heads up!

Just a quick few announcements--
first of all, I created a gmail for this blog: threadheadblog@gmail.com. Shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions or want to contact me! This blog was created on a different account, it's a little confusing I know. I'm working on it. In the meantime, if you want me to read it use the blog's gmail. :)

also, sadly, I'll be out of town for a few weeks which means--alas!--no posts. I'm visiting my grandpa, it's his birthday soon (Birthday wishes in the house!!) and while I love him dearly he has internet slower than a drugged-out dinosaur. So in short I'm taking a minor technology break with exceptions for e-mail :P. Wish me luck. I'll post if I survive.
 I guess this concludes the long and dragged-out (re)design your summer month/week/thing. I hope you guys had as much fun reading as I had making and writing! It was great to get creative and thinking of new, interesting projects on a regular basis (I should try this more often! What do you guys think?).
have a great rest of the summer, everyone!

<3 Maggie

(re)design your summer: go with the flo

 .....and by flo, I mean Flo, as in a dreamy aunt named Florence who lives alone with her paintings in a chic flat in Italy and sends fancy chocolates to her nieces and nephews for Christmas, whom I imagine owned this shirt.

I'm wearing shorts under this guys, promise

And then I saw my neighbor looking out his window watching my dad take photos of me in the kitchen. So--naturally--I blushed tomato red and ran into the living room. Hence the awkward smile.

I kid, you guys. It belonged to my mom. And then she gave it to me (actually, I snatched it from the Goodwill bag). Maybe this is a sign that we should move to Italy and eat fancy chocolates?
I'm going off on a tangent here. This happens often when I wear soft and/or silky fabrics. I feel so romantic and dreamy. And then people look at me funny when I try to recite sweet love poems in my own ear (I bet you just tried that, didn't you?).

So. To business. This shirt wasn't bad to begin with, very good quality and nice fabrics. In fact all it needed was some rolling-up-the-sleeves action, my t-shirt maxi skirt and voila, new blouse!

I could have done so many things with this shirt. I stashed it in my refashion drawer for months, pondering what to do with it. Skirt? Dress? Tighter shirt? In the end, due to my doubtful sewing skills and complete lack of experience with silky fabrics I just embraced the shirt and went with the flow.
     This Zen attitude may or may not have been because I spent the morning surfing and have truly spectacular wetsuit tan lines to show for it (that and a Zen attitude). I bet you wish you could have seen me running at an enormous wave about to break on my head, clutching my surfboard bravely and screaming "CHAAAAAAAAARGE!" You'll just have to come surf with me then, won't you?
;)

<3 Maggie

ravish me rainbow

hey guys!

oh boy are you in for a treat. Do you remember my friend Jane's past apperances on ze blog? Well guess what? She baked you more rainbow cupcakes and wants to share them with you!
Something magical happened. Between the space of this post and now, our swirly rainbow cupcakes grew up and organized the awesomesauce swirls into rainbow-order lines. Who knew those stoned teenage cupcakes would grow up to be responsible, SUV-driving suburban soccer mom types?

Cupcakes. Stoned teenagers. Rainbows. Was that all I wanted to say? Yes? Well then. PICTURE TIME!

a little bit of background: Jane, like AM, is an aspiring model. So these are her practice poses for when she gets her big break, catalog modeling for J.Crew.

Pose #1: You Want Some'a This, Homegirl?

Pose #2: These Cupcakes Had A Special Ingredient

Pose #3: OM NOM NOM

Pose #4: Ravish me Rainbow*

<3 Maggie

*not as creepy as it sounds, I swear. It's a lipstick color AM was making fun of at the drugstore. And it was Ravish me Red, but I didn't want to exclude all the other colors. It would hurt their feelings.

these boots were made for blogging

hiya everyone! what's up?
Apologies for being AWOL this last week. I'm so bad about posting regularly....and add to that our internet was on the fritz and too slow to make loading pictures worth it, and you get a very lazy Maggie who neglects her blog and can't get her daily fill of Kendi Everyday.

