The Pineneedle Collective

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Back to School! & Printed Houses

I am finally back at university this week! I'm really excited about the subjects that I'm doing - computer programming, genomics and protein biochemistry. I think that I'm most excited about genomics - being able to make transgenic organisms for various medical/industrial applications is way too cool - although I also think that programming is also going to be really interesting! I've only ever done a very small amount of computer programming before, and I'm not totally sure what I'm going to use it for just yet (although if my blog suddenly gets all super flashy and pro-looking, you'll know why).

Related science factoid for the day (to go with my house bag)? The University of Southern California has built a monster-sized 3D-printing machine that can print a whole house in only 24 hours.

Image from Inhabitat.com

You can see some amazing video of such a machine in action, printing out hollow walls with fiber reinforced concrete here. How cool is that??

As a side note, I saw 3D printers for sale at my local stationery supplies store for $1500 the other day. Gosh I was tempted to blow my savings right then and there. But then I remembered that the average price for 3D printers was $4000 when I first wrote about them, only one year ago! So going off that, in one more year's time, the price should have dramatically decreased yet again. And as an update to that post, it's good to see that things like 3D fashion are much better than they were one year ago (see Thingyverse, and yes, that's MUCH better than the state of the designs last year!)

I hope that you're all having a lovely day,

Sunday 2 March 2014

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Dress is DIY | bow is DIY | tights from Daiso | shoes are Naot Kedma's | lipstick is MAC (Ruby Woo)

Ever since I made this caterpillar dress, and was made aware of the existence of real hungry caterpillar fabric by some lovely blog readers, I have been trying to get my hands on some to make another dress with! I eventually tracked down a few different hungry caterpillar prints at fabric.com. I'm really happy with how the back of the dress turned out (I basically tried to copy the back of this dress without the scallops) BUT I feel like something is missing, and so I'm not completely happy with it yet.
I think that I probably need to add a waistband to break up the middle section, but I'm not sure what fabric I should use for it. The top or the bottom fabric? A different colour? Or is it missing someting else? Throw your ideas at me, I'd really appreciate your input! (And I'll totally mail the person/people with my favourite ideas a hungry caterpillar hair bow, too. Incentive! Yeah!)

I learnt something which I never knew about caterpillars the other day! I was actually listening to the Radiolab episode "Black Box" when I learnt this (which was a really, really good episode - you should listen to it if you have the time.)

Image from Radiolab

When caterpillars become butterflies, they undergo a period of metamorphosis in which they shed their skin and wrap themselves up into a chrysalis, which I knew. But what I didn't know was that during the process of metamorphosis, the caterpillar itself literally turns to mush inside it's chrysalis. Enzymes digest the body of the caterpillar into a "soup" of fluids and cells, and from there, it reforms into a butterfly.

This in an excerpt from How Stuff Works on the process:

Much of the body breaks itself down into imaginal cells, which are undifferentiated -- like stem cells, they can become any type of cell. The imaginal cells put themselves back together into a new shape.

In the 16th Century, after observing this process, naturalists believed that caterpillars were actually dying and then a completely new life form - the butterfly - was arising from the goo, so degraded did the original caterpillar appear. We now know that the butterfly is, genetically, the same animal that went into the chrysalis, and that even though the majority of the body turns into goo, it can even retain its memories of its life as a caterpillar.

The story on radiolab about the metamorphosis of caterpillars is amaaazing and I recommend that you listen, right now (click here if you can't view the embedded player below). It gets all metaphysical and less science-y in the last four minutes, but it's definitely still worth a listen.

(Go to ~0:20 to skip the ads)

I hope that you're all having a woooonderful day!

p.s. The winner of the $200 Sarsparilly giveaway is Nancy W.! Thank you so much for everyone who entered. I so look forward to bringing you more giveaways just like this, with amazing handmade and smaller online stores such as Sarsparilly, in the future! Thank you for supporting them!

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Friday 28 February 2014

House Purse & Astronauts!

That bag I'm wearing right there? It's only a MOTHER-FLIPPIN' HOUSE PURSE! I know, I know - best thing ever, yes? Well, if you're anything like me and obsessed with novelty items then yes, it is indeed the best thing ever. I thrifted it from some market stalls, from these gorgeous rockabilly girls, for only $10. The bag didn't have a long-strap when I bought it - only a really short chain - so I just added one and... bam! It's a shoulder-bag! It's also completely wooden and so a little bit impractical for everyday use, but I don't care, I'm going to try and wear it out as much as I possibly can!

