Neighbors (or the pitfalls of outside photos

My neighbor caught me trying to take a photo of myself, balancing my little camera on the steps of our brownstone. I was so embarassed. He asked, "Is that for Facebook?" We are friendly, but not close. This is somehow the face I made when he caught me.
Yeah, it's not easy to be this vain in a rougher neighborhood. I'll save you the face, which is not suitable for small children, but the outfit picture was decent.

Luckily, he offered to take a photo of me. He did take it from a wide angle, which cut off my feet, but the best part is you can see those fellas hanging out on the stoop. They must be thinking, "What is up with that girl?" They probably think that about me anyway, since I like to whistle old country and western standards when I walk to the subway.

Today was 55 degrees, sunny, and therefore I was not completely nuts to buy birdseed and check out local thrift/vintage stores without a coat. Today, I went to Not Just Vintage, on Bedford Ave. It was a really interesting store and there was a massive sale. The owner was very nice but no pushy, and it had some interesting local designer's stuff too (but not uber expensive). I did find a cute dress, but I need a slip. Where does a girl pick up a slip in this town? (So far, no luck at Goodwill, VS, or Target).

Western pearl snap shirt: borrowed from fella, Ebay
Boots: Mia, $85
Jeans: Blank, Cliche, $45

Beautiful day in the neighborhood

This is one of my favorite spots in my neighborhood. It's close to a vaguely busy intersection, that lacks a light, and no one in this neighborhood respects any traffic signals.
I convinced the cohabitator to run errands around the neighborhood, which is a mostly ungentrified section of Bedford Stuyvesant, in northwest central Brooklyn. While lacking the amenities of some of the more "established" neighborhoods close by, the Rastafarian influence means that we can buy soy cheese, textured vegetable protein, and hippie stuff a couple blocks from our house (can you tell we're hosting vegans for dinner tonight?). It gets a bit loud, the folks can be very colorful, but I do genuinely like where I live.
Walking on Bedford village street on a Saturday afternoon takes elbows and chutzpah, so taking a photo by my favorite red wall (just down the block from our apartment) was a challenge. We'll figure out a better spot. I didn't realize how much this early March sun would totally bleach out the details of the outfit. Maybe facing south next time.

The pearl snap button shirt with the full skirt makes me feel like a square dancer. Luckily, I loved square dancing when I was in gym class. I'm going to be a very Western themed old lady some day.

Western men's shirt: borrowed from Blokey
Black jersey skirt: American Apparel, from clothing swap
Black slouch moto books: Palladium, $150
Tights: Target, $5
Purple sun glasses: Macy's (ages ago), $35
Grey pleather belt: free from an ebay purchase
Denim trucker jacket, Levis.com, $27

trading and trending

Blokey never throws anything away (and rarely acquires new clothes), but sometimes his more hole-filled and worn clothes are home or layering pieces only. This includes an older GAP denim shirt (he guesses 2002) with great snap pearl buttons. These are evidently all the rage again in 2010, in boyfriend and fitted styles. I'm trying not to spend and consume more, but how awesome is it when older clothes recycle into current trends, and you can be current without consuming?
His shirt had large elbow holes in the pocket, so when I was in the garment district, I picked up brown suede elbow patches by Dritz (available online if your local notion store doesn't have them). Fella teaches college classes, so the old school elbow patches are a nice touch.
If I had to do it again, I think I would have used iron on patches first on the shirt to make the sleeve more solid, but this works fine for now.

Before: a well worn western demin shirt, with honking elbow holes.

Solution: if you click through, you can see that there are holes already made into the patches, but a sharp needle can pierce it. You can also the holes in the pictures below.

Before I sewed, I used this fray stopper to prevent problems when it's washed. But now I realize that I have no idea how to wash this. Dry clean? Freeze?

The hard part is lining up the patches so they're relative even. I did this by covering up the bigger whole (the right one) the best I could and pinning it. (Three pins, and I ruined 2 other pins trying to pierce the leather/suede). Then I sewed through the holes twice (just a regular stitch, with resulted in something like this the first time around:)

Please excuse the roughness of my graphic.
The second time around, I sewed through the opposite holes, making the stitching complete around the holes.

Then I laid the two sleeves down so they faced either (the hole side on one sleeve faced the patched side) and stuck the unsewn patch on top of the sewn on. I turned the sleeves over so the unsewn sleeve was on the bottom, and the patch on top of the hole, pinned it, and repeated the process. Highly unscientific, but it's even enough.
Fella was pleased with these results. It took me about 1 hour and some change (I watched a few episodes of UK Office, which are now streaming on Hulu, after dinner). But I informed him that since I mended the shirt, we have to share it. He was just relieved that I did not commandeer it entirely.

He looked at me with a wrinkled nose and said, "You look like an Old Navy ad." Maybe an Old Navy ad from 1993?

Edit: I also tried it with a belt. I like this look a lot too, but I think a longer, looser belt wore a bit lower would look best. (At the natural waist looked a bit odd with all the loose fabric).