Projects 2 and 3

Out of the Sew What? Sew Bags book, I created projects 2 and 3.

Project 2

A dog drawstring bag. The book calls it a ditty bag. Right now it is sans drawstring.

Project 3

Tissue holder! I made one for myself, for Jeremy, and for Maya.

Finished the Simple Tote sewing project!

First sewing project has been completed out of Lotta Jansdotter's book. Time to start celebrating. For those that are interested , I've included a link to Amazon below. 

Sis-in-law visit!

My sister-in-law Ali is in town for a visit! She flew in from Houston yesterday.

From the airport, we took a leisurely drive on 99 into Ballard.

We had some fun walking through the Sunday Ballard market. We looked at various booths and listened to the musicians.

After making it up one side of the street, we stopped by Harry's Hamburgers for some tasty nom noms.

We headed back down the other side of the street towards the car. I bought some olive bread by The Tall Grass Bakery and a BPA cup at the Monster store.

Craft room is now a guest room!

On Friday after after getting approval from Jeremy, all my cluttered items from my craft room exploded into the living room.

24 hours later, it all went back into the craft room. Less 2 bags of books to go to Half Price books, a few bags of recycling and other garbage.

Set up the old futon frame, and voila! A guest room!

Trip to Mt. Rainier

On Saturday, Jeremy, Joel and I headed to Mt. Rainier to visit our friend Scott. Scott is working as a ranger for the summer.

After he showed us the cabin that he was sharing with his sister, he took us to a point nearby where we could get a really nice photo of Mt. Rainier. We forgot our camera, but I have included a photo of the spot taken with my iPhone 4. Joel, who has a digital SLR went to get a photo and managed to fall and hurt himself.

We took a shuttle to the Nisqually Falls trail and hiked down it. We then took the shuttle up to Paradise, but it was super crowded. We got off the shuttle, hung out for less than 30 minutes, and then headed back down.

After a bottle of Joel's homemade brew, we headed to the Copper Creek Inn for dinner and a slice of fresh blackberry pie.

Stalled out on projects

I stalled out on my tote bag. Issues with the zigzag stitch and tension issues. I went to Quality Vacuum and Sewing last night, and I think I figured out the problem. Now to learn to sew close to the edge to protect the fabric from fraying!

I have a few more items in the queue. I've been washing fabric, and trying to cut things out, to get everything ready to make while Jer is out camping with his cousin Jeff.

Drawing Lab : Lab 2

This is from my second drawing lab, where you draw an animal figure from an image. The drawing instrument never leaves the page, and you never look at what you are drawing. I started off with a giraffe, then an elephant, and finally an image of Gravity.

I doctored the photo of the elephant with eyes and some trunk wrinkles when I was done, I was so pleased with how it looked.

Drawing Lab : Lab 1

I am currently going through a new book that I bought at the Sunday Fremont Market. The book is Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists : 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun! by Carla Sonheim. You can purchase the book from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Lab-Mixed-Media-Artists-Exercises/dp/1592536131/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279729095&sr=8-1-spell

Here are some drawings of cats from Lab 1

Cool classes to take in Seattle area

A book making class from the SCBA.
http://www.seattlebookarts.org/classes-and-events/scba

How to make a tote bag.
http://www.stitchesseattle.com/pages/events.html

A drawing class from Carla Sonheim
http://carlasonheim.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/teaching-update/

Art retreat/classes from Teesha and Tracy Moore
http://teeshaslandofodd.com/1/workshops/workshops.html

My First Sewing Project

I am working on my first project out of Lotta Jansdotter's "Simple Sewing" book. I am currently on page 59 and stuck between steps B and C. I keep expecting it the main piece to need to be cut in 2 pieces..

I also think the fabric I chose is too light weight for this project. But, it is my first project.

Back to figuring out what to do.

Update : Finally figured out what to do. The drawn photo makes it hard to understand. I expected to need to cut the main piece, but really, you place it in between the bottom piece, to give the bottom more support.

Sunday

Sunday, while Jeremy was riding around Lake Washington, Gravity and I took a walk around Green Lake. After the walk, we went to the Fremont Market. At the Fremont Market, Gravity and I got our picture taken. I made a quick stop by Theo Chocolates, had a couple of samples, and bought Jeremy a couple of pieces of chocolate.

