For any writers who are NY or will be NY based for Fashion Week

Feel free to repost this and let your friends know :)

This is purely for my work placement, i'm just helping out. Soon i'll make a post about what i've been doing for the past weeks or so...

Just a C+P from twitter, written by yours truly so it's still oh-so-very personal...

"NY BLOGGERS/WRITER AND/OR CONTRIBUTERS NEEDED to assist Sketchbook editors at NY Fashion Week!

Editors will be in NY from 9TH - 19TH FEB - email hayleylau@sketchbookmagazine.com with CVs and WRITING SAMPLES"

Good luck to all who apply!

The post that would wrap up 2009 into 2010..

is finally here :) taken me nearly two weeks of procrastinating. Mmm.

I hope 2010 is going well so far for everyone. Its been treating me ok, not great, but could be worse.

Where to start? Because it's my blog, and that I never had any particular type of subject that the posts were about, i'm going to mainly going list crap that happened to me. Unless I figure out something better.

2009 in a nutshell:

• Met and made some brilliant friends,
• First wedding attended,
• Paris - a holiday without family,
• Saw a LOT of films at the cinema - I made a list of films I had seen a few posts back, and not knowing which was the last, I would like to add these three: Nine, Where the Wild Things Are and New Moon.
• My first real pair of heels,
• Interview for a workplacement and got it :D (I start next monday!)
• Really regret taking out an overdraft,
• Get my lovely MacBook!
• Said goodbye to my teenage years,
• Have some and the worst experiences in my life.

There is only so much you can say, to talk about. Its all in the past and i'm going to try and live from the mistakes and at other times, know when to fight back and say something.

It was a pretty bad year overall i think, not including the external things like war, and going through tough times with the recession. But I had plenty of friends, or many people I knew, go through deaths of loved ones. But there were good times, like the time I didn't want to go a gig but was persuaded to go by a friend, and really enjoyed the night or finally realizing what I was aiming for and my strengths - career wise.

For 2010, i'll hopefully be going to New York! I've been planning for a while and am just trying to get friends to go along with me now! I had plans to visit Roma this year (finally!), but, I decided not to as I really need the money as i'll be moving out for my 3rd year :D I can, in theory afford Italy too, but I'd rather save the money for my trip to NY and for rent. Roma can always be next year.

I do this every year, but to be honest, I never have any concrete goals to aim for, but now I do (NYC), but I'll hopefully lose some weight and then just be this skinny crazy chick with the weird ideas. Yeah. Something like that.

My other goals for the year are to be much more positive and less passive, as well as make a much better effort at uni and try and get some work placements during the summer. This is after my postponed jury service. Gaaaaah.

I'll have a subject based post for next time. I'm really backtracking.

2010

Happy New Year all!

I'm now going to be working on a post to end things with 2009 and the wonderfully interesting beginning of 2010, but not before a small car journey to find some half price Ben and Jerry's.

I hope everyone is safe and had a good enough end of the year into the new.

I'm also slacking on everything, and blogwise, slacking on making posts that have been semi-promised and commenting on posts that I usually would have.

Also, the Christmas period, hope everyone had a brilliant time, it really is the best time of year. Unless you don't celebrate it because of religious reasons, I hope you all had fun too!

Taken sometime during November 2009. '3D' glasses 'borrowed' from careless cinema that shouldn't have left their glasses hanging outside on a door handle.

Pop Life at the Tate Modern

Long time no blog.

Once again, i'm back with excuses. This time, uni. Again. But i'm finished for the term so it's great. I'm slowly updating all the stuff i've meant to have had updated many moons ago.

Plus it's snowing where I am. Woop. Hasn't snowed near a Christmas for a looooooooooong time.

