Projects

Steven and I have been very busy bees with our projects. Mine are sewing projects and Steven's been doing some wood work.

Check out our latest projects:

My new Spring dress! I apologize for the uneven hair and goofy face. I had just gotten back from yoga.

My new jacket. I can't wait for next Fall to sport this thing more often. I think it looks very Sherlock Holmes or maybe 70s Dr. Who. Note the jacket is being modeled by my new DRESS FORM!

Demonstrating the hood...

It's cinched in the back for a more feminine look.

The jacket pattern is from Sewaholic.

And Steven's project is a spool holder for me!!!

Steven also made us a mail holder/organizer since our mail always ended up everywhere. Now we have a place for it and our keys. Isn't he talented?!

Mexico trip day 1

Guadalajara

In preparation for the Thanksgiving weekend travel rush we got to the airport 3 hours early, as they recommend for international travelers. As luck would have it, we beat the rush and were sitting at our gate within 10 minutes of being dropped off at the airport. Oh well. That left us time to watch a show. We picked up where we last left off with a Doctor Who Christmas Episode. So good. Definitely in the top 10 of Who's. Lots of the Doctor, very little Amy Pond is how we like it.

The flight was uneventful though we've had better experiences on other airlines. We got a meal but it was a ham and stinky cheese-wich. Stinky cheese doesn’t mesh well with enclosed airplane cabins.

Customs was fine though Deanna got picked for extra screening. It was touch and go for a minute there with her ibuprofen but she got through.

The original plan was to be adventurous and take the bus to the hotel but we couldn't figure out what bus to take so we reverted to American tourist mode and got a taxi. I haggled though and talked him down to 200 from 280. By haggle I mean:

Steven: Cuanto para ir a Hotel Morales?

Taxi Driver: 280.

Steven: 200?

Taxi Driver: Ehhh, vamanos!

We saw lots of interesting things on the taxi ride. Crazy driving. Goats. Car models they don’t have in the US, like a VW coupe with a truck bed. Entire families riding in the front seat of a truck. The most bad ass walk signs ever. The walk signs seriously deserve their own post. You know how in America we have the walk guy and the stop hand?

Boring.

Well here they've got an animated bright-as-hell LED walk guy AND a countdown timer. PLUS, the walk guy speeds up as the time counts down becoming the "running furiously guy". It doesn't stop there though; the STOP GUY has a countdown timer too! It's amazing. It's all the data you need to make an informed cross/jay walking decision. Course everybody here jaywalks anyway....

Sorry for the shakes, there was jostling amongst the pedestrians.

The hotel is pretty awesome. We went fancy for the first night. It’s well reviewed online with good reason.

Next was our walkabout and dinner excursion. Deanna had a friend who recommended El Sacromonte It was 1.3 miles away but we decided to be adventurous and walk while checking out the shops along the way. Despite having GPS and a compass and Deanna, who is freakishly great at directions, we ended up going perpendicular to our destination for maybe half a mile. Oh well. [Deanna insert – I wasn’t paying attention. Just walking and window shopping.]

We eventually made it to the restaurant. The food was amazing. We got appetizers that called themselves quesadillas but were more like calzones. In addition to the cheese there were rose petals inside and it was all drenched in a strawberry aioli. For courses I had pollo el delirio which was chicken breast rolled up with cuitlacoche (some kind of corn and bean type thing) inside and smothered in a sesame sauce. D had spare ribs cooked to perfection (falling off the bone).

We're both quite bad at Spanish, though I'm doing better than I thought I would. I was able to talk with our grandfatherly waiter enough to get the food ordered and get the attention of the fabric store attendants. Oh right, fabrics:

This portion is now penned by Deanna.

FABRICS!! So many great and not so great (Virgin Mary prints on fleece?) fabrics!

I’m most excited that I found something that I’ve been looking for which are really authentic Mexican looking fabrics. Maybe I’m crazy and you can find them downtown or something but I haven’t seen them. Anyway, here’s a pic:

They are so brightly colored and my favorite is the one with the little dude and his donkey.

