Elephant

DS and I have an elephant rug as part of our themed "jungle" bathroom* (and yes, I know elephants aren't jungle animals). It gave me an idea for something I thought I could actually do for my Shrinky Dink embroidery project.

DS had trouble seeing it... hopefully he's the only one. But if not, let me know what you think would help.

And I'm including the back here because real embroidery people seem to care about these things.

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*I'm too lazy to take a photo of the bathroom, and I can't find a photo of the actual rug online, but I did find parts of the collection here. Turns out it's actually called Monkey Kingdom.

Experiments

I had this idea to embroider designs onto Shrinky Dinks a long time ago, and I'm just now getting around to trying it out. After some trial and error and buying a new hole punch, I have my first prototype.

So what we have here is a flat disc that I first embroidered with red floss, then a second time in orange using a shorter line. Straight on it is colorful, vibrant, and sort of reminds me of a sunset. From the side, you get a sense of how many stitches are involved from the height.

It's a good size for a necklace pendant, a brooch (if I had the clasps for it), or even earrings for those that like them slightly on the large side.

This idea is part of my general interest in mixing items of very different textural qualities. I really enjoy the contrast between the hard plastic and the soft thread.

I'm rather new to embroidery, so if you have some tips or ideas, please share them. It takes a lot of planning to make something like this, because all the holes for each stitch have to be punched first, and once the plastic is shrunken they can't be added. I had initially tried doing something more like a picture, but as a first attempt it was proving too difficult for my limited skills. Thus the more simple star burst pattern. Also, I'm a little fuzzy on where the lines are drawn for copyright and selling when embroidery patterns are involved, and chose to avoid them for selling.

Want one of your own? I have lots of colors of embroidery floss, so feel free to ask for whatever you want here.
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Design copyright 2009 Sleep Goblin Crafts

Things I am Currently Enjoying - 1*

• The apartment is quiet, and through the open window in my office I can hear one of our backyard neighbors giving dance lessons. Canon in D is drifting through the air, and I can just make out shuffling couples and a man counting out the beat in Spanish.
• Watching How I Met Your Mother, Season 3
• Preparing for the arrival of my bestest good friend Luke

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*I'm thinking this might be a somewhat regular installment for those times when I just want to check in, but don't want to write a full out post.

Truffles and a Kite

This past weekend I did a few fun things. Namely, baking with my friend Samantha, and flying my new kite.

Firstly, the baking.

For those of you who don't know, Samantha is someone I was friends with in high school, but was two years behind me. I didn't really see her again after I graduated, and we lost touch. Then, at Kelly's wedding last September, I got to chat with some mutual friends during the reception, who were kind enough to inform me that she had moved to Santa Barbara that summer. So I happened to move to the one city in California where, unknowingly when choosing, I had a friend. Lucky me! Also, Samantha ran a bakery for a while. She is talented.

Sorry, side tracked. The baking. So I get the Gingerbread Snowflakes blog in Google Reader, and the author recently shared images of these chocolate truffles she makes. It doesn't take much in the way of chocolate to make me drool. I sent her an e-mail with the post attached and said, "let's bake this weekend!". She has to bake something for an event most times I talk to her, because she's generous like that. She was making eclairs this weekend for a cookout on Saturday, so she said, "come over, and we'll make eclairs and truffles."

Chocolate Truffles - Image from and Recipe from Gingerbread Snowflakes

Our truffles were a bit larger than those featured on Gingerbread Snowflakes, but oh my god they are good. Seriously, you should try this recipe. Holy cow. They're a tad messy to make, but actually fairly easy. And did I mention delicious?

Secondly, kite flying.

My New Kite

When we were in San Francisco for Maker Faire, we took advantage of there being an REI nearby. (We have very much missed being near an REI.) I bought this super sweet kite, but just got my first chance to fly it on Saturday. The wind at the beach was erratic, but I did get some good flying in. I think this kite is supposed to be able to do tricks, but I was happy to just get it in the air.

DS Running with My Kite (click for detail)

Overall, it was a pretty sweet weekend.

