White Elephant Finds part une

I've been dreaming about my purchases from the White Elephant Preview Sale on Sunday. Of the four kinds of buttons I bought, I decided which ones will go on my coat. The silver half-orbs will go on the pink side, and the brown ones (they have a bit of a braid pattern that's not really visible on the picture) will go on the boucle side. The second photo, of glass buttons and pink buttons, will be put away for something else. Actually, I have more of the silver and brown ones than I need, so some of those will also be put away for other uses. (I'm thinking lots of purses--see the fabric finds I'll post later).

This third picture is linen napkins. There are a total of 20. They are similar in their off-white-ish, "natural" color, but have different woven patterns (of the same color). There are 6 of one, 4 of another, there's even 1 orphan that doesn't match any of the others. I'm thinking that in a large party no one's going to notice each napkin isn't identical to its friends.

I need to think about my fabrics more before I can post about them. I've already taken their pictures and posted them to flickr.

Sunday SWAP Update

I almost let a full week go by without doing anything SWAP-related. But fear not! I took a small, but important, step today. I went to the Oakland Museum of California's White Elephant Preview Sale and bought buttons for my coat. I actually found four different kinds that I liked. I couldn't decide on them so I bought them all. Whichever ones I don't use on the coat will get used for other projects.

My tally hasn't changed since last week:
4 finished (2 skirts; 2 dresses)
2 nearly done (coat needs buttons; 1 knit top needs sleeves)
5 cut out (1 jacket; 2 dresses; 2 knit tops)




I also bought some other goodies at the sale. Maybe I'll share them later.

I want these.

I've been dreaming of these for weeks. They are satin Pucci pumps. I've already designed a whole wardrobe around them.

The Bloggies!

Vote for the best blogs: 7th Annual Weblog Awards. One of my favorite blogs, Project: Rungay, is nominated for Best New Blog. I also found lots of new stuff that looks fun to start reading. Check it out.

What is this? A topiary for ants?

I've been trying not to clog up this space with wedding planning. I feel there's an appropriate time and place for discussing that stuff and not everyone wants to see it take over my life. Also, there are some things Mike and I want to keep away from public consumption until our guests come and see it all for real. But this is a story that is only secondary to the wedding. This is more a story of me sharing the secret that I'm not always as clever and crafty as I'd like people to think I am.

So, we want topiaries. I found these on super-sale for $6 each at Save-on-Crafts.com. Yes, I read the description that said they are 18 inches tall but for some reason that did not register in my brain as being so short. Luckily I only bought 2, rather than the full number we'd like. When I opened the box, which was huge--very tall--I was struck by the reality of 18 inches.The damn box! I was so excited to see it was so tall that it still didn't occur to me how short 18 inches is. My damn brain, that has no idea how to estimate lengths and distance.

I have now taken out a tape measure and know I want something closer to 36 inches. But none of the tall topiaries are on super-sale for $6.

Last night I watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated. It explores the MPAA ratings system. I'm so infuriated by the ratings system that I don't even know where to begin. Some of this resentment was present before I saw the film, and movie just validated it for me. The guidelines for rating movies are quite subjective and left to the whims of a handful of anonymous Los Angeles suburban parents. They are supposedly anonymous to keep them free from influence but: 1) They work in a building in Hollywood with studio executives constantly coming in and out; 2) It was disclosed that if they don't rate movies strictly enough they receive hate mail from conservative groups.

One issue that the filmmakers interviewed seemed to have: Realistic or artistic sex is often given an NC-17 rating for being too sexual. Yet graphic depictions of rape and other violent acts against women skate by with R or even PG-13 ratings. All those ridculous raunch films like the American Pie and Scary Movie series objectify women yet the MPAA ratings board seems to find them socially acceptable while The Cooler had to cut about 5 seconds of nudity during a tender love scene in order to get its rating down from NC-17 to R. Seriously, if teens are going to be seeing R-rated movies, isn't it better for them to see real love-making for 5 seconds rather than 2 hours of raunchy objectification?