This was taken just 10-30mins ago, depending on when I get this post published. Not the best photo, this was taken from my dad's room, by semi hanging my Mac out of the window. Risky. Yes, a camera could and would have been a better choice, but the Mac has it's own mini camera. Less hassle of having to upload :)

And so. The title 'Pop Life'. Oh so great! I finally got to go last weekend. So brilliiiiiiiiiant! My favourite bit was the Murakami bit. The video of Kirsten Dunst doing 'Turning Japanese' by The Vapours was the best bit in my personal opinion. Especially the ending scene that starred Murakami himself!

(Images from here, here and here)

The weekend I went to, was coincidentally this. In a nutshell, it was great, I spent an extra £30 and got to fangirl to Zara Wood! Off of her stall thingy, I bought some postcards, two badges and a tee.

But this 'flea market', besides the Zara Wood stall, to me, it seemed like recent grads trying to sell some of their hard worked work. Thats the only way I can describe it without trying to sound patronizing.

This creased tshirt with the wonderful fox illustration was by two guys - well, the stall was just two guys, under the name of 'We make t-shirts'. (I couldn't find a link to their site/blog, but they were just recent grads from illustration at Nottingham Trent... if anyone knows a link, let me know and i'll put one up.) The picture kinda looks like I could be wearing it. But come on, it's fairly impossible. Unless i'm flat as heeeeck. I'm just holding up the tshirt, hence the flatness. They also sold canvas bags and jumpers with very cool other various designs, but from my wondering around and coming back a few times to the stall, I felt that most of us 'buyers' were most drawn to the fox designs.

It's nice to support my fellow artists :)

Hope all is well. I know i've neglected the blog and not really been commenting on anyone's. But I promise that I do read, even if I dont comment.

I'm going to try and do another post at least, before the year is out, just a conclusion of 2009. Plus i was tagged agggggggges ago by the lovely Girl With The Golden Touch, and i've yet to even reply to her tag let alone do the actual post! But i will! I'm just looking for the right time!

Lots of things have happened since I last posted. I got my work placement for uni in January (another day, another post)! I've seen New Moon and Where the Wild Things Are. Something involving me being picked for Jury Service, aaaaaah! And other petty little things. But they'll be in the next posts or three.

If, if I don't post before Christmas, I hope everyone has a good one and be safe. 2009 has been a crazy year, it's made me fairly paranoid for reasons that i'm allowed to have :)

I'll post soon indeedy.

Oh, and now it's friday (for me at least, good ol' UK), the countdown to Christmas begins!!!!!!! Just a week away!

In nearly a month.

Wow. This is one of the longest since i've last posted something.

Sorry for the AWOL, I haven't left left, i'm just stupidly busy with uni. If I have to think about anything fashion/art based, anything fun, it's going to relate to uni. The less time I think about it, the slightly easier i'll sleep. Hopefully.

I should be back to normal occassional blogging after I break up for the holidays. Or when I hand in my work to be marked, which is mid december.

Aaagggh.

Harper's Bazaar, October 2009.

I'm mad at myself about not finding out about it sooner and buying the magazine.

I'll post when i'm less stressed.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. We need something like this in the UK.

My sense of time is lacking.

I thought I had posted something recently. That was 10 days ago.

I still haven't done anything that I planned to

do. Its so bad that I didn't even go into uni today. I'm sitting in a Starbucks, using their free wi-fi - technically not free as you have to register a Starbucks card with them, having topped up at least £5 before said registering. But i'm a well recognized customer at 'local' 'Bucks so its fine. I deserve the 'free' wi-fi. I've spent many hours and hard earned pounds there.

The more time I spend outside of my house, the more i'm starting to dislike tourists. I think it's just the dislike of having so many people around me. I saw recording a video on the corner of Tottenham Court Road station. Why, Mr Man, why? I just find it incredibly strange. Especially the concept of them filling Primark up. No matte

r what time it is, that place is filled. Primarily with tourists. I know London is expensive, but come on. You stock up on places like Topshop and/or H&M. Clothes that will last more than once and you won't get at home. You don't buy your cheap basic everyday clothes on holiday, that's just crazy.

