Oh, Sheets

This is really important. You need sheets.

I'm not selling sheets - only quilts for now - but I do enjoy shopping for sheets a lot, so here are some personal recommendations:

MUJI for sweetly Japanese-styled flannel and plaid linen. You can score in the sale section.

COYUCHI for top of the line organic cotton bedding.

LANDS END for flannel and oxford stripes.

MATTEO for made in USA luxe stuff. Extra washed and soft.

FABINDIA for occasional deals on a block printed flat sheet in the "bedcovers" section. Super nice heavy cotton.

GARNET HILL for sophisticated linen.

CRATE & BARREL and WEST ELM for mod prints, plus all the regular mainstream things. Look for fun colors in the sale.

Fancy sample sales for that $20 pillowcase or $60 fitted sheet you actually love so much and will last forever.

Thrift stores for vintage LL Bean and Laura Ashley. There's some good stuff out there.

And if necessary, regular box stores for good old plain-weave cotton. When my boyfriend and I first started dating we happened to be in K-mart and he decided to buy new sheets. He let me pick them out. On our way out of the store, I told him I loved him for the first time.

a few further notes....

Jersey is not the worst. It is very "dorm room" but can be cozy in its own humble way, especially for pillowcases.

"No iron" sheets have a chemical finish on them.

Thread count is a total marketing thing. It's just a number that can be very easily manipulated by the manufacturer. Buy sheets that feel nice no matter what thread count they are and always wash them when you get home, before you put em on the bed.

Acapulco China

When I found this salad plate in a thrift store recently, I thought it was so silly.

But it made me happy! Even though it’s a little stained, the color design is perfect. And it was $2 so I bought it. It’s so full-on “flower power” but made by Villeroy & Boch – “founded in 1767″ according to the stamp on the plate’s back. The pattern is called Acapulco.

I love it more and more every time I take it out of the cupboard. But if I found another one of the same plate again, I would only buy it to flip on eBay - of course I checked, and someone on there is selling the same thing for $25. Just one of these plates is enough for me. If I came across an Acapulco butter dish on the other hand….

Getting a bed in LA

http://thethingsandstuff.com/furniture/bedroom/bed-frames-headboards-and-cribs.html

This site! To all the people who are just moving to LA, or moved here in the past year but still are sleeping on a mattress on the floor…..

Get a bed. Make it cozy or make it minimal or however you like your own personal laying-place to be. Make it yours! But you need a bed frame.

I personally kind of like the idea of the dark wood king-size platform bed with built-in nightstands that’s on the site right now for $195. I’d throw my little old full-size mattress on there and enjoy the drama of a wood moat running all around. Might feel kind of Japanese with all those horizontals. Plus dark wood is obviously my favorite for the bedroom.

The Things and Stuff is a fun site to browse, with used bed frames at $115+ right now. Their selection changes all the time. Thrift and vintage stores are great too. Or there’s the buying-new route. In any case, I truly recommend getting a bed frame, if only to keep your mattress up off the floor and free of floor-dust and dirt. It seriously makes a difference.

Ghost Story

The #1 goal. The true grail for a certain kind of fabric developer. Specifically, the fabric R&D person who is sourcing a drapey, lightly textured, curve-skimming but not-too-clingy womenswear base cloth that takes color brilliantly and is easy to care for.

Oh, and we want it to be “eco.”

I won’t get too deep into the “eco” equation right now, but suffice it to say that we want this fabric to be made of Tencel. Otherwise we’d go with the original viscose version popularized by English brand Ghost in the 1990s. Ghost’s use of this textured viscose crepe fabric for everything from column dresses to button-up blouses and flowing trousers became its signature and the fabric itself eventually became known in the industry as “Ghost.”

It’s the Ghost fabric’s unique structure that gives it that perfect balance of body and movement in order to create a clean line that also moves fluidly. It acts like it’s on the bias even when cut on straight grain. The fabric is woven using a combination of filament yarn in the warp – giving it that smooth drape – with a spun crepe yarn in the weft to add the distinctively “crinkled” look of the finished fabric. This texture comes from the extra twist put on the spun crepe weft yarn and is what sets Ghost apart from other, flatter crepes.

And the necessity of an extra high-twist yarn is what makes finding this fabric made with 100% Tencel content impossible right now. There simply is not a high-twist Tencel yarn currently available that can be used in the weft of the Ghost fabric construction. It’s partly because of the limited range of Tencel fiber types being manufactured by Lenzing, the Austrian firm that is Tencel’s leading global producer. But it’s also because further down the supply chain, not enough spinners are asking for a Tencel fiber that is suitable for spinning into this special high-twist crepe yarn, not enough weavers are asking for that yarn in order to weave it into Ghost, and – ultimately – fabric developers and fashion designers are not demanding a Tencel version of Ghost.

As fashion cycled away from the 1990s’ minimalist clean-yet-drapey shapes and simple lines, Ghost – both the brand and the fabric – became less popular. But in the past few years this incredibly versatile base cloth has been making a comeback as designers recall its singular appeal as the fabric that can dress up, dress down, layer, travel, get thrown in the washing machine (set on cold, and hang to dry, please) and bounce right back without fading, looking timeless for years to come.

Many designers using Ghost now get along fine with the conventional viscose fabric options dug out from deadstock warehouses or redeveloped from vintage Ghost garments. But those tasked with the added responsibility of “eco” R&D – to generalize, those who are aware of and, where possible, trying to limit our industry’s consumption of limited resources – are still working on this one.