If your movie is given an NC-17 rating, you lose a huge portion of your marketing dollars. Your film won't be distributed. Says the MPAA: If your movie is that good people will see it. But realistically the filmmakers know that is just not true. If your movie is viewed as too risky, or risque, for the mainstream audience, it will not get distributed no matter how good it is. If you appeal the rating, you are not allowed to cite precedence in your defense. (And the appeals board is also anonymous. The filmmaker hired a private investigator to find out that the appeals board is actually made up of high-ranking studio executives.)

The film didn't even get into the fact that movie theaters rarely card teens for R-rated movies anyway. R is supposed to mean no one under 17 allowed without an adult. But they'd probably make no money if they turned away all the high school kids who want to see those films. (Yet Mike and I were carded for an NC-17 film once, because the theater policy was to card everyone for every NC-17 movie. I know we look young, but do we really look like high school kids trying to sneak in to a movie? If they're going to enforce rules, they should be carding for the R-rated ones! Oh, and the movie was The Aristocrats, which was given the NC-17 strictly for language. There are absolutely no images of violence or sex in the entire film. It's 90 minutes of people standing around talking.)

Obviously I am fired up and therefore disjointed with my writing. If you care about the artistic integrity of films please do not write-off NC-17 films as being pornographic, or whatever your reasons might be for automatically rejecting them. See them for yourself before you decide if they are appropriate for your teenagers. Don't trust the ratings! (I'd like to say write letters to the MPAA in complaint, but it's not likely I'll get around to actually doing that so I don't want to be a hypocrite.)

political junkie + blog dork = refreshing Wonkette's live running commentary on the SOTU every few minutes.

Of the many things that irked me about the speech, the one that sticks in my mind the most is that for all Bush's talk of alternative energy, how come he never mentions energy conservation? Would it be so hard for the president to ask Americans to take the very easy, painless steps of driving a bit less, or putting on sweaters and turning the heat down? They aren't large enough to solve the energy dependency completely, but they are immediate acts that everyone can put into practice, not just the people who will drive alternative-energy cars in 10 years. I'm not lured into his ethanol ideas. He still reeks of lobbyists and special interests.

In other news, I started reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City today. I feel sick.

News Break

1) Sometimes The Onion publishes a story that's painfully true.

Area Man Guesses He'll Learn The Difference Between Shiites And Sunnis
PORTLAND, OR—Nearly four years into the war in Iraq, local sales representative Howard Morrison finally conceded that it was probably time to just pick up a newspaper and figure out what distinguishes Sunni Muslims from Shiite Muslims. "At first I really thought this whole thing would work itself out, and there was no need to figure out who was who," said Morrision, adding that it used to be enough to know the difference between Iraq and Iran. "But this is turning out to be pretty complicated and I should at least learn which side are the insurgents. I know one of them's Islamic." Morrison said he would have time for the new subject since giving up trying to learn the difference between trans fats and regular fats last week.

2) Does FOX secretly own every network? They've got all channels covering the big story of how mean American Idol is. But doesn't that actually promote the show? (As if it needs more promotion... Is it true that more people vote for American Idol winners than for president? Are the numbers skewed because of the age groups? And if the American Idol voting system is so reliable, why doesn't it become the system for presidential elections?) Anyway... Does NBC really think they're scaring potential American Idol viewers into watching their programming instead by interviewing people whose feelings were hurt by Simon Cowell? I have a feeling more people will be tuning in to watch the insults fly. (Not me though. I've never been interested in the show and have only watched one complete episode.)

3) Bill Richardson announces his exploratory committee, gets ignored.

4) Does this researcher collect royalties from New Order? Today is, scientifically speaking, Blue Monday. But fear not! Manalo to the rescue!

