Rainy Day Yields Inspiration

Today is the third day of rain here in the Bay Area, and I am finding myself rather renewed. I spent most of Thursday working on prepping for teaching Annie sewing as well as working on a special order that I hope to finish up today. Friday was kind of an exercise in frustration and disappointment. Annie and I hoped to make cheese, but we could not find the starter and rennet to save our lives. We licked our culinary adventure wounds and went back to the sewing room to work on aprons. The sewing went well, and soon Annie will have a new apron!

I went to class at Fat Chance Belly Dance this past Saturday and had a great time. Now that I am performing at Rakkasha with the group of students at the studio, I have more rehearsals and classes to attend. I also have signed up to do the student salon, so there is a lot of dance to participate in lately. The neatest thing was getting to attend a class taught by Carolena, the founder of the dance form. It was in a way a huge dream come true. I know it is corny, but she was one of my biggest inspirations when I started dancing. The class was so interesting, and I got so much out of the session. The rain showed up later that evening, and it was a welcomed thing. It made me sit down and just relax a bit and let myself rest. I was pretty wiped out from the dance sessions and all the fun of running around with Annie.

The rest of the holiday weekend was filled with reordering and picking up the house. The china cabinet was reorganized and reconstructed to make it much more functional. I also worked on my embroidery project that has spanned many, many years. I hope to get it finished in 2010, but it may be a stretch.

Today I am feeling like I have lots of energy to get things done despite a bad night's sleep. I am going to go and make a spice cake after this entry as well as finishing up the special order. I also want to dust the house and clean up in general. I am also making my final determinations as to the balcony garden for this year. I hope to make the order for all the seeds today or tomorrow. After all of this, I want to work on making a database to find recipes more easily in our collection of Cook's magazines. I am tired of going through each issue to find the one recipe that I need. Hopefully that will help. Well I need to stay with this wave of inspiration while I still have it. Spice cake pictures and recipe review tomorrow!

Jack O Lanterns and Dance

Halloween was a very busy day for me this year. I have been convinced by a friend that I should get back to bellydance, and I have listened. I moved up in levels at Fat Chance Bellydance, so now I am taking levels two and three. It is a nice and comfortable step up. I feel rather interested in dance again and am so thankful that I was convinced to come back. It was kind of like finding a long lost friend and picking up right where you left off a long time ago. It was comfortable and felt in a way like being home. I do also have to thank my old teacher Ishara for giving me such great fundamentals. I find that I can pick most things up quickly due to this fine foundation she created. It is great.

So, to go back to the Halloween festivities. After another marathon dance lesson session, I came home and got down to watching "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" while making our Jack o Lantern. I scraped the interior and did the drawing. Dan and I decided on the design, and he did all the cutting. We ended up with this as our lantern:





We watched scary movies that night and ate the roasted seeds from the pumpkin. We put our lantern out on the patio and kept the candles lit inside until we went to bed really late that night.

Sunday we went to the market in Jack London. We have not gone in quite a while as I tend to over buy, and it took us a while to get through all the old stock pile of fruits and veggies. It was nice to get down there and see all the wonderful fall fruits and vegetables. I happened to find something very neat that I have wanted to work with for a long time, quince. I am going to work on making some jam out of them today. I cannot wait to see what they taste like. It is one of those things that I have read about many times in my Medieval stories and have always wanted to find out for myself what it was like. Now is the time. I have to walk down to the store to get more jars today as I am, once again, out of jars. I then spent most of my time on Sunday working on knitting. We watched some television that we had taped from a while ago, including the original Nixon Frost interviews. Then, I made one of my favorite fall type meals, ham and sweet potatoes for dinner. The night was wrapped up with me falling asleep as we tried to watch the original series of "V". I am going to watch the segment I fell asleep to last night again today. There are also some presents I am working on today. I also hope to get those pants finally photographed now that we have a cloudless day for me to work with. Needless to say, I have a lot on my plate. I guess I should get off the computer and head out to the store before beginning to get these quince under control. I will report back on that tomorrow!

Wine and a Running Start

This weekend, Dan, Annie and her beau, and I went out to the Livermore Harvest Wine Celebration. Needless to say, I forgot to take any pictures of the event since I was enjoying myself so much. We got to taste wine from many different wineries both at the fair and also at the wineries themselves. While the wine was not necessarily in my favorite types, it was wonderful weather with beautiful scenery and great friends. We also attended The Shotgun Players version of Animal Farm. It was another wonderful production with imaginative sets and musical numbers. This one was full of rap stylings and step style dance. The movie marathon also went on with a movie last night of "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium," and earlier in the weekend we watched "Boiler Room." Both were pretty good, although "Mr. Magorium" to us was lacking. It felt like the cutting room floor took too much of the movie, and the message was too dumbed down and simplistic.

I also worked more on the hand sewing on the elephant and peacock belt, and it is coming close to completion. I hope to get some early Christmas present supplies today or tomorrow. I am very intent on getting things done earlier this year. Well I want to get a running start on the short week, so I am off to get some last minute laundry into the system and finish off a personal choli that has been lagging around. Then an afternoon trip up to the fabric stores and perhaps the yarn shop, but that may wait for a trip with my knitting coach! It is much more fun going to the shop with her.

