Overall it is like a bipolar experience of hens in a small box!

I got a gift certificate to Britex Fabrics for my B-day! I have a love/hate relationship with Britex Fabrics. It is an amazing high end fabric store located at Union Square that has been around since the 1950's. It has four floors of fabric and notions. Every time I go in there it feels very stuffy and it is because fabrics in there can be $95+ per yard. I am very excited to be able to walk in to the store now and be able to buy something more than a zipper, 4 buttons, or ribbon. Thanks ladies!!!!!

I know this doesn't have to do with sewing, but I had a great B-day and I love this picture!

My Birthday came early this year

Last week I received a surprise cash money deposit in my bank account from my parents and a wonderful diy present from Bert. Bert refurbished my dress form that I found in the dumpster. He removed the 4 legs and made a circular stand, added 4 wheels, painted it black, and fixed it so that the bottom could screw together with the body. Now I can move it around my room easily. Thanks Bert, your the best!

Can you just imagine me dancing with my new body double? We can spin around the room looking into each other eyes.....oh wait my body double doesn't have a head. :) No need to imagine *insert Sally's dream sequence here.....

The dress form is really going to help me with my projects. I didn't think it was the right size, but after putting this dress that fits me on it, I think it is pretty similar to my body type.

I will be 29 on Wednesday. "If you didn't know now you know." I used to think that 29 was old for the first half of your life, but I feel young! I think the video proves it. I don't have a husband, a house with a white picket fence or kids, but those aren't aspirations of mine (although I am looking for a man). As I go into my 29th year on earth I think anything is possible and that's a pretty great feeling. I've also got to say that I have had the most fun in my late 20's then other time in my life. I have a feeling this will only continue.

For the last 5 years I have tried to have a large birthday celebration. I try and get all my friends together from different times in my life and have like a reunion/b-day get together. That takes a lot of planning, organizing and coordination and it can get stressful. So this year I am keeping my b-day mellow. Drinks Wednesday night with the girls for sure and on Saturday my friends and I are going to an indoor rock climbing place. Yeah!

Scenic Outlook Ahead

Last week e-mails were going around with my friends about finding a weekend to go camping. It was looking like April, then May, then June. I couldn't wait that long, so I said to my undisclosed friend (I am respecting her privacy, since I am always telling stories of my life events) let's go Saturday. She booked us at the Escalen hot spring baths, I booked the camping spot and so it was on. My friend and I jumped in my car after work on Saturday and drove to Monterey. We picked up my amazing friend Megan, her super dog Zoey, Megan's friend Molly and drove down to Big Sur to camp for the night.

My first love will always be the Northern Cali Coastal Redwood forests, but Big Sur is an amazing place. Yes it is scenic, you can camp and hike, but for me Big Sur is about a feeling. I knew it was a short trip, but it was a good chance to bring some zen into my life, detox, refocus on what is important, and find inspiration.

I met my friend Megan at Humboldt and we have been friends ever since. She is an Eco-Goddess. She is the one person I really connect with on that level. She doesn't talk the talk she walks the walk. She always has so many projects going on at once: Monterey City Garden, she started Monterey Green Action, she runs an eco-film night, she works on bike/public transportation for the city/schools and she just started a weekly radio show where she will talk about and interview people on green issues. This is just some of the stuff she is doing. She is my inspiration and has such great energy. Whenever I hang out with her I leave energized and motivated. She also has Zoey her super dog. It's always a blast to be part of her dogs world.

My friend has been chatting up the Escalen Hot Springs for awhile now. As I mentioned in a previous entry we are big fans of hot water. The Escalen Hot Spring baths are located in Big Sur at an Institute. They are only open to the public from 1am-3am by reservation. They are located on top of a cliff 100 feet up from the ocean. They are amzazing and peaceful. It's not for the shy at heart if you don't like nudity, but it is dark. (Don't worry mom it is a very safe place and there is no 60's free love or 70's swinger stuff going on there). There's nothing like clean crisp air, the dark sky above, the sound of the waves below, and being in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. I recommend them if you are in Big Sur.

http://www.esalen.org/place/hot_springs.html

I have so many interests that it get's overwelming some times. Now that I have a job that fullfills my passion for nature/community it helps. It's important for me to have a work/life balance and be able to be social and creative when I am not at work. The point of all this is that being spontanious, communing with nature, hanging with good friends, having meaningful conversation, and hot springs all gave me a fresh outlook and I am inspired to put some time aside and start sewing again and writing on my blog more. As Spring closes in on us here are the projects I will be working on:

• I want to make this sexy dress with this abstract fabric (no flowers)

• I want to make this for my bed

• I want to transform my Mom's large funky shirt from the 70's into something cute and fitted like the blue one

• Cowboy shirt with this navy paisley fabric

• Skirt- This will be my first project

• I have been wanting a vest so I think I will just make a solid black vest maybe out of sweatshirt material or something super soft

I will stop wasting time and get to work!

