I can’t wait for tonight’s episode of project runway to see what the cheating allegations end up being. I suspect they’ll be blown out of proportion as always, but won’t it be fun to watch the ridiculousness?

Anyone have any theories??

**UPDATE: um, Lame! The overproduced commercial i heard definitely guaranteed me an hour of scandalous television tonight. And while Mondo’s story was unexpected and moving, the cheating scandal has been pushed off again to NEXT WEEK. lame.**

 A few weeks back I decided i needed a new raincoat. I have a couple jackets for fall/winter but none of them really fit the bill for the weather that Seattle doles out. I have a couple wool coats, but they don’t have hoods, and when its raining real hard, you just get water logged. I also have some “shell” raincoats, that keep out the moisture (mostly) but aren’t very warm once the coldest of the rain sets in. Plus, they aren’t very professional looking for wearing to work meetings and site visits. Although, now that i think about it, most raincoats don’t really match hard hats so thats probably a moot point.

Anyhow, in August sometime we received our first fall/winter catalog from Boden, which is a British clothing company who has recently expanded to the US market. THey have really cute stuff, most with a retro/mod twist. I spied this jacket below, but since it was still summer, I wasn’t totally ready to pull the plug on a serious jacket purchase.

Flash forward to this week. I went back to the Boden website to check out the options, but the color shown above was backordered 11 weeks. 11 weeks is pretty much 2011, so THAT doesn’t do me much good. I did some thinking about the other colors and patterns, but couldn’t quite commit to any of them, so decided I’d have to seek either options. Let the quest begin!

Stop #1: LL bean.

The go-to for outdoor wear. I found this option, which was affordable, promised to be waterproof, and had a part wool lining, but wasn’t too jazzed about the simple design. Just not much to it compared to the piping and buttons on the Boden option. So, onward.

Stop #2: Eddie Bauer.

Again, for northwesterners, a go-to option. This one looked even warmer, but with the elastic waist I was afraid of the frump-factor. Kept this one in my back pocket, though.

Stop #3: Overstock.com

Overstock had this cute London Fog option that was cut a little more stylishly than the LL bean/Eddie Bauer options, and had a hood, but I was worried that they would be too light weight since the description didn’t pay any emphasis on lining, etc.

Stop #4, 5, 6, & 7: Old Navy, Target, Gap, Piperlime. No Dice, at least not in my price range (you know Piperlime had some BEAUTIFUL options, they always do, but most were $400+ yikes!)

Stop #8: Banana.

Really cute cut and pattern on this one, but no hood! Deal breaker for Seattle gals. Drats. Moving on.

Final Stop!: Sierra Trading Post.

I’ve ordered gear from this discount site before and been very happy with their options, so i thought I’d see what they had. And success (mostly)! I found this Merrell Ava Car coat in muted turquoise. It has a hood with fleece lining and is reportedly waterproof (the reviews were positive). Also, it has piped accents and a cute tie at the waist to lend some flattering shape. I think its the best of all worlds. Plus, i found a coupon code online that discounted any purchase at Sierra Trading Post 20%. Score!

So its on its way. The only problem was that they had one (ONE!) jacket left in this color and its a size larger than i would usually order. Sometimes this can be good to fit bulkier sweaters under in the dead of winter, so i’m hoping I won’t have to send it back.

On the chance I have to send it back, does anyone have a go-to source for stylish, warm, and (most importantly!) waterproof jackets? I’ve exhausted my normal online sources.

Do share!

I am going to talk about Project Runway for a few minutes here…so don’t read this if you have not watched it yet…

We got home last night and watched it off our DVR.

All I have to say is you HAVE GOT to be kidding me.  How on earth was Gretchen’s mess dress in the top three??  I nearly fell off the couch when I heard. 

The challenge was to design a couture gown.  Then halfway through Tim Gunn came in and told them they had to also design a ready to wear look.

I will admit, I was a bit underwhelmed by the looks.  I really loved Andy’s… and Mondo’s was really good too… they both were definitely top tier material.

But GRETCHEN??????????  Are Heidi & Nina going blind?????????

