Sewing Project

For a while now I've been working on making a buttoned down blouse. All it needs is the buttons but I've never done buttons so I keep putting it off.

Anyway, my niece, Karlie has a birthday coming up on Saturday and I happened to come across something she'd love on Etsy. So I thought to myself, I can totally make that so I did.

Here is the original:

I already have a ton of fabric just waiting for a project. I wanted to make the dog out of leather but I didn't have the right color leather in my collection so I went to Joann's and bought $3.40 worth of vinyl. The dog is so small, I could probably make 20 dogs with the amount of vinyl I bought even though I bought the minimun they would cut at Joann's.

I wanted to change the bag a bit to be a bit more like a wallet type bag that I already have. It's big enough for money and cards and maybe some lipstick and your phone. I used it all of the time, plus it's more simple than the tote style the Etsy person used.

Here are all the cut pieces (not shown is the felt I used to give the bag a little bit of structure.):

The sewing part took no time at all. In total, the entire project with pattern making, cutting and sewing took me about 3-4 hours which I spread out over a few days.

Here is the finished product:

I realized I made a few mistakes. I figured out how I can sew the zipper in without seeing a seam but that was after I had sewn the whole bag. I also realized that I should have put the sewn side of the strap facing down so you don't see the open end facing up. I also think I'm going to draw in little white dots in the whites of the dog's eyes so he doesn't look quite as evil. The next one will be better. Those are just minor aesthetic things that I can prefect on another project. I think I'm going to try to make different animals next.

Surrogate Vacation

After deciding to not go to Japan, Steven and I used a coupon we had for 2 nights and wine tasting in Santa Barbara that we had and needed to use anyway. It's a good thing too because when I called the hotel, I learned that because of the coupon, they were basically fully booked except for the weekend we were planning on going before the coupon expired. One issue was that for the first night we had to upgrade to a fancy room which was not too much extra and seemed like fun anyway.

This is the fancy room. Notice the fireplace!

Here's our veranda which we rarely got to use. I stood out in the rain for a total of 20 seconds for this pic.

Steven spent a bit longer out on the veranda because I accidentally locked him out. Turns out there is NOT a handle on the outside of this window/door. It was letting in a cold draft while Steven was out so I closed it and went to the bathroom. Steven was not amused.








Here's a video for taste of what we experienced.










Eventually with all of the rain, our fancy room included a new feature. Water dripping from the ceiling!



Despite the fancy room being fancy, we actually didn't get a lot of sleep due to all the rain and wind and debris hitting the window constantly. I'd say I got a total of 3 hours of sleep...maybe. It was awful. The only way I was able to sleep was to stuff tissues in my ears and cover my head with a pillow. I bought ear plugs for our second night.

When the weather cleared a bit we decided to take a walk around town. Those Santa Barbarians (note the pun) were still out in the water in their little boats!

We found a bike for Steven.

And we found a pretty little carousel with no children in sight. Only a few bums. It was kinda creepy actually.

On our second day there, we decided to explore their City Hall building which is just gorgeous. I'd say it beats Pasadena mostly because everything was so open to the public to poke around.

The next 2 pics are of the hand painted ceilings by some Italian dude they brought over.

This is a new sculpture they are currently making.

Check out them tiles! Also notice the extensive rain gear. This is me with a shirt, sweater, and a wool jacket, all topped with a rain coat. I'm also wearing thermal pants under my jeans. Maybe it was overkill but at least I was comfy.

On our first trip to City Hall we weren't allowed up to the top of the tower for the 360* views of the city so we went back. It was worth the second trip.

Near our hotel was another lookout point which we went to on our final morning when it was finally sunny!

By far, my favorite part of the trip was when I realized that we had HBO and the Pee-Wee Herman special was premiering. Lucky me! Unfortunately Steven didn't watch Pee-Wee as a kid so it wasn't as fun for him. Oh well. Steven liked walking in the rain much more than I did.

Minor adventures in cabinetry

The house I bought was mostly renovated before we moved in with paint throughout, new flooring, and kitchen cabinets but some corners were definitely cut. My favorite example, which has vexed me since I first saw the place, are the kitchen cabinets.

The kitchen cabinets do not meet the stone floor. This is made worse by the fact that the stone stops about a half an inch behind the cabinetry so there’s a second gap casting more shadow. To keep things interesting, this is only a problem on about 2/3 of the cabinetry due to the floor not being level though the counter is.

Every now and then I would mention to Deanna how I really needed to fix this because it was just driving me crazy. Her response was something like, "You’re being ridiculous. If you’d never pointed it out I never would have seen it. It’s fine." My response to her response was something like, "You crazy. Those gaps are the worst thing ever. Ever."

So after a year of hating the cabinets and a couple fruitless trips to Home Depot looking for an easy solution I decided to do the hard solution. I got some nice and true wood (Select Pine) and basically made faceplates for the cabinets. This involved my full range of wood working skillz. There was drilling, planing, sawing, and even a little whittling. My woodshop was the backyard. My workbench was some crates. It was awesome.

I got them shaped so perfectly that there wasn’t even any need to attach them. I stained them and sealed them to match the color as best as I could and then put them in. Magnifique.

But then the second most annoying feature of the cabinets loomed larger. The cabinets weren’t custom built so they don’t quite fill the entire space. That’s no problem, you can just put a custom cut piece to cover up the gap. The cabinet installers did this in two of the five places where it was needed. This was not logically done in the top two spaces, nor the bottom two, nor the left two, nor the right two….nor with a mouse. They fixed the top left and lower middle. It’s like someone looked at it and said, well we better randomly fix 2/5 of this problem really nicely and completely forget about the rest. I don’t know. It confuses me.

