I'm sure it's Fall somewhere...

Well hello old friends! Nice to see you again! How was your summer? Mine was exorbitantly hot. Then again, I do live in Houston and I suppose I should expect it- but I swear to you that every summer I am absolutely amazed at how hot it gets and that there are so many people who deal with it.

There are many, many things I love about Houston. Southern hospitality, southern accents, cheesy grits, guns, rodeo, cowboy boots... But the one thing I absolutely hate is the heat. Now you may think to yourself- why is she writing about heat in late October? Well I'll tell you. Because it's still hot. While many of my lovely friends in New England, on the east coast, or across the pond are bundled up and enjoying snow, I remain in my flipflops. Every once and a while I decide to dress for the season and not the weather, donning my boots and sweater and by 11 am with sweat dripping down my back, I sincerely regret that decision.

To make matters worse, I work in retail where Christmas is already upon us! Our store showcases, live christmas trees, fake snow, tinsel, christmas ornaments and lots of paper mache'd winterey woodland creatures. It makes you feel all warm and cozy inside til you open the front door and get blasted by hot air!

Still, I choose to live in Houston. I love my home. I probably won't leave anytime soon. But that will not stop me from my bi-annual I-hate-Houston's-lack-of-seasons rant.

Thank you for listening.

Love,
Magpie.

Spring Happenings

Holy crap.

Remember that time there was a cute little blog with actual posts on it every week or so?  What was that like?

So this spring has proven extraordinarily busy for both myself and Magpie.  When I say we have been busy, that wouldn't even begin to describe our situations.  I have been in over my head with school and life and everything in between.  School is kicking my arse to say the least.  The good news is there are only three weeks left.  The bad news is there are only three weeks to finish all of my final projects.

Things To Do before May:

1. Sew my evening gown for draping (there is a $2,000 tuition award for the best design and finished product - more on that later)

2. Finish, bind, and beat myself in the head with a fully detailed financial business plan for my hopefully future vintage shop

3. Finish a research paper on the presence of evil in our world

4.  Illustrate a collection complete with mood boards and tech flats (cue panic attack)

5.  Finish knitting my knitted sculptures for my sculpture class and photograph them all (dumb.)

6. Die

This semester has truly tested my ability to handle stress.  But I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and that's a beautiful thing.

Here is my mood board and illustration for my final evening gown.  I painted silk by hand on Monday to use for the dress.  I'm hoping this little (so not little) detail will help me win that $2,000.  That would be such a huge help in paying for school.  So say your little bird prayers for me!

I'll try and get pictures up of my silk as soon as possible.  As of now, it is wrapped in plastic and curing.  I will probably be able to rinse it tomorrow and see how it looks.  Very exciting. 

---

Even though I'm trudging through all of this wonderful stress, Spring is in fact my favorite season.  I'm a color freak so all of the blossoming plants and flowers give me enough creative juice to push through the other less colorful seasons of the year.  I love the weather (rainy and cool), the blooms and blossoms, everything. It's perfect.

So far this spring I've been all about the greens.  Of course, as a redhead, I love taking advantage of the green palette as often as possible, but emerald green has made a huge splash into the fashion world this spring and I love it.  I just bought some AMAZING revlon nail polish that is delightfully kelly green.  It's amazing.

Speaking of green, I was fortunate enough to travel to one of my favorite places in the entire world in March -- Ireland.  I booked a flight to Dublin a couple of months ago, fully anticipating how stressful this semester would be.  I knew I was going to need a HUGE incentive for moving forward.

I have a group of amazing friends in Dublin that I serendipitously ran into a couple of years ago when I was on vacation and we have been besties ever since. I felt oh-so-at-home in the land of green and quite honestly contemplated not coming back.  There is something special about being there.  I don't know if it's the accent, the beer, or the rolling green landscape, but my soul feels at rest there.  I could only hope to be so lucky as to spend more time there. Here are a few pics from my trip!