P.S. Sometimes I wish I could be the female/liberal version of Anthony Bourdain and travel the world, going to nature/eco/green locations, meeting weird people, tring vegetarian foods, drinking alcohol beverages and getting paid to give my oppinion. :)

One Man's trash is My Treasure

This last Saturday I had my first dumpster diving experience. I was throwing debris away from our planting at a dumpster by my office. I opened the lid and there it was looking up at me. I could tell it was sad because it was thrown away. No, it wasn't a little puppie, but a dress form. Just what I needed! I jumped in and pulled it out. It was in three pieces and it wasn't dirty, just worn a little. It might be smaller than I am, but it will do for now until I make a duct tape one. With a little love and help from Bert I know that I can "make it work."

I have been pretty busy lately and I haven't done any sewing since the temp dress. I have some ideas on the brain though. I will share those soon...

Doing Diego...Random thoughts

When I'm in San Diego staying at my parents I like to take it easy, this includes going to bed at a reasonable time. My parents usually stay up pretty late. So last time I was here it was 11 pm and I wanted to go to bed. The computer is in the room I sleep in and my Mom was on it. I announced that I am tired and want to go to bed in the nicest way I could conjure up, as a crabby sleepy person. She told me that she had to stay up and farm on Farm Town. "So I can't go to bed because you have to do what?" I said. This is when I was introduced to her farm which was actually pretty nice. At the time I ragged on it. "You have to stay up and farm on an imaginary farm," "You won't let your daughter go to bed and get her beauty rest," "If the amount of time people spent on this was put into them really farming no one would starve," etc. etc. But now looking back I know that I waste a lot of time on the Internet (i.e. facebook, this blog) and I shouldn't have ragged so hard. Long story short my parents are not doing as much farming these days so I was able to get on the computer to write this and go to bed at a reasonable time. Sorry Mom.

I'm in San Diego this weekend. The weather is beautiful! I had to rip off my boots and jacket as soon as I landed. It takes a little getting used to such warm weather. It feels good to get some Vitamin D on my pale skin. Saturday I went to a fabric store in Oceanside. It is called Maisonette and is the cutest store.
I bought a few yards of a fabric I have been eyeing for an upcoming project (green below for skirt) and I impulsed bought the blue one. I am not sure what I will do with it, so it will just go into my fabric stash. As you can see they are both big bold flower prints. Too bad for my resolution to not use big printed flowered fabric. Oh well.



I have lived in Northern California for over 11 years now. So when I am in San Diego I never really feel that I fit in. Whether it's my fashion, culture or personality. I still like visiting though. I would describe my style as eclectic, bohemian, colorful, retro-modern, thrifty and fun! I thought about how I would describe San Diego fashion? This is what I came up with.

• southern California surf/skate style
• punk rock
• laid back-comfortable

San Diego also has a lot of Palm Trees. Palm trees are not actually trees. Trees are dicots and palms are monicots. Which basically means that they have different leaves, stems, root systems, etc. We actually rarely plant palms in San Francisco because we only get funding for trees. I like palms and they are very iconic for Southern California, but the thing that I don't get is that they don't provide much shade. For such a warm climate why aren't large shade trees planted more often?

Those are my random thoughts...

My last day as a Temp!

Caption reads: Here Sally Bentz is wearing a Burda dress designed by Sally Bentz herself from her label Sew Sally Sew. It has cinched sleeves, a round collar and two front pockets.

Caption reads: Susan Bentz is wearing a white 100% polyester knit by Enka. It has short sleeves and set in pockets. The red, white and blue silk scarf slides through self-fabric loops on the shoulder and is worn with Navy blue accessorises from Montgomery Ward.

Yesterday was my last day as a temporary worker. It has been over a year this time around. To celebrate my last day I wore the dress I just finished to work. I really like this dress and it is really similar to my Mom’s. On my lunch Svetlana did a photo shoot of me. Thanks Svetlana! I am leaving the downtown financial district and will be working at the Presidio. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is beautiful and picturesque. There are things I will miss about the Financial District and things I will not miss!