Photo Fun

A while back something came through my Google Reader feed about this little thing called TiltShift Maker. It's an online tool that transforms normal life images into something that looks like a miniature model. I've been playing around with it today, and here's one of my results.

This was one of my photos taken in Chinatown in San Francisco as a trolley came through the intersection. I love how tiny the trolley really looks after sending it through the tilt-shift tool.

The site is really easy to use, and it's free. So go try it!*

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*I feel like a salesman.. and that feeling compels me to tell you that I'm not getting paid for this in any way. I honestly just started playing with it and really liked it. :P

Maker Faire / San Francisco Recap

I can't seem to sit down stop playing the Sims 3 long enough to write out a decent post about my first trip to Maker Faire. What I can tell you is that it was amazing, and I met the coolest people. Even though I was utterly exhausted for days afterward, I would have gladly stayed longer to hang out with these people.

Who are these people you ask? Well, to be honest, I didn't officially meet all of them. For some I just hovered near their greatness while praying that I didn't trip over myself or drool too much, drawing attention to just how stalker-ish and fan girl I felt. But I digress. Here is a list, with links to where you'll find them, of the amazing people I met/stood near (while drooling).

• Brookelynn Morris - an author of Feltique
• Moxie - the lady behind madebymoxie
• Rachel Hobson - Craft: writer and the lady behind Average Jane Crafter
• Kristin Roach - the lady behind Craft Leftovers
• Becky Stern - Associate Editor of Craft:, and apparent expert on soft electronics
• Natalie Zee Drieu - Senior Editor of Craft:
• Stefanie Girard - author of Sweater Surgery, both the book and the blog
• Kathy Cano-Murillo - aka Crafty Chica
• Tamie Snow - the lady behind Roxycraft
  

Did I say it was amazing?

So here are some photos, with commentary (you may have to hover over "Notes" to see the commentary) of Maker Faire, and then San Francisco itself. I definitely want to go back to both.

These are select images from bigger sets on Flickr. If you want to see all the images, visit the links in the paragraph above.

Needle Felting Goodness

One of the amazing areas at Maker Faire was the Needle Felting Playground, a section of the Craft: booth. It was a cozy little area set up with real furniture, like this comfy green couch.

The Needle Felting Playground at Maker Faire

Now, I *think* that couch actually belongs to the lovely lady on the left, one Brookelynn Morris. She is one of the authors of Feltique, an inspiring book that covers the gamut of felt. I had heard of this book before going to the faire, and I wanted the book, but had no idea I would be meeting one of the authors. I'm sort of oblivious that way.

So all weekend there were swarms of people stabbing away at little pieces of wool, making amazing things, while receiving helpful instruction by Brookelynn and Moxie of madebymoxie (whom, sadly, I didn't officially meet; hasn't stopped me from including her in my recent crafty dreams though. seriously you guys, my brain is a crazy place). You can see Brookelynn's photos of the pieces people made on her Flickr site.

Needle Felting 101 with Brookelynn Morris

These ladies also gave how to sessions, and I was able to catch Brookelynn's. Craft: did this wonderful thing where they gave away free goodies at the end of every demo (seriously, the amount of free stuff I snagged at Maker Faire is mind boggling!). So at the end, Brookelynn gave away little needle felting kits with everything needed to make the bauble earrings from her book. Lucky me, I won one!

This is probably my third needle felting kit, and I've been experimenting with the process for probably a year or so now. I feel like I have just enough experience to know what tools I do and don't like, so I'm going to share my findings with you.

