Thank you for not being perky » projects – in progress

Things I am liking right now.

Minnie — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:27:57 +0000

my new BLue Canoe bra’s and yoga top. Lately my cycle has include like 2 weeks of swollen and VERY tender breasts. It’s so ouchy and uncomfortable and my usual bras become uncomfortably tight. For the 2 seconds that I was nursing I had these great Blue Canoe bra’s. They have a really wide underband and are soft with wide shoulder straps, no padding or underwire or scratchy closures or ANYTHING. I ordered a couple of new ones since my old ones don’t fit and are all ratty. I’m trying out a new style, the Jen’s bra, that rocks and the yoga bra is great too. Since I didn’t really care about the color I just went and bought the ones they had left on the sale page. yay sale page!

My new book Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens. The plant community approach makes a lot of sense when designing a garden. My class last semester was very much about this idea. I finally ended up deciding to take the Spring version of that class this semester and i also signed up for a ground cover class that may get dropped for low enrollment, although i hope it doesn’t.

Futzing in the garden and chicken herding. The weather has been really, really nice, perfect gardening weather so I have been out in the backyard everyday working on the embankment slide. It involves a lot of digging. And that involves a lot of jack waving the hose around and making rivers and oceans in the trenches I am digging. today, I made him a perfect round little island to sit on.

We are trying to integrate the two chicken flocks. the big ones are NOT happy about it and they cluck threateningly and fluff themselves up very big and then rush the little ones. Last night we snuck the little ones into the big coop. Tonight i put the littles to bed in their old coop but we will switch them in the dead of night again. It’s a great excuse to pet them since the littles are not friendly enough with us yet to cuddle them normally. Yes, they are outrageously soft and adorable.

Sketching and researching natural playscapes. I’m sketching (very roughly) ideas for a natural playscape for a park in east oakland and it is super fun to come up with ideas and figure out where they would work in the space. I’ll probably do some more posts about this and my progress with the playscape in my own backyard.

embankment slide in progress:

Phineas and Ferb. Jack has been watching this show recently since it is on netflicks streaming. He really likes it and I don’t mind watching it either. I like Perry the platypus.

Pintrest. Pintrest continues to be great. I do wish it had some kind of collage tool. here’s a link to my playscapes board.

my By Nieves bath products. They smell sooooo good! the perfect skin serum is my favorite.

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All resolutions all the time

Minnie — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:28:10 +0000

Is it too late to be still thinking of resolutions? I can’t help it here are the ones I have come up with.

next year i swear I wont let our christmas tree be so sad. even if it means spending a stupid amount of money on ornaments. matching lights that work. tree skirt. some kind of matching ball ornaments. damnit. MOAR bird ornaments. more cute kid made ornaments.

Learn how to mix my own drinks.

after like 3 weeks of everyone being on vacation, AKA at home all the time, i am about to fucking scream every time i see the kitchen in a not clean state. I swear I will try to clean the kitchen every night before bed and run the dishwasher and then empty the damn dishwasher in the morning. that way dishes wont pile up during the day and there will be no excuse for a messy kitchen. jack goes to bed, then kitchen gets cleaned then i can collapse into bed and/or make myself a drink.

play more board games with jack.

shit. i had another one but now i can’t remember it. oh yeah, GET THERAPY.

also, go to ocean beach/sutro baths more!

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Counter depth fridge pre review

Minnie — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:22:44 +0000

I like a pre review. All my hopes and dreams are now pinned on this new fridge that is being delivered today. Before we moved in to this house i had convinced myself that keeping a giant house clean would be easier than our smaller open floor plan loft apartment. *queue fake laugh and then serious face* No. basically all jack is gong to remember of his childhood is me attempting to clean the house and failing utterly every single week.

The new fridge is a Kitchen Aid counter depth, freezer on the bottom, french door, w/ in freezer ice-maker and in-fridge water dispenser.

I hate fridge with a door ice and water dispenser in the same way I hate a house that has it’s garage positioned closer to the street than the house. it’s like a prolapsed turtle uterus. Gross. It’s just very indecent.

I imagine that with a counter depth fridge I will no longer lose shit in the back only to find it later in a soggy moldy gross heap. That will no longer happen. Instead everything will be above my eye level and therefore will not really exist. Hopefully that means the moldy soggy thing will not exist either.

