Thing-a-day.com

Pretty much all I could manage today is trying to turn  this

into something more usable.

I went to the hardware store to replace the tip on my new Weller soldering iron after discovering that Radio Shack did not have a suitable one. At radio shack I picked up two 1100 mcd leds. On the way back I went to the art supply store to see if they had copper small enough to work with the led arrays. They told me about a bead supply store downtown so I went I bought some silver coated copper wire and made anouther led pannel. (it looks like I have enough resin to make 4).

Then I went to putting the leds on the front of my helmet. If they arent too police blue, I am finally legal.

Well, this is a little hard to explain, but we moved out of the (unsafe/bad feng-shui) house today, into my happy new apartment. When we originally moved into the house last year, we put “protective” umbrellas in each room. We meant it as kind of a blessing for safety and happiness there. Well, long story short, the house just didn’t work out the way we thought, and now we are very relieved to be moved out. So after the moving was done today, and all the furniture was out, the house stood empty, with just the little umbrellas left in each room. Each one was still stuck in the spot we had put it in a year ago. So we gathered them all up, put them in the fireplace, and had a little ceremony, to say goodbye to this house (and, honestly, good riddance). Burn, baby, burn! Bring on the change :)…     

B&W photography today, of some icicles hanging inside of the catwalk we constructed last year:

Whew, sorry I didn’t post for a few days. I just was too sick to even think of being chatty. But, never fear, I am going to give you a rundown of my days!!!

*Day 12*

I posted this to my blogger blog and forgot to post it here. That’s what happens when I get sick — totally forgetful *smiles*

I spent most of the day coughing up nasty stuff that my lungs is trying to get rid of so that I can be officially well. I spent the time I wasn’t coughing complaining to anyone who had the misfortune of talking to me today — sorry *sighs* I’m a grumpy grump today.

When my husband got home and I looked at him, I realized how much I love him and how lucky I am to have him in my life. So, I decided to celebrate my love for him as well as hold up my commitment to the Thing-a-Day Challenge by making a romantic top.

For this top, I chose a really great piece of eyelet that is wide enough to make up the entire skirt of an apron top. I made this apron top halter style with a corset back. I chose a very romantic, lacy, floral print to coordinate with the eyelet.

Here’s the pics:

This top will be made available on etsy in the next few days — as soon as I get my act together. I still need to give it another pressing before I can list it. I especially need to use the ham on the bodice cause I am a bit unhappy with the darts. A good pressing will fix it *smiles*

I am still trippin’ over how this challenge keeps me doing something every day. I almost did nothing today!

*Day 13*

On February 13th, I didn’t have the energy to even think of creating anything. Well that isn’t true, I actually have a ton of ideas and I jotted them down. I didn’t do any sketches, I just wrote down ideas of items that I will be doing soon. My list says things like use buttons, sailor bell-bottom pants, peasant style blouses, large belts, handcrafted flower hair clips.

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*Day 14*
On February 14th, I didn’t create anything using my beloved textiles; however, I did use my creative energies in the kitchen. Even though we don’t celebrate things like Valentine’s Day in my home (cause we think it is a silly Hallmark holiday and that we should spread the love every day), I still thought it would be nice to make a special dinner for my guys. One would think a special dinner would be something like a steak or some sort of labor intensive french meal or something. Well, not for my boys!! One of their favorite thing is my spicy burgers filled with bleu cheese so I set out to make them for them. Here is how it went:

First I allow ground been to get to near room temperature because it will help it stay juicy if the heat from the pan doesn’t shock it. I know it sounds corny cause I am not a professional chef, but in my experience if the meat is warmer before hitting the pan, it ends up juicier (also eggs are more flavorful if you allow them to lose the cool of the fridge before cooking them, but I digress). Once the beef is not frigid cold, I take a slew of spices and mix it into the beef:

The next thing I do is separate the beef into equal chunks (two times the people I am serving so in this case six equal chunks). Once I separate the beef, I form them into patties and I put a groove in the center using a spoon. Once I have patties with grooves in the middle, I load them all up with bleu cheese crumbles:

Once you have the bleu cheese crumbles settled in the patties, it is time to carefully put one patty on top of the other, seal the edges and pat them together:

Finally, ya throw them in the pan with a little oil:

I forgot to take pictures after this because I was busy making a special cake (I’ll talk about that in a second), but here is what I do…..

