String Theory

my country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee i sew

i saw this fabric on sale at joann's and decided it needed to be a skirt.  actually, at first it needed to be a dress, but that failed and i cut it up and made it into a skirt.  i used good 'ol butterick 3132- it may even be OOP at this point, i've had it forevah.  i don't even look at the directions anymore with this one.  although sewing a wrap skirt is kind of like putting together a cardboard box- not much to it.  B3132 never lets me down.  the only changes i made are the little pocket so my lip balm would have a place to call it's own and a button about 1/3 of the way down the front in case of breeze.  can you find your state?

 

to the zoo

dave took the day off today (something he never does) and wanted to do something fun.  at first he said hershey park, but then we ruled that out because it cost $50 a person +food  +parking.  so we decided to go to the zoo.  dave's never been to the philly zoo and i can't remember the last time i was there.  my favorite part was their cool new avian center where the birds just fly/walk around pretty much cage-free.  nifty as long as you don't get pooped on.  also enjoyed watching a baby prairie dog that seemed pretty unsure about this whole "life" thing- he kind of just kept scooting around in a circle.  maybe he just wasn't the brightest bulb in the bunch.  poor little guy.

 

sunday sewing

i started this dress last sunday and just finished today.  sunday has become my "fun" sewing day as opposed to the "obligatory" sewing i do during the rest of the week.  i wanted a shaheen-esque halter dress.  i already had the khaki linen/cotton blend and i bought the last bit off of the bolt of the contrast tiki-print.  i used new look 6900.  it almost turned into a wadder because the pattern wasn't drafted very well (new look patterns seem to lean that way)-the back had all this extra fabric and it called for elastic across the back facing to pull it all in.  so i initially followed that, but it was so ill-fitting.  i just ripped the elastic out and took in the back seams so it fits like a proper non-elasticized dress.  it has a side zipper too which ends at the top of the left pocket- bad idea folks.  a zipper next to a pocket has all sorts of disaster potential.  thankfully i was able to work it out and it lays flat and looks fine.  my dress isn't as va-va-voomy as a shaheen, but i think it's cute and i'm not really a va-va-voomy kind of gal anyway.  and i'm happy to say that it looks better on me than on fake tina.  it's hanging kind of crooked on her there.  if you want to do some fun browsing check out whirlingturban.com.  they do all sorts of very pretty shaheen/hawaiian/pin-up style dresses.   

 

my new job

so i quit that old smelly customer service job and have been sewing like a fiend.  practical chalk bags are now available at your local philly rock gym!  my gym and gym buddies have been so awesome and supportive of my new biz.  two weeks ago i dropped off my first official order for the gym and tonight i dropped off another stash (pictured below).  some plain, some not-so-plain.  tomorrow is going to be an "office" day- gotta get all my receipts and what-not in order and return e-mails.  bumper stickers and small stickers for nalgenes etc. have been ordered.  next up business cards and web site.  i'm also sponsoring the In the Light Fund (run by super cool paige the shop manager at the prg oaks gym) and the Temple Climbing Club (run by super cool prg valley staffer, shawn) who will be getting their very own practical TCC bags.  i've done a few custom orders as well, which is always a good time.  can't wait til the website and etsy site are up and running.  i'll keep y'ins posted.

from the land of dupont

i figured i'd try to update the blog more often now that i'm home- even if it's just with random oddities.  so here in southern PA there are several estates/gardens to enjoy nearby that are the result of the dupont family.  i.e. longwood gardens, nemours and winterthur.  i hate to think that the pleasure i get from visiting these places is the direct result of wrapping babies in plastic.

spring...errr...summer cleaning

 so i really, really, REALLY (get the picture?) needed to clean up my sewing space.  here is the result which to the un-trained eye might still pretty much look like a mess.  i assure you faithful reader, it is a vast improvement!  this morning i traveled the long two mile journey to my frenemy, walfart, to get some storage bins.  i had piles of fleece and interfacing that needed a home and tons of dirty little re-used cardboard boxes filled with elastic, pins, cording, velcro etc. thread was peeling out of spools and hanging jungle-like over my table (the plastic dinos were quite enjoying that).  unfinished chalk bags were scattered willy-nilly.  it was frightening.  click to zoom and read the improvement boxes.

stopping to smell the roses

we've lived in kennett for five years now and every year we've missed the roses when they're in bloom at longwood...this year we made it!  the non-rose pic is of a new honeycomb installation that is planted with marigolds.  i love marigolds!  they don't get enough credit.  i especially like tiger eye marigolds and the really tall african marigolds.  i think the honeycomb boxes will be really pretty once they're all blooming.

 

rope burn comp.

so climbing comps are divided into novice, intermediate, advance and open categories.  if you want to climb in the finals you enter in "open".  this is when you get to see the big guns.  well tonight only two women open competitors showed.  there's always way fewer women than men, but tonight was a little ridiculous.  so that meant they bumped up the top two women from advance to climb in the finals.  that would be me and my friend rosie (who at age 40 TEARS IT UP!)  i forgot my camera so this is the best pic i've got that dave took with my phone.  here i am climbing in the finals which i must admit was pretty fun to get to do- at a normal comp where there was a better turnout i would never have the chance.  i took third- got beat out by a fifteen year old and a twelve year old.  curse those little light-as-a-feather peewees.  i fell as i was going to the vertical green hold just above my hands to the right in the picture.  my arms were like jello.  the girls who beat me only got one hold above that so i don't feel too badly about it and i won twenty bucks.  (you can all laugh at that, it is kind of funny.)

Strooooodle

For quite a while now I've held a belief that all food is better wrapped in bread or served on top of it. The history of food in about every culture supports this theory, as everyone has had some sort of dumpling or perogi or wonton or pasty. All different names and different fillings, but the same basic principal.

Desserts should not be an exception to this rule. After all, how could fruit wrapped in bread be a bad thing???

So I thought I'd try experimenting with one form of bread wrapped dessert- the strudel. I expected to run into a lot of problems stretching the dough thin enough without tearing it apart, but it wasn't actually hard at all. I did watch a few Youtube videos of people who can make the dough much thinner than I ever will, but they gave me enough of an idea as to how to handle the dough that things went very smoothly. The strudel wasn't any harder to make than pie, and it was oh so yummy!

saturday creations

i was checking the henna page i like to see if she had anything new up and came across this info on west african bandage-henna.  i thought it was pretty interesting- you don't normally see such geometric designs in henna.  sometimes moroccan henna can get a bit geometric, but not like this.  so i thought i'd try it out.  as usual, doing henna on yourself is tricky.  my design is very very basic, but i got a good stain, especially for doing it on my arm and especially since i've yet to let my henna mix sit for as long as i should. i'm too impatient.  one of these days i'll have to take my time so i can get a super dark stain.  i used pre-sifted '07 crop jamila henna- it's supposed to give killer stains, but like i said, i'm always too hasty.  so i used the henna, lemon juice and tea tree oil for my mix.  people throw in all sorts of other stuff- coffee, cloves etc., but i don't see the point.  you can't see it in the pic but i have three rows of design on my arm and it's darker in real life.  i think this will be a good technique to use on men folk.  it's not too frou-frou.

 

my second saturday creation was cheesecake!  it's my grandmom mann's recipe, so so bad for you and i love it!  just looking at it's picture may cause pain to my newly-lactose intolerant friend heather.  it's not dense like a ny cheesecake.  it's kind of custardy.  lots of cinnamon on top...mmm.