I Made a Thing! I Blogged a Thing!

I actually finished something!
Ok, I have probably finished many a thing since I last blogged but the state of social media these days makes sharing them on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest so much easier than writing a blog post. I don't normally feel the need to share much about the processes or techniques involved because a) I am not a teacher and b) someone out there probably explains it better and has made a snazzy tutorial video and c) no one reads this ;) so I gravitate towards the instantaneous picture methods of showing off something I have made.
However, I am feeling nostalgic so I blogged...kinda...

Yup. That is the entire post.

Here, have some photos of the Lago Tank from Itch to Stitch Designs (find the awesome free pattern here) that I recently finished sewing.

If I am still feeling nostalgic later today I may blog about Viennese waltzing and my adventures in altering the 'Giant Pink Pouf' from a $35grad dress thrift store score to something I could dance in. This may involve video. And a tiara.

On Crackers

Dear Mr. Christie,

You did not make a good cracker. 

I bought Stoned Wheat Thins for the first time in awhile today.  I sat down to enjoy them with cheese. I attempted to break my first cracker in half and failed...miserably. I looked at my handful of pieces then picked up another cracker. Again, I tried to break my cracker in half and again I ended up with a handful of cracker bits.  My cheese pieces-carefully sliced to fit exactly half a stoned wheat thin-watched this performance from their side of the plate with some concern. As I sat there contemplating how best to resize my cheese pieces to fit the little cracker bits that now littered my plate,I absentmindedly picked up a cracker piece and ate it. Ack! What is this?! It tastes like it crossbred with a saltine.

Since I can't remember the last time I ate a soda cracker by choice, I assure you that tasting like one is not a feature any cracker should possess(IMHO).

I sat back. I ate another little cracker piece. Sadly, it also tasted wrong. Not stale-just wrong-it was crispy but lacked substance and flavour. I considered that perhaps I was mis-remembering the flavour and texture. I decided that I was not: I have eaten a LOT of stoned wheat thins. And a LOT of those lot were plain. These ones are just plain not right.

I hoped I had an off box...that is possible right? Perhaps Facebook could help me determine the likely-hood of this...

I took advantage of the fact that it was prime Facebooking time of evening to update my status with a query about the possibility of a change in the Stoned Wheat Thin. In the time it took to make my way through my cracker bits and poorly sized cheese pieces the Facebook results came in at four to one in favour of the crackers having changed texture and flavour recently. I was saddened by this result. I was really hoping to be told I was on crack(ers) and that they were just the same as they always had been. 

Please tell me it is not true. The world doesn't need another soda cracker. We need a nice substantial cheese platform with good wheaty flavour! 

If-heaven forbid-it is true, please don't tell me.  Please just change them back. Soon.

Thank-you.

"The World According to Pig" #1

Guest post today by Elliot aka 'Pig'

Thoughts on Food, Humans, Food, Cages, Food...

Or,

  General Musings On The Small Furry Life

"Brooms are Scary.  Any broom.  Even if all it is doing is sedately sweeping up the mess I've kicked out of my cage. 

Brooms.
Are.
Scary."

Sew Stopped

So that sew-along theory didn't work.  I'm not any further along than before :(  That's ok, there's still time...but the sewing room is a mess and therefore is a sewing room with no room to sew in.  I think that makes it a sewing non-room.  Siiiigh.

Just Sewing Along...

I used to enjoy sewing.  Of late though I remember that I enjoyed sewing but rarely enjoy it while engaged in it.  I suspect this is because I'm trying to finish too many bits of costume in too small a space of time.  I do this to myself as I'm a horrible procrastinator, er no, make that an Excellent procrastinator and this is a horrible thing when it comes to making costumes.  I always end up with too much to do and too little time to do it in.  My costume is always the last to get attention and inevitably my sewing machine decides it's done with playing nice and starts doing irritating things like refusing to hold it's tension setting.  No fun.  In an effort to a) prove to myself I like sewing, b) finish something, and c) do a small part to make my sewing room slightly less of an unorganized mess I've joined a "sew along". 

