Projects Completed and Begun

I have been really busy as of late trying to finish up projects as well as spend time with Greg while he is in town. I have finished up a pair of long blue hairfalls that I hope to photograph soon and have up in the shop next week. They look great, and I really like how they came out. I am also making slow but steady movement on the elephant and peacock belt. I hope to have it finished off today and photographed early next week for you all to finally see. It is turning out quite well thus far, and I am really happy with it.

I have also started some things. I am looking around to find a present to make for Craig's birthday, and as I promised my sister, I am trying to find something that does not have a ton of parts. Hopefully something comes to mind soon. I also started a new piece of embroidery for another organizational tin. I am doing this one as red work on black cloth. It is coming along nicely and quickly, so hopefully that will also be up sooner than later on the Etsy Store. Tonight is dance class and then a late night theatre performance of Point Break Live at Cell Space. I hope it does not disappoint. Well since the creative forces have been so strong, I think I need to capitalize on it and get to work. More next week.

Baking, Blackwork, and Berries

The English muffin experiments were more successful on Friday. The new recipe worked better for me and also worked well being halved. The other recipe did not work very well when halved to begin with, so trying to force it into success was going to be difficult. This time I think the kneeding went well via the Kitchen Aid, but I still must have added a little too much flour. There were not as many nooks and crannies as I would have liked. I did decide to try cooking them on our large cast iron griddle. I think that this worked out much better than using the small griddle that I used before. I could get more muffins on at one time, and if I had been more patient in allowing the iron to head up evenly, I think the browning would have been even more even than it was. Here they are all lined up:



I also had a wonderful time at Needle in a Haystack for my Blackwork class. It was taught by Lucy Barter of the Royal School of Needlework. I learned a lot, and even though my work from that day does not seem to show it off as well, I stitched for a good four hours. It was a great class, and I recommend any classes taught by Lucy highly. She was delightful. I learned about shading techniques and also tried my hand at working on linen. I have never had the guts to work on an even weave fabric and usually use Adia style cloth in my cross stitch and embroidery projects. I do have to say the results of stitching on cloth is beautiful, but I think I would resort to using a magnifying glass in the future. It is very hard to look at the threads and find the holes between the weave when you are staring at a piece for more than five minutes. I am surprised that I did not lose a contact. This was my humble attempt at the dragonfly design she provided us with:



Here is a close up of the stitches:



On Sunday I decided to celebrate the Spring Equinox by buying some early season strawberries. I got a good deal since there were not that many people at the market due to the overnight rain and morning winds. They smelled so good that I could not pass them up. Now I need to come up with a dessert I can make with them, so they get finished before I leave for the Vegas Trip this Friday. They looked so pretty, I had to take a picture.



On the plate for today is the start of a new, more intense exercise program. After trying on clothes all Saturday and finding that my bottom does not seem to fit into clothing as well any more, I am back to the treadmill. I also want to add in weight training and some yoga. I am going to also try to do this five days a week. I hope that I can keep committed to it. I am also working hard on finishing up the embroideries for that belt. The faux shisha are coming along, and I am dreaming of some other embroidery stitches I now want to add around the belt. I think it is going to be a knock-out when I am finally finished. I also found a great new set of music while at dance class on Friday. I am pretty sure I have my music picked out for the show, but I don't get the cd until Wednesday. I guess I will be choreographing in the airport! :) Well lots to do before this trip, including getting an appointment with my hairdresser. I need to call her.....

On Breadmaking and Boats

You can see some really interesting things when you look out our windows onto the Oakland-Alameda Estuary. Yesterday I saw a pirate style ship sailing along.... well motoring along actually. They were headed up wind and had the sails down, but it still was neat to see motoring along.



It was a nice thing to cheer my otherwise dismal day yesterday. I had a really bad headache the whole day, so not as much work got done as I would have hoped. Also, my attempts to practice with the shirring foot resulted in much frustration as the machine quit gathering the fabric for some reason. I must have had a dial set wrong. I decided to give up and watch some basketball and tried to work on the belt. I did make progress on the belt, installing more faux shisha as well as covering more rings.

Today is starting out much better. I packed up the tutu and other things for Claudia's birthday as well as some pants I took up for my sister. I also have started some English muffin dough that is rising currently. Bread is the newest cooking obsession that I have, and after a great streak of beginner's luck, lately things have not been going so well. I think that I am both adding too much flour as well as over kneading all the doughs in my Kitchen Aid. Today I did things like set timers and refuse to add more flour when it still looked "too sticky." We will have to see what the results are going to be once I get through the first rise. I find making bread to be rather satisfying, even if it does not turn out. My white bread always seems to work from the recipe that I have from my Grandmother on my Dad's side. It always turns out perfect event hough I had to cut it down from the four loaf full recipe. She was feeding a farm, so I can understand that, but with just Dan and I, four loaves is over kill. Sourdough has been a flop as of late, but I am also determined to iron out the wrinkles on that and figure out why my sourdough is not really ever sour. English muffins lately were really dense, and I blame over kneading and too much flour on that one. I will have better data on that after today's batches. I am also trying a new recipe for those to see if this one works better for me.

