One shoulder dresses

Skirts

Everytime Jodi sent me on an errand in New York I would look for elastic that was a different color than black and white. I have wanted this for so long and I still don’t understand why it is not carried in more stores. But on one of my last errands as an intern they finally sent me to a place that had every color. I couldn’t think at the time what colors I really wanted, or even how much I wanted. I should have gotten every color. I’m sure I would eventually use it! So far I have only used the yellow and purple for these skirts.

Tie Strap Dress

I have to thank my friends for helping me with the straps of this dress. I made 3 dresses and there are 4 straps per dress, 2 in the front and 2 in the back. I had to turn 12 straps from the inside out, which takes forever. I took all the straps with me to work on during the Super Bowl. My guy friends even helped and I had them all done before half time!

U-neck Dress

I love the vintage look of this fabric. I feel like all my New York fabric this season is floral.

2 more

I am putting 2 dresses up today because I put all of them on facebook yesterday. The fabric for both of these came from New York. Most of the fabric I used for these new dresses is from NYC. I am definitely missing having the fabric/notion stores at my fingertips, but I can usually find what I need at House of Fabrics on Main Street. I am very lucky to have such a unique fabric store right in Columbia. The satin ribbon used on the first dress is from House of Fabrics.

2nd Dress

I changed the design for this dress at the last moment. I had something completely different in mind for this fabric. This dress came to me while I was working out at the gym, as do a lot of my designs. I get bored while I run, so it is a great time to think about the dresses. The strap can be moved to any position on the shoulder and can be spread out to whatever width you want.

New Spring Dresses!

I have been working for 3 weeks on these dresses. I put all of them in M Saturday. I can’t decide if I should put the pictures up one a day or put them up all at once. For today I am just putting this dress up.

There were so many things I learned from Jodi that were obvious, but making these dresses showed me how much I learned that I didn’t even realize. I took a lot of time with each dress to make it exactly how I wanted it to look. Jodi doesn’t stop until she has everything perfect. She checks every detail to make sure it is what she wants. So these dresses are the best I have ever made!

The 1st dress:

Happy Valentine's Day

I have officially been selling my dresses for 1 year. I put the first dresses in M February 14th, 2009 and sold the first one that day too. This is a picture of the first dress I sold. Happy Valentine's Day!!

Last Jodi Arnold Event at the store

This was my last event at Jodi’s store. We had a girl come for the event that makes jewelry out of coins from all over the world. My favorite was a gold bracelet with a penny on it. Lincoln’s eye was a diamond. I will definitely miss the parties at the store after work on Thursdays, but not the cold walk back to the subway.

At this event Jodi asked me what was the best and worst part of the whole experience. There is no way to have a best there was just too much that was so great. I can't even remember what I said was the best. I know it was a list of things though. The worst was easy to answer. The absolute worst part was being away from my family for so long.

Hannah, Jodi, me and Danielle

Hannah and Danielle

Snow

When Laura Lee was visiting me in New York, my brother and his girlfriend, Langhorne came too. Langhorne asked me before they came what the weather was going to be like, so I told her there was a 30% chance of snow, but there was no way it would actually snow. Being from South Carolina, it never snows when it says it’s going to, so I had no idea. It hadn’t snowed since I had been up there. Saturday around 12, while we were walking around, it started to lightly snow and by 5 it was a blizzard. It ended up snowing 10 ½ inches, which is the most snow all of us had ever seen!

outside of my apartment

Will and Langhorne

My cousin, Elizabeth, LL, Will and Langhorne outside the Co. in Chelsea

Central Park

Will and me in Central Park

Room with a View

This is the view from my window at my apartment. I loved looking out of this window. There is always something going on in NYC.

Night View

Snow!

New York Bakeries

One of my absolute favorite things about New York is there are bakeries everywhere. I love just about any sweet there is but I especially love chocolate! Two Little Red Hens is right beside my apartment. I passed it every time I went home, so you can imagine how many times I went there. My favorite thing to get is their Harvest Cookies. They have dark chocolate chips, pecans/walnuts, cranberries, raisins and other dried fruit. The carrot cake cupcakes are also amazing. Another one of my favorite bakeries is Magnolias. There was one I could walk to from work, but I preferred the one on Bleecker Street in the west village. I prefer everything in the west village over midtown.

Regis and Kelly Round 2

During the week Laura Lee was here I decide we had to try to see Regis and Kelly. We woke up at 5:15 and left my apartment by 6:00. We decided to take a cab, which my mom and I figured out was the best idea after we made the trek over to 67^th and Columbus Circle. We got there just in time to be first in the standby line. It was dark and windy, but definitely worth it!

They filmed 2 shows that day. Anderson Cooper and Kelly did the first show and then Mark, Kelly's husband, came for the second show.

Everyone called and texted after the show saying they saw us on TV! So I got my dad to record it for when I got home to watch it. I was almost done with the whole show and did not see LL or me the entire time and then it hit me Anderson Cooper gave the entire audience crack pie from his favorite bakery on 2nd and 14th street and they must have filmed us eating it. How embarrassing...

Anderson Cooper and Kelly Rippa. Anderson's mom, Gloria Vanderbilt, was also in the audience a few seats down from LL and me.

Please click on the picture to see it bigger and notice how Anderson Cooper is staring directly at me! He came over and talked to me about my boots during one of the commercial breaks.

Hugh Grant

Judy Dench

Mark!! Show #2

Jude Law

The second show was filmed for the week of Christmas so they gave the entire audience diamond earrings and a cashmere sweater, scarf, gloves and hat!!

Gossip Girl

The one thing I wanted to do before leaving New York was to see Gossip Girl. The day Laura Lee came to New York Gossip Girl was filming. As soon as she got to my apartment, we went to Chelsea where they were filming to see if we could find them. We found all the trucks, but didn’t see anyone famous, so Laura Lee found someone working in one of the many trucks parked on 3 streets. She asked him where they were and what was going on. He showed us a sheet with all the scenes they were filming that day, where they were filming and what actor and actresses were in each scene. We saw from the sheet that we had already missed Chuck Bass, but everyone else was still there.

Then a different crew member came up to us because he could hear out southern accents. New York people love southern accents. I will miss the attention I got just from talking. He told us to come with him. He showed us which trailers belong to which actors. So, we were standing outside Chace Crawford’s trailer with the man, while LL told him that Chace and her were getting married and so on. Then the guy looks behind him and then looks back at us and says Chace is coming. LL and I were in shock and the guy runs off, because he shouldn’t have showed us or told us all the things he did. Chace turned the corner and was walking toward us. LL and I just stood there. We had no idea what to do so we just stared at him. As soon as they got close enough to his trailer, that we were still standing outside of, the body guard immediately said not now ladies, not now. And then Chace looked at us and said no we can take one. So we took out our cameras, while the body guard was still yelling hurry up ladies, we don’t have time for this. We got 2 pictures. LL closed her eyes for her one chance at a picture with Chace. She will never forgive herself. We ended up seeing Blake, Leighton, and Taylor that day.

The crew members told us to come back that night because they were filming outside. So of course we came back for a scene of Jenny drunk and stumbling and a scene of Nate and Serena getting into a limo.

LL, Chace and me outside his trailer

LL closing her eyes