So anyway. I'm here to bore everybody by talking about shoes. I have long scoffed at the wayward fellows among us who love shoes. I myself had an aversion to shoes and would wear nothing but sneakers and occasionally just dirty socks. Flats if my mother could force me into them (my less stylish younger self frequently committed the *cue horror movie music* sandals with socks crime but she was 7 so I'll forgive her). But recently I've ignored my balance problems and gone for the wedge heel. And I love it. And now wedge heels have given me new confidence and faith in shoes and I find myself coveting several different types.
Sigh, if only we didn't have school uniforms....
There are three types of shoes I am coveting right now (because I know you all care). CB you are right now in a position to score some very fine shoes so if you are reading this....*hint, hint*. :P

Oxfords:

(all via Forever 21)

Unfortunately I don't think we're allowed to wear these shoes to school, however well they may go with our uniforms. Therefore they are for weekends and breaks only :(. Other things we're not allowed to wear although they go with our uniforms: bright colors, ivory socks, unicorns and smiles. Only one of those things is a lie. You decide which one (hint: it's not the socks)


floral espadrilles:

via Forever 21

You already have floral wedges Maggie! cries my more responsible side. Au contraire--I have wedges with a fabric flower on the toe. I do not have floral-print fabric wedges. And mine aren't espadrilles. There's a difference. 


tall boots:

all via target
Sadly I no longer own a good pair of tall boots having outgrown my metallic gold Fuggs (fake uggs). They were fabulous let me tell you. But I'll settle for vegan-leather boots, those are quite nice too. Knee-high or midcalf, I am loving me a comfy pair of tall boots!


What is the one (or more) type of shoe that you're coveting right now? 

c&c giveaway

hey guys!
I just entered an awesome giveaway by C&C--she's an extremely talented sewist with an amazing sense of style. I highly recommend checking out this blog but only if you have lots of free time--its addictive. Here are just a few of my favorite things she's worn and sewn!

I want to win this skirt. Isn't it gorgeous?

What are you waiting for? Git on over there already!
wish me luck!
<3 Maggie

(re)design your summer: t-shirt maxi skirt

Allow me to tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess with the unfortunate name of Maxi Skirt. A young blogger known as Maggie had a serious girl crush on Maxi Skirt but Maxi Skirt wouldn't give her the time of day, unless she was way too expensive or dry-clean only. Besides, Maxi Skirt had already fallen for the homely T-Shirt but Queen Anthropologie wouldn't allow Maxi Skirt to marry T-Shirt because it would mean that Maggie could actually buy their children (whoa, that sounds creepy). Anyway, Maxi Skirt and T-Shirt decided to elope and this tutorial is the result.
Twisted fairytale aside, I've seen many tutorials for maxi skirts and many covetable overpriced maxi skirts but no tutorials for maxi skirts made out of t-shirts. Link to any in the comments section, prove me wrong, we can have a linky party! For now though, this is the Maggie-patented way on how to make your own maxi skirt!
I did my own take on this tutorial (which is probably better but uses by-the-yard jersey fabric instead of t-shirts).
So let's get started! The socially acceptable pajama skirt is a stitches away!

stuff you'll need:

-2 t-shirts of the same color, xl or larger depending on your size and how roomy/draped you want your maxi skirt to be (the roomier the drapier the better). If you are taller than 5'3 you will probably need 3 t-shirts otherwise you might wind up with one of those weird mid-calf-length skirts. 
-good scissors
-sewing machine/thread
-lots of glass-headed pins
-1 1/2" waistband elastic, color depends on the color of your t-shirts
-ironing board/irons/steady hands or person you can trust not to kill themselves with a hot iron, if you want to get all fancy and iron down the seams properly (I'm too lazy for that unless I'm in a sewing class)

Oh, that reminds me: MY SEWING MACHINE SEWS FORWARD AGAIN!!!!!!! I have no idea how that happened but shh, let's not jinx it. And you will need a sewing machine for this project or you'll be sewing until 2012.