Laundry is also coming along, and after this posting, I am determined to get that shirring foot working again. So much for getting that skirt done for class tonight, but at least I am not going to let myself give up on learning how to use it this time.

This weekend I am attending a class on blackwork. I am really looking forward to finally learning how to do this technique correctly. Currently, I cheat. With true blackwork, the front and back of the embroidered fabric look the same, so you have to plan your runs and make sure you know where you are going. I have two items in the shop currently that have my attempts at blackwork, but, luckily, you cannot get a peek at the backsides that are not as perfect as the fronts.





Both tins are available for sale in the Etsy shop. Hopefully I can add more designs after I take my class. Oh and those hair flowers, I hope to have them listed now on Monday. Due to the headache they did not get completed. I am working on getting that all in order today as well. So much to do and so little time before bread is done rising and class at Fat Chance is calling.

Cooler Weather

Today I woke up to glorious fog! One of my favorite things about living in the Bay Area is the fog bank. I have always loved foggy days, and there were very few when I lived in Illinois. They were a joy to me mostly because I associated them with being at the lake in Wisconsin for the annual family fishing trip we used to all go on. Most mornings would open with a fogged in lake that seemed so full of mystery; it let my over active imagination have a place to play. Along with the fog is some cooler weather. This change is letting me think more about my holiday gift making. It is hard to focus on winter events when it is 85 degrees in the apartment. Waking up this morning and having the cool ocean smelling breeze coming through the window immediately turned my thoughts to my niece's birthday gift. She is a December baby, and I try to make sure she gets her birthday gift on her birthday and not on Christmas. My sister also works on keeping her birthday "hers" by not decorating the house for the holidays until it is over. I will take some pictures of her gift in construction as I make it and post them here so you know what I am working on. I figure she is still too young to be on the computer finding this stuff since she is just in kindergarten, well at least I hope she is still too young to find it. I am also going to get another organizational tin finished up and listed today in the shop. It was fun to do the blackwork for this one as well.



This is the needlework just on the canvas, but I still need to get it all put onto the tin. It should be up for sale today for $10. Also on the slate for the shop must do's today are some finishing touches to the black roses pants. I want to model them tomorrow and get them listed up as well tomorrow. This of course can only happen if we are not fogged in all day. I also need to make some more wrapping papers for the shop. I think the overall plan is to do a half work on the shop day and half on the birthday present. If I can get a good jump on the birthday gift, which involves a ton of cutting and not so much sewing, I will be really happy. I will keep you all updated as to how things are going on my Twitter Feed. Sign up today to get the most up to date information on the shop.

Photo Sessions and New Products Begun

I went and tried my hand at new camera settings yesterday. I could not do it on Wednesday as I said I was going to because someone was down on the patio reading. It wasn't that I did not want to do photography sessions in front of others; I have done them before. This person was just using the umbrellas on the table to shade himself while reading, and well I could not bring myself to go down there and ask him to lower it. He looked too content reading in the wonderful weather. So I went down yesterday and played with some new settings on the camera. I liked that the pictures came out more clear more often, but the fabrics are still not coming through as well as I hoped they would. I guess I will just have to tell my perfectionist self to let it go. I took pictures of the Fading Cobalt Jakarta Pants again as well as some more of the Blue Daisy ones. The pictures essentially turned out the same most of the time, but there were fewer blurry and over exposed ones with this new setting. I am happy about that. Here are some of the Fading Cobalt retakes:





I think they look nicer than the older pictures and have replaced the old ones in their listing
. I also got the extra long purple hairfalls finished. They look great, and I almost wished they were mine instead of the purple pair I have. I originally wanted a super long set but cut them shorter when I was trying to finish them in time to wear at a Belegarth event. Needless to say, I did not get them finished in time so cutting them short was for naught. I still love them though, even if they are shorter than I wanted. I am happy though to finally have a long pair out there to go to someone. I will be photographing them today and listing them. I hope to hit the Halloween costume buying frenzy. I will post those pictures soon.

I have also started working on my new product. It involves blackwork embroidery and my favorite thing in the world.... organizational containers! I don't know why, but things to store other things in are a weakness for me. I hope to spread that to others. More details on this project are forthcoming.

On the plate for today in the shop: well laundry for the household. Friday is laundry day around here, and I want to get it all done instead of the long drag across the weekend that usually happens. I am also going to photograph those falls as previously mentioned and list them today. I want to get this new product made and photographed to be listed and profiled here on Monday. If there is time I wanted to get some labels stamped and ironed as well as ironing out and cutting a new pair of pants to be made. One other thing that needs to be done is a run to the fabric and craft stores for some family holiday gift supplies. That all needs to start sooner than later, and I need to try to get in gear for that rather than putting it off. I am on my own tonight due to Dan being at Whiskey Fest in San Francisco tonight, so I hope to put that time to good use. Here's to hoping some cheesy movie on the television doesn't sidetrack me!