As the burgers are cooking some of the bleu cheese seeps out with the fat of the meat — yum. When the burgers are nearly finished, I remove the burgers from the pan. Then I add a bit of flower, a dash of cream, and a couple of tablespoons of blue cheese crumbles to the pan to thicken up the bleu cheese/fat stuff that oozed out of the burgers as they cooked….sort of makes a gooey yummy gravy. Once I am satisfied with my gooey gravy, I put the burgers back in the pan for a minute. Then, I serve them on crusty bread and spoon the gravy over them before serving.

Yum, my boys love these burgers! There is an awesome bleu cheese center that is just awesome — but then again we love blue cheese in this house.

I also made them their favorite chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. I cannot give my chocolate cake recipe cause I just sort of throw the stuff in a bowl and blend it and somehow it comes out moist and delish:

When I make my peanut butter icing, I don’t use a recipe either. Yeah, I am all homey and weird and it isn’t really a real icing, but it is yummy. I just sort of throw in milk, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and peanut butter around until I am happy with the consistency. I like it when it looks sort of like this:

Then, I bake my cake, ice it, and slice up a big ‘ol hunk to serve:

You can see that I chose the wrong size pan for my cake. Oops, when I made the batter, I meant to make two round cakes and then put icing in the middle but I completely forgot. So, we ended up with lots of extra icing cause my brain was elsewhere when putting the batter into a pan. I think at that time I was making my ooey gooey bleu cheese gravy.

Like I said, I am no professional chef and the things I throw together probably don’t belong together, but my guys love my stuff and it never tastes bad to me so it works *smiles*

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*Day 15*
February 15th: Sick and not up to anything. I spent 99% of the day in bed. Boring, I know! Didn’t jot down notes and didn’t do anything creative *sighs* I feel really guilty about that, but I had to do the most creative thing ever -take care of Kelly…that’s something I don’t do very often *smiles*

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*Day 16*
February 16th — that’s today! Woo Hoo, after this I’ll be all caught up!

Okay, so today my son went to a Boat Show that was also a Deer and Bow Hunting show. Heck I don’t know what it was, but he went with my sister and some of their friends. DH and I ran around town while he was there cause it isn’t our cup of tea.

Yesterday I called around to the local Viking shops because I really wanted a new ruffler (broke mine) and a dual feed foot. I found out that only one within 50 miles of us had both feet. Actually, this one was the only one that had either and both.

Anyhoo, we go there. I walked into the sewing center that is located in a joanns store and explained to the lady that I called and they were holding a ruffler and a dual feed foot for me. The lady said, “Do you know how expensive these feet are?” I was a little taken aback and wondering if my normal dress was low class & then I remembered that I didn’t make time to curl my hair and thought maybe that may be it. I just told the lady, “um, I don’t know I expected that they were $80 - $90 each.” She said something like, “well yes, but the dual feed foot is more.” I was like yeah whatever, I need them and I want them so shut up, but I didn’t say that. I just said, “I have a coupon to buy three presser feet and get the fourth free so I want to pick out two more, where are your feet.”

The woman gets up and opens up the most awesome display of presser feet that I have ever seen in a viking sewing center and it was in that moment that I fell in love with the greenwood location. Beyond the fact that they were well stocked, this woman actually knew her equipment and she literally taught me five things about my Designer SE that I didn’t know about. I was totally shocked because the women at my location NEVER come up off of anything (if they know anything…with the way they are all ditzy and not helpful about most things, I really assume they know nothing.).

Oh, on the 14th I also bought an embellishment kit. Or maybe it was the 13th, I cannot remember at this moment. I know it was a day that I was sick because I almost had an asthma attack in the store. I remember being peeved that they didn’t have the ruffler and the dual feed foot at that location, but I felt better when I got home to have the buy 3 get one free coupon in my mailbox. I used a coupon to get my embellishment kit.