Urban Craft Uprising Summer 2010

This Saturday I started off by helping my hubby get his kayak on the car. After that, we went to check out our garden in the backyard. The next few moments were not so good. A bug flew into my eye, and then got caught underneath my eyelid. Ouch! It took a good 5 minutes before I could get it out.

I dragged by best friend Maya out to Seattle just after 8 am. We got in line for the Urban Craft Uprising, arriving at 8:45 am for a chance to get one of the highly talked about swag bags. 8:45 am turned out to be a little too early. By 9:30 am however, the line had wrapped around the corner and out of site. If you got there by 10 am, it was probably too late to get a swag bag.

Was it worth it? Standing for two hours? I think the experience was worth doing it once. Would I do it again? Probably not. What you get is kind of a crap shoot. Some of the bags have really cool things, and some of the bags were not so cool. I had one of the better bags. I had a journal, felted hair clips, buttons, scissors, and a lighter. The lighter was from Yarnia. I was confused at what they were trying to promote by having their name on a lighter. It would have been more helpful to come with a card to say what it was used for, if it was for crafting with.

The rest of UCU was fun. It was the same as summer before. My favorite booths included ShellyEtc and glam.spoon. I was a little sad, glam.spoon didn't have the colors I was interested in this time. They had one skirt I was in love with on the sale rack, but it was a smidge too small. :(

There was a new outstanding booth. Bella Designs. She modified jackets and gave them a hoody and other decorations. They were incredible. I tried a few, but they didn't fit my body type so well.

It's always a good time when I get to hang out with Maya and crafts.

I win! I win!

Just found out today that I won a Brooklyn nightlight from Shelly Etc. I am very excited to get it.

http://urbancraftuprising.blogspot.com/2010/06/shellyetc-interview-giveaway.html

I have now used up the rest of my luck for the year. :P

I recently won "Where is PT Stitchy?" contest.

Yay for winning things. A contest from the Plush Team came across my RSS feed the other day. Where is PT Stitchy? The following photos were provided by Zazu Faire.

I searched on Google using the terms "Cactus" and "Red rocks" and came up with a photo almost identical minus PT Stitchy, labeled Huntington Gardens, CA.

My prize was the little yellow leaf brooch, inspired by the trip to the gardens.

4th of July weekend.

This weekend was fun and crazy. The very opposite of peaceful.

I started Saturday off by dropping Gravity at daycare at 7 am. I drove past North Bend to Rattlesnake Mountain trail, and hiked the Ledge trail by myself. It was the same trail I hiked with some friends the previous Saturday, but without a beagle to pull me up it. It took me an hour to get up. I was passed by a big buff guy carrying a cooler and another bundle. I was also passed by a man with a dog. At the top of the trail, I talked to the man with the dog. He was from Slovakia and now lives in the Kent area.

I drove home to get prepped up for Steve and April's Canada Day party. That is always a lot of fun. We were unable to go the previous year. Gravity was busy having seizures, and Jeremy went to hang out with some relatives. This year was no exception. There was badminton and street hockey. Jeremy managed to score a couple of goals in Birkenstocks and a big huge blister on his foot!

Sunday we drove to Heather's mothers place in Stanwood. It was cloudy, misty, and cold. We hid treasure bags for the kids. I hung out inside when I got too cold and had my feet kept warm by Ali the pitbull. She was a super sweet dog that was terrified of fireworks. There was lots of drinking, chatting, and hanging out by the bonfire. I made an attempt to eat a S'more and got it all over my fingers.

Today we hung out for the first part of the morning. I woke up early, but ended up catnapping several times. When we got home, I washed two loads of laundry, cleaned out the cars, washed dishes and weeded a small area of the lawn! Now headed out to play bridge. Busy busy!

I can haz iPhone 4

On Friday, my husband asked me to pick up an HDMI adapter from the Apple store. During my lunch break I popped into Bellevue Square mall to pick one up. I looked at a relatively short line and asked the Apple employee if that was still the preorder iPhone 4 line. He said no, that it was for the leftover phones.

There were about 20 people in line, and the wait was about an hour long. I said, what the heck, and got in line. The wait was more like an hour and a half. The first 10 people disappeared in less than half an hour. Everyone must have gone on their lunch break at the same time, because it slowed to a crawl afterwards.

Day 3 of having an iPhone. I am having a blast with the camera and video features. Friday I took Gravity to Marymoor Park. Yesterday I went to the Redmond Town Center sidewalk sale and Farmer's Market. Today we went hiking with some friends up to Rattlesnake Ridge and then for lunch at the Rogue Brewpub in Issaquah.