Counter depth will also mean that the kitchen will look bigger. It’s already perfectly large to medium sized kitchen so… I’m not really concerned with it seeming bigger anyway. BUT. Having the double doors will be awesome when we someday build a kitchen island. we really need some more horizontal surfaces to store our shit on.

We have sold our current fridge to some friends and I just finished cleaning it out. EW. Thank god I cleaned it our recently. that first clean out took me like ALL DAY. it was super gross. so anyway, this time around ti wasn’t so bad but still really boring. I am looking forward to arranging stuff in the new fridge. That will be the last blush of the illusionary thinking that this new fridge will make our life better.

UPDATE:
New fridge has arrived. It is quite magnificent!
behold!

It’s all clean and organized!!!
Mom, you can see there is some orange pineapple juice in there. Jack insisted that we get some for you at the store the other day…. I’m sure it will be gone by the time you get here though.

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I haven’t shampooed my hair for 3 months

Minnie — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:23:47 +0000

I stopped shampooing my hair.
It’s a little shocking since I am a fancy salon shampoo sort of person and can’t stand using cheap shampoo. The idea of spending 100+ dollars on expensive shampoo every few months had started to pall and grate on me. Not only is it a pointless expense but I hate that feeling of being manipulated by the beauty industry any more than I already am. I am manipulated big time, I love clothes and shoes, fancy salon hair products and expensive make-up.

I guess I’ve been thrown into some sort of hair identity crisis since growing out my natural color that is filled with gray. I don’t look like me and my nose got bigger. I don’t know what that has to do with anything but I am headed towards a nose job in my 40′s.

No shampoo! I actually have 2 large half full bottles of fancy shampoo and conditioner in my bathroom. I was going to use them up and then start the experiment but then decided that I couldn’t wait and should maybe keep those around for guests who don’t care to become smell hippies or something.

I looked on etsy for a shampoo bar, there are a lot all with different sorts of ingredients. I chose one that had the fewest ingredients. It was great. it smelled nice, had a great lather and now I know what squeaky clean means since my hair was actually squeaky AND clean. It was also soft, wavy and looked nice. So I used that like every 4 days and all was right with the world. Until it occurred to me that spending 6+ dollars to have someone from all the way across the country send me a shampoo bar was also pretty stupid.

My hair is still mostly wet and unbrushed in this picture but my cat is sooo cuuuuute (and huge)!

I may have to make my own. I could probably do it in a day and make a years worth of shampoo bars. Vim has made his own soap and says it was pretty easy and possibly even has some non food grade coconut oil left over somewhere.

This morning I finally tried out using a baking soda rinse in the shower. I have NOT tried apple sider vinegar (I don’t want to smell like apples, cider or vinegar, in any way.) nor have I tried egg yolks. As soon as we get more chickens I will though.

There are tons of sites out there that talk about why commercial shampoos are bad especially if you have dandruff or curly hair. Commercial shampoos are detergents that strip the hair of natural oils causing your scalp to then be too dry and then to speed up sebum production making your hair more oily. Basically.

Speaking of being manipulated by the beauty industry… I still might have to dye my hair again. I know it’s dumb. I can’t seem to help it. I can’t get used to my real hair. I wish it would just go tREALLY REALLY grey.

So, so far I like the results of no longer using commercial shampoo. Has anyone else out there tried this?

upcoming posts: new chicken coop! and Jack’s Halloween Crocigator costume! also, How Our Transition to Total Hippiedom Was Completed

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Mad with power.

Minnie — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:16:55 +0000

One of Vim’s friends has agreed to do some work for us in exchange for money. I love how that works. Right now he is off in his studio building us a larger chicken coop and a matching outdoor (v. small) shed. Vim made very nice mock ups of both of those in Sketch Up. He has much patience…

The next thing I am hoping he will do for us is to build us a new front gate and fence. Right now the side gate and fence are flush with the back of the house in effect making the side yard part of the public front yard. I would like to have the fence and gate brought up to be flush with the front of the house so that the whole side yard become backyard.

Our house was built in 1895 and is what I like to call a plain victorian farmhouse. It is tall, from the street it can look 4 stories high because you see the basement/garage and the very high roofed attic, and narrow but it is a lot of WHITE.

I did some internet searches on gates and gathered some examples on Pintrest. I was originally thinking that we should have a white fence and gate to match the house but then thought it might be TOO MUCH WHITE. So then, black. I thought black would be nice since I plan on having the window trim be black as some unspecified date when we replace the windows, also a black front door.

