20 Years Ago Tonight...

I was settling down to watch the premiere of a brand new show:

The X-Files 

Pilot 1x01

I don't think I could begin to quantify the hours of enjoyment and escape these two have given me over the past two decades.

Thanks, Mulder and Scully. 

I still want to believe. 

wednesday wisdom via Retta

This will always make me smile. Happy hump day!

Blouse Envy

In that frustrating way the internet has, I ran across a teeny tiny thumbnail photo of a freakishly adorable top.  Appeared to be red polkadots, neck tie or ruffly jabot, short sleeves with armband.  It appeared to be a screenshot from a tv show or movie.


Did you know you know you can copy the URL of a photo and paste it in the google search box, and it will search the internets for THAT image? 

You can.

Behold the magnificence of red (not polkadot) necktie/ruffly jabot short sleeve blouse:

 

Swoon.  It has a bit of a 40s vibe, don't you think?

 

And it's not polkadots, oh no.  It's LIPS.  

 

Now I must have a red LIP printed ruffly jabot short sleeve blouse. Pattern suggestions?  Seems like there's a Burda Style or HP out there similar.

(By the way, my uber detective googling discovered that the tv show was "Friends with Benefits", a very, VERY short lived series that ran a couple of years ago?  I have never heard of it, and I'm a tv-aholoic.) Alas, I'm not interested enough to finagle the (rather tasteless) screencaps for the other 9 or 10 episodes to look for more gems like this blouse.  Based on this episode, the title actually does indicate the premise of the series.

I had to wade through a ton of screencaps to bring you these pretties (oh, the depths I go for you, dear readers), and on my way I also found a series of scary photos of the above actress in a different scene:

Holy Botox, Batman. 

WHY would such a lovely woman, who is clearly still quite young (early 30s?) do this?

Oh Hollywood, yet again you disappointment with your shallowness. 

If you haven't made a New Year's Resolution yet, might I suggest embracing your wrinkles?  Hopefully you got them from things like SHOWING EMOTION and SMILING and LAUGHING and LIVING LIFE. So they're nothing to be ashamed of. 

Also, more cute feminine blouses.  Yup.

Call the Midwife: 50s Inspiration

Kristine got me hooked on Call the Midwife last week when I had a long weekend and total control of the television.  Have you been watching??

Set in the late 1950s, the story follows Jenny, a young nurse who takes a position as a midwife in very poor East End London.  Jenny discovers on arrival that she will be living and working with the nuns at Nonnatus House.

The fashions and hair are very period accurate, so it was pretty much love at first sight.  Then the storyline sucked me right in annnnddd... it's all over.  I'm hooked.   

street fashions

I love Jenny's sweet style.  They all spend most of their time in uniform, but you get glimpses of everyday fashions from their patients and the people on the street, and when the girls are "off duty".  Jenny is a cardigan and swishy skirt kind of girl.

Isn't she adorable?  Her hair is so cute too.  I'm very tempted by this hair.  And her wardrobe. When Jenny arrives to Nonnatus House in the first episode, she's wearing this beautiful suit:

I am now very nearly obsessed with finding a vintage pattern to duplicate it. I read a blog that speculated the suit was from the 40s, not the 50s, but I disagree.  I think it is very period appropriate.  The nipped in jacket, with shortened sleeves, and the tiny bow accents all speak 50s to me. Check out the suit in the illustration below, which is from a Progressive Farmer catalog, 1957:

And this sweet tailored suit from 1953 is very similar. I'm feeling knockoff inspiration!

My love for Jenny has very nearly been eclipsed by her friend and fellow midwife Trixie.

Trixie is sassy and fun and a big old flirt.  She's also gorgeous and has more of a "bombshell" vibe than our sweet Jenny.  She drinks and smokes and wears pants (occasionally) and strips down to her skivvies and jumps in the pool! With boys!

The awesomesauce that is Trixie is best told in full animation: 

Then there's Chummy, the very tall, very awkward, very amazing latecomer to their small group.  Who pretty much steals the show.

Chummy sews!!

(I don't remember that part.  Kristine??)

I don't even have space left in this post to tell you about the nuns, who have their own special quirks and adorableness.

Or the tiny midwife, whose name I can never remember (sorry, tiny midwife).

 

The only quibble I have with the show has to do with the American PBS broadcast, which has been editing out 7 minutes of each episode.  SEVEN MINUTES.  Ugh. I was hoping my Amazon On Demand episodes would be the full British broadcast, the way my Downton Abbey eps are, but nope. 

Are you watching???

closure.

*brief pause for a fangirly moment*

So this happened.


And finally, three and a half years later, I feel a little bit of closure and can let go of my grudge regarding the finale of BSG. 

If you've been with me that long, you know how I adored my BSG.  And I have never, ever, rewatched the final season. The finale ticked me off that bad.  Not that the entirety of it was bad, in fact one of my favorite moments of the whole series occurs in the last 30 minutes ("moonrise").

The last 20 minutes ruined me. 

But the conversational thoughts above, what they were thinking, how they interpreted the scenes and the relationship, make me feel very warm and fuzzy and forgiving.  I actually agree with them, especially Katee.  (*cough* my giant girlcrush notwithstanding *cough*).

My babies.

I think I might need to purchase Season 4 now.  All this time I've been pretending it ended at the end of Season 3.  With a self-created bright shiny future epilogue in my head.