Miss:
*Meeting for lunch with Svetlana
*Specialty’s cookies and sandwiches
*The Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building

*AB class with the cute instructor (Sorry I don't have a picture of this)

Will not miss:
*Tall buildings
*Hustle Bustle

*Uppity people
*$10 for lunch

Tomorrow I officially start my new job with the local non-profit Friends of the Urban Forest as a Planting Manager. I will be organizing and managing monthly tree plantings in different neighborhoods through out San Francisco. I will be working in an office, but also out in the field. I like getting dirty. Not only will I be greening San Francisco and making the urban environment more livable, but I will be able to create community. I am extremely excited and ready to start making a difference. I have waited 6 years for this and I can't wait for my job to be my passion. If you want to find out about the organization you can go to http://www.fuf.net/.

Good bye old life...

Wasteful Fashion Part 1: Distressing

It's not all patchouli, nag champa, rainbows and unicorns in my life right now so I have decided to write about something not so happy to go along with my mood. I was just going to do one entry on the topic of waste in the fashion industry, but as I read more and more I decided to make this into a segment.
I was watching a show and they were at a distressing factory for a designer jean company. The workers there were all minorities and were taking perfectly good jeans and distressing them. You know those jeans will hit the stores for $300+. In my head all I could think was this is just another way of how wasteful America is. Taking something perfectly good and making it look old to make money. This like mostly everything comes at a high price to the health of the workers distressing and the environment.

"A textile worker takes a break at dawn after sanding jeans all night at a clothing factory in Guangdong Province, China. The blue dust from the jeans is a heavy irritant to the lungs. The factory where this worker is employed uses a wear-and-tear process to achieve the fashionable distressed look for the approximately 10,000 pairs of jeans it produces every day. Thousands of workers labor around the clock scrubbing, spraying, and tearing jeans in order to meet the production demand. China is one of the world's largest producers of jeans."

Long story short if you want your jeans to look "hip" take a pair of jeans you already own if they aren't already "hip" then follow the ideas below to turn "even the oldest, most unfashionable pair of jeans into bohemian-chic attire". http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Distressed-Jeans

1 If making distressed shorts, cut them into shorts first.
2 Place a block of wood (or some other solid surface that you don't mind possibly damaging) within the pant leg or denim region you want to distress.
3 Rub a steak knife, cheese grater, or scissors vertically or horizontally against the area of denim that you would like to distress. Rub gently for mild distress; rub longer and more vigorously to create more visible distress (such as holes and tears).
4 Take scissors or knife and go up over the vertical hole your make to have the "distressed look".
5 Do not cut holes with scissors. This creates an unfrayed, and consequentially unstylish bland hole. :)
6 Fray jeans by rubbing sandpaper around pockets, knees, hemlines, or any other area of denim that you would like to have a soft, worn appearance.
7 Dampen a sponge with bleach and rub it around the outer edges of holes for a "distressed look".
8 Tear off a back pocket.
9 Wash your jeans.
10 Wear your newly stylish distressed jeans.

Alternative Methods
Take the nail file and start filing away at one area. Some jean "lint" will come off, and it can get quite annoying. Peel it off the nail file as well as the jeans every couple of seconds. Keep filing until you get the desired size of hole. After a little bit, the white threads will appear. Once this happens, do not file the white threads. This will result in them ripping and then you are left with a complete hole and not a wear mark.
Another great way to make your jeans look distressed without completely ripping them to shreds is to use a cheese grater around areas that show the most wear and tear (knees, behind, around the pockets, etc). Do this with a light hand, or else you might go through the fabric.
Also think about different stains; paint, oil, and bleach work well. Don't go overboard on the stains. This is one area where less is more.
Own and wear a regular pair of jeans for a couple years. You'll find that they become distressed naturally, and this way you can out-cool all the trendy kids because your jeans are authentic.
Afraid of ruining your jeans? You can buy jeans that already have small rips, and rub a knife or cheese grater around the edges of the rips until you're satisfied.
Use a dremel tool with a piece of sandpaper to distress seams and edges. Also, you can use sandpaper to get great looks too.

As for my own sewing projects I will be finishing a project really soon and will be debuting it early next week. I also hope to be writing more frequently so stay tuned.