I have the coolest friends (Poor Pitiful Pearl)

So, by now, you know I love love love patchwork, assemblage, vintage, quilted artwork of nearly all kinds. I love it in my house, I love it on my body.... I love to make it, buy it, sell it.

So there's no question why I love Poor Pitiful Pearl. Shauna at PPP used to live here in LA and was a friend of a friend... I fell in love with her work and immediately began buying her skirts and tops for myself and Miss M. We love it.

I love that PPP is all about recycling, I love the style and flair that she has, and I think Shauna is a fabo' designer. (I've been meaning to write about her for the longest time)

Here are some of her images, and some of my own PPP possessions (I'm currently waiting for my 2nd PPP skirt - a short one)...

I have to admit, though, that I have had the hardest time figuring out ideas of ways to use our own scraps (which I instruct our seamstresses to NOT throw out the scraps so we can use them in our bags, etc) in wearable ways that don't emulate or draw away from PPP's fabulous style and language...

...but my ideas are coming to fruition and I hope to start taking some of my new sketches to reality in the next few months for some one of a kind scrap skirts of our own. They will not look like PPP's skirts, though - so you'll have to buy these from her.

Couture and scrapbooking... my theories

So I haven't been sewing this week, but I have been trying to "catch up" a little with my scrapbooks. I am two years behind in all of our family albums - as well as the kiddos' albums, so technically, I believe that makes me 6 years behind.
But not to worry - I am the speed demon of scrapping and I have very low standards with how these albums will look... I like to think of it this way...
a few years ago I read that one of the big name guys (I think it was Karl Lagerfeld) in design couture said that he never wasted his creative juices on dressing himself and wore only black as a result.
Well, in that universe, I am the Couture designer of scrapbooking, then, I guess...
I waste NONE of my skills making works of art that will sit in books on shelves - though I have to admit, I even recently bought a scrapbooking book because the designer (really, ARTIST Ashley Calder) who wrote it was so skilled and inspirational to read about that I have it around for eye candy... (It's called SCRAPTASTIC - I know, the name belies its artistic value, but the work in it is lovely, really art and poetry together)
here are some images from her book...











So I am punching it out this week, trying to catalog in three different places -
the past two years, which I am still not quite sure I have survived.

In the meantime, though - my head is germinating and LOVING some new ideas I have for skirts... ooooooooh... more on that later.