My name is Sarai, I live in Oakland, CA and love to make things.
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Hi everyone. I really couldn’t wait to share this with all of you. For many months, I have been working on designing a small collection of sewing patterns! They aren’t quite ready yet: the patterns are all designed and graded (and will be available in sizes 0-18), but I am still working [...]
Continue reading A new venture...
Isn’t plaid amazing? I just love it. It just has so many layers of connotation - royalty, heritage, the countryside, schoolgirls, vivienne westwood, 1970s punk rock. And… lumberjacks.
How can one textile pattern be so simultaneously prissy and tough?
I found this dress on a $10 rack at the flea market. [...]
One of the first things we did in Paris was to head out on a leisurely stroll from the apartment we rented in Montmartre to the Saint-Ouen market, one of Paris’ legendary and gigantic flea markets. The history of this market is fascinating. It began with the rag-and-bone men who were driven out [...]
While down south with my family, I got not one, but two amazing bags of treasure. First, my mom gave me this incredible collection of vintage buttons she’d acquired. Some are celluloid, many seem to be on these lovely sample cards. I love the idea of using matching buttons in different sizes, [...]
A pretty vintage milk glass necklace, which I wore yesterday. Right now, I’m really into wearing very simple neutral things with pretty vintage jewelry.
Kenn snapped these while I was pulling a sheet off the pet hair roller. My hair is sort of a mess right now from chlorine.
Also, lest you worry for my health [...]
I’ve taken up swimming again lately, for which I wear your typical plain black sporty speedo one piece (though I do have a pink swim cap and goggles). But it’s made me think about summer swimsuits of the splish-splash-playing-in-the-pool variety (as opposed to the swimming-laps-for-exercise variety).
Nowadays, swimsuits are usually kind of flimsy and rarely [...]
I bought this odd 80s sun dress for a few bucks recently. I thought it was really dowdy in that sort of horrible laura ashley way, but at the same time, the bodice is really beautifully cut. It has a very fitted princess cut, elastic shirring in panels at the back, and I [...]
There are two shops in Rockridge that sell the most beautiful vintage dresses. Most of them are fancy occasion sorts of things, so I don’t have many excuses to buy them.
But I am in love with this little blue 60s dress. pretty pretty.
I have a great deal more to write about [...]
The perfect dress, in a shop window in Oakland.
Long ago, someone sent me this pattern for Folkwear #249, 1930s Day Dress. I bought the fabric, cut the pattern, and for one reason or another, it languished in my sewing box for many months after.
Well, I finally finished it, and it’s quite nice! I used a gorgeous blue toile cotton for the [...]