Dear Isaac,

May I call you Isaac? (We did meet once … and I still have that coat, if you still want to borrow it.)

I was thrilled when your editor, Erika, asked if I wanted to see a copy of your new magazine, Isaac's Style Book. Did I want to SEE it? Darn tootin'! I was even thrilled-er (don't worry, I can use words like that, I'm a professional) when I got it. In fact, I am having a hard time deciding what feature I liked best. Was it the "Hairography", where Linda Dresner deconstructed all of her previous hairstyles? Was it the essay where David Rakoff constructs (by hand, no less) a reasonable facsimile of a pair of Levis 501s? Or was it the pages of "swatches" of different pinks (everything from Mary Kay & her Cadillac to a Maira Kalman illustration)?

The "closet case" in which a woman (who was neither a socialite nor being urged to lose weight by a team of experts, thank god) got help finding just a couple of items (not an entirely new wardrobe, which, for anyone over the age of 18, is more like brainwashing than style help) is really excellent, with great photos. The "revamp" instructions are pretty decent, too (I have an issue with wardrobe-revamp instructions that encourage me to take one garment I don't like and make another one I wouldn't wear out of it: Flashdance-style t-shirts, anyone?). The atelier shots were gorgeous, too, but the literalist in me would have liked some captions. Who were all those people, and did the garments shown make it to production?

I'm also pleased that you'll be posting updates every week on your Notes page. And, that even though the magazine has limited distribution for now, people can get their own copies (for the price of mailing) here.

Erika tells me the next issue will be out in March/April. I'm looking forward to it!

Yours in the struggle,

Erin

I know you all have been missing You Knit What??. Even though I don't knit, I miss it too. Which is why I'm posting this picture. The site in question (click on the picture if you need to visit it, and I use the word "need" very loosely here) sent me an email, telling me they had a sexy!! new!! site!! in about eight different colors.

Now, I don't want to hold bad email formatting choices against people. Some of my best friends had to be told (gently) that they were shouting (in all caps), at one point or another. But I should have taken it as a warning, because … this … this is an all-caps NO. This is an eight-colors NO.

Unless your Halloween costume is "toilet paper cozy", no. Unless you have a sexual fetish that involves pretending to be an afghan, no. I just don't understand this aesthetic. Bumblebee? Bumbleebee at Dollywood? Bumblebee at a "Gentlemen's Club" at Dollywood?

The website in question also advertises their patterns as "Fearless!!" Well, I'd say you'd have to be pretty damn fearless to wear this out in public. (Sorority hazers need look no further! I got your rush prank right here!) But I would like to introduce them to the concept of The Gift of Fear. Trust your gut, unless your gut says to knit this.

I don't know if this particular pattern was ever featured on You Knit What??, but I'm assuming it could have been. Possibly for a week straight.

Kirsten J. sent me the link to this dress, which is made out of a mattress, and modeled by the designer, Danielle Kelly. She calls this dress "Sleeping Beauty", but I think it would be a natural as a costume for some production of The Princess and the Pea, don't you?

I love it when people make dresses out of unusual materials. And I love it when other people find those dresses on the internets and send the links to me. Thanks, Kirsten!

Remember the sad, sad tale of Hilary, who couldn't wear yellow (but loved it)? (If you don't, click that link and scroll down to the comments.)

Well, Hilary didn't give up! She found a way to have her yellow, and wear it too! And isn't it cute? I love (as you might imagine) the polka-dot bands. The *very same* polka-dot bands that keep the yellow Hilary likes from clashing with her skin (which doesn't like yellow).

Here's a photo of Hilary in the dress, but before she did the bottom band (all SIXTEEN FEET of it — hemming a big skirt is not for the weak of purpose):

All I'm saying is, you can wear it if you really try …

That's how Susan (DrSue on Pattern Review) described this dress. (If you don't know The Magic School Bus, ask any elementary-school student.)

You see, this is what I love about sewing. You want a purple lemur halter dress? You can GET a purple lemur halter dress. (First, catch your purple lemurs … ) Can you imagine walking into Macy's (or even that bastion of customer service, Nordstrom's) and telling a saleslady you are looking for something in a purple lemur pattern? They'd be recounting that story in the break room for the next three YEARS. But if you can sew, you can have your purple lemur dress, no problem, and no raised-saleslady-eyebrows, either.

I would *especially* like to point out how DrSue arranged the arms of the lemurs to be part of the halterneck. Now, that's loving attention to detail! Ms. Frizzle would be so proud.

So, the blog Pocket Change is having a blog carnival. A carnival of … shopping.

Now actually, I feel about shopping much like I feel about actual carnivals. I think it's going to be REALLY FUN, and then when I get to the top of the Ferris wheel (or the middle of the store) I pretty much just want to hurl. It's too crowded, it's too expensive, everything I see and hear makes me fear for the future of the human race, etc. etc.

Now, I've already done my bit for trying to make finding one's size a bit easier, but if I could only convince retailers of a few key things:

First: KISS. That's right, "keep it simple, stupid." If I wanted a cardigan that looked like I let my six-year-old loose with a Bedazzler, well, I have a six-year-old, and it's still legal to own a Bedazzler in Illinois. (Until I finish lobbying my elected representatives, that is.) If you think that if you offer me a plain sweater, and I buy it, that I won't buy another one the next season/year/week whatever, you're wrong. Offer something simple in another color, or another sleeve length, next year/month/or maybe even week and I will happily pony up my dough, but I *won't* buy something with all sorts of design vomit on it. I just won't. It seems to me that a lot of designers are just trying to look busy … and what they make looks busy, too.

