Psycho Beach Party?

Dear Life,

Do you have any available positions in the Beach Bum department? If so, I'd like to apply. Please consider my resume. I believe I could excel in this arena. I promise to go to Bikram yoga every day so that my body will shine like shimmering, gold beacon atop burning sand. My taste in swim wear will amaze you. I can even learn to surf! I look forward to hearing from you regarding this position.

Regards,
Hilary

Photograph by Nina Leen

Screw SATC2! I'd rather do  this with my girlfriends. I'm dying to, in fact. I even have those sandals! Now, if only the weather would cooperate... Still, it can't stop me from dreaming; dreaming a little dream of swimwear more specifically. This summer I am all about the high-waisted bikinis and lucky for me, so are the designers!

I usually feel that Michael Kors designs for old, rich women and that his clothes look incredibly weird on 18 year old runway models... but-- this suit is classic, young and chic! I love it. I can see that it would not look good on everyone, black and white patterns are hard to wear. Surprisingly, it looks great on this ultra pale model. I bet it would equally good on someone with a dark skin tone. I am guessing it would not look so good on those of us who have red/pink skin tones... so you definitely don't want to wear this with a sunburn, else you risk looking like the punchline to a joke. (What's black and white and red all over? YOU!)

 I have been wondering what body types can pull off the high waisted bikini. It's so impossible to tell when I've only seen them on models... I am dying to try one on and find out. I wonder if you have to have a super long torso to look good in them? Anyone have any info about this? At any rate, until I find out that they look bad on me, I am still going to dream. I love this photo from MissFancyPantsPinup! She has some really great vintage inspired swimwear.

Red, white and leopard print?! I love Diane von Furstenberg's America! I must have this for the 4th. I don't know where I will be or what I will be doing but what I do know is that I will be in this bikini. Preferably, I will be eating BBQ, playing baseball and running through sprinklers but who knows what the future brings.

It's Friday, I'm in love!

I love this picture!

Sorry I have been slackin' on my posts lately, but I'm not really sure anyone noticed since- who knows who reads this thing anyway! Have a great 3-day weekend everyone!!

Fashion Inspiration: Audrey Horne

My house mate just bought the Twin Peaks box set and we are re-watching them all. This has re-ignited my infatuation with the show and consequential girl crush on Audrey Horne. Not to mention my actual crush on Agent Cooper. Conveniently, Audrey loves Coop so this all works out nicely for me.

It is my belief that David Lynch intended Audrey and Coop to eventually be together but that CBS ruined it all when they pressured Lynch to reveal secrets that he never intended to reveal in season one. CBS's interference is the obvious reason for the shows later cancellation and the ridiculous plot twists that occur directly before. Curse their black souls. Still, I can't help but love the show. I even love the F-U approach Lynch takes towards the end.

At any rate, Audrey is a stone fox. I love her little sweaters, saddle shoes, devil-may-care attitude and dance segments. Plus her taste in men.

But seriously, I want these shoes. With all the freaking Oxfords around you'd think I could find them but I can't. I did find a runner up with a nice twist, though.

I'm into these cut-outs. I just wish the black and white were reversed. Oh well. Good enough, Jeffrey Campbell. You can buy them here.

Darling, don't you go and cut your hair.

You can't tell me what to do, Pavement! I am cutting my hair and I am doing it today. The problem is:

Did they ever! If only my hair could defy reality and overcome it's incredible flatness. I would kill for a little volume. Alas, I must deal in reality because my hair dresser doesn't like it when i bring in unrealistic and incompatible pictures of what I want. So I have been hunting around and I found a gem of a resource that I felt I should share. Check out this great site! So many pictures! I love it.

I think I am going to go for something like this. I kind of want to try a shorter bob but I am afraid my face will look fat. I also really want super short bangs but I couldn't find a good picture. Maybe next time. Wish me hair luck.

'Ey Bey-Bey!