It's a circle skirt sew along that Ms Casey of Casey's Elegant Musings is hosting and I figured that since it breaks down the creation of a circle skirt into weekly bite-sized pieces I'll be more inclined to sit down and work on my skirts.  Yessss...skirts plural; I have a butter yellow crepe backed satin one that I started for July 1st and then didn't finish as I chose not to dance in the show we had been preparing the costumes for and 4 metres of a beautiful apple green "sari satin" [mmmhmmm, technical term that one is ;)] that Bazette gave me as a thank you for helping her with her costume a couple of years ago.  I've been putting off the green one for awhile because I have yet had no need for it (my current black costume skirt is very versatile and works well with whatever our costume plans turn out to be) and because I wanted to make it a reversible skirt but don't know how best to finish the seams to make them appealing on both sides.  I decided yesterday that the likely-hood of me wearing a golden shot with green skirt is pretty slim and I should just make it normally.  If I finish them then I will have 2 less projects hanging around- woot!

The sew along began with considerations for fabric choice, how to draft your pattern, and this past week - cutting out.  I've basically had two weeks free since all that was done previously in the case of my skirts.  Yesterday I cut out my green skirt material.  I took pictures of the process and they are horrible but I'm sharing anyways.  Do not, if you can help it, mix light sources when photographing shiny material that shimmers with more than one colour; this is a colour balancing nightmare waiting to happen.  I was tempted to turn them black and white and let you use your imagination with regard to the colour but unfortunately there wasn't much contrast (darn the green carpet I was laying out the green material on) and they still looked bad.  So here are a few of the least offensive ones.

 My fabric.  The patterned piece will become a Turkish vest and the plain piece is for my skirt.

I don't actually have a paper pattern for the circle skirts we use for our costumes. It's easy enough just to make a compass out of the tape measure ;)

 Marking the radius for the waist.

 Cutting out the half circle.  Now I just have to do it again for the other side.

Skirt hanging with the side seams basted and the waist edge serged.  In order to have a hem that is even and stays even I hang the skirt for a week or two so the bias can shift as much as it wants to before I hem the skirt.

And in case you are curious about the finished costume here is a group photo; I helped with the blue and the copper costumes in the back row :)

Rail yard...

Many a random trains of thought in my head today...practically a rail yard's worth of them in fact.  I ought to be occupied by work but I suppose it's indicative of how bored I am that my mind keeps drifting elsewhere.  What to do with them?  Subject anyone who stumbles across my blog to a small selection of them of course ;)

1. I don't want to be 45 and thinking to myself as I purchase art from an arts and craft fair that I ought to get my act together and sell my own handiwork because here I am buying the same type of thing from someone else and they are making a pretty penny off it.

2. I miss the days of being excited over the possibility of really good photos coming out of what I just shot.  A whole month of photo-a-day and all I got was two photos I really like out of hundreds.  I am picky but not that picky.  I can do better.

3. "No, you do not need to spend money on a mocha today."
-thought while walking towards the accountant's office to drop off some paper.
"Why do I have the uncomfortable feeling that ex is going to drive by? There are many a road he can travel on in this town...the likelihood of it being down this road at this very moment while you are standing here at the crosswalk is slim.  You run into him maybe 2x a year, no point in even wasting time wondering about it."
-thought about 45 seconds after the mocha thought while standing at the crosswalk of a busy thoroughfare in town.
"Hmmm black SUV with bush bar coming my way.  SERIOUSLY?!  Yeaaaaah, I know you saw me, the way the road curves here it's kind of impossible not to see someone standing at this corner.  You couldn't have not seen me even though you are doing an excellent job of staring straight ahead as you drive by.
- damn ex.
"Me thinks I will have that mocha after all.  Harumph."
-(Something needs to counteract the grumpy that said ex always brings out in me)

4. I'm never going to be an accountant.  I just don't care enough about other people and their money.

Dedicated Photo Blog

http://aphotographicsliceofmylife.blogspot.com/

This is where the July Photo-a- Day will live. Please come visit me there :)

Another Photo-a-Day!

Yup, the month of July is photo-a-day month! Who's joining in the fun??!?!
:D

Snow Voodoo

Pretty Parliment