So back to the Depot for more Select Pine but this time my workshop (back yard) would not be sufficient. I needed to make a diagonal 3 foot long cut of 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch. A trip out to Neil’s woodshop took care of that. His consists of his much larger backyard, a garage, a patio, and many tools that plug in – unlike mine. More staining and sealing and some inventive attaching and all is now perfect. Oh, I also had to pull out the dishwasher and level it with some shims. The nice bonus there is now the dishwasher door will stay open on its own.

Now I am happy. I ask Deanna what she thinks and she says, "Wow, I didn’t know I really hated that until you fixed it. You are right in all things." That second part I may have heard wrong.

Episode 6 : Our "interesting" status was short lived

Well, after some long and late night discussions, we decided to cancel our trip to Japan. Things there just keep getting worse and we've heard some scary stories of people literally running out of food and supplies in Tokyo now that the panic is creeping into the daily life. A lot of airlines have stopped flights to Tokyo. Our flight still left on schedule.

The good news for us is that everything was 100% refundable because of the circumstances. It's kind of weird that yesterday we were still planning on going and today it's all over. I feel like I've lost something that only existed in my head. That sounds dramatic but I can't shake whatever feeling of loss that is. What's worse was going in to work this morning, not because I'm doomed to be here for the next 2 weeks now, but because people keep stopping me in the halls asking, "Aren't you supposed to be in Japan?".

Steven and I went to work this morning with our bags still packed. Lamby is inconsolable.

Bowie is happy that we're staying. Who else would be around to bug him?

Unfortunately, we exchanged money on Monday and so i'm not sure if that falls under the refund umbrella like everything else. So I guess we won't be needing these...

Only kidding. We'll hold on to those babies so that when Japan gets its economy back we'll be rich! Plus, we'll use it eventually. We're going to try to go in the Fall after the Summer rush is over or maybe even next Spring. Until then, we'll take smaller vacations.

Also on the horizon are the 2012 Olympics in London. Requests for tickets opened about an hour ago so we're going to talk about maybe going to that. Maybe even in addition to going to Japan. We'll see.

Episode 5 - A Wild Ride

This post merits an update from my cell phone.

First thing's first, we are still going to Japan. Yes, we are risking earthquakes and tsunamis and radiation in the name of vacation. We got word from Neil's friend Brian (who by the way is generously putting us up in Tokyo for 2 nights) that everything is coming back online in Tokyo and everything should be semi-normal by Monday. I also had a friend who just left for Japan this morning who will be updating us with any obstacles she comes across. All other destinations on our itinerary are mostly unaffected. We leave on Tuesday at 2pm as scheduled.

Secondly, Steven and I were just coming home from a quick trip to Reseda to borrow a backpack when Steven's temp gauge starts going all whack. We pull off the freeway and check under the hood to find an 8 inch crack in the radiator all steaming and bubbling. We thought we would have to live in the car forever because we called half a dozen nearby radiator shops which were all closed. We finally got an answer from a someone nearby who also wasn't open but gave us another phone number which happened to be the home number for a guy who was also closed. He was already in bed (yes, at 6pm) but said he could would meet us at his shop. Badda bing, we are now driving home with a brand new radiator! Despite the emergency status of the situation, we actually got a very good deal on the radiator. Mad props to A&L Radiator in Burbank for a good deal, quick and friendly service, but most of all, for this logo:

This has been a nice ending to a generally stressful week. I had 3 major events at work yet I am still trying to ride my bike in 10 times this month. This is proving difficult to do with missing 2 weeks of work and all. Monday morning I got a flat while riding in to work. Of course, I didn't notice the flat until I struggled the entire way up the Art Center hill. Almost 2 miles of a steep grade up and I made it the whole way without stopping with a flat! I didn't do any damage to the rim at all, thankfully! We patched up the hole that night and all was well. Wednesday night I made a rookie bicycling mistake which is not making up my mind quickly enough while clipped in to my pedals. Long story short, I ended up falling over. I fell to the right and broke the impact with my arm which was sore for a few days but basically fine now. I also hit my right knee and it bled a little bit but the most impressive wound is the bruise on my left leg.

That was taken on Thursday night. It's now darker and more spread out but I like this picture because of all the pretty colors. The bike was scraped up as well. I was talented enough to scratch both front handle bars and the right side of my seat and I also derailed the chain. Oh well, so my bike isn't quite as pretty as before. At least we're both better and I will continue to ride.

There were definitely some ups and downs this week but we're surviving. We've had a lot of unexpected hurdles just before our trip. I hope that means that we'll be on an upswing while in Japan.

Episode 4: Japan Trip Update

We are just 12 days away before we fly away to Japan. It's crazy how quickly our trip is approaching. I wanted to fill you all in on our itinerary. Below is an interactive map giving you some short details on where we will be and when and what we will be doing. Stalkers, have at it!



View Japan Trip in a larger map

We already have our rail passes, which oddly enough cost more than half of what our flight cost. On the plus side, we get to take unlimited bullet trains around the country shortening some trips from 16 hours and multiple train changes to only 5 hours with no train change.

We are also booked for all of our hotels, except for the Onsen (hot spring) that Jacob is taking us to. All of our hotels include kitchenettes so that we can keep costs down by making some of our own meals.

We're expecting highs in the mid 50s and lows in the low 40s and maybe a few showers so just a tad colder than LA.

There's just a few key phrases we need to learn and a few stretches to get our bowing muscles ready and we're all set!