On April 4th, our beautiful baby Hana turned 18. It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that she is grown woman and a legal adult.
I am so proud of her and the person she has become. She is unconventional determined and unapologetic, and I’m certain she’ll have an interesting successful and joyful life.
From the very beginning, Hana was full of happiness, love, and humor. She has always confidently embraced new people and experiences. As she grew, so did her interests; she would research subjects in depth simply out of curiosity. She also became a Lithuanian scout, a football and basketball player, a folk dancer, a camp counselor, and an apprentice mechanic.
Hana truly cares about community, regularly helping out at sports, camp, scouts, dance, and school. It’s not just her interests that make her special; her kindness and generosity of spirit are remarkable. With people out in the world, but more importantly at home. The way she has enthusiastically adored Max from the moment he was born—caring for his well-being and always finding ways to have fun together—has been a beautiful thing to witness. I love hearing them laugh together.
Becoming a mother was an unexpected journey, and I am grateful every day that I was lucky enough to experience this. Happy Birthday Hana Banana I love you so much.
I started this wool jacquard coat a couple of years ago with the idea that it would have Dries Van Noten vibes but also be super warm. I put in thinsulate and a Moncler dead stock wind proof lining, so it is toasty. But at the time I thought it looked bad and recklessly threw it out. As it turns out I didn’t actually throw it out, it was stuffed in a bin. And I like it again. Ha #arinspectorcoat
Almost a year ago I kind of quiet quit social media. It was increasingly hard for me to think about using it for self promotion or business promotion knowing how social media’s algorithms are optimized to inflame and to upset for clicks. It also felt weird to post about unimportant things when so many people I care about were feeling trauma because of world events. The whole system was making me depressed and I didn’t want to participate but also felt afraid that if I didn’t acknowledge everyone I would be insensitive. Posting on social ended up feeling super inauthentic and performative.
I know that my background in PR and my current career have made me cynical about “content”, so I need to check that. But I have to say that after taking the time to reset I feel like positive actions that are in no way related to anything big or important can be powerful too. Non monetized and non strategized content is so refreshing.
Viktor Frankl and his Logotherapy have interested me since I was a teen, and now I feel enormous appreciation for the spirit of that philosophical take. The people who are making things are my people. When I went to Baltimore in the fall and did the jacket class it was a joy to be with a bunch of women from around the world who had this in common, and it was wonderful to share and make with them. I love seeing what people are working on, and social media is a firehose of creative interesting people from all over the world sharing things just because.
To that end get ready for a shit load of sewing content lol. This is my latest - a manifestation make - the thick heavy scrap flannel quilt of my dreams. It has double thickness batting, and I quilted with a zig-zag stitch. It was just washed and I and haven't clipped its threads, but I love it so much and want to share my joy.
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Shout out to my mom, who is my OG sewing inspiration, and who fed my early fashion desires. She sewed this outfit and I remember loving it to death. That blouse in particular, which I also wore with knickers, had me feeling so fashionable.