I did some photoshop mockups.
black:

white:

black:

white:

The other thing in favor of black is that I can think of a ton of lovely california natives that would look good against a black background. Many natives are sort of a dusky gray green foliage color that would look washed out against white.

I was super annoyed when taking those pictures that i couldn’t get the whole house not obstructed by the tree in the shot. This morning I walked across the street to get a coffee and turned around to look at the house and realized that all I need to do to get a full pic is walk across the street… so maybe i will do that later.

The front yard obviously needs work… I was holding off on giving it serious thought due to our need to have a new foundation. Speaking of which, we are stalled on that mainly due to our not quite being up to confronting that architect who sucks. We need to fire him and maybe make a partial payment to him and then we need to visit the oakland planning department a few more times with plans and questions and then take the plans out for bids form construction company’s. It is very daunting.

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Making a meadow – Planning and prep

Minnie — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:28:53 +0000

There is a small part of our backyard that I want to turn into a native (california) meadow. It’s going to take a lot of planning and prep.

First of all we have some scraggly lawn + weeds that needs to be
killed off. Secondly, our soil is dead clay soil, so we need to build up some nice healthy hummus first.

If we prep summer, fall and winter we will have super star soil next spring and we will have had time to get our new porch built, some other garden things rearranged and maybe we can get our yard graded. It’s really on an amazing slope that doesn’t need to be there at all. The backyard concrete porch that is there now is at a 45 degree angle making it the most pointless porch ever.

First: pull all weeds and turn over existing grass. Do this next week.
Second: sow first cover crop. Consisting of buckwheat, fava, peas and oats. grow for six weeks and then turn under.
Third: Immediately sow another cover crop, grow for 6 weeks and turn under.
Fourth: Immediately sow another cover crop, grow for 6 weeks and turn under.
Fifth: Immediately sow another cover crop, grow for 6 weeks and turn under.
Sixth: sheet mulch and wait six weeks before planting meadow

4 6 week growing cycles plus one 6 week resting cycle is what? like 7.5 months and brings us to Feb. and maybe March is a good time to get meadow plants. or maybe one needs to wait till April? so maybe we could squeeze another short cover crop cycle in there.

I need to ask my neighbor and call some nurseries to get advice on when and where to order plants.

- Call nurseries for advice on where and when to order.
- calculate square footage
- super fun part -> plan out which plants to get.

Site basics: the site is pretty much full sun. Our entire yard is full sun right now. That will change I guess as some of our new fruit tree mature. Most of the area i want to be a natural native lawn grass, so not too clumpy. and then I want some wildflowers and some good bird and butterfly attracting plants.

In my next post I will start thinking about plants and maybe post a map of the garden.

Sunset Zone

ZONE 17: Marine effects in Southern Oregon, Northern and Central California

The climate in this zone features mild,wet, almost frostless winters and cool summers with frequent fog or wind. On most days and in most places, the fog tends to come in high and fast, creating a cooling and humidifying blanket between the sun and the earth, reducing the intensity of the light and sunshine. Some heat-loving plants (citrus, hibiscus, gardenia) don’t get enough heat to fruit or flower reliably. In a 20-year period, the lowest winter temperatures in Zone 17 ranged from 36 to 23°F (2 to –5°C). The lowest temperatures on record range from 30 to 20°F (–1 to –7°C).Of further interest in this heat-starved climate are the highs of summer, normally in the 60 to 75°F (16 to 24°C) range. The average highest temperature in Zone 17 is only 97°F (36°C). In all the other adjacent climate zones, average highest temperatures are in the 104 to 116°F (40 to 47°C) range.

Resources:

http://ebcnps.org/

http://cnps-scv.org/gardening/grasses/CreatingANativeCaliforniaMeadowArticle.pdf

http://www.native-again-landscape.com/index.html

http://www.gardeningwithnatives.com/resources/buy_plants.html

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/calif/

http://www.stopwaste.org/docs/gardeningguide.pdf

http://www.cngf.org/gardens/meadow.htm

http://www.nativeplants.org/

http://www.asla.org/uploadedFiles/CMS/Meetings_and_Events/2010_Annual_Meeting_Handouts/Sat-B7%20-%20Creating%20Meadows%20and%20Grass%20Ecologies.pdf

http://www.wix.com/wwgd1com/waterwise03

http://www.larnerseeds.com/_pages/native_grass_seed.html

http://www.inspiredbynature.us/about.html

http://www.baynatives.com/

http://www.redbud-cnps.org/Native_Grass_handout_4pg.pdf

http://www.calfloranursery.com/pages_plantlists/grasses.html

http://www.yerbabuenanursery.com/

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doll bedding

Minnie — Mon, 02 May 2011 03:52:15 +0000

doll bedding, a photo by Minnibird on Flickr.

