Runway: Black and white and read all over

Winner: Irina

Auf'd: Johnny

Ahhh, a challenge that went straight for my heart. The newspaper challenge! A visit to the L.A. Times resulted in the designers leaving with arm fulls of newspapers and the challenge of making clothes out of the paper. 

Irina was the big winner with her trench coat with fur-like cuffs and collar. It was pretty good the way she worked the paper to soften like fur. But the rest of the coat was flat, plain paper. I

 thought that part looked quite cheap. Plus, Scotch tape was visible on the back side. So, I was surprised of how much t

hey forgave.

Speaking of forgiving, what in the world were they picking on Gordana for? Heidi said she was bored with her little orangey dress because she thought it looked too much like an actu

al dress and you couldn't tell it was paper. I shared

 Gordana's response when she said she thought that WAS the challenge: to design and construct a garment that looked wearable using paper. 

The dress I thought should have won was Carol Hannah's gorgeous read gown. How in the world ... ? It looked absolutely stunning. Paper or not, I'd wear that on a red carpet.  

The big loser of the night was Johnny, who got called out throughout the whole show for a lie. He had designed a dress that looked like someone was bleeding all over it with these birds on the shoulder. Tim came to the work room and told Johnny it looked like the birds had attacked the dress.  Immediately, he crumpled the dress and started over.  He later told designers who were witnesses to the crumpling, as well as the judges, that a steam iron had spitted water all over the dress and ruined it. Why he felt that story was necessary, I don't know.  But I was surprised by the way Tim called him out behind his back after the runway show. Nicolas did, too, on the runway. Anyway, the dress he threw together wasn't great.  Very boxy. Very boring.  Weird edges.  So he got booted. That's fine. He wouldn't have gone much further, anyway.

As always, I have to mention Minnesota Chris.  Incredible! He did a floor-length gown that appeared to be feathered.  He cut up newspaper and applied it to a full-length paper skirt.  He also constructed a hard bodice.  Very ethereal.  The judges loved it.  I think he's going a

ll the way!

Runway: Correction? I don't know

Since I started blogging about 'Runway' again, several people have come forward to tell me I am incorrect in stating there is one designer from Minnesota. They say there are two. I chose Shakopee's Christopher Straub as one of my picks simply because he won the first challenge and also because he's Minnesota grown.

After people started coming forward about Ra'mon being from Minnesota also, I wondered how I could have missed it. So I checked the designers' bios again. No mention of Ra'mon being from Minnesota.

So, I looked up this article and learned the following: Ra'mon was born in Chicago and currently lives in Milwaukee. Apparently, Ra'mon lived and worked in the Twin Cities for a while. So, I don't know. Is this a mistake by "Runway" by labeling him from Minneapolis (which apparently they have done while he's speaking during the show)? Or, can you say you're from Minnesota when you only lived here for a while?

I'm going with no on that last question. So I will continue to refer to my Minnesota Chris as our homegrown local boy and Ra'mon as my second pick only. So there!

We'll miss you, Patrick Swayze

It was my 8th birthday and my mom let me watch "Dirty Dancing" at my sleepover. Not sure how I got away with that, but I wore out the cassette tape of the soundtrack, and every time I've flipped by that wonderfully campy movie on cable, I've watched for a few minutes.

Mr. Swayze, this is for you. Thanks for your contribution.

Kanye West is a dirtbag

Preface: Video Music Awards? For what videos? I'd like someone to do a study as to what times during the day and week a person has to tune into MTV to actually see a video. It was bad enough when I was in junior high that they played the same videos over and over again, but at least when I came home from school I knew I had a solid few hours of nothing but music on TV. I wonder how kids today concentrate on doing homework when they don't have MTV blaring in the background. That's how I did it.

But, anyhow, the VMA's continue, and after last night's Kanye West incident, I would be remiss in not mentioning it.

I'm not a Taylor Swift fan. Like so much of popular music these days, I don't get it. (Jonas Brothers, anyone?) But she won her first VMA last night, and Kanye came up on stage, took the microphone and essentially said Beyonce deserved to win. Beyonce was horrified, and Taylor Swift was crushed. She didn't even finish her speech. In a classy move, however, Beyonce brought her back on stage later and let her finish. Oh, and he got boo'd during his little speech and every time his name was mentioned afterward. : )

As an aside, how arrogant does someone have to be to do what Kanye did? He's had some stellar moments in the past, and this is not the first time he has said someone else didn't deserve an award. In fact, last time he said HE deserved it rather than the person who won. At what point does someone's jerkiness start to outweigh the talent. For me, we're at that point. I hope this incident hits Kanye wear it hurts most: the ego and the wallet.

Anyway, here's the video. You be the judge.

Runway: Blondies rule and Qristyl drools

Winner: Althea
Auf'd: Qristyl

First of all, who cares. I find that I lose a lot of interest in the show when the designers have a boring challenge. What could be more boring than designing a cocktail dress for their own model. I was more surprised by how far some of the designers were bending over backward to meet the model's requests. The first thing I would have said: "You want me to pick you next week, right? Then whatever I make for you, you better strut yourself down that runway and praise every stitch of that dress, got it?" There, problem solved.

