Tag: friends

THANK YOU!

Summer’s design won the last challenge. Thank you to all the judges and especially to my fellow designers, not only for what I thought were great designs but for not sabotaging my design when it was in the top-secret, secured location during Hurricane Ike. We all sewed under bizarre circumstances that delayed the Runway, but the sun is shining now, and we’re ready to face a new design challenge.

On a related note, our guest judge, Charles, was driven from his home by hurricane damage. I hope you’re able to get back home as quickly as possible, and I’m glad you’re okay even though your property sustained damage.

LJ Runway Monday Challenge, Week 9

On Bravo’s previous Project Runway, former contestants were brought back to team up with the remaining designers. Each team had to create a look using one of their astrological signs.

Heidi Gunn asked the Runway Monday designers to use the astrological signs of their models. Born on August 5, Summer is a Leo. According to Astrology Online, Leos are ambitious, courageous, dominant, strong willed, positive, independent, and self-confident. They are the LIONS of the zodiac, and there is no such word as doubt in their vocabularies. They are born leaders, whether in support of, or in revolt against, the status quo.

Did I design correctly for my lion?

Materials: End of summer/into fall sunny orange satin, copper glitter, and coppery-brown trim
Inspiration: As if the Lion wasn’t enough inspiration, Summer has always reminded me of the original kitten with a whip, Ann-Margret. For this design, I decided to let couture meet Vegas.

Ruled by the sun, fiery Leo strides into any room with confidence and is unafraid to command attention.

This season, celebrities have been finding new ways to update jumpsuits, and Summer is no exception. Her orange satin jumpsuit is trimmed to mimic a lion. Although she has her own beautiful mane, I added a touch of lion mane around her throat and in her hair. A closer look:

Leos are known for loving drama and are willing to create a stir.

Your heart may break if a Leo puts you behind her, but at least the view will be good.

Leos could have been the reason the phrase “bold and beautiful” was created, because they are–from head to toe.

Kitten? Lion? Lion tamer? Leo is whoever she wants to be.

You can see Timothy’s design for Nikki here, and Mark G. Harris’s design for Figaro here. Tomorrow, you can read what the judges have to say about the designs in Heidi Gunn’s comments. Feel free to share your own thoughts about the designs in comments to any of those posts.

And if you’re interested in my previous designs:

Week 8: A Foreign Affair
Week 7: Drive It or Wear It
Week 6: It’s a Drag! I won!
Week 5: Lipstick Jungle
Week 4: Olympic Gold
Week 3: New Orleans Inspiration
Week 2: Going Green I won!
Week 1: Grocery Store

And more waiting…

I’m going to get back to sewing now. Everything we can do is done. Lynne assures me that all is ready out at Green Acres. (Hard not to remember how it was our refuge during Hurricane Rita–so much has changed since then.) Denece assures me that all is well out at the Democrats’ Den. (I forgot to tell her a crazy dream I had about being at her house–I’ll save that for our next conversation.) All is well at RubinSmo Manor with The Brides and Sugar.

Here at The Compound, the sun just began to shine again after the sky had been overcast for a couple of hours. We’ve had some breezes, but the wind hasn’t reached us yet. Windows are taped here and at the TimLair. We’re filling up our tubs now. Batteries are in the radios and flashlights.

I promise, I’ll update as I can. For now, you should know that the first hideous sign of Hurricane Ike has arrived. He’s sent out his flying sock monkeys, and they are devouring me from the feet up. SCARY!

So now we wait

We have plenty of water. We’ll fill our bathtubs with water tomorrow in case we lose power so we can flush our toilets. We have food and a way to cook it in case we lose power, and dog food. We have batteries for our radios. We won’t have a battery-powered lantern or a hurricane lamp, because there are no lanterns to be found and there is no oil to be found for Tim’s lamp. Our cars are fully gassed, but we won’t be evacuating. We just hope the wind and the flooding don’t come or aren’t too bad.

Mark G. Harris is here, so I guess Hurricane Ike is doing all this in his honor. Welcome back to Houston, Mark! Mark, Tim, and I will be sewing our Runway Monday designs by candlelight if we have to. No doubt Tom will read aloud to us and all the dogs from something like Dickens or Thackeray. Just like the first hurricane!

Meanwhile, all day long, two things have dominated my thoughts. The first is that I don’t have to worry about my mother’s situation should things get bad. She was always our first concern, and I send out all good thoughts for the elderly and those caring for the elderly during storm preparations.

The second… Well, no matter what’s going on here with Ike, I’ll never forget the day my beautiful great-nephew Steven was born in 2001 while the country watched events unfold in D.C., NYC, and Pennsylvania. We still continue to heal.

Hump Day Happy

I woke up earlier to a post about ME and cake, plus The Compound’s Mystery Guest Who Isn’t Really a Mystery is mere hours from arrival, so I have much to howl about. You, too, should heed the call of the wild and provide me with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25, and Mr. Wolf With Red Mouth will run through these pages (stained with Coca Cola courtesy of Guinness the Dog) and reveal what the book says.

 

My Day

Today I have the bastard of all headaches. This is punishment for announcing to the world last Friday that I haven’t had a headache in forever. I’m full of drugs, which means my typing is for shit. I’m having to correct like every fifth word or so.

I gave the dogs marrow bones, however, because when I’m suffering, I like to make them happy. And also hear the constant gnaw-gnaw-gnawing of teeth against bone. That’s some great headache relief!

Tim came over earlier to let me know he’d sent me a couple of youtube links. I watched them and laughed. Unlike the gnaw-gnaw-gnawing of bones, laughter really does provide me moments of headache relief.

Thanks, Tim.

I was gonna ask my fab readers what you might want me to post today. Photos of family members? Photos of last week at Hermann Park with Lindsey? Dog photos? Diatribe about politics? Heartwarming anecdote about meerkats? MORE BARBIE DOLLS?

Eh, here’s what you get. Enjoy.

On this day in 1828:

Novelist, philosopher, and religious mystic Count Leo Tolstoy is born in the province of Tula. In 1908 his admirers organize a Tolstoy fund and a grand jubilee to celebrate his 80th birthday; he responds angrily: “When there is nothing left to think about but death, they want to bother me with that!” The committee subsides, but the public is already aroused. Presents are received, messages of congratulation arrive from Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, George Meredith, and H.G. Wells; crowds gather outside his house, along with a brass band and photographers.

I LOVE cranky old writers! I’m naming today’s headache Tolstoy in his honor.

Quoted material from A Book of Days for the Literary Year.

Long Distance Winner

Although a LJ glitch is keeping me from seeing the post, you can click this link to see the final comments of the judges on the three designs and the announcement of who won Challenge 8 of LJ Runway Monday.

Congratulations, Mark G. Harris, for your win with an innovative design for Figaro!

Congratulations also to Timothy J. Lambert for your stunning design for Nikki!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a model to console. Not only did my design cost Summer a win, but my fabric choice permanently discolored her. She’s not having a good day.

Maybe if I give her the judges’ home addresses…