I bought this little balsa wood doll bed the other day and then decided that it needed a mattress and bedding. I sewed the mattress and pillow with yellow ticking and stuffed them with poly fill.

I used an old Holly Hobby sheet to make a fitted sheet and pillow cases:

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Cooking for 13 – Toddlers and Adults

Minnie — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:58:58 +0000

This week is my week to cook for Jack’s new school, which I will blog about a bit later. I have to cook a meal, and transport it, for 9 toddlers and 4 adults.

This is stressing me out on a few levels. First of all, we just moved like 2 days ago and I have no idea where most of our Tupperware is and also, suddenly having to figure out portions for so many people is hard. Oh, and what to cook is the other problem!

Menu for Tuesday Urban Forest Pre-School
SNACK
- grapes and watermelon and dried cranberries
LUNCH
– 6 chicken breasts, grilled and marinated in yogurt, ginger, garlic, olive oil. rubbed with salt and coriander. (is this going to be too spicy?!) We shall see!
– Sweet potato fries – using the convection mode on my new oven.
– sliced veggies – red, green, orange peppers and carrots
– maybe a plain yogurt dip for veggies?
– homemade pumpernickle bread and butter.

Menu for Thursday
SNACK
– apples

LUNCH
– peanut butter sandwiches cut into hearts.
– jelly on the side in case anyone wants it
– hard boiled eggs
– cheese sticks
– carrot sticks
– maybe left overs from Tuesday if they liked the food and if there is any left over?

Some possible future recipes:
black bean empanadas

Does anyone have any suggestions?!

FAIL Update:
important note! when using a convection oven you need to like halve your coking time. My sweet potato fries burned! phooey!

I also blog at IndieCrafts and on BlogHer.

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And somebody kills a kitten. Or at least decapitates them and sticks them on fabric.

Minnie — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:33:54 +0000

I can’t wait to make this fabric into pillow cases. I need some ruffly white lacy shit to put on there too.

I imagine that when I am sick it will be so nice to put my head on a nice cool pillow encased with the this kitty bud fabric by Melinda Josie.

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Packing light – Seattle Edition

Minnie — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:55:27 +0000

I’m off to Seattle tomorrow at 7am (gah!). I absolutely HAVE to pack light for this trip since my suitcase has to be stuffed with 50 pounds of conference programs. Even though there are a few glaring problems with it it still came out fairly cute.

What conference you ask? The Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs (<-- I NEVER spell that right) that I have been working on with Jamie Chan - http://www.urbanfaunastudio.com/, Lauren Venell – http://sweet-meats.com/, Kristen Rask – http://www.shmancytoys.com and Andrea Porter – http://www.matthewporterart.com/ for like, the last year.

So, I’m excited. I’ve never been to Seattle although I’m sure I will end up only seeing the conference rooms. That’s fine. It will be great to meet all the conference goers and spend time with the speakers, attend some sessions and spaz about various organization details. It has been weird to organize something happening in another state with people who live in that state. I’m not sure what the difference would be if we had organized it here. I’m hoping we do it again next year and have it here in the Bay Area.

Having just been to BlogHer I’m still basking in the warm glow that is meeting people in person and having fun and talking about things that interest us with strangers who quickly become something more. It’s a dynamic that I’m actually not really that good at and that makes me TIRED. But tired in a good way and i’m not good at it because I’m an introvert so what r u going to do?

Anyway, I value it and enjoy it and am so happy to have opportunities to do it with a bunch of bloggers and with a bunch of kick ass crafty business women.

Back to packing… really truly packing light is very difficult. I mean, my hotel has a pool and a fitness center and so clearly I need to bring workout clothes and a swimsuit. amiright? I can eliminate bringing ear plugs since I am rooming alone. so there’s that… It’s only three days so I can get away with one pair of pants, one skirt and one dress and one pair of shoes (two pairs since I’ll need workout shoes). + 50 pounds of conference guides. I can do it!