My plan is to try and intern in Ireland somewhere next summer.  I'm hoping maybe I can make my desire to live abroad come true, even if it's just for a couple of months.

And who knows - Maybe Magpie and I can make a trip across the pond together one day...!!?? 

Alright little birds, it's late and I'm pooped.  Hopefully it won't be another two months before I'm here again ;)

-- Eagle

Oh, P.S. if you guys want to see super boring pictures of my life in fashion school, follow my instagram (I know, how so very hipster of me). I'm @ashnicolebald .

Whitney.

I know everyone and their mom is talking about Whitney Houston, but the loss of her is truly sad.  She was a true superstar, a true artist.  I believe that her voice was and will be untouchable. This performance was something that I saw a couple of years ago and it gave me the chills.  Now knowing what she went through and what may have happened in her final moments, this is even more intense.  One of the saddest things is when someone loses hope.  And for a moment during this performance, I felt that Whitney had hope.  I pray that she is in peace now.  And I pray that her family feels the peace and love that they deserve during this time.

Me Too!

Hello everyone! So Magpie finally broke the ice and threw up a post, and I thought I might as well throw one out there, too.

Firstly, apologies to our HUGE following that we have been semi MIA. ; )

I feel like I have a bit of an excuse seeing as I am taking 18 hours of classes, working 20 hours at the-corporate-coffee-shop-that-shall-not-be-named, working 10 hours at my school's publishing company, interning two days a week, and not to mention doing HOMEWORK. I'm swamped. And that's an understatement.

This semester has kicked my butt.  I'm struggling to stay on top of everything I have to do and IF I catch up  with everything I need to do, I'm still behind.

Every semester there is one class that seems to dangle the carrot of good grades in front of my face while I run mercilessly trying to eat it.  But I'm stuck on that darn treadmill and find myself not only chasing after something that I will never reach, but I have at least one anxiety attack in the process. This semester accounting is that class.  The information in accounting is not that hard.  In fact, I'm 100 % sure that I could sit down with an Accounting for Dummies book and figure out the information I need to know.  But for whatever reason, my class makes me feel like a complete idiot.  I feel like it is assumed that I'm just another stupid fashion student and I apparently have no idea how to run my future-business.  This makes me oh-so-angry.  So far, I've had to spend additional hours at home relearning the material from class just so that I can prove to my teacher and myself that I know what I'm talking about.

Let's just say that I'm already burned out.  I'm barely a month in and I want to quit school, pack a bag, and be a vagabond while knitting scarves to pay my way around the world.  This seems like a great solution to my problem.

Okay so maybe I won't do that.  But seriously, this semester is trying my patience and my sanity. The one thing keeping me afloat right now, though, is my spring break trip to Ireland.  That will not be here soon enough.  I desperately need to get out of here. And seeing some of my favorite people in the whole world wonn't hurt either.

I hope everyone is doing well out there! Try and stay less stressed than me ; )

-- Eagle

Hey Y'all!! Hope you didn't think I'd flown the coop! Regardless, I'm here now and I'm cooking up a storm! As you all might have picked up on, Eagle and I love to bake pies. In all honesty, I don't cook much else but a few days ago, I got an inkling for some quiche and it was definitely not for boring old Quiche Loraine. Now here's the trick to quiche: if you have the right egg/milk ratio, you can pretty much add anything else you might want to your shell. It's super easy! I decided to go for a feta, spinach, artichoke, sundried tomato, and chicken quiche. Doesn't that sound divine?

Here's the cast of characters:

I used a store bought crust- please don't shun me. These were my measurements, roundabouts...
-1 to 1.5 C fresh spinach
-1/2 C artichokes, chopped (i used the marinated kind from the jar because I don't know what to do with real ones...)
-1/4 to 1/2 C feta cheese
-1/4 to 1/2 C sun dried tomatoes, chopped
-1.5 C milk (whole is preferable, but any kind will do)
-1/2 C shredded chicken (optional)(I bought a rotisserie chicken and used the rest of it for other projects...)
-4 eggs
-Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all your add-ins in a bowl and distribute them evenly in the pie crust.