Being tagged

In reading other people's "tag" posts this weekend I remembered something I should have totally included as one of my five because it's so cool. I'm descended from one of the Plymouth Colony pilgrims. He was apparently kicked out of the colony for fraternizing with Roger Williams. And my family has been in Rhode Island ever since. A couple summers ago we went to Plymouth Plantations and "met" our ancestor there (all the actors take the part of actual colonists).

Sunday SWAP Update

These are my faux-wrap knit dresses from, mmm, I guess two weeks ago now. They are rayon-lycra jerseys in pink sparkle and elephant green.

I've hardly done any sewing this week. I lost some steam. I got my three knit tops cut out last weekend and one of them is nearly complete--just needs sleeves. Then for several days I didn't even look at any fabric. Yesterday, instead of sewing those three tops that could have been done in just one day if I really put my mind to it, I started cutting out my last three pieces--two dresses and a jacket. (I was inspired to work on vintage dress patterns after watching this video on Dress A Day yesterday morning.) By the end of today I'll have those three garments entirely cut out and hopefully the interfacing cut and fused, too. After that all I can do is just keep sewing.

Let's see what my tally is now:
4 finished (2 skirts; 2 dresses)
2 nearly done (coat needs buttons; 1 knit top needs sleeves)
5 cut out (1 jacket; 2 dresses; 2 knit tops)

Super-Terrific Blog Time!

NeCoRo
Mike sent me an email with the subject, "Your new favorite news source." He might be right! It's a blog called Magnoy's Samsara. It appears to be a blog out of Thailand. Highlights include in-depth accounts of a famous Bollywood couple, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai; a story about a gang of elephants in a Thai wildlife preserve holding up a sugarcane caravan and pushing the trucks over so they could eat all the sugar (see also Elephant News Thailand); and links to Japanese robotic cat videos on YouTube. (See here and here.)

As I've been writing this post I've become more and more obsessed with NeCoRo, the robotic cats. Neco is Japanese for cat. It's my dream to one day live in Japan, where Grendel will be known as o-neco (great cat) and Ellie will be necoco (little cat). The robotic cat meows from the various websites I've been looking at this morning are driving necoco crazy.

I've been tagged.

I was tagged by Shannon!

Here's how it works. I get tagged. I reveal five things I've never posted in this blog before. I tag five more people.

Some of my revelations are pretty lame.

1. A few years ago I had four children's books published. They're out-of-print and hard to find.

2. I've seen ghosts. My parents' house was haunted.

3. My parents recently sold that house.

4. I had no middle name until I got married and made my maiden name my middle name.

5. I went to high school with Vicky, one of the next tag victims. She and her husband are the people responsible for Mike and me getting together.

Now, the hard part. Thinking of five people to tag. Vicky, Lisette, LornaJay, Marji, Eva.

Have fun!

Citrus Panic

Yesterday I decided to buy a bunch of oranges while they are still on sale, and in browsing the produce I saw this giant grapefruit. Unfortunately it wasn't as impressive on the inside. It tasted okay, but I was imagining huge segments. In actuality this grapefruit is mostly that white stuff between the skin and the fruit. Over an inch thick all the way around. I had bought a variety of grapefruits and oranges and sliced them up into a citrus salad. No scurvy for me this winter.

Nothing more exciting than that happened yesterday.

Julie and Julia

For the last couple days I've been laughing my butt off reading Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. In a nutshell, a woman, Julie, who is nearing 30, stuck in a dead-end job, and feeling generally hopeless with how life has turned out, decides to make every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She will make all these recipes within one year's time and she will blog about it.

And hilarity ensues.

It briefly crossed my mind to repeat this experiment until I read some of the ingredients this project includes. I am a picky eater (even before I had a dietary disorder to hide behind). I have been very brave over the last few years trying some new things but I have to draw a few lines:

I don't ever want to eat a cooked lobster, let alone vivisect a live one. (Great word though, vivisect.)