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Drafting a sleeve pattern

Minnie — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:25:28 +0000

I used this tutorial from Crafty Stylish to create a custom sleeve pattern. It took a while and when I was done I matched it up with sleeve pattern from a previous dress and it was practically the same. Anyway, this is the dress I am making from having copied a dress that I already own. I wanted to duplicate the front bodice design. I fear it may end up being a tiny bit too tight. We’ll seeIf it is I’ll fudge it by adding an exposed zipper instead of a hidden one. STND BACK I AM A PROFESSIONAL.

I used some tracing paper from a roll and grid paper from a big pad of paper from an office supply store. It was a useful exercise and I’m glad I went through it.

The dress is very silly… Let this be a lesson to me about using cute quilting type fabrics for clothes. Or maybe I’ll be able to pull it off… I don’t know!

Speaking of professional… I get so stressed out about filling out forms where theyask for an Occupation. WTF is my occupation?

“Professional stayer in pajamas all day while a tiny human clings to me”
“Professional eye roller at whiny child at the park”
“Professional ditherer”
“Professional butt wiper”!

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Things I could do today

Minnie — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:58:39 +0000

Things I could do today:
– sweep the front porch
– stress about our 5,000$ LESS than the other bidder bid on the house that is adorable, huge, has cute period details and a SECRET PASSAGE.
– work on cleaning the craft room (endless project that will never be done because it has me totally stymied)
– make play-doh for Jack
– put away clothes from our weekend trip to pt reyes, which was totally beautiful, lovely wedding, lovely friends and lovely setting (strangely I took almost no pictures. why?)
– cook some reasonably healthy food while waiting for tomorrow when I can pick up my huge Three Stone Hearth order. Yum
– drive to Berkeley to the store that sells awesome leather dye colors
– make this cute skirt in freestyle handmade (an excellent book!)

None of that sounds horrible, in fact, I am living in a slackers paradise. I get some shit done occasionally and Jack and I pretend to be giants, or play train station. What’s not to love?

I FINALLY made a new pair of spats. It took me forever because in between sewing a seam I would have to field calls from our real estate agent and stress about this house which I am STRESSED about. why why why did someone else have to bid on it? it was on the market for a YEAR. All caps, take me away! Why did we bid 5000$ less? It makes NO SENSE.

Back to the spats. They are a new design. instead of buttoning up the side they zip up the back. I learned a few things while making this pair, mostly that I need to cut the spats taller.

In the above picture you can see my newly altered boots. I have lamented in the past that my calves are too big for standard boots. I bought these platform CECE Fluevog boots on ebay and I took them to my local cobbler and I asked him to make them fit me. I was thinking something like an elastic panel but he said no no we will put in a leather panel to match the rest of the boot. And he did! It worked beautifully and I am so happy! SO! If you have wide calves and are looking for boots to fit you should buy any old boot and then get them altered.

In other crafty news I have made a few bags and zippered pouches. Nothing exceptional. I also am in the process of making some cute cloth napkins with the on sale Moda fabric that I bought a few weeks ago. Now what to do with them? Christmas gifts?

Speaking of Christmas. I am doing Handmade Holidays this year for mostly everything except some toys for Jack that I can’t make. He needs a kitchen set, more toy tools, a dollhouse and a guitar.

Other Stuff
– Best plants to plant in fall if you live here in the western US from Sunset Mag.
– Also for if you live here in the Bay Area, Grant writing workshops and other workshops for artists! Check out the Foundation Center.
– And somewhat randomly… Vim and I have been watching the show Connections, which was filmed in around 1978, which is awesome for several reasons.
1. you can pretty much endlessly make fun of the outfit that James Burke is wearing.
2. It has that soothing quality that makes me fall asleep just like Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
3. It’s very interesting to see all the amazing connections and how pretty much anything that happened in anytime leads up to an atomic bomb. Last nights episode had some great facts about pike warfare an the pike square that I really enjoyed. I always like nerdy battle formation info. We are getting the episodes from Netflix.

From Wikipedia:

It (Connections) took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention and demonstrates how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events built off one another in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology.

Here is Jack looking casual but dapper at the wedding this weekend:

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Handmade appliques, baby blankets and what to do with left over satin blanket binding

Minnie — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:56:22 +0000

I’m making a few sets of baby blankets for my aunt, the other set would be done by now but I am out of cream colored thread and stopping by the fabric store with a baby is sometimes too much of a pain.