Gravity is completely crashed out. Poor little doggie.

Crazy week.

Its been a super crazy week.

Gravity had 4 seizures in less than 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday. I thought we might lose her. She's not even 8 years old yet. Beagles traditionally live 12 to 15 years.

I asked my coworker Alex to bring his fancy digital camera to work and try to get a couple of photos of Gravity and myself. I have tons of photos OF Gravity, but only a couple of myself together next to Gravity. We lucked out and had a little bit of sun shining through the clouds. I am including the 3 that turned out the best. 2 of them were her 'rolling over' She doesn't seem very happy in those two photos.

Saturday I took her to daycare, and Jeremy and I headed to the Washington Beer Festival held at St. Edward's Park. This is the 7th or 8the year that we've attended. There was one year, where it was held somewhere else. The weather was cloudier than normal, but we managed to avoid the rain. My favorite beer by far was the Triple Chocolate Stout by Airwaves.

We bumped into a couple of our friends from the Seattle Granite Club. I also bumped into my friend and former coworker Martha. We worked in a lab at Microsoft a little over 3 years ago. I also bumped into a former coworker, Abraham. We worked at AT&T Wireless/Cingular together back in 2003-4ish. A fun time was had by all.

Bob T came back to our house for Bacon wrapped jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese. Jer almost did us in with those. I couldn't finish mine, it was wayyyyy too spicy. We also had brats with sauerkraut for dinner.

Today was Father's Day. I called my dad up yesterday to wish him a Happy Father's day and schedule an upcoming outing. Jeremy, Gravity, and I headed out for a nice drive to Edmonds. We picked up some coffee at the Cafe Ladro out there.

From there, we took the backroads into Ballard, where we partook in the Ballard Farmer's Market. Jeremy got us a couple of slices of pizza from vendor. While he was in line, there was this guy playing the accordian. He was playing "Starlight" by Muse. Totally awesome. I wish I had clarified with him - he made a comment saying that it took him a year. To learn how to play the accordian, or to figure out how to play "Starlight" is the question I should have asked. Oh well. Perhaps I'll get a chance to hear him again in the future.

After purchasing some smoked salmon and dog treats, we headed to the Fisherman's terminal in Magnolia. We sampled a piece of deep fried halibut - no chips at Chinook. Remember, we already had pizza. Then Jeremy bought some salmon for dinner.

Lots of laundry was washed, there was a nice long dog walk, chocolate peanut butter no bake cookies and kale chips were made. Ah, and baked salmon on a bed of lentils were eaten. Nom nom nom. Jeremy finished up the night by making some Chex mix for tomorrow's bridge night to be hosted at our house.

Crazy busy weekend.

No rest for the wicked.

Friday night we had a Scotch tasting party at our house. Total of 12 people or so and 9 different Scotches to taste. Laguvalin 16, Edradour, Scapa 16, Laphroaig Quartercask, Glenfarclas 21, and Chieftain's to name a few. Its all fun and games until someone or two gets sick. Yuck. We will be hiring a carpet cleaner to get the smell out.

Saturday I dropped Gravity off at doggie daycare. I forget what we did in the morning, but we did something. Then ate a quick lunch at the double D bar in Bothell-Kenmore area. It used to be JRs. The food isn't really ready yet, but they made us an ok grilled cheese sandwich. Home to the noise of construction in the kitchen, and then I made a run to half price books to sell, sell, sell.

The evening finished off with the Seattle Granite Curling Club's annual banquet. New board members were voted on. New measures were passed. Awards were distributed. My Sunday Mixed team came out of 3rd place in the round robin to win the A division, and therefore the crystal! My women's team took the A division as well

Today I picked up my beagle and headed to Tully's in Canyon Park to harass Derrick on his first day at work. From there I headed home for about an hour, put some laundry in the wash before heading with the hubby to Bellevue Square to meet Joel.

The plan was to have dinner at Delancey's. We started off at The Barking Dog. While Joel and Jeremy had a beer, I took Gravity for a nice walk. I came back and tried a Hot Buttered Rum. Yuck. It was terrible. However, I've read about it and always wanted to taste one. Checked off list. Note: Don't have again.

We then drove to the Maritime Brewery. More beer for the boys. I had a cup of coffee. We did however try the beer battered bacon. Another item checked off of my list. It was okay. I'm pretty sure I felt my arteries harden after I ate a piece.