I'm thinking any sort of aspic made from calves' hooves gelee would taste like feet. Or worse.

I never eat eggs. (Julie also hated eggs and didn't start eating them until the project. I'll take her word that they are good without actually eating them myself, thank you very much.)

So, I certainly would not eat poached eggs in aspic.

Brains.

I hate having to write conclusions to reviews and essays and the like. They always seem so trite. "Julie faces trials and tribulations but learns something about herself in the end." Actually, I haven't finished it yet so I don't know exactly what happens in the end.

This book is freakin' hilarious. That's all you need to know. I don't think you have to be a cook or lover of cooking to enjoy it. Julie works and blogs and cooks and does every day stuff just like the rest of us, so it's really a book for anyone.

Barack Obama announces his Presidential Exploratory Committee. (Mouse over the video box to play it.)


Dare I imagine that something magical will happen in this country, like on The West Wing? I'm not 100% behind Obama but I know I want something fresh.

(Whoops! I don't know how to make the video box smaller, so that it doesn't overlap the sidebar.)

finally

I finished reading Foucault's Pendulum tonight.

SWAP Update

It's been a productive few days. I finished my two knit dresses and this morning I cut out all three knit tops. Those should be quick and I hope to finish them in just another day or two, if I don't lose too much steam.

My tally as of this afternoon:
4 finished (2 dresses; 2 skirts)
1 nearly finished (coat still needs buttons)
3 cut-out (those knit tops)

To do: 2 dresses and 1 jacket

tv

Errr. All this time I've been watching Six Feet Under, and now Extras, one DVD at a time from Netflix, totally forgetting that since we have HBO, we have HBO On Demand so I could have been watching them whenever I want to. Why should I wait one business day when I can watch an episode moments after the mood strikes me? (As long as the episode I want to see is one that's currently being offered On Demand.)

I've been sewing slowly but surely this week. Obviously I'm spending too much time with tv. I got tired. My goal for this week was to finish my two knit dresses and I'm actually quite close to meeting that.

It's so cold this morning that I nearly died of shock when I went outside with wet hair. (Babci was certain that would happen to me some day.) I know that the winter here isn't so bad compared to the rest of the country, but it is literally freezing. And apparently it's the coldest cold spell in something like 8 years. If you notice a rise in citrus prices soon it's because millions of dollars worth of oranges have frozen to death.

(Pic is Ice Hotel Quebec.)

early morning random stuff

My laptop cam takes photos in mirror image.

This pattern is the first from my recent Lanetz Living spree that I'll be tearing into. For knit tops for my SWAP I had planned on using a tried-n-true Jalie t-shirt pattern. But I'm going to give this one a try. I'll do a muslin first. Normally I wouldn't for a t-shirt, but this pattern uses a zipper, and I think that's odd for a t-shirt. However, the fabrics I'd like to use are stretchier than the ones recommended (stretchy polyester--ick--I can feel the static electricity in my hair just thinking about it), so I'm hoping I can at least get the v-neck over my big head without a zipper. (Click the image to see it larger.)

Join the campaign to bring "riv" back into use!

Vegan Fashion in the New York Times.

ralph

I did not want to go running this morning but somehow I dragged myself out the door. I had to deposit a check, mail some Netflix, and buy some half & half, and I knew I could do all that at the shopping center that's conveniently located exactly 1 mile from us. And I could run on the trail instead of the street, so that was a bonus. I coaxed myself into one little mile, figuring it was better than 0 miles (does it bother anyone else that "zero" gets a plural noun?). I knew I would succomb to the free Starbucks awaiting me and end up walking home. I justified it by getting soy and trying to walk briskly.