My scraps stash has reached epic proportions. It’s absurd, really. I need help. What can I do with all this stuff!!? I’m in full on pack rat mode though. I look at the several bins of fabric scraps and think, “Okay, I should get rid of all this somehow.” but then my brain rebels instantly, “NO WAY! What if I need this someday?!”.

What IF I need it someday? The world would implode, clearly, if I no longer had all these scraps. SHEESH!

One way to help get rid of the tail ends of satin blanket binding is to use it as little tabs for blankets and bags. On this travel lovey I sewed the edges of the binding together, doubled it over and sewed it into the edging of the blanket. You can then use little tab to attach toys and linking rings to the blanket. For a bag you could attach a D ring or the like.

How To Make Your Own Applique
- Cut a simple shape out of your desired fabric. A bird, some circles, a tree, a flower, the star ship enterprise… whatever.
- Pin the cut out fabric onto some heavy duty tear away fabric stabilizer – the iron on kind works well.
- Iron it on. You can double it, with the second iron on side face down if you want your applique to be stiffer and to be able to iron it to your final project.
- Now you need to sew around the shape using a satin stitch – use a zigzag stitch with the stitch length moved WAY down. My machine comes with a special satin stitch foot that basically has a grooved area where the stitches pass though uncrushed by the foot.
- Once you’ve sewn around the shape go ahead and tear away the excess stabilizer
- I sometimes sew around the shape twice to make the satin stitch look thicker.
now you are ready to sew your applique
- Iron it on to your final project and then I usually satin stitch it again. or just straight stitch it on.

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My first fabric design – It keeps me together

Minnie — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:46:22 +0000

These little hair clips keep me together, without them I fall apart into tiny pieces and then blow away in the wind.

I need to teak the color in LAB mode in Photoshop and then I wills end this off to SpoonFlower. I’ll do a few variations and just try out some swatches.

Stay tuned for the results!

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Working on my dress – Part two

Minnie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:42:35 +0000

This is not the first dress I have worked on. Mama Pajama gave me some hilarious Elvis in Space fabric like 4 years ago and I cut my fabric and even started sewing. Right in the middle, though, I moved and never picked the project up again and then I moved again and now there is no way that size would fit me anyway. I’ll go back to it someday.

The difference here is that I know what I am doing more and am going to actually finish this dress and I am confidant that it will come out decently.I made all my adjustements and cut all my fabric except for the skirt of last Tuesdays class. I brought the skirt pieces in to double check that the adujstments I made were correct. They were not. I fixed it and cut out the rest of the fabric pieces, and the interfacing except for the collar -(I ran out of interfacing somehow…). I have sewn the darts intp the bodice pieces and then sewed them together.

So now what? The seams have a 5/8 allowance but now I need to finish them. I decided against a french seam and will use my double overlock faker stitch but I am suddenly worried about it. I guess I need to cut the seam allowance off and then do the overlock? I’m waiting for class tomorrow just in case.

Once I am sure about my seam finishing the rest of the dress should go pretty quickly. I haven’t picked out buttons yet and the dress calls for a purchased belt.

I think I will go to the mustly old fabulous button shop in el cerrito and buy jet buttons. I LOVE jet buttons. Women in books are always wearing kid gloves with 9 jet buttons or whatever and I want that too. Jet has a great feel to it - cold and heavy.

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Pattern adjustments for McCall’s 4769

Minnie — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:45:03 +0000

I’m taking a garment construction 101 class right now. So far it’s been pretty good. Here is the dress I will be making:

I bought 3 yards of this cute Sevenberry Japanese fabric for it:

In class we first learned about fabrics and some basics for picking out a pattern. I had that fancy vintage vogue pattern all ready to go but I reconsidered and bought the above McCall’s pattern as it is simpler and something that I would wear everyday. I like the waitress-y style and it has pockets.

I’ve never looked in the back of a pattern book before. Have you? The back of the book has some more detailed measurements charts than the pattern packets do. My instructor says that the chest above the bust is often the hardest part to fit so she had us pick out a pattern based on our chest measurement. Now, I may have messed that part up when I picked my pattern but shhhhhhh. Don’t tell my teacher. We’ll just see how it turns out…

We moved on to how to adjust a pattern to fit.
My dress has darts so I measured my shoulder to nipple length and found that I need an extra .5 inch.
The finished garment waist is 30 inches but my waist is 32 inches. The waist needs 2 inches of ease. So I added .5 inch to both bodice and skirt pieces.
My arms never fit sleeves right. No matter how skinny I am my arms are always bigger than the standard and I’m not exactly in a skinny phase. I decided that I wanted about 1 1/4 inches of ease in the arms.