Whee! Let's begin.
a note about knits: Many people say knit fabrics like t-shirt fabric is soooo hard to sew, soo hard to work with blah blah blah. Au contraire. They go through the machine like a dream and this is coming from me, girl wonder who has no experience but a series of private lessons on how to make the feathered 20s dress (and they were great lessons mind you but rather specialized to that one dress). I told the fabric lady at Joann's about this as I stood there hopefully clutching a bolt of beautiful silky fabric. She said that jersey knit (aka t-shirts) is super easy to sew-it's dancewear and swimwear knits--as well as silks and satins--that beginning sewers have to watch out for. There went my silky dreams.
Prepwork: Seam rip out the pockets if there are any on your t-shirts. Do not get sloppy as it will show.

1. Cut straight across the t-shirt, through both layers, right under the armholes.
2. Pin t-shirts together so the finished hem of one (the bottom of the t-shirt) is your bottom hem. This will save you a lot of hemming time if you are a beginner sewer such as I.
3. Zig-zag stitch the areas where you pinned (zig-zag stitch is the only stitch I'm sure I can do). This is now the wrong side of your garment so if you have a cool design or logo you wanted to show off make sure that it's on the other side.

After sewing and turned right side out. Yes those t-shirts are two different shades of gray. No I do not care. I'm calling it shabby-chic. Take that Anthropologie!

 4. Use the extremely scientific method of winding the elastic around yourself and marking with dressmaker's chalk (or a pencil) where the ends meet and overlap a little, cut the elastic to size.

5. This is where it gets a little tricky but fear not, if I can do it sew can you. (see what I did there ;)?) Pin the t-shirt to the elastic. Since your shirts are most likely larger than your waist (unless you'd like to hobble around all day feeling like your legs are in a cocoon) you will have to dart/pleat/smoosh (there's a sewing word for this I know there is) the extra fabric. That means folding little pleats of excess and pinning it every inch or so along the elastic depending on how much bigger your shirts are. Make your pleats evenly spaced and sized. You don't want to make them jealous of each other.

Your skirt should be wrong side out again if you flipped it right-side-out to admire it. You do not have to go to the top of the elastic--it depends on how much fabric you can spare before you're showing calf.

6. Zig-zag stitch them down. This was the hardest part of the process as you have to be careful to take out the pins before you sew over them (not a good idea) but also not lose your carefully bunched pleats.

 7. Flip right side out, wear, and baby you are done!

8. Press the seams if you are fancy/decent at sewing like that. Don't ask me how, I don't know! Ask my sewing teacher or try this tutorial. 

9. Wear your socially acceptable pajama skirt. Strut your fancy little self around town. If you want to brag about wearing a totally free outfit, slip on the tattered t-shirt redesign on top!

a very special day!

First off, allow me to apologize for the lack of posts. We were getting our house fumigated this week and had to go on forced vacation. My awesome friend AM loaned us her house to stay in for a couple days and I generously refrained myself from stealing her adorable hamster. I did steal her book, but then I put it back.
My cat stayed at a cat hotel and is recovering in my room right now. They clipped her claws (NOT declawing. WAY different!) so if she got into a fight with other cats they couldn't claw each other to bits and she's adjusting to the reduced amount of damage she can do to our furniture. They also gave her a bath for the first time in about 8 years (as soon as she was old enough she made it quite clear that she can bathe herself, thank you very much). I don't know how they did it. They must be magical.
Long story short, I'm sending out a call for e-hugs. My cat needs all the hugs she can get.

Arriving at the main point of this long-winded post, today is a very important day. It's my mom's birthday!

Happy birthday, Mom! Thanks so much for making me who I am today, and proud of it. I always love our adventures through the wilds of our confusing city, numerous shopping expeditions, and plentiful laughter. I love you.
<3 Maggie

happy 4th of july!

happy 4th of july everyone! if you live in the US, wave your flags with pride! If you live elsewhere, wave the US flag with pride. If you don't have a US flag, simply acknowledge that yes, today is July 4th, the fourth of July, the day before July 5th, what of it?, and get on with your day.
Now, if you live in the US chances are you're going to a July 4th bash and if you're not, you should be. Which is why I created this whole Independence Day Party Guide for you. You're welcome.

Outfit:

Show your pride!