'An Education' is coming out on friday :D

I'm so excited for this film to come out.

This is another part of the unregular postings from me, where I mention and question whether i've mentioned a certain something before. I may or may not have mentioned the film and how I watched a trailer for it when I was waiting to watch 500 Days of Summer..

Peter's accent in the film... ah. He does a pretty decent english accent. And he looks scarily young too. Not that he's old.. (later edit - Ok, he doesn't look scarily young, but look at the film poster and tell me he doesnt look YOUNG there! Oh jesus. Photoshopped much?)

I'm trying to mentally memorize how many, and what films I've seen at the cinemas this year... So don't mind me while I list them here... (I'm trying to list them in order, but it's not working...)

1. Revolutionary Road,
2. Twilight (for the 2nd time, and it was hilarious),
3. Coraline,
4. 500 Days of Summer,
5. Marley and Me,
6. He's Just Not That Into You,
7. Confessions of a Shopaholic,
8. Harry Potter (twice),
9. How to Be (I watched about 20minutes of it, but the audio to the filmed screwed up),
10. Wendy and Lucy,
11. Rachel getting Married,
12. Little Ashes

It's not overly much considering it is within a 9month period. I had planned to see a lot more of them, but I never did. Compared to last year, it's like a 1000% increase, I saw 3-4 films in 2008, and that was quite a lot. Usually, on average, its about twice. I tend to watch them online or wait for the DVD to be released.

Owls

I like them. I have a pendant of one that my friend gave me for my birthday last year. No chain though. I'm kinda still on the look out for a real proper chain, but I don't really know WHERE to find one. A thin chain, cheap one. I'll find it eventually.

Inspired by this jumper: (I couldn't get a decent sized photo so I had to screen paste/dump my screen of the image, but stupid shortcut controls kinda zoomed on it while I was doing said action.)

It zoomed a little, it looked more 'zoomed'. Don't judge me by the mini shortcuts I have on my laptop. I'm going to call it either Beatrice, or Arthur. I like the 'old' names.

It's an long jumper with a dodgy drawn cat. Lovely in real life. But £45 for a jumper? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME TOPSHOP?! Even with student discount of 10%, it's still amazing expensive.

So, to save money, i'm making my own version. With an owl. And i'm going to embroider the thing. I can hand embroider quite well, but i've never done anything bigger than lettering. Like this size maybe, this size I think. I don't know how big it will look when I publish the post, but hopefully the text will look huge. Perhaps 2-3 finger height, but text, so I didnt really embroider very big. And i'll be embroidering an owl. But it would take a LOT of embroidery thread, and quite awkward to do so. Maybe i'll only embroider the outline and machine stitch the inside? These types of planning thoughts, they are what goes on in my head every single day. Making random stuff in random ways.

Maybe I could get some slightly thick material, like maybe fuzzy felt, and appliqué it on?

It's also going to be finding the right shape of jumper. As you've established, i'm doing it on the cheap. I don't want to go to the cheapest shop for clothes known to man in the UK, also known as Primark, so i'll settle for second cheapest, Peacock, and get a man's jumper.

(I might get two and make a second jumper with my OWN dodgy cat. SUCK IT, SIR PHILIP GREEN. Maybe when I make my disaster of a jumper, he'll see it and offer me work experience? I do need a months experience in january.... *winkwinknudgenudge*)

But the trouble with men's jumpers are that they are not usually very long, and when they are, i.e XXXXXL, they are just as wide. Not good. But women's are fitted fits, and I was baggy and LONG.

Here are some cute owls for inspiration.

I also got the bag in this post :)

I found the image somewhere here. Blogger won't let me upload anymore because of some 'internal error', but thats what it did when I tried to upload this one the first time... but you get the idea. Owl on jumper. Very cute. Potentially. In theory.

Don't think i'm obsessed, i've seen it. In my friend's mum's house. She has owl ornaments, pictures, a stained glass window with one, plates.

Managed to get another image in :)