Monday, Monday

The weekend was a good rest and well needed break of the normal pace. Instead of going out and doing a bunch of things, Dan and I mostly stayed at home. We meet up with a friend for lunch on Saturday and did some grocery shopping, but that was it. The weekend was also suitably rainy and crappy, so it was not a surprise that we hid indoors. I took the opportunity to get some organization done in the office area. I have stacks and stacks of different crafting magazines that I kept for the projects. I have decided to go through them all and rip out the projects and get rid of the adds and place the projects into organized binders. These magazines are chock full of adds, and most of the pages are going into the recycling bin instead of taking up room in the office. It was, in an odd way, relaxing to pull apart magazines, hole punch, and place the articles into binders. I also decided to work on my cross stitch frame. Currently the dowels that hold the fabric did not fit well through the frame holes. I also had to thread one side on first and then the other side of the frame, so it was always hard to get the fabric lined up well. I decided to get out the last scrap of sand paper we had since we "gifted" most home improvement supplies in our move and sand down the dowels. I am now wondering why it is that I did not do this sooner. It was much easier to work on getting the fabric not only centered but also taught with the ability to move both sides freely on the dowels. Hopefully this will make me get back to work on the cross stitch design in there that I have been working on for years. It is an "off time" project that I pick up and drop off when convenient. Also over the weekend, I cleaned up some of the piles on my desk. In doing so, I found the brochures for the Afghanistan exhibit that Dan and I visited over the holidays this winter. I will take pictures today and show them off tomorrow along with talking about the exhibit. What an oversight on my part to not share sooner!

Today is a delightfully rainy Monday. I love rainy days, and most of my love for them is the added focus I seem to have on those days. We don't get many rainy days though, so I find myself wandering more often then I would like. I have a ton that I need to get done, and today I am determined to get it all done in a timely manner.

On the plate for today:
I really want to get back to jogging. Hopefully the treadmills are back in working order this week. I have decided that while the elliptical is better for my hips, I really do like jogging on the treadmill better. I also need to get the special order finished today. There is so much work to do, but I MUST get it done today.I also want to get the photographs for tomorrow's post compiled and edited. As a bonus, I hope to get some peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies in the oven. That is all I am going to put up for goals. I want to meet them and perhaps get to exceed them. I am also going to continue the magazine purge tonight with my evening television viewing. Hopefully I can get this purge done this week. Ok, lots to do and I really want to achieve my goals, so off I go! Pictures tomorrow, I promise!

Productive Weekend, Trying to Carry That into the Week

I got more done this weekend than I thought. I was trying to keep off the machines, since the hubby needed quiet while he worked on his programming for work. I ended up working on a personal project but also on many things for the shop. On Saturday, I went to the knitting group I have become a part of. It is put on by Knit-One-One, a local knitting school that I will one day take some spinning classes from. I have learned to knit from a very talented friend, and am working on my first project. It is, of course, a scarf for my Grandmother for Christmas. I am hoping I will get it done in time along with all the other gifts I have to make. I then spent some quality lazy time with the husband. He even took me fabric shopping! He is a great man! I found some great fabrics and am really excited to start cranking out some new pairs of pants with them. They are truly gorgeous.

On Sunday, I did my normal domestic duties such as shopping at the Farmer's Market and picking up the other groceries at the store. I finished the laundry that is always supposed to get done on Friday, but always seems to not get done because of my working on pants items! :) I worked on some promotional items for the store that are going to be given out by a fellow Etsy shop Simply Sarah's Paper Perfections at a craft show in Florida. I hope it gets some new people into Fabulous Pants. I also worked more on braiding the purple falls I am working on for the store. They are super long! I really am liking this pair, and I hope that they find a good home soon when I get them onto the store. Hopefully they will be up in the next few weeks. They do take a long time since I braid almost all of the yarns that are attached on the bands. Pictures to come soon.... I promise this time!

Well it is time to get back to work on these promos. I also am down right determined to get the pants that I am working on for a special order done. They are made out of a different kind of fabric I have never used before for these pants, so they are taking a really long time. I really want them done though.... the person they are for has waited very patiently, and they need their pants. I just want them to be perfect. Hopefully this pair will make me gain some confidence though, and hopefully I will branch out further with the pants line because of this. If I do, they will be named after her! Off to work, and I hope you all have a creative day.

Three Day Weekend Refresh

So I planned on working all weekend, seeing as I thought the husband was going to have to do the same thing, but that was not the case. I ended up doing some more final settling into the apartment. It seems like I will finally have everything just how I want it, and then it will be time to move! :) I did get some pants items done this weekend. I updated some of the language on the website, and I also posted the blogs on the front page. If you are a new reader to the page due to these updates, welcome! I hope you enjoy keeping up with all that is going on in the studio. So after rearranging furniture, stacking books in different configurations, and slogging through computer work, I am ready to tackle some more pants items on the sewing machines. Today, I am working on a couple pair of pants for a special order that was placed a bit ago. I had to find the perfect fabrics, and I think I have settled on them. I am devoting today completely to this order. I want to have them totally finished by the end of the week. I do have to learn some new serging techniques for these pants since I am using some different materials in their construction. Hopefully my learning curve is not too steep, and I can get them done in fast order. Someone has been waiting patiently while I craft my magic, but I hate making people wait for things! Well time is slipping away, so I will sign off and update you all again hopefully tomorrow!