenced mixte. Their intricately carved lugs won them “Best Lugs” award of the show, and rightfully so. The unexpected combination of maroon and pistachio green really brought out all of that exquisite detail.
Sycip put out a really pretty ladies’ around-towner as well. And in the minty green I like so much…this is along the lines of the color my car will be, when I get it painted.
Judging by the curves and the pinky plum-blossom embellishments, I think this off-roader was aimed at the feminine market, as well. I’d ride it!
This step-through from Vulture Cycles featured a plum-blossom cutout skirt/chainguard.
I also really dug the handlebars, which have a sort of Mary-Bar profile but are bent to mimic the other curves of the frame itself for an integrated look.
My favorite flavor from Vanilla this year was a girl’s bike too.
A little girl’s bike. This cute little mixte is Sacha White’s next planned production model. Both of his daughters have bikes like this now!
So! Cute!
Continuing with the theme of ridiculously over-the-top-girly bikes, Retrotec brought out a bike that the original 1950s Barbie wouldn’t look out of place riding!
Bicycle Fabrications out of San Francisco built a cool cruiser bike with a beautifully integrated rack.
I think this guy (and his painter) have a lot of fun.
Another show-stopper from Bicycle Fabrications. The seatpost/tube is a single carbon-fibre tube.
Easily my favorite straight Ti bike at the show, this Blacksheep 29er had matching, pointy racks and the coolest handlebars which reflected the curves in the frame and racks. This is such a elegant and shapely machine!
Speaking of shapely, this Cherubim roadster is a swoopy marvel. Twin toptubes are bent to form the seatstays, as well. Plenty of bling to go around, too.
Speaking of “bling” this chromed Speedhound catches the eye. The most ingenious thing about Speedhound is their dropout design. They’re built so you can run standard derailleur gears, singlespeed/fixed, an internally-geared hub, or even a belt drive! One frame can support pretty much any drivetrain configuration. Brilliant!
Rich Phillips plum-purple 29er caught my eye. It’s got the twin toptubes like a mixte, but it’s shaped more like a beach-cruiser Klunker. Good, good, good-looking bike.
For a bit of levity, here’s the windup bottle-cage monkey from King Cages demonstrating their wares. You should definitely go to their website and watch one being bent into shape.
This wicked high-bike wasn’t actually an entrant into the show…a spectator had ridden it to the venue and had to park it outside the bike corral as they couldn’t get it in through the door. For reference, Joel’s about 6’5″ so this is a damn tall high-bike. The upper frame was hand-fabricated by some ambitious tallbike tinkerer.
There was a truly astounding, overwhelming quantity of cool-ass stuff to be seen at the show. Even though I took over 500 pictures, I’m sure I missed something good, but if you have further curiosity and fortitude, feel free to check out my Flickr account, or go on Flickr and just search out NAHBS 2011. It was one hell of a show!
Massive big fun at ChrisGo’s Urban Cyclocross race. My only goal had been to get completely filthy. I pretty much completely ate it in the practice lap, and then collected splashback for the next four laps, so by the time it was all over, I made crunching noises when I moved. Fortunately, those jeans I was wearing, I’d found in a ditch the day before. (Don’t worry, I washed them in hot water. Twice.) Soon, I am going to do an entry about all of the clothes I have found on the street or in the trash. I can make up whole outfits made almost entirely out of found clothing (except of course for underpants, socks, and shoes – I have some standards, even if they are low ones!)
The Urban ‘Cross was just one of four races in the Street Cred series. I missed the first one, skipped the third, and will be out of town for the fourth, so obvs. I don’t have much Cred, but it was huge fun anyway.
I hear tell of another flat-track race coming up. The last one was carnage and mayhem and general good times. Last time I was riding the old-lady 5-speed, which is broken nowadays. And this year’s flat-track is restricted to fixies and/or singlespeeds. That’s fine by me, ’cause my SS is way more fleet and zippy than any of my geared bikes.
On a cleaner, sunnier occasion.
I need to touch up my silver glitter pretty soon. The picture above is from shortly after I did this paint job…it’s awfully shabby now, especially after a few wet/muddy days. The silver glitter is just acrylic craft paint and is therefore a rather ephemeral pleasure.
Well, I reckon I might have a few new guests in here thanks to the fabulous Thieving Thursdays from Was That Awkward, so I thought I’d do y’all a favor and provide you with a list of links to some of my favorite awkward moments I’ve shared on the blog over the years.
Also ran, but not listed – I listen to terrible music on purpose. I love parody music, novelty music, inappropriate cover songs, and Japanese pop music. I’m a big klutz and will invariably fall over when it is least convenient to do so. Sometimes I give myself really questionable haircuts. Or choose outfits unwisely.
Okay, I think that’s enough self-humiliation for tonight! Hope everybody enjoyed.
The one that came to mind immediately was from a pair of pants I no longer own – the brand name was “Dream Big,” and a little piece of embroidered ribbon proclaimed such on one of the back pockets. Then, as now, I rather doubted the wisdom of encouraging my butt to “dream big.”
Because of my most recent self-inflicted tonsorial desecrations, I’m now obligated to apply a significant glob of pomade to my hair each day to make it look like this hedgehoggy trainwreck on my head is intentional. The goo I’m currently using is called “Playful,” from Göt2B. I bought it because it smelled better than the (cheaper) Garnier Fructis pomade. I love the way Garnier stuff works, but it smells like concentrated Jolly Rancher and therefore clashes with ANY perfume or scent I might actually be inclined to use.
Speaking of Göt2B, they make this “spiking Glue” which looks almost exactly like semen. It has exactly the same texture, only much unlike semen, it has a delightful citrus scent and is recommended for forming elaborate neo-punk-rock hairstyles.
Anyway, the “Playful” was bought because I couldn’t countenance purchasing a product called “Imagine,” (the other pomade that smelled pretty good) because Beatles-induced rage and profanity are not the way I like to start my days.
But on the topic of imagination, Scünci, the brand which brought us the once-ubiquitous and now-reviled Scrunchie hair tie, has the tagline “Dream, Imagine, Create” on their packages of hairdo accessories, which I think is a bit above the call of necessity. Considering you aren’t doing much beyond pinning back chunks of hair with ornamental bits of metal and plastic. Not a lot of creation happening really, and if you dream about or spend hours imagining ways to stick sparkly plastic gizzies in your hair…that’s a little sad. I’m a HUGE proponent of hair gizzies, don’t get me wrong, but I feel the use thereof should be relatively spontaneous and not require extensive strategic planning.
And another digression! Scünci – I’m a pretty big fan of hairdo accessories, as I mentioned just a couple of lines ago. I’ve had a lot of hair to cope with for a long time and the proliferation of spring-loaded, hinged hair-clippies has been a total bonus for me. Scünci actually makes a line of clips specifically designed for thick hair, and unlike the curse of purportedly wide-width shoes, the Scünci big-hair gizzies actually do accommodate an unusually prodigious quantity of hair. Also, they use unnecessary umlauts, which appeals to my metal side. As a Mötley Crüe and Mötorhead (and Spın̈al Tap) enthusiast, I am unnecessarily charmed by flagrantly misused umlauts.
Maybe that was a subconscious vote in favor of the Göt2B….I just realized they’re umlauty, too. It smells good, makes my hairstyle look intentional, and has umlauts on the packaging.
There is something seriously wrong with my brainmeats, I’m sure.
