I was lucky enough to photograph this dress on my friend Daria who visited me with her fiance yesterday morning. She is so pretty and my dress looks gorgeous on her!

Zippers are great to work with and I love making flowers from them. I like that the whole piece is sweet and romantic but has something masculine and somewhat military about it.

Here you'll find a rolled rose tutorial: http://portabellopixie.typepad.com/RolledRosesTutorial.pdf
(right click and "save as" to download)

I have lyme disease since this summer. I was bitten by a tick and not noticed it at first but one day I saw a tick bite on my leg, surrounded by a red ring which looked like a bullseye. In August I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and was prescribed doxycycline. I was given poor treatment by the specialist that I saw and and I still have Lyme and other co-infections including mostly pain in my knees. It hurts so badly today, like somebody twisted a knife in my knees. I guess I will have to cure myself. Medical care in my country is not that good...

I'm currently working on two dresses and I'm almost done! I used Kona Bay fabric squares I once purchased on Ebay, vintage cotton, chiffon and tulle. Magenta and black is very sexy!


Kona Bay fabrics are so beautiful! Their designs look so magical and they remid me of some old fairytales, asian myths and legends...

I love their outfit, these weird masks and hats! Creepy and fascinating! If you want to make me a gift for holidays, I want a plague doctor!





The Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but this view has recently been challenged. Usually thought to have started in Central Asia, it had reached the Crimea by 1346 and from there, probably from black rats on merchant ships, it spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population, reducing the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400. This has been seen as creating a series of religious, social and economic upheavals which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague returned at various times, resulting in a larger number of deaths, until it left Europe in the 19th century.



After 1350, European culture in general turned very morbid. The general mood was one of pessimism, and contemporary art turned dark with representations of death.

In retrospect, it seemed like everything the people thought to do at the time simply made the problem worse. For example, since many equated the plague with God's wrath against sin, and that cats were often considered in league with the Devil, cats were killed en masse. Had this bias toward cats not existed, local rodent populations could have been kept down, lessening the spread of plague-infected fleas from host to host.





The practice of alchemy as medicine, previously considered to be normal for most doctors, slowly began to wane as the citizenry began to realize that it seldom affected the progress of the epidemic and that some of the potions and "cures" used by many alchemists only served to worsen the condition of the sick. Distilled spirit, originally made by alchemists, was commonly applied as a remedy for the Black Death, and, as a result, the consumption of spirits in Europe rose dramatically after the plague. The Church often tried to meet the medical need.







A plague doctor's duties were often limited to visiting victims to verify whether they had been afflicted or not. Surviving records of contracts drawn up between cities and plague doctors often gave the plague doctor enormous latitude and heavy financial compensation, given the risk of death involved for the plague doctor himself. Most plague doctors were essentially volunteers, as qualified doctors had (usually) already fled, knowing they could do nothing for those affected.

Considered an early form of hazmat suit, a plague doctor's clothing consisted of:

* A wide-brimmed black hat worn close to the head. At the time, a wide-brimmed black hat would have been identified a person as a doctor, much the same as how nowadays a hat may identify chefs, soldiers, and workers. The wide-brimmed hat may have also been used as partial shielding from infection.

* A primitive gas mask in the shape of a bird's beak. A common belief at the time was that the plague was spread by birds. There may have been a belief that by dressing in a bird-like mask, the wearer could draw the plague away from the patient and onto the garment the plague doctor wore. The mask also included red glass eyepieces, which were thought to make the wearer impervious to evil. The beak of the mask was often filled with strongly aromatic herbs and spices to overpower the miasmas or "bad air" which was also thought to carry the plague. At the very least, it may have dulled the smell of unburied corpses, sputum, and ruptured bouboules in plague victims.



* A long, black overcoat. The overcoat worn by the plague doctor was tucked in behind the beak mask at the neckline to minimize skin exposure. It extended to the feet, and was often coated head to toe in suet or wax. A coating of suet may have been used with the thought that the plague could be drawn away from the flesh of the infected victim and either trapped by the suet, or repelled by the wax. The coating of wax likely served as protection against respiratory droplet contamination, but it was not known at the time if coughing carried the plague. It was likely that the overcoat was waxed to simply prevent sputum or other bodily fluids from clinging to it.

* A wooden cane. The cane was used to both direct family members to move the patient, other individuals nearby, and possibly to examine patients without directly touching them.

* Leather breeches. Similar to waders worn by fishermen, leather breeches were worn beneath the cloak to protect the legs and groin from infection. Since the plague often tended to manifest itself first in the lymph nodes, particular attention was paid to protecting the armpits, neck, and groin. It is not known how often or widespread plague doctors were, or how effective they were in treatment of the disease. It's likely that while offering some protection to the wearer, they may have actually contributed more to the spreading of the disease than its treatment, in that the plague doctor unknowingly served as a vector for infected fleas to move from host to host.

This one is going to be a head turner! Beautiful and soft velvet, delicate lace and the finest italian lace....

Ewa will be modelling for me as soon as I'm done with the new collection. She's very pretty (but modest) and we have already become friends.