Needles

1. Needles break. Easily. They're jerks like that. In fact, the one that came with my kit broke sometime between me inspecting the kit in the hotel, and taking it out to play with on the drive home. Beyond that, I do not currently have any preferences as to brand, gauge or anything of that nature.
2. You can use a single needle all on its own if you want. It's probably really good for doing intricate things like this, which I currently have no talent for. Otherwise, I find the single needle to be slow, and I am more likely to break them and/or stab myself this way.
3. You can also get these little wooden things, which speed up the process. I like that they're wooden and have multiple needles. I don't like the way you have to hold them, or the fact that I still stab myself with them.
4. What I really really love are Clover's tools. This one is great for mashing things together super fast, especially when those things are flat pieces you're connecting. It holds several needles and has a cover that protects you and the barbs from each other. The cover slides out of the way as you use the tool, but can be locked in place when the tool is not in use.
5. But the one that makes me happiest is this little baby. I love that I can hold it like a pen. It has three needles in it, which can be replaced if they break, and are close enough together that you have a lot of control over the design still. Both the pen-like design and the close-placed needles make this a good option for sculpting. It also comes with a cap that keeps you from stabbing yourself when you're not currently using it. (Things always manage to end up underneath me when I'm on the couch, which means ouch! if those needles aren't covered. They are SHARP.) You can find this little guy lots of places, both online and in craft stores.

Working Platforms

1. The first kit I bought came with this block of what feels like upholstery foam. The idea is that you want something to lay the felt on that is soft enough not to break the needle, and thick enough to keep you lap or desk from getting stabbed. Having experienced better things, I have decided I hate this foam. Little pieces of wool stick to it. Cat hair sticks to it. And it's ugly. And it gets dirty. Everything just sticks to it. I hate it. Oh, and I hear it's bad for the environment. So that too. I believe most kits you buy will come with this foam. Boo!
2. The second thing I bought was the Clover needle felting mat. It's not bad. It uses bristles instead of foam. I have no trouble with cat hair or dirt, though I couldn't tell you its relationship to the environment. It's really nice to use with Clover's chunkier tool mentioned above.
3. As happy as I was to discover Clover's mat, I was even happier after using the foam that came with my Feltique kit. Wow. This thing is great. Nothing gets stuck to it, it's clean, and it's good for the environment. I love it. You can get these from madebymoxie.

So there you have it. A year's worth of "research" into needle felting. It's pretty easy to get started, as Brookelynn's flickr set illustrates. There's just something about wool that makes my soul happy, and I'm really excited to start incorporating it into my jewelry designs after reading Feltique.

Which reminds me. I finished my kit today!

Please excuse the Winston hair! It's everywhere...

Exhausted

Wow! Maker Faire was just amazing!

DS and I are home from a very long, exhausting, but satisfying weekend. For now, you can check out the photos of Maker Faire itself on my flickr account. For everything else, you will have to wait until I work up the energy to parse it all out. Right now, I have to get some sleep so I'm not worthless at work tomorrow. I can't believe I have to work for the next 4 days! I'm already ready for the weekend. :P

San Mateo Here We Come!

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

DS and I are leaving for Maker Faire in the morning. So exciting!! We'll be with our friends D&J of Morro Bay fame. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog while I'm there. I'm taking a million or so back up batteries for my camera, and a notebook to jot things down.

This could be one of the coolest weekends ever!!

That photo is something Zemanta found for me when I searched for Maker Faire, and I do spy their logo on this little gadget there!

Hooray!!

I just got into the Art of Jewelry Making: Level 1 class for the summer at the local community college:

Students are invited to come and learn how to make silver rings, earrings pins, pendants and gemstone settings in this fun beginning-level jewelry class. No experience necessary! We have all of the tools, metal and stones you will need for your projects ready for you. All are welcome to come and ENJOY!

So excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boom!

Yesterday morning I was woken up by what I was sure was my first earthquake. The whole apartment shook. The windows were rattling. My bed was vibrating. It sort of sounded like a tree had fallen on the apartment, or a car had hit the building.

DS, as usual, had been up for some time.
Me, yelling from the bedroom: Was that an earthquake??
DS: I don't know. I think something fell on the roof.
Me: No way. Nothing could have fallen on the roof that hard. There's nothing above us.
DS: I don't think it was an earthquake.
Me: Well, it didn't sound like something hit the roof to me.
DS, pointing to the ceiling now that I'm in the living room: I think it hit right there.
Me: I don't believe you. I'm looking it up.

As it turns out, we were both wrong, though it was surprisingly hard to pinpoint the cause. It was actually the sonic boom of the space shuttle landing at the Edwards Air Force Base, which is roughly a 3 hour drive from here.

