i want to be your favorite hello and hardest goodbye.

Here's yesterday's outfit. I'm doing a design project for juniors based on mori girl fashion for my apparel presentation class, so I dressed up in mori yesterday.
Blouse from Taiwan, sweater from flea market, dress from H&M, skirt from flea market, lace scarf from H&M, large shawl scarf from thrift, socks from flea market, shoes from Nordstrom Rack.
I didn't wear a jacket, just a big scarf that I bought at a thrift store, but the weather wasn't too bad. I think it was in the high 30's or low 40's yesterday. Today though, the sky was blue and temperatures in the 50's. I could have worn shorts if I wanted to. It's like early spring.
Lately I've been doing well. As in, I've been hitting the gym every other day and taking classes that they offer, finishing homework days before they're due so that I don't have anything to worry about, and going to sleep early.
We're starting to have more design based classes, which is really nice.
I've been designing a bunch and wanting to make stuff, but every time I go to the garment district and total up material costs, I end up leaving with just pattern paper and zippers.

I'm starting skirt patterns in patternmaking on Thursday. After this semester I think I should be able to make dresses!

Love, Kaia

when i was little i always thought the flea market was the free market.

Just a bunch of casual slapped on. Today is one of those lazy days where I don't want to leave my room, but I had to throw out the trash and buy food and go to the mail room (where I was greeted with an empty mail box, surprise surprise). The dining hall is on holiday hours, meaning they close at three in the afternoon. In addition to shorter hours, there's also less food being served.

Lately I've been doing a lot of grocery shopping and cooking all of my dinners. I was going to buy instant ramen yesterday but I forgot, but I guess that's for the better. I bought two bags of groceries from Trader Joes, and they were heavier than I could handle but I had to get it back to my dorm so I toughed it out and pulled my back.

vest and pants from free market, jacket from forever 21, shawl thrifted from Atlantis Attic

A few of the things I wore today I got for free. When I went to the flea market as a kid, I didn't understand why you had to buy things instead of getting it for free. I always thought it was called the 'free market.' The same way I thought Valentine's Day was 'Valentimes.' I'd figured valen was a synonym for love.

A while back my school had posters around for a "free market," and they went around dorm rooms asking for donations from people of stuff they no longer wanted. Then they set up a table next to the cafeteria and had all of the donated items, and anyone could go and take things that they wanted. I think it's a really great idea. Recycling is good.

I think it went on for three days? Maybe four? I went every day and took something whenever I stopped by.
I got a pair of pants with my school name on it, which also happens to be my only school gear. There's the check shirt, and then the check vest, and also a pair of hipster glasses (not pictured) and a big Urban Outfitters eco tote that I took (not pictured). But the big winner is that bow belt! I can't get over how cute it is.

While the free market is closed for now, the students who were running it said that they're trying to make it a permanent thing, where we'd have a store on campus that we can donate to and all the donations would be given out for free. I'm excited for that.

Love, Kaia

forest prancing.

This is rare, I never do moodboards. I've been feeling really mori girl lately. I went to the flea market on Saturday thinking I wouldn't find anything I wanted, but I got pretty lucky.

There weren't a lot of vendors out, most likely because they were predicting to have rain in January. Around a quarter to a third of the vendors weren't there, but I ended up a lot more things to buy than I usually do.
In total, I bought a sweater,a skirt, a fake fur stole, two scarves, a capelet, a lace thing, socks, and a perfume bottle. And nothing over $10. I missed the flea market back at home so much; Brooklyn flea is much smaller and pricier.
Some closeups of the socks I bought.
The fur one was $5! The other two were a little more expensive.
This Odette Barsa lace bed jacket is one of my happiest buys! It's the prettiest color and the details are so lovely (look that the bow lace overlay!!) and best of all, it was affordable, at $5.

I wanted to get pictures of the sweater and the skirt by themselves too, but I couldn't get any good ones so I think I'll do some outfit snaps for them sometime instead.

A recent scan of a sketch I drew
Interestingly, the capelet in the left picture is somewhat similar to the bed jacket I found at the flea market, but I drew the sketch much earlier. I did get pretty lucky this time around.

Love, Kaia