Next, we went to the famous Delancey's. The pizza was pretty good. We had the pepperoni and the special, a white pizza. We had their fennel sausage added, and it was incredible. Jer then asked the waitress to bring the next most popular pizza.

Cyndy de Mayo

Having a pretty good Cyndy de Mayo.

My hubby took me to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. I had a short walk with my beagle Gravity. A handful of people called me to wish me a Happy Birthday, including my mom and dad, my best friend Maya, and an old schoolmate of mine from UW. A plethora of people wished me a happy birthday on Facebook.

All in all, a good day.

Boo. Shortly after this post, Gravity had a seizure. Sigh.

New sport : Hotel bed jumping

New photo sport, hotel bed jumping. Bring funny props and jump away! Ali and I had some fun last night.

Texas Open Spiel

Wen to Houston this past weekend to visit my sister-in-law and to participate in the Texas Open Spiel. First time curling on hockey ice. Yuck. The only way to get it to the tee line was to push out from the hack as hard as I could and then give the rock a shove.

Also toured NASA which was really cool. More photos to come.

April Spiel 2010!

April Spiel 2010 is in full swing at the Seattle Granite Curling Club.

My team is in the sweet, sweet B bracket. We had a 2 pm draw on Friday, a 4 am draw on Saturday, a 10 am draw on Saturday, and then a 27 hour wait until the 1 pm draw on Sunday.

Update: Won the B bracket!!

Black Forest Cupcakes

Ingredients:
15 oz can pitted cherries (sweet) in syrup
4 oz bittersweek (dark) eating chocolate, coarsely chopped
5 1/2 oz butter, coarsely chopped
11 oz (aka1 1/3 cup) of superfine (castor) sugar
2/14 fl oz (aka 1/4 cup) cherry brandy
5 oz (aka 1 cup) all-purpose plain flour
2 tablespoons self-rising flour
1 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 egg

decoration
2/3 cup thickened cream, whipped
2 tsp cherry brandy
Shavings of bittersweet dark eating chocolate.

1. Preheat oven to 335 degree F
2. Line a 12 cupcake pan, with cupcake papers
3. Drain cherries and reserve the syrup
4. Take 1/2 cup of cherries and 1/2 of syrup and process in a food processor until smooth.
5. Cut the remaining cherries in half and reserve. Discard the remaining syrup
6. Place the chocolate, butter, sugar, brandy, and cherry puree into a saucepan. Cook over a low heat. Stir until chocolate and butter has melted.
7. Pour into a large bowl and allow to cool for 15 minutes.
8. Sift flours and cocoa.
9. Whisk in sifted flours and cocoa.
10. Whisk in egg.
11. Divide mixture evenly between cupcake holes. You will probably find that they fill the cases close to the top. (don't worry, they don't rise a lot)
12. Bake for 40-45 minutes until firm to touch
13. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Decorate
1. allow cupcakes to cool completely.
2. Mix brandy into the whipped cream
3. Top each cake with some of the remaining cherry halves
4. Top each cake with some of the cream
5. Using a vegetable peeler, scrape along side a block of chocolate to create curls. Sprinkle on each cake.

This recipe comes from http://www.cupcake-creations.com

Curling season is almost over!

So close to being over.

Last night was the last women's league draw. My team won "crystal" in the A bracket. We played with three, as my skip had an emergency at work. We were ahead going into the 6th end. I turned around after delivering my first rock to find that the Lead of the other team had fallen. She had cracked her noggin a good one, but was refusing medical assistance. She was escorted into the warm room area. We finished the end and with her teammates distracted we scored two.

Our team decided it just wasn't right, and offered to shake, split the points with a tie. To play when the other team is distracted over a team mate just isn't in the spirit of curling. However the league manager said because the game affected other standings we weren't allowed to tie. I am still disappointed about this decision.

I've got one more league game to play on the Sunday Mixed League. This game is also for crystal. We would have played last Sunday, however the Clark rink was busy winning the Mixed Nationals title for the 7th time in 9 years.

I have 4 bonspiels across three weekends in April left. Two weekends from now, I am playing in the Seattle April Spiel. The following weekend I'll be in Texas for the Texas Open Spiel. The weekend after that, I'm the 5th man for the San Francisco PIC team. However, I ended up being over committed and will be coming back the same weekend to play in the Last Chance spiel with my hubby Jer and my coworker Alex.

Busy times.