A sonic boom that big from an object that had been in space?! That's almost cooler than an earthquake*. Awesome. :)

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*I have always been very fascinated by natural phenomenon and disasters, and was very close to choosing meteorology as my major in college so I could be a storm chaser. So unless dying is involved, an earthquake would be sweet. I swear I'm not crazy.

Found Treasures

I don't know why I never knew about this, probably my general lack of awareness of the world at large.. but the person I bought the tiles from for my table around a year ago posted a photo of it on their flickr account. That was nice! But more to the point, people commented, and I am touched. They say I have talent!!

I should think about doing mosaics more.. I really enjoyed it, and I still get compliments on the table. *le sigh*

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cocomomosaics/2313739124/

If you want to try your own mosaic work, but don't like those boring squares at the craft store, then I highly recommend CoCoMo.

Laser Tag

During our trip to Morro Bay, our friend David kept the cats entertained in the little hotel room with his laser pointer. DS and I enjoyed watching them so much that I decided to purchase one of my own. This way I can laugh at them whenever I want!

Aside from the good workout it seems to give them, we've discovered two tricks we can make Winston perform. The first, which you can see a little of in the video, is this crazy, arms spread wide, side to side walk thing he does when we jerk the beam quickly from right to left in a zig zag motion. DS and I laugh so. hard. Really. He's moving a little too fast in the video to get the full effect.

The second, more easily photographed trick is climbing the wall. A flat wall. It's pretty impressive. We've gotten him to jump nearly 5 feet in the air so far. Of course, now there are little black cat feet up and down my white wall.... perhaps I should have cleaned the ash out of the apartment better before playing this game....

Felix jumps sometimes, but not as often as Winston.

I love this one. It looks like she's giving him a boost.

You can really see the red dot in this one.

You can hear Winston wheezing at the end of this video. He's not use to moving his pudge that fast...

Morro Bay, Part 1

(The following events took place May 8-10)

To escape the smoke, ash and encroaching fire, DS and I packed up the cats and went 2 hours north to Morro Bay for the weekend. We went with our friends D&J, who I may have mentioned from our "game nights" with them. They were very cool about us bringing the cats. DS and I weren't too worried that they would die in a fire, but just in case, we didn't want to be 2 hours away if things went bad.

We chose Morro Bay just by searching for hotels that took cats in a place far enough that it would be completely booked with evacuees, but close enough that we wouldn't regret driving there. It was perfect. We saw amazing things, including what I feel was my first real experience with the Pacific Ocean.*

Below are images and two movies. The sound on the movies is not great, just a warning. This is an abbreviated showing of the images. For the whole, humongous set, see my Morro Bay flickr set.

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*Our beach faces south with a view of the Channel Islands National Park, which is a string of, well, islands. This combination of things, in my opinion, makes our view of the ocean seem very different than other parts of the west coast. I'm told it also has something to do with our crazy weather.

Fire Updates

The view of the fire the night before we left (5/7).

The sun through the smoke.

Our carport the day we left, covered in ash.

The hood of the car after being home for one night.

View of the fire from our home as we were leaving.

154 - the road we take to Lizard's Mouth, where DS climbs. Ash covers the hillside. Taken 5/13.

Scorched hillside on the way to Lizard's Mouth.

Taken from Lizard's Mouth, beyond the reach of the fire.

The fire is still burning the last time I checked the news this afternoon. Not that we can see it anymore. At this point it is 95% contained, and we're no longer under evacuation warning. DS and I drove up to Skofield Park today, because there are boulders there you can climb. This park is in Mission Canyon, which is where the fire started. It was awful. I was thoroughly surprised we could even go in the park, but it had been pretty well preserved. That didn't mean there weren't three fire vehicles inside the park though.

Driving through the ignition point area, you could really see the amazing job the firefighters have done. The entire hillside would be burned, right up to someone's front door, but the house was untouched. 80 homes have been destroyed, which sounds like such a huge number. But driving through that neighborhood, it is really clear that without those 4500 firefighters that were working around the clock, it would have been so many more.

We both forgot our cameras today, but since DS wants to go climbing in that park soon, I imagine I'll have some photos soon.