Food:

 
More food, to throw at people not wearing red, white and blue:

Courtesy of here

And of course, decorations:

From CountryLiving

As for me, well, I'm going to a bbq. Most likely no american flag mini pies, sadly....I'm not wearing red, white and blue either. Instead I'm going for a white-coral-navy look. Rulebreaker.

And don't forget to watch the fireworks!

found here

happy fourth again!
<3 Maggie

(re)design your summer: bandanna bow bracelet!

Try saying that five times fast.

For my fellow U.S. citizens, this project can also work as a 4th of July project. For the out-of-country readers-make one anyway! They're fun, and not all bandannas are red and navy.

I have a large supply of bandannas from various events--prairie-themed dances, school events where they wanted to keep track of us, camps....I probably have about four or five lonely bandannas wasting away in my scrap bag. And I knew I was never going to wear them unless another square dance rolled around (which I sincerely hope it does not). Soooo.....in seeing all the gorgeous bow bracelets on the market, I decided to make my own! And now I don't have to buy these shoes to be patriotic:

Designed for Betsey Johnson here, not sure where you can buy them though.....

Yeah, I think my bracelet does the trick unless you are extremely patriotic or a hipster. If you are a hipster can I borrow your moody scarves sometime? 
 Anyway, on to the tutorial!

Stuff You'll Need
-two bandannas, different colors
-scissors

That's it! One bandanna makes a LOT of bracelets so that's your Christmas presents covered and it's only July. Aren't I efficient?
1. Make sure the bandanna wraps around your wrist. If it does cut three skinny strips out of one and braid them. If it does not cut out six skinny strips and join each strip together so there are three. Then braid them. And so on. This can also work as a belt.

2. Cut a medium-sized rectangle out of your second bandanna, depending on how large you want the bow to be. Cut another strip of your first bandanna and use it to tie the rectangle to the braid, bunching the rectangle in the middle to create a bow effect. Tie the ends of the braid together and wear! Bandannas are fairly stretchy but if you're concerned about getting your bracelet off again make sure you can untie your knot!

\ 

3. Make a splash! This is not a bracelet to be ignored.

Happy (early) 4th of July everyone!

<3 Maggie

a star is born

Hey everyone! How's summer treating you? It better be treating you well. Abusive relationships are never good. But, you know, if you need to talk it out with someone, I'm right here.
Do you need a vacation from your vacation?
Do you sometimes feel disappointed in yourself for not being able to shoot pillows out of your forearms? Do you wish you were a superhero minus the ridiculous long johns?
Well, I have just the thing for you! Although pillow-shooting superpowers are not guaranteed, these fabulous fingerless gloves will leave you feeling like a superhero! Below, modeling the only pair currently in existence (made by me anyway), is supermodel* AM. They were custom-made for just for her as it was the world-famous model's birthday a few days ago.
I did use a pattern for these, but it has vanished from my list of bookmarks. The invisible blog. Another simple pattern for fingerless gloves can be found here.
Below, behold AM's extreme modeling skills at our glamorous photo shoot!

Pose #1: I'm Not Flipping You Off, I Swear

Pose #2: I Can Shoot Pillows Out Of My Fists

Pose #3: Seeeeee? Magic!

Pose #4: Fourth Glass Of Wine.....Or Was It Fifth?

Pose #6: The Glamorous

Pose #7: WHAT did you say?

Pose #8: She May Look Dead, But She's Just Pretending

Pose #9: The Murderous Glare

Pose #10: DID SOMEBODY SAY CANDYYYYYYYYY?

Pose #11: The Sideways Frenchman

 The expanse of blue behind her is not, as you probably thought, the ocean. It is my room. I know, I am a girl obsessed.
*I can feel AM giving me a murderous glare through the computer. I'm just that psychic. Told you you should be a model!**
**If you didn't understand that, it's ok. Inside joke. Do you feel excluded yet?***
***I'm going to sign off before these stars get out of control.****
****Ok?*****
*****You still there?*******
********Are you still reading this?*******
*******Um, ok then. Bye.********
********That really hurt my feelings.*********
*********Oh, there you are. I feel much better now.**********
**********Thanks for not deserting me.
<3 Maggie