Anyway, one thing that minorly annoys me is that in order to get to the trail I have to cross the street at a traffic light along a busy road right outside our apartment. I psyche myself up with a good first song on the ipod, just to stand there rocking out for a few minutes on the sidewalk instead of actually running. I finally got to the trail, and the second song came up. I was so pleasantly surprised that it was "The Final Countdown" (Mike it's on your itunes if you want to listen to it any time). I forgot I had that. I started laughing out loud and luckily no one else was on the trail to see me being foolish. I wanted to dance around performing illusions. I nearly let a "Steve Holt!" slip out. (If anyone other than Mike and Vicky know what I'm talking about, please raise your hands.)

I know this post doesn't make much sense, but I wanted a reason to post this picture.

Recent Netflixes

The Devil Wears Prada. The plot was dopey and I think Meryl Streep was too over-the-top. (Don't tell me she was supposed to be acting that way. I get it. I just didn't like it.) But I loved the fashion. I learned that's it's okay to have a different coat for every day of the week.

The Lady from Shanghai. Rita Hayworth! Young Orson Wells! San Francisco! And a great shoot-out in a fun-house hall of mirrors! A classic must-see.

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang. I can't stand Val Kilmer but I adore Robert Downy Jr. Lots of L.A. silliness, which RDJr does so well. Very enjoyable if you like RDJr silliness.

I'm also on to Season 3 of Six Feet Under and it's starting to get weird.

just a few words

I'm supposed to be working out and/or sewing and/or cleaning up the kitchen, i.e., something constructive and useful instead of watching TV (West Wing Marathon Monday on Bravo) and reading blogs right now. Hrmph.

All but the Buttons

It's so close to being finished, yet so far away. There was nothing that interested me in the way of buttons at Joann's. I wore the coat on my trip, in hopes it would cheer me up and inspire me. No buttons. But I did get some much needed notions. Okay, so Photo 1 is the pink side. It's candy pink cotton twill with a smidge of lycra for some stretch. There are welt pockets. Photo 2 is the boucle side. It's a silk woven that has various shades of pink, purple, brown, and some green. Both fabrics are from Timmel Fabrics. This side does not have pockets. It does have little tabs, though, that you can't see because without buttons to accentuate them they get lost in the pattern. Photo 3: See, it really is one coat! Click on any of the photos to enlarge them. I apologize for the awful color in these photos. I'm limited with what I can do with the laptop cam.

I'm not marking this down in the "Done" column yet. I don't want to count anything until it actually is complete. My next project is to work on muslins for my knit dresses and tops.

Headache

It turns out I will have to leave the house today. Cat food. Those monsters eat gobs of it and I just can't put off buying more any longer. Here's the thing. The pet store is next to Joann's. I will of course be tempted to stop at Joann's. There's a chance I'll find some buttons there. Plus I need some interfacing and muslin. I'm trying to pull myself together in time to get to the stores early, as soon as they open. Joann's is a mad house on Sundays. There's also a Frye's in the same shopping center, which draws a huge crowd on Sundays, especially minivans filled with large families for some reason. (Hey kids! Let's have a fun day of watching daddy buy bargain electronics at Frye's!)

The Concord Park & Shop. I love that name. No frills here, like The Shops at Broadway Plaza or any mall including the word "Paradise." It's very direct. Doesn't mislead you into thinking you're on a relaxing shopping vacation. You will park and you will shop (and you will have a large headache when you're done). You will not lounge around laughing with your stylish friends over lunch with Nordstrom bags piled around the table.

At least the parking is free. ("You know what really grinds my gears"? -Peter Griffin. Paying for parking.)

The Final Countdown

Cue Europe. Or GOB.





I'm taking a break from the sewing machine. I did a lot of work on my coat today. It looks great. It reverses just the way it's supposed to. I need to hem the sleeves and buy buttons for it. Maybe I'll take some snapshots tomorrow. Right now I'm too tired.