A Mother's Day Memory

I am not what most people would consider a morning person. This has been true as far back as I can remember. For example, there were days when my step-dad would wake me up for school somewhere around 3rd grade, and I would blatantly ignore him. He'd tell me to get up, and I'd either lie as still as possible, trying to stay asleep, or just say "okay" and go back to sleep as soon as he left.

It rarely matters when I go to bed. Morning always comes as a harsh surprise. At some point, both of my parents ended up working at Toyota, which meant that neither of them were around to make sure I was awake for school in the mornings. This posed a particular problem for me, having relied for years on someone continuously checking on me as my mind kept sliding back down the slippery slope of my dreams each morning.

To combat this, my mother bought me an alarm clock that would play a cassette tape instead of music or buzzing. She recorded herself yelling at me to get. It started off mildly, with her simply telling me that it was time to wake up. But it lasted probably 10 minutes, and by the end she was definitely getting upset. So even though I woke up each morning with my little brother gone to school, and my parents gone to work, I woke to my mother's voice.

Perhaps, considering my continual reliance on the snooze button, and DS for getting up at a decent hour, this was not my mother's best decision ever. Regardless, I remember this fondly, and will be forever grateful for this and all the other things she's ever done for me.

I love you Mom!

ACK!

The fires have been appearing mild during the day, when the winds die down. By evening, the fire explodes with amazing speed. We drove back to Ventura today to pick up the improved car. By the time we got back, the fire had spread west. It's insane. The photo above is of the newest boundaries. It's far enough west now to include us, but not far enough south. The air at home smells strongly of smoke, and my eyes are burning like when my allergies are bad. It's raining ash.

Image by penner42 via Flickr

As of right now, we're supposed to be safe. Here's a photo from the tubes, because mine aren't great. Too much smoke.

Welcome to Santa Barbara

That's what I've been told by everyone I know the last two days. In fact, my friend Samantha made a point of calling me last night just to say that. The reason? We're having our first wildfire since our arrival. This is Samantha's third, and she's only been here a year. There aren't any wildfires to speak of where I grew up, so I did some research*.

For starters, the fire started on May 5 somewhere around 1:30 in the afternoon. The cause is under investigation still. From what I understand, wildfire "season" (I can't believe there's a season for this crap) starts a little later in the year. This is due in large part to the utter lack of rain that this area gets after March. See the graph I grabbed from weather.com for reference.

Of course, that won't mean much without a comparison, so here is the same graph for the town in Kentucky where I grew up.

The fire began in the Cathedral Peak area. To DS and I watching the news, the fire seemed more or less contained last night. We went to Japanese class, no one seemed panicked. On the way home, we could see flames for the first time in the dark. I went to work this morning thinking the fire was probably almost over.

A term we kept hearing on the news as a point of concern was "sundowner winds". We had no idea what that meant, so I looked it up. Here is an excerpt from a report by Gary Ryan of the Santa Maria Weather Service Office.

"Sundowners" [are] Santa Barbara's special version of the Santa Ana regime. Sundowners frequently occur in the late afternoon or evening hours - hence the name. Light sundowners create irregular rises in temperature downtown with gentle offshore breezes. Stronger sundowners, occurring two or three times a year, can create sharp temperature rises, local gale force winds, and significant weather-related problems. Rarely, probably about a half dozen times in a century, an "explosive" sundowner occurs. These extremely strong and hot winds present a dangerous weather situation. In these events, super heated air from the Santa Ynez Valley bursts across the Santa Ynez Mountains and onto the coastal plain, reaching gale force or higher speeds within the city. Dust storms occur, fires can race down the mountain slopes, and great stress is felt by the human population, by animals, and by plants.

I can tell you that last night, walking to Japanese, the dust in the wind was actually scratching my legs. Though I don't know that this is an "explosive" sundowner.

So as I said, I went to work this morning. At 1:45 this afternoon, I left work to drive 35 min south to Ventura to drop the car off for some work. I still didn't see anything too scary. Between 3 and 3:30, I started back north in my loaner car, and could see the smoke the moment I was on the highway.