*****

How to determine pattern ease and make the proper adjustments to your pattern:
Pattern envelope and individual pattern pieces list the finished garment width.

The Bust
Finished garment bust width is 42.5
Bust pattern size is 38
Subtract that and you get 4.5 inches of ease allowance.
My bust measurement is 38, add 4.5 of ease and you get 42.5.
So that means I do not need to make any bust measurement adjustments.

Shoulder to Nipple
Center of shoulder seam to dart point on pattern is 10 inches
My measurement is 10.5
Need to cut pattern above nipple line and add .5 inch, redraw from top should pivot point.
NOT adding .5 inches to length, redraw side line – armpit to bottom – armpit pivot point.

The Waist
Finished garment waist: 32.5
minus pattern size: 30
ease allowance 2.5
My measurement: 32
add ease: 2.5
Total: 34.5
An adjustment is needed.
I need to add .5 to each cut edge for skirt and bodice pieces.

The Sleeve
Finished sleeve width is 14.25 inches.
My measurement is 13.5 inches.
I decided on a 1.25 inch ease allowance with final measurement being 14.75
Added .25 inch to each side of sleeve and cuff pattern piece

The Skirt
Skirt needs .5 added to each cut edge.
Needs WAY to be shortened but I am not entirely sure how much to shorten it by. do I shorten it with the natural waist to knee measurement? But does the natural waist have anything to do with it since the style of the dress doesn’t necessarily stop at my natural waist?
Here is how I _think_ it should be done -
measure pattern piece from shoulder seam to bottom seam then hold up tape measure to my body to see where it lands (not quite at my natural waist). THEN from that point measure how long the skirt should be… Man I have short legs. Anyway, that makes sense right?!

*****

I’m kind of shocked at how hard I am finding all these adjustments. I woke up in a cold sweat last night with the realization that when I lengthened the shoulder to nipple I also lengthened the waist by the same amount *FAIL*. I had to go in and redo that this morning. Then I realized that I had miscalculated the waist adjustment AND the sleeve adjustment. *FAIL AGAIN* So It’s a good thing that I went back and looked at all my calculations. Of course now I am worried that I effed it up by over thinking it or making it more complicated than it had to be.

But fuck it. I’m cutting my fabric tonight and I refuse to be a wuss about it. If I go to class tomorrow and it’s wrong I will just go buy more fabric.

****
Sleeve ease adjustment recap in pictures:
1. cut out pattern piece,
2. determine ease adjustment numbers
3. trace original piece onto pattern paper

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4. from bottom of piece measure out .25 inch
5. pivot pattern piece from seam guideline

6. redraw curve

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7. cut out new piece.

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****

P.S.
I do hereby promise to press my garment every step of the way

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How to build meditation labyrinth in your backyard.

Minnie — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 18:52:04 +0000

We did it! The labyrinth is built, mostly!

Read my previous post about our planned labyrinth here. We chose a spot a little closer to the Container house as the labyrinth ended up being a bit bigger than I thought. I _think_it ended up being about 16 feet across each spiral.

We spent two days hauling rocks and gently arguing about how to lay them out. At the end of two days we had a perfectly laid out 5 Auspicious clouds labyrinth with one layer of rocks denoting the walls. All we have to do is fill out the walls with more rocks and get gravel and sand for the pathways.

How to build a meditation labyrinth using only some beer, a golf cart and a few river rocks:

Step One: get beer and a big flat space:

Okay seriously… I read around on the internets to see how other people did it but didn’t find a whole lot. So, just now, in searching for the site that was helpful I found a couple more that look good, here they are:

Labyrinth Enterprises FAQ

Labyrinthos

Labyrinth Society

KT weed wacked and we raked and moved large obstacles form the area.

We started out with a rope with tape marked every 18 inches. Rebar staked in the center help the rope in place as we used inverted tip marking spray paint to mark the perimeter.

Of course, I picked a complicated none standard design for the labyrinth. The design has 5 spiral arms and so we marked 5 lines at 72 degrees (aprox) and along each of these lines we marked each 18 inch segment with the spray paint.