P.S. Yesterday my fabrics from Textile Studio and ReproDepot.com arrived. Plus my patterns from Lanetz Living. Plus my swatches from Emma One Sock. It was a good mail day.

hermit

I've got all my supplies in place for hunkering down this weekend to sew my coat. I did a big grocery shopping so I have plenty of food. Netflix has informed me that The Devil Wears Prada and a disc of Six Feet Under episodes will be arriving in my mailbox today, so plenty of visual media. All the fabric and patterns I ordered during the Christmas breakdown should start landing on my doorstep today. (The sight of the new materials piling up motivates me to "Just keep sewing, just keep sewing. Just keep sewing, sewing, sewing.") Yesterday I cut out the second fabric and all the interfacing. And I fused all the interfacing to the fabric, so I really can start the actual sewing part of the sewing project.

If you don't hear from me in a few days don't bother sending a search party. I'll be quite content with death by tweed.

(Pic is yarn-died woven cotton that just arrived from ReproDepot.com.)

but who's counting?

My site counter recently surpassed 1,000. Wow! Who knew so many people found their way here? It's likely that at least half of the hits are from me. I know I'm my own biggest fan. But I also know I have a handful of loyal readers. Thank you. As a gift to you, Gentle Readers, I have organized the links in my sidebar. I hope that you have found something interesting in these pages.

Duh!

My laptop has a camera in it! These snapshots will do for now. Here are my first two SWAP skirts. My entire SWAP album can be viewed by clicking on the flickr sticker on the right-hand sidebar.

Both skirts were done with the same fabric. It's skirt panels I got at Joann's on clearance last fall. I bought 2 yards, which included 2 flowered panels and 2 solid gray. I did one skirt with the flower panels front and back and the other skirt all gray. For the flower skirt I used the selvage edge as the bottom instead of hemming it (saved me a few minutes and a small headache -- I really hate hemming).

Origami High Heels, as seen on Manolo's Shoe Blog.

My head is buzzing with sewing projects. I've basically divided up my stash and patterns into four SWAPs:

1) Think Pink! -- the official one I'm doing for the Timmel Fabrics contest (2 of 11 pieces done)

2) Part II of that one (only 9 pieces planned for that)

3) A black & white inspired SWAP (I've expanded this plan to 12 pieces; one piece is nearly done -- a skirt I started last year that just needs hemming now.)

4) A Fall Colors SWAP, including some of the garments I sewed and planned on sewing last fall (4 of 11 pieces done)

If I can complete #1 and do a few pieces of each of the others this year, I'll be happy. Many of the garments I have planned can cross-over and be worn with garments from the other SWAPs.

Yesterday I went through my stash and added some yardage to my bag of clothes to give to Salvation Army. There are some fabrics I know I will never sew and I should give them a chance at someone else's home.

Yesterday I also cut out the solid pink fabric for my reversible coat. Tonight I hope to cut out the boucle fabric for the other side.

Sewing

I finished my two SWAP skirts last night! Two garments down, nine to go. Unfortunately I don't have any pics. Something is wrong with the camera I have; Mike has the good one with him. I can't seem to get pics from my phone onto my computer. So for the time being no new, original pics. Oh well. I guess I can use the time I would spend uploading and editing pics on sewing instead. Next up: Cut out the reversible coat.

(Pic from Mansker's Station; it's titled "Sewing.")

Well, there was no snow on the mountaintop. Hopefully it will happen at least once this winter. I wonder how long winter lasts here? Yesterday felt downright spring-like in the afternoon.

I have officially started my SWAP. I cut out 2 skirts on Sunday. I'll be able to sew them up quickly. This week I want to complete those skirts and get my reversible coat fabrics cut out. I had wanted to finish the coat first, but decided to increase my number of completed garments (from 0 to 2 of 11) with two quick ones so I'll feel more accomplished. (My garment list is here.) My two months of uninterrupted sewing time starts today. There are 13 weeks left to the SWAP contest deadline. I'd like to stay ahead of the one garment per week average this year.

In other news, I finished reading Candyfreak last night and I'm going to concentrate all my reading time on finishing Foucault's Pendulum. I have less than 200 pages to go.