The Role of the Camera & 10 Useless Facts About Me

Hey folks! Your suggestions on my saggy butt capris sent me into a flurry of mending, but I'm still playing catch up with Self-Stitched September, and I've been nominated (twice!) for a Beautiful Blogger Award by Sarah (she sews! she cooks! she plays the tuba!) and this adventurous gal, who's way smarter than the sketchy dudes who dare to start convos on nights out!

Okay, first things first. My final days in the Pacific:

Saggy Butt capris

SSS Lesson #5: Photos matter.

Having to look at photos of yourself, rather than just the mirror, definitely changes self-perception. In Me-Made-May, I looked at the camera as something objective. It seriously revolutionized the way I viewed myself: I had some distance in which to view the shape of my body, cuts that flattered the shape of my body, and colors against my skin.

But in SSS I'm beginning to see it as subjective. Since I frequently quickly snapped a shot before running out the door, these are by no means the most flattering snapshots, especially this bunch. Does that make me perceive the outfit, then, as less flattering? Or when I have one of my sisters behind the camera, or beside me, egging me on to smile, does my response somehow color my outfit more positively? And overall, as a static image, you can't see the way I move and lounge and how good I feel.

But it's a wonderful partner on this journey, regardless. What role has the camera played in your journey, for Self-Stitched-September or blogging overall?


So here's my task: Ten things you didn't know about me and five bloggers I'd like to pass on the award to.

#1: I once got run over by a canoe. I'm from Hawaii; these things happen.

#2: I have two sisters, but they each only have one (which is me, obviously).


NL 6965, top (with my niece, who's not wearing the pretty white dress
my sis and I made for her)

#3: Snake blood is not, by far, the grossest thing I've ever consumed, but perhaps the strangest.

#4: I'm supposed to be finishing a novel. So one of these days I'll have to start sewing less.

Ruby shorts

#5: I wish I spent more time doing things that make me laugh with every fiber in my being. Both swing dancing and sledding are on that list.

#6: I long for books that I can fall in love with.

The Shelley Dress

#7: Movies are my number-one mindless entertainment. Everything else in my life seems to require so much consideration, that if I can watch people kill each other or kiss, I'm delighted.

#8: According to one of my sisters, all women are one of the Sex and the City gals. And, according to her, I'm "so Miranda."

The t-shirt dress

#9: In my head, I'm a marathon runner. And I can sing and dance. Sadly, it's not reality. Short-attention span. Lack of discipline.

#10: If I wasn't too chickenshit (or: unattached), I'd join the Peace Corps, or something equally service-oriented and ballsy. A guy once told me about how he was peed on by bats every night for his first two months of service in Costa Rica and I replied wistfully, "Cool."

And now five *beautiful bloggers*. I can't keep track of who's been tagged, so here's five beautiful blogs I've been digging recently:

Alessa of Farbenfreude. A Berlin med student who sews!

Welsh Pixie, who has a beautiful dog and so feels me on body-shape woes.

Scruffy Badger Time. A partner in knit-sewing (and check out her purple Beignet skirt!)

Knotty Gnome, who recently whipped up an LBD that jives with my aesthetic: basic, versatile, lovely.

Charlotte of L'Atelier. She just kills me with loveliness.

:)