I don't wanna just wave this house purse around in your faces without helping you find your own - search for house purse on ebay and you'll actually find a few like this (I found some here, here, here and here!)

I really went all-out in this outfit, novelty-wise. I'm also wearing an astronaut around my neck from Ginger Pickle, and a bowl of fruit loops from Tash Tash Jewelry on my fingers. There's really no theme going on here apart from "wear weird stuff" - all of the items are fairly incongruous! But I really like that about this outfit.

So of course, what would be more appropriate now than to have a science item about an astronaut? This video is unlike any other hair/beauty tutorial on youtube - Astronaut Karen Nyberg, while onboard the International Space Station, shows you how she does her hair in space!

Karen Nyberg is one of my heroes because she's also a sewer, and brought sewing stuff up to the international space station in order to do some quilting!! Apparently, sewing in space is fairly difficult - cutting and stitching in weightlessness makes everything very different!

I hope that you're having a marvellous day,

Oh! And p.s., my DIY circle skirt dress tutorial is now up on curious.com! It's super useful if you're watching the video while you MAKE the dress, because it's been broken up into segments for each step! Check it out ;)

Wednesday 26 February 2014

Unicorns & Collars / How to Slow Down Time

Dress is thrifted | Handmade unicorn pin c/o Ginger Pickle | socks and bag are thrifted | sock cuffs are DIY

I am thoroughly fed-up with what has seemed to be the longest summer ever here in Australia, because it's prevented me from being able to wear patterned tights and layer up with cute cardigans (which, if you have been following my blog for a while, you will know that these are my "things" when it comes to clothing!) So I've been having to find ways to make my outfit more interesting, while still wearing as little as possible to deal with the heat. One solution I have found for this has been to wear interesting brooches/pins, like this unicorn pin from Ginger Pickle! Ginger Pickle is one of the stores that I listed on my Ethical Fashion Directory back in September last year, so I'm pleased to now be collaborating with them on my blog; they're a store that I really believe in and want to support! They also stock the CUTEST STUFF - go and check them out, I promise you won't be disappointed.

Today I have a video from Discovery News (presented by the wonderful Laci Green) about ways in which you can both alter, and have altered, your perception of time! Enjoy.

I'm also going to add that my perception of summer being the longest ever has totally been affected by not being able to wear patterned tights. Somehow. Yes. So scientific.

Have a great day, guys!

Monday 24 February 2014

Clown College / The Four Percent

Dress is DIY | bag is vintage | hairclips from my friend Katie

I absolutely cannot wear my hair down while wearing this dress. If I do, I am 100% a clown. Red curly hair plus this very childish dress = a children's entertainer outfit (not that there's anything wrong with clowns or children's entertainers, but it's simply not the style that I aspire to).

This is the first dress in which I attempted my new circle-skirt-dress-plus-sleeves-plus-a-collar pattern (you can find the entire thing on my youtube channel), and I thought that this discounted Michael Miller fabric was as good a fabric as any to try it out on (it's still on sale for 2 more days if you want to buy some for yourself)! I did, however, sew right through my finger while making this dress. Sewing is just so wild. *Sew* wild, even. #YOLO. One of my fingernails has turned a lovely shade of black as a consequence, and shall probably fall off soon. Oh, the joys of sewing.

So this is absolutely crazy - did you know that 96% of the universe is made up of stuff that we have never, ever seen? We don't even know what it is. Everything that we do know about - matter and atoms and molecules, everything that makes up both our bodies and the Earth - only accounts for 4% of the "stuff" within our universe. The below video is part of a 60-second-lecture series from Penn University, and I highly recommend that you check it out!

Saturday 22 February 2014

Before & After: A jumpsuit to a cute dress!

Just like in my post about those tricky skirt-shorts almost 2 years ago, I have been tricked once again by some strange item of clothing at an op-shop. I thought the thing below was a nice long floral vintage DRESS - until I got home, tried it on, and was thoroughly confused/disappointed:

Oh boy. Not my style, sorry.

I had bought the "dress" with the intention of shortening it into a cuter dress, anyway, so I figured that the sudden appearance of pant legs would just provide an additional challenge!

Dress is DIY (restyled) | necklace is thrifted | shoes are Naot Kedma's

It was actually really easy to turn this into a dress (and yes, I filmed the entire process for anyone who is interested, it'll be on my youtube channel within a couple of days!) So now I'm actually on the lookout for weird old jumpsuits in op-shops because it turns out that they actually make really great dresses!

How is your day going?