Millinery: Designer Louise Green

You're going to have to trust me here...Louise Green is just yummy. But what made me rush to post this is her new fall line design "Cossack"

I love the ruching, the velvet, the richness of the details...

Her Spring 2006 line didn't rock my world, but boy has she got my rave review for her fall 2006 collection. I love the colors, the hat shapes, the trim designs, and the trim fabrics.

Catch her use of pheasant feathers, now there's something I haven't seen in a while.
(I'm pretty sure my dad didn't shoot those pheasants for Louise. But you never know with my dad.)

Her entire site is interesting, from her personal story to her "Desperate Housewives" designs (those hats worn on the show are Louise Green's designs) and the page after page of hats, with click to see up close feature.

Get comfy, and prepare to swoon.

Millinery, as it always was meant to be.

100th post

This morning's newspaper head line read:

"Gator calls Lake Houston home: East End Park posts sign warning guests of danger"
THIS is exactly where the gator in this picture is said to be living. About a quarter mile from my house.

The picture of the gator was snapped by Mr. Rehak, who said:

"As I walked along the shore taking pictures, it (the gator) stayed even with me like it wanted to be between me and something behind it. It was probably defending a nest."

Oh great, A NEST of gators!

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist Monique Slaughter (more weirdness...what a name) said alligators are most visible through their mating season of April through July. The eggs, averaging about 35, hatch about 65 days after being laid, usually in late August and early September.

OH GREAT...a daddy gator, a mommy gator and 35 BABY gators. Forget the "Snakes on the Plane", there's gators in my lake!


Additional issues around my life: We now have fire ants inside our house. They were not on the side of the house yesterday, today there is a mound, and they have somehow gone into the wall, into our guest bath tub, and were making a drive into our home office, toward my toes as I worked on my computer.

That got me moving but fast.

And to think that at one time I wondered if I would be able to write 100 posts.

Piece of cake.

Millinery: When the hat won't make, cry uncle.

So here is as far as I have gotten on the hat I started on Monday.

I got the hat blocked, steam rolled the edge, created the flowers (the photo doesn't do it justice).

It was going pretty good, then I put on the satin head band, cut and stitched, and yows, now the hat is too tight.

Drat.

Took it off. Now the brim (which I was using drooped over one eye, and pulled low cloche like), is deciding it doesn't want to droop afterall.

Steaming edge of hat to roll.
See the nice rolled edge?

I am not sure I'm going to use the green veiling as a background. The dragonfly will probably wind up as a hat pin.

I should have shot the flowers from another angle, as they are designed to be viewed.

Whatever. I give up for tonight. Uncle.

I'd like to get this thing done to enter into the whip it up contest, it is millinery this month. But I'd have to get it done before tomorrow at 4. Got to go to work then, and then off to Salt Lake early Friday to chase fall around a bit and see son Jeff till next Wednesday.

For those who wonder what the colors are really like, the hat is a pale lavenderish pink, the satin rose and hat band a perfect match, the purple is almost dusty grape.

Weird week continues....

Actually this is more lovely than weird. It is a siamese twin rose. Two perfect roses, on a single stem.

Just thought I'd share.

It is getting spooky out there....

This just gives me the creeps. I (again) have no idea what it is, a grub? a caterpillar? an alien space being?

It is about 1/2 inch long and is sitting on my air conditioning unit on the side of our house.

The center circle is burgundy red. Like some freaky college football mascot.

Make...it...stop.......

(Bernie asked if I had killed it. Are you kidding? I don't want to touch it. What if it jumps on me? Or crawls inside of the air conditioner, and comes out an inside vent? Bernie did say he like the little yellow sunglasses on the thing.)


In other news...

The neighbors behind us dog got into our yard last night.
The cats were just freaked.



We're going to have to replace a couple of fence boards.

We're getting a new refrigerator today.

And I am working on a new hat!

Happy Labor Day!

UPDATE: This thing is actually:
Scientific name : Sibine stimulea
Common name : Saddleback caterpillar

It will turn into a rather boring looking black moth. The yellow sunglass is his rear end. He is a STINGING caterpillar. Thankfully, they are loners in a nature, that is, they are solidary.
Whew.
I don't think I could cope with more than one of those in the garden.

"The Birds: Houston"

Bernie and I did a little shopping on Saturday, and apparently there was some sort of bird convention or something. I wish blogger would let me post a video, as I got some great film of the birds swooping by, ribbon like, and a constant chirp sound like a weird background soundtrack.

Dallas used to have grackels that would swarm, and make their funny whoop-whoop-HA-ha-hahahah sound. But these Houston birds had a short v shape tail and wings almost like swallows.

They were so flighty I never could get a good look at them.

Update: Millinery Guru Kate say they are purple martins. Here's what "All the Birds of North America" had to say: "Their flight is fast and erratic, with rapid shallow wing beats that create a unique twinkling effect. During fall migration flocks can be huge, numbering in the thousands at favored roosting sites. ...glides in circles flapping intermittently. Sings tew, tew rich call, song a liquid gurgling."

Exactly as they were.