Maybe this is couture at a Renaissance Fair… but…

In reality, where the rest of us live this is the ugliest thing I have seen this season.  I thought for sure she was going home last night.  And then she is on the top.  NO WAY!  I mean crushed velvet, magenta, feathers coming off of it, and a resemblance to a potato sack???????

I would personally rather see one of those early outfits of Peach come back to haunt us. 

But, really, what is going on over there at PR?  They keep harping on the taste levels of designers…but I am not sure they can talk.

I have been fighting fall, digging my heels deep in summer.  

Today –the beginning of fall— other blogs are full of cute clothes, warm drinks, woods with colorful trees, etc.

B would write this post all about how fall is her favorite and probably tell you all about her favorite sweater and latte drinking on weekends and the great crisp air and all that.

But me… I am really not feeling fall this year.

I have to say, I do LIKE  fall.  Just not right now.  Summer just slipped too quickly, too chilly in the NW.  I just wanted a little more time.  Time for me to get in a few more nights on the patio and trips around Greenlake on my rollerblades.  Time for our tomatoes to ripen.

In general, I don’t really like change.  Once it has happened, I am fine… I just don’t like it  while it is happening.

I drove to work this morning and could not help but notice trees with hints of reds and yellows.  I was in a panic.

As luck would have it… although today is officially the first day of fall…. we are supposed to have a 70-and-sunny weekend coming up.  Hopefully the weatherman is right this time….

So it looks like I might win.

But I am going to then submit to fall next Monday.  I will be ready then. Promise.

Hopefully.

It probably will help that my October is filled with fun.  New Orleans (where I will bring shorts yippee!) and the Jr High Fall Retreat (where I will bring wool socks and play board games and really tell myself that fall is REALLY here).

So, here is to fall, like it or not.

And falling into sweaters and lattes and fires and new tv shows and craft projects and football [that was a nail biting Saints game on Monday!!] and roasting vegetables and colorful falling leaves.

Oh, and my it’s fall picture.

While B has been all over her new sewing machine lately (evidence here, here, here…), I have been working on other crafty-ness.  I admit, I wasn’t really that interested in the sewing machine.  I like pinning her fabrics sometimes, but I have not been behind a sewing machine since middle school home economics.  Even then, we made ridiculously terrible stuff out of even-worse fabrics.   One time we made a fabric “necklace”…It was really a tube of fabric that we filled with marbles.  The terrible thing must have weighed a ton.  Or at least enough to cause neck spasms for the person wearing it.  Worse then the weight, though, might have been the fact that every fabric to pick from was not only pink and floral…but shiny metallic as well.

So, yeah, I like hand stitching.  In fabrics without sheen.

Ha.

But then one day I was perusing The Martha Encyclopedia of Fabric Arts.  There were so many cute stuffed animal patterns!  One was so darling… a little bunny!

(you can download the pattern from Martha here…)

Being a sucker for bunnies, and having August be the month-o-babies around here… I sprung into action.  B and I dug through some fabrics we had in the craft room. 

And then we sat and made some bunnies!

We traced and cut all the pieces.  B has this very fun invisible ink pen, which I enjoyed. 

Then we began sewing.  B showed me all kinds of cool buttons on her machine.  For the parts I sewed, I even got to unplug the pedal and use this on/off stitch button to do the sewing.  B, for the record, prefers the pedal.

The hardest part of sewing this project was attaching the ears.  You had to fold them into the head and then stitch the ears and the head together at the same time.  The ears were pretty large …and we had used thick fleece-y fabric for one side of them, making it a lot of fabric to have in the right place.

We used the machine to sew everything but the face of the bunny and attach the arms.  We stuffed the bunnies and sewed on the arms by hand.  Actually. B did that part.  I tried to do it, but it was taking me forever and it was hard to really get the stitches to be invisible on the outside.  B to the rescue!

The cute little eyes and nose are hand-embroidered as the last step.

We gave them to a few babies recently… but really I want one.  : )

oH, and then you watch the babies play with them when you go over to take pictures of them.