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Hope everyone did something nice for their mom! My brother, "adopted sister" and I cleaned out our mom's kitchen. Which was bordering on hoarder status. In every drawer she had stashed some amount of used birthday candles and/or wine corks. I also found a basket of old spaghetti jar lids and a whole cupboard of empty salsa containers. Aside from all that half the cooking utensils were broken. Towards the end of the cleaning session we decided to have a contest to see who could guess how many corks had accumulated. The winner got to relax while the others finished the job. I won with my guess of 60 corks... there were 69!

Mom & I

 All this Mom talk reminds me of all the new babies. It seems like everyone just had one or has one on the way. It's got me thinking about baby names because, of course, I have to throw my pick into every lottery I can find. My boyfriend's brother had a little girl recently, and as his wifey neared the finish line my boyfriend and I ran across a baby name book at a flea market. We were like "Oh, let's get this for Patrick and Holly!" but then we ended up keeping it because we became obsessed with picking out the names that we liked. We are sickening, I know. So anyway, I feel kind of embarrassed about this but I discovered that I love picking out baby names! Am I alone here? It is so fun! My pick for Pat and Holly? Well, I wanted them to call her Ivy, because I thought Holly and Ivy sound cute together but they wanted something really Irish, so changed my vote to Moira. Sadly, my suggestions didn't really catch on. They decided to call her Shannon. Oh well, now I can just exhaust my baby naming energy in this post and hopefully some of you are preggers and can put my suggestions to good use.

Girls:
Edie
Ivy
Lux
Ginger
Moira
Hildegarde (Hilde!)
Pyper
Agatha (Aggie!)
Beatrice (endless nick names)
Hazel
Minnie
Mae
Penny
Ida
Faye
Abigail
Maybeline
Nell
Wendy
Uma
June
Meriwether
Rosemary
Oona

Boys:
Oliver
Oscar
Shamus
Elmer
Darren
Ulysses
Gideon
Hunter
Milo
Cooper (Coop!)
Killian
Desmond
Darby

What are some of your picks?

F U AZ!

Happy 5 de Mayo everyone!

Is this a great 5 de Mayo dress or what?

(ModCloth)

Knit Picking

I just loooove knit sweaters. If they weren't so damn expensive (and if my housemates would stop shrinking mine) I would have a closet full! As it is, I only have 2. I  do have plans for expansion and am currently knitting one. Hopefully it fits correctly... This will be the first sweater that I have ever knit and it is quite ambitious. Want to see?

Isn't this a great vintage jumper? If you want to be a copy cat you can buy the pattern along with lots of other great patterns here. There are plenty more to be found here.

I am knitting it in a dusty rose color. It is kind of like the above yarn color but lighter. So far so good. I had to start over a couple of times because I got the tension wrong but I am almost done with the front panel now and it looks great! You may want to note that this pattern is pretty crazy and probably no one would recommend that you make it as a first sweater project.

These are in my knitting queue. I hope they aren't as hard as my current project... My dad has this theory that you should learn the hardest way first because then everything after that feels easy. For example, he taught me to drive in reverse. We went out to this empty field and he made me drive the whole time in reverse. That way, driving forward was easy. It worked pretty well, though I can't say that is what motivated me to start such a difficult sweater. Mainly, I just really want to wear it!

This sweater was worn in the film, The Edge of Love. Horrible movie (I ended up fast forwarding and I did not even make it to the end)-- amazing cardigans! My friend and I are obsessed with making this leaf pattern sweater and after weeks of research we both gave up. We found a couple of patterns that came close but were actually not the same sweater at all. I am, however determined to figure out how to knit this sweater so, I resumed my search again today. To my delight, I found a sweater that seems to have the correct type of leaves! I am very excited because this is what has bee holding us back. Once I get my hands on this *pattern, hopefully we can come up with an accurate pattern for this sweater! I'll keep you all posted on my progress. 

*The pattern shown, is someone else's alteration of the original pattern, but it is a step closer to the kind of alterations I intend to make.