Whisk together your eggs, milk, salt and pepper and pour over the top. If your crust isn't filled properly, you can whisk together another egg and 1/2 C of milk to add. Don't worry- quiche are pretty flexible. Lastly, Pop it in the oven for about an hour. If your crust is burning, cover it with tin foil.

And Wah-Lah! A gorgeous, amazingly tasty quiche! It's super quick to assemble, perfect for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and has an air of class.

Bon Apetit, little birds!
Magpie

Soul Train

EVERYONE.

I have a new obsession that is taking over my life.  THE 70s!!

Ok, ok.  I know.  I fully realize that the 70s have been taking over the trends for a few seasons now, but it is just now infesting my style.  I often find myself so enamored by the 50s and 60s that I ignore the decade of delightful tackiness. 

When I was little, I was actually obsessed with this decade.  I had a bedroom full of disco balls, smiley faces, blow-up furniture, and black lights. Yes, I had lots of friends. 

Anywho, when the 70s came back with a vengeance a couple of years ago, I was completely uninterested. I literally said to myself, "this is the one decade I will never get on board with."

I eat my words.  And they are good.

High-waisted flares? YES PLEASE. Huge hair parted down the middle? ABSOLUTELY.  Huge green sunglasses? OKAY.  Maxi dresses? DONE.  Huge-ass platforms?  DUH. 

Guys, it's about to get crazy.  If you need me, I'll be having a melt-down steeped in polyester leisure suits. 

-- Eagle

It's a New Year, Birds!

Happy New Year to everyone!

I don't know about you guys, but this year has been a doozy.  School was one hundred percent insanity for me.  I was holding down a part time job at a very corporate coffee shop, working a new internship with a fantastic artist, going to school 17 hours a week, and tossing in a hefty 30+ hours of homework. Not really sure how I survived, but alas I did.

Here are a some pictures of a few of my final projects.  The photography skills aren't super great, but it shall have to suffice.

For my Illustration class, I had to come up with a fantasy garment and then design ready-to-wear off of that garment.  I came up with the theme "Stepford Wives" and my fantasy garment is worn by a robot house wife whose human skin is starting to reveal itself.  Her skirt is made of a pie and her top is a picket fence.

These are some other illustrations from my class that weren't part of my final project, but part of my portfolio.

This is my final dress from my clothing construction class.  It's kind of hard to tell all of the details, but its a 1960s inspired dress that has a detachable box pleat on the back. I'm mildly obsessed with the leopard print fabric.

And this was my final project for my color theory class.  We had to pick a product out that had really unattractive packaging and then use our knowledge of color to redesign a package.  I picked out a box of pantyhose that looked like a really crappy box of tampons.  I decided that since the brand is called l'eggs it should be an egg carton of pantyhose that are dyed different colors.  I called this project "Christmas Stockings."

This semester is shaping up to be equally as insane, if not more so. I'm hoping and praying that I can handle it all for a few more months.  I'm also desperately trying to sneak in a trip abroad for spring break.  At least that way I'll have something to look forward to. I'm like a kid. I need gold stars for hard work. And in this case, gold stars are trips to Ireland.

The New Years holiday also brought some fantastic time spent with Magpie.  She was able to come to Nashville for a long weekend and we had oh so much catching up to do. I wouldn't have chosen a better way to bring in the new year.  Our trip mostly centered around food, naturally.  I'm pretty sure we both have enough food built up in our bodies to hibernate like little bears.

I'll let Magpie post all of her fantastic pictures of our trip, since she was documenting for the most part. This is a picture of us dining at McNamara's Irish Pub on New Years Eve. Great food.  Great beer.  

Well little birds, I can't wait to see what this year brings for us all. Here's to an exciting, creative, and productive 2012!

--Eagle