I’m thinking of maybe making a simple dress out of the black one and some cool looking bags with the other brightly colored ones like this one…plus I already have some leather.

I got some other amazing fabrics I can’t wait to go home and use.

On the far left is some amazing polyester fabric which is the same fabric content as my favorite dress. It’s my favorite dress because it’s cool and flowing and quick drying (for the hot sweaty days of summer when Steven decides to catch me with the garden hose…true story), and is easy to wash and never stains or wrinkles. It’s the world’s most perfect fabric for $3 a yard. The print on it is amazing too and my favorite color blue.

The middle one is for a yellow polka dot bikini. I have a bikini pattern and I thought it would be something fun to make. The fabric was like $1.50 or something so why not?

The purple one on the right is silk charmeuse that is super soft and oh so flowey. I’ve never worked with anything like this and will probably need a steamer but it was too pretty to pass up at less than $3 a yard (probably not real silk but still soft).

And finally there’s a wool and poly blend plaid that I got specifically for a coat pattern I just bought from Sewaholic.

I’ve never sewn a jacket and I’ve only worked with one plaid that didn’t matter if it lined up so this will be a challenge. This one was something like $2 a yard or something crazy! It’s soft and warm and is perfect for a coat.

So Steven and I got back to the hotel and calculated the damage I did to my wallet buying fabric. Only $47 for a total of 22 yards of fabric. That’s an average of $2.13 a yard! That’s the only souvenir I wanted so I’m actually under budget from what I thought I would spend. I think I'm getting better at buying fabric already having something in mind with how I'll use it.

We got back to the hotel after shopping and are already beat. We walked about 3 miles today after waking up super early and spending 2.5 hours in the air. There was a party going on at the rooftop bar of the hotel but when we went to check it out there were signs that it was a private party tonight. Oh well. At least now we’re forced to turn in and get an early start tomorrow.

Random observations:

• No kids in strollers. The only ones we’ve seen in strollers were getting off of the plane. While this does work the kids out more it also makes them more likely to be stepped on.
• We keep getting 2 second bursts of fireworks every hour or so. It's a very lazy fireworks show.
• They have a Mexican version of the E! show The Soup called La Sopa.
• Our fancy hotel not only has the regular soaps and shampoos but also has complimentary shoe shine and sewing kits.
• The hotel has a master power switch for the room that you activate with your room key. This prevents you from wasting power but also makes their alarm clock useless.
• Diet Cokes are called "Coke Light". We like "light" better than "diet" but it's confusing that they use "light", an English word, as the Mexican version of the soda.


• There are bike racks all over and some even have travel time estimates.

• There’s an armoire in the hotel room that Deanna could live in. Steven could almost live in it:

Sewing Project : Gift for my boss

My boss is having a baby boy in early September and instead of buying a gift, I decided to make one. This was a great decision because, it's an excuse to make something and it's more personal than just buying something. But the most important reason I decided to make a gift is because they registered at really expensive places!!! I would have ended up trying to buy the cheapest thing anyway.

I found some baby flannel fabric for $1 a yard at Jo-Ann's before I actually knew what I was making. Then I asked our friends with 2 kids what they couldn't live without. They said their "bicycle bag" which was basically just a thing that you put over the baby for keeping it warm. So they let me borrow theirs and I set about copying it. I needed to buy a long zipper, some batting, another yard of fabric (this time at $2.50 a yard) and some snaps but that was about it. Total for the gift came out to about $10.

So here is the original which is being modeled by Steven's Patrick doll.

The top part snaps off and on and the entire rounded bottom is one large zipper.

Here's my version:

My friend Trista gave me the puppy applique that worked perfectly to try and break up that very busy pattern.

I kind of wish I had made the outside the inside because I like the way it looks with the busy pattern more broken up. Here's a shot of the inside of it with snaps and zipper opened.

