Lexicographer by day, vintage dress fanatic by night—well, by day also—Erin McKean is clearly the right person to catalog the surprisingly arcane and always wonderful world of women's wear with her site, A Dress A Day.
Last year, we gushed about her stories of the secret lives of dresses and her rants against the Handbag Industrial Complex. Recently, we sat down in her virtual sewing room for a conversation about fabulous fabrics and fashions.
Why did you start your blog?
I was out with my husband Joey one night and was talking about the blogs I was reading, and I told him I really wanted there to be a blog that talked about a dress every day. And because my husband is the kind of guy that intuitively understands what you really want and then eggs you on to do it, he said "Why don't you do it?"
I registered the domain name dressaday.com and then sat on it for a year, not doing anything. So when it came up for renewal I felt as if I had wasted a year in which I could have been doing something fun and cool, just because I was "too busy." I figured I would never be LESS busy, so I'd just have to make time for it. I'm so glad that I did! Read the full profile...
Filed under: Fashion, Blogs, Crafts, Yahoo! Picks Profiles
Being green comes in many fashions—it's not all hybrid cars and compact fluorescent light bulbs (although those are great, too). One Australian stay-at-home mum is wearing her environmentalism on her sleeve, literally, and has invited the blogosphere to join in.
In 2006, Nichola Prested started Wardrobe Refashion and welcomed fellow crafters to take the refashion pledge. Their vow? To abstain from buying manufactured clothing items for two, four, or six months.
The only "new" clothes "refashionistas" can have are ones they make or recycle from pre-loved items. Exemptions are allowed for undies and shoes, and crafters can buy some new fabric and yarn, but the emphasis is less consumption, more creativity.
This collaborative blog and Flickr group fast became a hit, and each new refashion cycle has added more and more participants. We talked to Nikki about her sustainable style. Read the full profile...
Filed under: Fashion, Crafts, Green Living, Yahoo! Picks Profiles, Collaborative Projects
What would you think about doing a project-a-week for an entire year? Jeffrey Yamaguchi thought it'd be a great idea and a great web site, so he created 52 Projects. Since his humble hotbed of HTML first launched in 2002, Jeff’s project-about-projects has turned into a blog and a book, and it’s turned thousands of people onto the joys of photographic undertakings, crafty missions, and do-it-yourself ventures of all shapes and sizes.
“Projects are the most energizing thing for me,” says Jeff. “Not just with creative things, but even treating daily tasks as projects fuels your creativity and helps you get things done.” Life is a project: a simple idea that blossomed into a thriving online community. And it’s a perfect example of how the Web can spark creativity and keep it burning for a lot longer than a single year.
Filed under: Blogs, Crafts, DIY, Yahoo! Picks Profiles
Yahoo!'s crack team of editors serves up the coolest, funniest, or quirkiest sites we encounter on the Web. Got a favorite new link of your own? Share it with us!