After two coupons and a few days of shopping, here is how I spent about $350:

Ohhh, how exciting it will be to use these presser feet. The embellishment kit has some feet I have been bitching about and some I have been drooling over: 2 different sized beading feet (yay no more hour hand-stitching pearls), a braiding foot (yay unique trims that I make myself), a gimping foot (hooray for free-from weaving of stuff like yarn and ropes). I cannot think what the fifth foot in the kit is off the top of my head.

Today I bought the ruffler and the dual feed foot. For my third foot I picked out a candle wicking foot cause I always think that looks cool. I remember a quilt that my great grandma made when I was about 7 where she spent hours and hours doing candle wicks by hand. I helped her and I have actually made a pillow cover with a circle made of hand knotted candle wick detail. Now I get to do it with my machine — woot. Ummm, the other foot I chose was for my serger — it is an elastic foot. This will be good for my peasant tops I am looking to make soon.

OH so you probably would like some actual crafting chat, huh?! Well, now that I talked your ear off — totally *smiles* I wasn’t going to create anything new today, but DH asked me if I had given up on my challenge where I am supposed to create something every day. Well, crap, when you put it that way, yeah I am going to make something.

On a whim I decided to make a dress for about a 6 year old cause I am tired of the form being naked…haha I mean nekid *smiles* Anyhoo, I started by appliqueing a purple flower to that really great icy Michael Miller print that I have used a billion times before:

Then, I combined some awesome fabrics to make the skirt portion:

Ok, this dress is in progress. What I didn’t picture is that the back has grommets in it and it still needs the very back panel added to it. I forgot to put the straps on because I was so excited to be using grommets for the lace up. Ugh!!! So, this will either be strapless or I will add a strip to the front and back so I can add the laces. I made the laces by the way *smiles* I just get all excited. When I finish it, I’ll post pics of the front and back. I’ll pop it on etsy when it is completed to my satisfaction.

I did good on the grommets. My husband is so used to me buying stuff from people where the grommets rip with little effort. I have learned to really reinforce anytime I use grommets….so, these grommets actually go through three layers of heavy weight interfacing AND two layers of fabric. They are very sturdy. I like sturdy grommets.

Ok, did I talk enough? Sorry for the big mass message here but I felt really guilty for not keeping up with my blog! Hope you all had a fantastic few days and didn’t miss my posting too much *smiles*

Still on the baked, faux foods theme here - a little sandwich cookie and a cupcake. Working on the techniques but back to the regular stuff tomorrow, as production for upcoming shows calls!

Today I needle-felted some more felt pieces and yarn to the front of the felted sweater piece from yesterday. Then I hand-sewed the shoulders to the back sweater piece, and sewed up the sides by machine. The plan was to reconstruct this into a jumper dress for my daughter (a toddler), but I wasn’t really happy with the shape. The shoulders needed to be cut down and reshaped to fit her. I wasn’t sure that I could do this neatly, so I decided instead to sew the sweater back together with the original arms. I would have liked to substitute other more interesting felted arm pieces, but I only have a small stash of felted sweaters and none of them looked right. Basically I just reconstructed the sweater in a smaller size. Hopefully it will fit her next winter.

I have decided to tentatively go ahead with a black accordion book; black card stock is on order and I have spent my creative time today readjusting the book layout for a smaller page and converting the images and words to white on a black background.

Here is the PDF from InDesign (clean and perfect) and a screen shot (includes text boxes and guides, etc.)

magritte_black-book.pdf

You’ll also see my notes as to how I converted the images to white using the Bas Relief filter in Photoshop. It’s kink of a hack, but whatever - it’s coming out well, I think. I have a lot of work left to do, it appears…

I just realized that I can use the theme of Reversal for this whole shebang! I am not tied to the themes, but it’s cool when they work out.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind of spaceship you’d take on long voyages, because I wouldn’t wear down with time, but instead, only get better with the years.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that you wouldn’t ever lose track of in the dark. I’d have blue wings and red tinted windows, and I’d fly around through wormholes that other spaceships would never bother looking for.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that you’d want in a fight, because I wouldn’t ever give up.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would stay in the family, because I wouldn’t sell out to someone else.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind equipped with every intergalactic radio channel available (and a few that aren’t).