Here's inside of it without Patrick in the way. I ran out of fabric for the edging so that's why one is blue and the other is the patterned fabric. I made one improvement by putting in a sturdier zipper. The original "bicycle bag" had a very small metal zipper that the fabric get's caught in every time you zip it.

Here's the outside with it opened up.

I think it turned out pretty good. There's some weirdness about it but it's still functional. Since I was learning how to make it as I was going, there were a lot of mistakes made and things that I couldn't fix because I ran out of fabric. If I ever make another one again for another friend's baby, i'm sure it will be perfect. Still, not bad for $10.

Yesterday I made a skirt...

And today I wore it. I kinda love it. I loved the fabric when I bought it. It's light and sooo soft and I got like 6 yards of it at 75% off.

So here it is...

I like that it's comfortable but it's shorter than I'd want for a loose fitting skirt. One gust of wind and I'm done for. It's also so short that I wasn't left much for a hem so I keep getting flyaway strings along the bottom. One other thing you'd notice if you looked at it in detail is that I used white thread throughout the construction. It's fine when they're inside seams but the zipper and even hem are done in white. Tacky but I didn't have any matching thread and I still had leftover white in the machine from the last thing I made. Plus, since I have a whole six yards of this fabric, this was supposed to be a practice run but I ended up liking it enough to wear it to work. I'll probably redo the hem next time I pick up some brownish thread.

The fabric and the looseness is perfect for this weather so I'm pretty happy with it.

June Failure

Wow. Not many posts in the month of June. Sorry for any of you who check regularly to see if we've updated. We're going to start our one fan. You know who you are.

Not much has been going on. We've had some quiet weekends at home mostly and during the week we just routinely go to work, come home and eat dinner, watch some TV and work on various things around the house.

I do however want to update you all on our "garden". Remember a few weeks ago when I planted seeds. Well here's what they looked like then:

And here's what they look like now:

I took these pics a few days ago too in preparation for this post so they're actually a little bigger now. They are growing like crazy. The ones still in the egg cartons are the stubborn green peppers. We've got a few teeny tiny sprouts but they were planted at the same time as the rest and are nowhere near matching in size.

Also, I just noticed in the above picture that you can see a bit of my toes. Notice how the big toe has a purple dot on it. That's not a speck on the lens or anything. That's a bruise that I got on both "thumb toes" during our backpacking trip over Memorial Day Weekend. I'll spare you all the close of pics of my bruised toes. At least my toes don't hurt anymore but the evidence of a 22 mile round trip hike still exists.

Unfortunately, we didn't get many pictures of our 2 day long camping trip with Steven's brother and sister but if her blog is open to the public, we're featured on Steven's sister's blog.

Last but not least, I've been working a lot on some sewing projects. I made one blouse from a 1970s pattern. I guess I was not all that happy with the results since I haven't even bothered to take pictures of me in it or wear it at all really. Oh well, it was good practice on making a collared shirt. Maybe I'll take some pics this weekend.

But I did make something I'm proud of and with this heat going on, I've already worn it multiple times.

It's actually a little too big but is very comfortable. It's supposed to have a zipper down the side but I was easily able to put it on over my head so I left it out. It has elastic in the back to help the back stay up but I should have put a smaller strip of elastic and stretched it more so that it actually does something. The way it is, it just kind of rests on my back and isn't tight. Oh well. I liked this pattern a lot so I'll make more and work out the kinks.

I have my sister Dana to thank for this top. She gave sewing a try and it wasn't for her so she stopped mid-project. That was a few years ago so I took it over last weekend and am happy with the results. I'll have to owe her a top. Maybe I'll make her one with the kinks worked out.

Steven and I are planning on going to see the Rose Bowl fireworks this year. Apparently it's the biggest show in all of So. Cal and it's only a mile and a half from our house. We're not sure if we'll bike there or walk there. Both of us don't like the idea of leaving our bikes unattended for any long amount of time. We'll let you know how it is and maybe you can join us next year...or even this year!

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.