I had decided hat we would draw each spiral arm from the center out and that seemed to work fairly well although I believe the engineers in the group did not agree. One of the best parts of this was seeing how my friends all differently went about working on this large group project. I think we all did pretty well for a group of horrible OCD control freaks.

The best part was that Acrobat snuck back after we all left an RE-DID much of it. Hahaa.

We hauled rocks from the river bed to outline the walls and we will fill in with the more eventually. If you can get free materials like that I highly recommend it. Have you ever priced rocks? They are expensive! Sand and gravel will mark the path and a friend has just offered some pretty sounding paving stones as well. Which is great because I was originally envisioning paving stones but then did the aforementioned pricing…

September is flitting by so I need to get back up there before it gets to cold and the rains start

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Closet project not yet done.

Minnie — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:06:49 +0000

But it’s getting close! It’s too hot up in the bedroom during the day to get anything done up there! I swear, that is the truth. It’s not that I am a lazy git and have lost focus that the project is not done…

The small photo is the original disaster area.

Next you can see I have made some small improvements. Two shoe shelves units stacked keeps my shoes all in one place. Before they were just all over the place.

I got rid of so many clothes! Many many bags have gone to Goodwill over the last couple of weeks. I’m so I’m so impressed with myself! So now the two small shelves have a box with purses in it and some pants and sweaters and some folded skirts (not sure why the skirts). Maybe I need to look at the skirts and decide if I want to keep them. I think they are there because I ran out of skirt hangers. then the top shelves have a few larger pairs of shoes, a box of hats, a box of bathing suits, some luggage and some pants tht don’t fit but BETTER FIT SOON, if you know what I mean.

the Blue chest of drawers has bras, slips, socks and hose, and tank tops and gloves. I added another rack of knobs to hang stuff on in between the drawers and shelves. Handy!

Still. the closet is more useful but still boring… hmmm.

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Lest you think I have been napping…

Minnie — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:31:13 +0000

I’ve not been napping, okay, except for 15 minutes today… I have also been making some spats. Fancier than my usual ones. I do so love picking fabrics, lining, buttons, etc. these are pretty fun to make with only stress surrounding the buttonholes. Sewing on shank buttons is a total bitch, it makes my wrists hurt.

Thse are from some nice green velvet with white and goldy buttons. The lining is pink fake wood grain from Joel Dewberry. LOVE IT! The backing buttons are from my grandmothers button tin.

The second pair are black and white houndstooth (canvas duck) with red flannel lining, cute red and black vintage buttons (got ‘em at the oakland museum white elephant last year), and some eyelet lace ruffles (like ruffly underwears. hahaha) on the heels

Both of these are now up in my etsy shop!

minniekins.etsy.com

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Five Auspicious Clouds

Minnie — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:22:11 +0000

Five Auspicious Clouds

Originally uploaded by not halfway there
A while back I told KT that I would try to plan out a labyrinth for the ranch property. KT, MamaPajama and I scouted out a decent location near Kt’s house in progress.

I’m not exactly sure what prompted me to want to do this. Labyrinths are cool but this is actually a pretty big project and I’m not quite able to get my mind around how much work it will be. Supposedly there will be a bunch of other people there to help? I hope? If there are other people then I think it will be fun and rewarding.

There are a few web sites out there detailing how to create a labyrinth and most of them use the 7-ring classical pattern. I want to use the pattern pictured here even though I have never seen another labyrinth using it. In the picture the black line will end up being the path you walk. I like how it will make you visit the center of the whole thing 5 times and that five other times you will visit the center of the particular spiral you are in. Okay that sentence was sort of grammatically confusing but I am too lazy to rewrite it.

So my problem now is to figure out how to lay it out and build it. Here’s what I’m thinking so far.

How to Build the Five Auspicious Clouds Labyrinth
Materials:
string, rebar, gravel, spray paint, shovels

Offsite:
knot a string (lenght being the radius of the labyrinth) marking the points of the path

Onsite:
Measure whole area of labyrinth
plant rebar, one in center, one at each of five points on outer edge
dig out an inch or so of earth ( ?)
use string and spray paint to start marking out the path, have 5 cans of paint so that five people can be doing this part at once. after marking the initial points the rest can be freehand i think.
use dug out earth to pile on ‘walls’
use gravel and river stones to mark the path

After:
shrine-y thing in the very center. maybe a really nice pinkish rock from the river as a large flat table-y surface
benches around area
sign with suggested usage/rules?

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