Second: Why can't I find a decent handbag for under one gazillion dollars? Either it's covered with nonessential metal dangly bits and huge logos (see KISS, above), or it doesn't have pockets that will fit my Treo and/or iPod (Dammit Jim, I'm a girl, not a technophobe!), or the straps are secretly designed by the Secret Massage Therapists and Chiropractors' Cabal to drive more business to their offices. Lately I've been buying cotton bags from Target or even … diaper bags. Sometimes I carry more than a lipstick, two tissues, and a golf pencil. So step it up, and help me carry all my gadgets and maybe even a book, without throwing my back out, mortgaging my house, or being your Fall 2006 advertising campaign.

Third: Don't force your salespeople to be jerks. I don't want to deal with someone who has to ask me three times if I want a store charge card or live in fear of being fired. I don't want to be put in the position of either giving up some personal information or knowing that your clerk will be reprimanded for not making their weekly quota of Identity Theft Database Filler. Don't make them push crap, bait and switch, or sell "warranties" that guarantee only that I will be $80 poorer. If you pay good wages & have good benefits then good people will work for you, they will sell, and you will make money. If you don't, then you have to pull these stupid shenanigans. And if you do these things, I won't shop at your store, and you won't make any money, anyway.

Dream World Request: Won't somebody make a search engine that lets me search by Pantone color? I know you can search on Etsy.com by spinning bubbles color, but I really, really want to do this other places, too. I don't care if I have to pay Pantone $20/year for a license, or a Firefox plug-in, or whatever. Just let me match colors on the Internet. Please. And relatedly, if you sell online, use tags! Use keywords! Use (I know this is a stretch) XML! Your "juliette's saturday sweater" should somewhere, somehow, say cardigan. Or else how am I going to find it when I'm searching for cardigans?

Whew. I bet they're sorry they asked. Rant over … FOR NOW. They're going to do this carnival every two weeks!

When Holly at Lucitebox sent me the link to her first pictures of this marvel, I think I probably voiced an expletive. Maybe even two. I mean — really! It's GREEN VELVET, fabric of the god(desse)s. With lace sleeves. From the 1930s. In perfect condition (okay, it's missing ONE BUTTON). This dress is poetry, isn't it? Velvet poetry. Click on the picture to see all of Holly's great close-ups … the sleeves, especially, are not to be missed.

But that's not my favorite thing about it — my favorite thing is the label. Check this out:

Negligee SECTION! Not even DEPARTMENT — SECTION. I love the idea of the Negligee Section workers, in their hard hats and chiffon robes, clocking in. Trooping silently into the Negligee mines. Going to a meeting and hearing the five-year Negligee Section production plan. Electing a Negligee Section Section Leader.

Oh, Marshall Field's, we miss you already. Give the lady what she wants! From the Negligee Section!

This is Kit LaCroix, in a Kit LaCroix dress. A Kit LaCroix dress that I really, really like. But wait — it gets better. The dress is a wool/cashmere blend flannel and the green banding is Irish linen. It has seventeen green snaps down the front and a skinny belt with an ivy leaf motif buckle; and it was part of Kit's Chicago Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion collection.

I just like how poised, powerful, and womanly this dress is. It's not a tiny wispy slipdress that might as well be a nightgown and that has the moral authority of a wet Kleenex; no, this is a dress you could run a board meeting in, or order a mob hit in, or design a superconducting supercollider in (okay, for that last, maybe if you found a lab coat that would fit over it). This is a Dress, dammit, and you better respect, yo! If you were wearing this, people wouldn't just open the door for you, they'd remove it from its hinges, if necessary. You could quell insubordination with a cocked hip and a millimeter's worth of raised eyebrow — if it even got that far.

Good work, Kit! I think we'll be seeing even more great stuff from you in future!

Many many thanks to Mary Beth (her superhero name is The Sewist) who sent me a link to this great wallpaper. I love trompe l'oeil. I love dresses (duh). So of course I love trompe l'oeil dress wallpaper. What's not to love?

This is kind of a sucky picture, so click on it to go to the artist's website. Her name is Deborah Bowness and she does all sorts of clever wallpapers, not just dresses. She also has trompe l'oeil (are you now also suspecting that I love not just the thing signified by the word trompe l'oeil, but the word itself?) book wallpaper, but I don't actually need that:

I am really liking buttoned-up, very prim, demure-to-the-point-of-invisibility dresses lately. I'm pretty sure it's because it's fall. Fall always makes me think of library dresses; dresses that just want to be left alone with a book. Spring is for windy-day daffodil dresses, and summer for picnic dresses, and winter for soft, heavy, trailing dresses that cover your feet as you sit by the fire, but fall is for book-dresses.

So I like this one (which is only $6.99 from StellaBlue on eBay, and B33). Even if it looks as if the poor woman modeling it has just seen her one true love impaled by a piece of rebar, and is deploring the mess it made. I don't know why she doesn't look happy, in a dress like that, but she doesn't. The one on the right also looks as if she's challenging you to a quick-draw contest, but unfortunately she left her holster at home.

If I made this it would be in gray with black piping and buttons. Or maybe a nice deep maroon. But it's not my size, so I'm not making it. But you could …