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would never get lost, not only because every route is memorized, but also because my internal sense of direction would be awesome.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that you’d ride for trips that you didn’t want to be bored out of your mind on.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that could communicate with all other kinds of spaceships, provided they were willing to communicate.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that never went out of style, no matter what year it was.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that you’d ride in if you wanted to be somewhere on a specific day and time.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would treat all pilots the same, unless they stole me from a family . . . *evil laugh*

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that had secret passageways that only could be accessed by people with innocence in their hearts.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that could stay cool under pressure, able to keep going strong even in the face of strong adversity.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that children would dream about riding in.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would have an instinctual knowledge for all of its passengers’ personal preferences in temperature, lighting, food preparation . . .

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind had extensive data banks of knowledge.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would help out other spaceships in times of trouble.

If I were a spaceship, I might look like this:

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would be good to talk to in the middle of the night if you couldn’t sleep.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would keep you safe from harm.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would sacrifice myself if I knew it would guarantee your survival.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that would never forget anyone on any random planets, no matter what.

If I were a spaceship, I’d be the kind that you’d want your friends to see, just because there aren’t any other spaceships exactly like me in the universe.

Today, I made some cling-on images for any smooth surface.  I took an image I liked from an old Time magazine and covered it in clear packing tape.  Then I cut the image out, placed it in a bowl of warm water andlet it soak for a while.  I rubbed the paper off the back with my fingers, and I was left with a translucent image that will stick to any smooth surface!

Tips:  The magazine image must be glossy.  Don’t rub the paper off with your fingernails.  Images look really neat when stuck onto a transparent surface.

So, this is sort of cheating, but I made this today from a beading kit that I bought in Tokyo.  The bead balls which I made the other day are incorporated in the charm. 

Today I finished the beaded front flap of this small bag. Tomorrow I plan to felt the bag.

Happiness

today

happiness is

a tiny spark

of a bird

high in a tree

who sings

her delight

at the darkening sky

This week has been unsually hectic at work, but I have still been plugging away with some creative time.

13th: edited episode 39 for Potter Fic Weekly. Soon to be released!

14th: baked some wonderful flax bread from my own recipe

15th: finished the 7″ for the leg of a pair of stripy socks

16th: cast on and knit the ribbing and 4 pattern repeats of the leg pattern on the Bellatrix socks

I did so much work on my bunny today!

I finished his second leg, finished a whole ear, and am currently still working on the second ear. I should be able to finish him by tomorrow!!! YAY!!!

I was emailing with a friend today, and she made a comment about work and how they aren’t “tying aspiration to action”. I’ve heard her say this before, but today it resonated with me.  Since I’m big on eliminating the “noise” in my life, I like this.

According to m-w.com, aspiration means, “a strong desire to achieve something high or great”.

I like that. I have a lot of things I want to do, but what do I aspire to? I’m not sure I really know the answer to that.

I think I like this today because I’m currently feeling a bit like a hamster in a habitrail. Running, running, running, but not really getting anywhere.

I think there is more here, but right now I WANT to get off my computer for the evening and curl up with a book. Tomorrow I think a collage on this topic is beckoning, but that will have to be tomorrow

Daily Photo:

Coasters, Coasters, Coasters!

I have been knitting up a storm. I got permission from the pattern designer to sell the coasters on Etsy, so I am very excited to get a good stock done before I set up a store there. I am getting a bit tired of this colorway, as much as I love it. I will have to branch out and get some new shades if I am going to stay interested!

I’ll do another set and then get them felted.

Another storekeeper moves into Whitewash City — this time it’s the bakery. This model was pretty easy to make — just a simple rectangle with a roof. The only part that was a little more difficult was the chimney, which is assembled in two parts and then the cap is placed on top of the body of the chimney. I also like that this building has a sign sticking out in front of it.

(more…)

another attempt at ascending while descending

also, a variation on yesterday’s image