I kept taking photos as I got closer, just clicking the shutter button without really looking since I was driving. Right as I was coming into Santa Barbara, I got this.

I drove through that mess. It was very creepy. With the sun shining down through the smoke, it reminded me of the lit tunnels that go under mountains back home. Not really what I want to feel like when it's actually sunny and cloudless out.

I missed my exit coming home because of the traffic and my fears of hurting the loaner car. So I went one exit down and then came back. While I was waiting on the overpass, I got this shot.

If you expand that photo, you should be able to see the insane traffic. It took me 10 minutes to go the 1 mile back to my exit.

In the time since I've been writing this, the mandatory evacuation area has expanded a few times. The fire has jumped its perimeter, and has now burned down its first actual structures. I'm a little freaked out, though everyone is telling me there is a very very low chance the fire would come here. This is based on the wind direction and the interstate being between us. However, the office where I work is now under evacuation warning (not yet in mandatory evacuation) and the winds are expected to pick up again tonight, as much as 70mph at times.

If you want to follow the fire, here are the two sites I've been checking:
KEYT News
County of Santa Barbara
Also, the CofSB site has a Google Map link that they've been updating periodically with the evacuation areas.

That map is also available for Google Earth, and I took the liberty of taking a screenshot for you. That yellow house is where we live. The darker shading is mandatory evacuation, and the lighter shading is the evacuation warning. We're 2.25 miles from the evacuation warning right now.

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*Please note: all information included here was found via internet searches and world of mouth. I do not claim to know what I'm talking about. Please visit the links I have provided for sources that do.

busy

Things I've been up to:

1. learning to quilt with my sewing machine (thanks again mom!!)
2. reading the chabon book i got from the library
3. experimenting with needle felting wool roving into decorated coffee cup sleeves
4. making a bunch of jewelry for various birthday presents
5. finishing a plaid scarf on my loom
6. sketching the beginnings of my first painting in years
7. making mother's day gifts
8. seeing the new wolverine movie at the matinee (pretty good!)
9. watching LOTS of streaming netflix while doing 1-7
10. game nights with friends (photos of my catan cookies if i ever get around to it)
11. exploring ventura (photos from that too.. again, if i get around to it)

1-8 have all been within the last 4 days.  i've been inspired, and it's wonderful.  i wish i felt this productive all the time.

also, we've had 3 japanese classes now.  the 4th is tomorrow.  i can count to 99 in japanese!!  it's pretty sweet.  ds can tell you all about it.  because i demonstrated for him.  out loud.  while walking back from class.  he loved it.

It's About Time!

My iMac died like 2 weeks ago. It was working more or less fine. I was surfing the internet, when suddenly I got caught in one of those insane popup loops.  They kept telling me I had a virus.  Now, I didn't really believe there was a virus already, but I was afraid those popups might have put something on my computer.  I hadn't gotten around to reinstalling my virus protection after the last time the computer was "fixed", mainly because DS keeps telling me it's pointless on a mac, and here lately I'm suspect of every little thing breaking my computer.

So I decide, just to be safe, that maybe these popups mean it's time to install the virus protection.  It seems to install fine, but wants a restart.  I tell it I'm busy, go away.  Later when I have time, I restart.  And that was all it took.  The computer went on a never ending restart loop.  I did all I knew how to do, and gave up.  Unplugged it and went to bed.  A week later I decided to try again.

DS and I found out how to eject the virus protection disc, since that was still stuck in there.  Then we figured out how to boot from a disc on a mac.  This let me attempt reinstalling the OS.  It promptly told me that it could only wipe the hard drive and start over.  I am SOOOO glad I bought a backup hard drive for this thing, because this is like the 10th time I've had to do that.  Normally, it lets me archive the old OS and start fresh, but it leaves all the existing data.

The install failed a few times, and then finally took.  I was excited to finally use this baby again!  But that was short lived, because the stupid machine wouldn't take my password.  After putting in every password I've ever had, caps and no caps, I again gave up and went to bed.  I finally got around to looking up how I might reset the password without wiping everything again.  TADA!  I am BACK!

Now I just need to meet someone who knows something about macs, because the dudes at the store have "fixed" it twice.