Shirin has quickly become my little favorite. Not as a designer, but as a personality. She's so adorable, which is probably why she had so much trouble saying no to her model last night. I was quite nervous for her when she was asked to design a royal blue jumpsuit. Thank God she finally took it her own way and made a dress just good enough to get her through to the next round. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Let's get down to who stunk up the place.

It was a battle among the ladies last night, with the blondies coming out on top. Qristyl made a dress that at least had some interest to it halfway through the show. Now, granted, it was a bit messy, and Tim said as much. In fact, he said something about it looking like the model had been rolling around in bed all day. (I won't ask what she was doing.) Anyhow, she made the mistake of scrapping that dress and playing it safe with a little black number with an old lady silhouette. Never play it safe! Ever! The dress was wearable, which is what they called Johnny's purple frock as well. On Runway, "wearable" can be extremely bad unless that word is closely followed by "chic" or "edgy." Just wearable is doom. And it certainly was for Qristyl, who hit the fashion highway last night.

Logan sucked, too, with his silky and lace electric blue number. Basically a prom dress. But he looked so cute in his tight silver pants and matching shoes, they just couldn't let him go. (Thank you, judges.)

As I mentioned, the blond girls were on their game last night. It was a battle between Althea and Carol Hannah. Personally, I loved Carol Hannah's the best. She made a draped purple top with a Grecian neckline and asymetrical straps, coupled with a hard, structured pencil skirt with a little surprise of flowy fabric in the back. Beautiful! She was my pick last night.

Althea's was good, too. She put a new spin on the black suit. A puffy little skirt with bunchy bits of interest and a jacket with three-quarter sleeves. I liked it. Didn't love it. But the judges did, so she won.

As always, I have to mention our Minnesota Chris. I worried for our boy last night. That color of green fabric he chose was quite reminiscent of seaweed, and then he put two black bands around it that sort of made it looked like a bunch of celery tied up. Oh, how I worried. But he got a pass. Careful, Chris! You're our only hope of taking home the "PR" title to Minnesota. Do us proud!

Project Runway: Three Strikes and you're auf'd!

Winner: Ra'mon! Hurray!!!
Auf'd: Mitchell ...finally

Project Runway history tonight! Never has a non-team captain won a challenge, and never has a winning team partner been kicked off. BOTH happened tonight. Mitchell didn't do jack, so the judges finally got rid of the worthless Mitchell, despite the fact that his team (Ra'mon) had the winning design of the night. Ra'mon was credited for doing all the work and won the challenge, a huge comeback from last week's bowling ball bag dress. (Please note that both my picks have now won challenges. Ahem, ahem.)

Oh, the team challenge. Never a dull moment. I love when they up the ante and make them do a second look. It's funny how suprised they all looked when Tim came in and announced that. In the history of team challenges, throughout five seasons, have they never not done that? Do these kids even watch this show? Funny.

I had no idea how this one was going to go when they were working. Tim seemed to love everyone's except Ra'mon's and Mitchell's second look. Tim was absolutely right about that first attempt at a second look -- totally a scuba suit, and not even a cute one. A scary brown one. But, luckily, Ra'mon cut his losses and scrapped it and came up with something fabulous. Tim didn't really like Epperson's and Qrisyl's very much, either. At least not in the work room. I was on the fence. I actually kind of liked that green color.

Anyhow, on the runway, I really found it to be a tough call. In the end, I thought they all did a beautiful job. If I hated a look, it was probably Nicolas and Gordana's avante garde look. What the hell was up with the lacey tights? Their main look was beautiful. The skirt flowed out, and the top was fun and youthful. Honestly, I didn't feel like either of them deserved to go home for the terrible lacey number. The two looks balanced each other out. So I was glad the judges weren't forced to send one of them home. I guess we can thank Mitchell for that little save. He did something right for sucking even more than the worst look sent down the runway.

Hurray for Ra'mon's big comeback from the scuba suit! What a gorgeous green avante garde look. The beachy one was safe, I thought, which, overall, made me think they didn't deserve a top spot. But the second look was amazing.

I didn't think Epperson and Qristyl did a bad job with the beachy dress. That was nice and well made. Good print, too. Fun and botanical. But the weird, form-fitting avante garde jumpsuit is what resulted in their downfall.

Overall, I thought good calls were made tonight. We're finally rid of Mitchell, and I think we've got some very talented designers remaining. It will be tight competition. I predict Qristyl, Epperson and Nicolas are not long for the Runway. They come up with some pretty cool stuff, but they're the weakest.

On a side note, I wonder if producers or Tim give the judges a heads up on what went on in the workroom. They always seem to know exactly who to pick on and prod about how much work they actually did. Like tonight with Mitchell. It sure seemed like they were tipped off to the fact that he only really worked on the swimsuit. But, I digress. Just curious.

Until next week ... Aufedersein!