Which might still exist.  Warm fuzzies or no.

/fangirly  moment.

Project Runway: Kenley Collins

So it's probably no surprise that one of my favorite designers on the new Project Runway: All Stars is Kenley.  She has a very vintage, retro aesthetic (remind you of anyone??)

One of the suggestions we heard from Isaac Mizrahi recently was that she needed to "try something different", which sort of opened the gauntlet of complaints from the remaining designers about how she "always makes the exact same dress".   Even Mondo complained...Why is she still here? She makes the exact same thing over and over.  Really Mondo?  YOU want to go there?  I mean of any PR contestant of any season the ONE person's designs I can spot without fail are MONDO's.

I love him.  Don't get me wrong.  But he has a definite and identifiable design aesthetic.

Exactly like Kenley.

Do his designs have a more dramatic flair?  Yes.  Would I wear hers before his?  Yes.  But that's personal preference, which is, by the way, the epitome of Fashion.

But back to the original complaint/suggestion at hand...has Kenley made the exact same thing over and over??  I don't see it.  But you can decide for yourself...

And with that...Project Runway All Stars is on in 10!

Downton Abbey: Vtg Inspiration

Unexpected Snow Day today! Perfect opportunity to scour the interwebs for a good shot of this beautiful blouse that Mary wore last night:

 

I'm sure she's worn it before, but last night I got a good look at the shaped lace insertion at the shoulder, with teeny tiny tucks.  And that asymmetrical front!  Wow.  I love her eyelet-edged cami peeking through too. 

 

This one has had a good run so far in the series too.  It's pretty no matter how many times I see it. I really love the lace...is that filet lace?

 

 And all of the pulled-thread work that must have taken ages.  Beautiful.

 

Lu & I are really going to miss this show after next week!

Once Upon a Time: Ep. 8-9-10

It's been a few weeks since I last caught us up on Mary Margaret's apartment and wardrobe (ha).  Last we left off, poor Graham had been killed by heart-crushing at the hands of the dastardly Mayor Regina (the Evil Queen).

Graham, we still miss ye.

Episode 8 picks up with Emma trying to win Graham's recently vacated sheriff's position.  There was mention of an autopsy (sob!) and I think autopsy trumps True Love's Kiss.  $#!@.  There was very little MM in this episode save this cute scene with an equally cute hat:

The girl has more hats, coats and scarves than the rest of the town combined.  Poor Emma is still wearing that red leather jacket.  Although it's probably symbolic and I just haven't figured it out yet.

And there was one really clear shot of the kitchen that shows her pretty pots on the top of the cabinet. Love the frosted glass on the cabinet door to the right too:

(Oh, and Emma becomes sheriff.  We also got Rumplestilstkin's surprisingly sympathetic backstory.)

Moving on to episode 9...this was Hansel and Gretel, very well played by the two young actors in the parts. But the real news?  We got inside MM's bedroom! (I was probably as excited as David would be, although obviously for different reasons).

I love that wrought iron bed.  Alot.  The mismatched pillows are sweet, and I love the mug with an "M" (I think that's an anthropologie mug).

Of course Mary Margaret has an old chenille bedspread (so do I, although mine is the reverse colorway, jadite green with white and pink chenille):

Look really close at the photo below...see that mirror on the far wall?  Look at what's on the wall we never see...a vintage train case!  In YELLOW. 

One full shot of the kitchen area...it's nice to see the entire set to get some perspective.

Guess what else we got a decent shot of?  The sewing machine!

And some really ugly pants. Sorry MM, these were a *miss*.  But the top is pretty:

What's odd is in the shot below, the sewing machine has been flipped around, so now the flywheel is showing, not the decorative faceplate.  Same scene.  I do like the stainless dish drain.

And the grey-blue stencil mugs (also anthro?)  Can you still buy milk in a glass jar?  Milk must taste better if it comes out of a pretty glass jar, am I right?

Which brings us to episode 10, "7:15".  It was more Snow and Charming backstory and it was awesome.  I might have squealed a little at this:

(I have to admit I chuckled that the eighth drawf was named "Stealthy".  May he rest in peace.)

So this episode was filled with story both in Storybrooke and Fairytale Land.  Much of it straight out of a Harlequin romance novel.  We had MM falling off a cliff, surely to her death...

Only to be rescued in the nick of time by David, who said he couldn't let her go off on her own.

We had lots of tight head shots of lovely Snow/MM...

And Charming/David:

(The above during the ubiquitous Harlequin "OMG it's going to thunderstorm we must take cover in a super conveniently located abandoned cabin with plenty of dry firewood so we can build a fire and get you out of those wet things" moment.)

We had two or three of these that never came to fruition:

Thankfully we had something I've personally been waiting for, a bit of Red backstory.  How awesome that she's friends with Snow!

We had one fabulous sweater:

And one mysterious and handsome newcomer. With a typewriter.

Emma's puzzled.  Who is he in the book?  You just know that's what she's thinking.  That's what everybody's thinking.  (A Grimm?  Doesn't he know he's on the wrong network?)

And despite their denials and best intentions, one (tv) hour of missteps and almosts was finally enough to push them over the edge, and we hit paydirt.

Bout time.

(Madame Mayor was not amused.)

(and...There was a heartbreaking twist in Fairytale Land for Snow and Charming that I can't wait to see play out. I love how these are multi-dimensional stories.  You have to pay attention! )

New Once Upon a Time tonight!