Out of the House!

We've been struggling with Monkey wanting to climb every single thing in the house.  Some things I don't mind.  The couch? Go for it buddy.  Climbing to the top of the couch and then using it as a boost to climb on top of the window sill? PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!  Ugh.  Their antics are getting crazier and crazier, and I worry it won't be long before we're dealing with cracked skulls.  Bear doesn't seem to realize how rough and heavy he is, and prefers to show his love to Monkey by standing on sensitive areas like his face and stomach.

Brotherly love.

But it's not all bad.  They can be so incredibly cute or sweet, sometimes both.  Bear is my little scavenger, and he's constantly looking around for food scraps.  He'll eat anything he finds on the floor (which is usually something he threw there himself during lunch).  Tonight I found a couple of cookies that had been tossed off the high chair, and I placed them on the coffee table.  He noticed 30 minutes later, and his little dance of joy was spectacular to behold.

A dangerous game of hide and seek

We spent last weekend in SC for a wedding.  It was our second time flying with the boys, and they were great.  DS's mom met us there and watched the kids.  I'm pretty sure this was the first time we've had a whole evening away from them together.  It was so lovely, almost 8 hours!  Not to mention all of his "snowboarding" friends were there.  Such a nice reunion.

Honorary cousins of the boys!

Bride & Groom

On Sunday, his sister and her kids came up too, and the whole family went to the zoo there.  It was hot, and very crowded.  I'd been there before, but I honestly didn't remember a single thing about it.  We rented one of the zoo double strollers since we hadn't flown with ours.  There wasn't anywhere to put our diaper bag, and attaching it to the bar immediately made the whole thing tip, even with the kids in it.  So that was a pain, and there was only one "belt" for the both of them.  It was challenging.  Even still, hanging out with the four of the kids together was really fun.

Checking out an ostrich from the stroller.

Not long before that, Bri and I took them to our zoo.  It was our first time visiting with the new KidZooU open, which was actually really cool.  There was a farm section just for littles like mine that can be gated off so they don't get lost.  It has large wooden cutouts of animals with little buttons the kids can push so the animals make their sound.  Monkey thought it was the coolest.  They also got to pet some goats and sheep.  Some of the doors at the zoo are spectacularly lovely.

Smaller than an ant!

Petting some goats

Dragonfly wing doors

Now that the weather is (sometimes) nice, we've been playing on the deck more.  Lots of bubbles and running around.  They don't exactly listen when I ask them to come back yet, so the deck is an easy place to contain them for now while letting them get some fresh air.

This guy was "helping" clean the deck. Spoiler: He's the one that put that dirt there.

Bubbles

We also had some friends visit.  They wanted to visit this local sculpture park that was built by one guy over years and is a sort of architectural mosaic.  I had never been before, only walked past, so it was neat to run around inside it a bit.  We were holding the boys most of the time, but there was a section that was fairly open and empty of crowds, so we let them run a little bit.  Bear was completely fascinated with the floor tiling.  He looked at every step he took and kept bending over to touch the different textures.

   

The inside was also used as an art gallery that caters to mosaic artists, and there were some really lovely pieces that used maps and weather patterns and galaxies to great effect.

Art by Yulia Hanansen | http://www.mosaicsphere.com

Detail of The Center of the Universe by Rachel Sager | http://www.rachelsagermosaics.com/

So if you get a chance, check out Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, because it's fairly inexpensive and pretty cool.  Better than I expected, if I'm being honest.

We also went hiking at a small local park.  It was our first time with the kids, which was exciting because DS and I have been longing to get back outside.  I don't think we'd really done anything together beyond neighborhood walks since I watched him climb when I was pregnant.

The remains of a formal garden, but no signage to clarify.

Under a train bridge.

It's actually kind of nuts how busy we've been lately.  How exciting!

Making Some Rings

I woke up this morning bright and early with a fully formed idea in my head for a flower ring made out of shrink plastic.  Rings made from this material, commonly known as Shrinky Dinks, are not new to me.  I have one of those Klutz books all about making jewelry out of the stuff.  Basically, you just cut a long strip, decorate it, shrink it, and then bend it into a circle while it's still hot.

So I thought, if you can make a circle while it's still hot, why not other shapes?  I envisioned a three dimensional flower, and then set out to make it happen.  I really love the way it turned out, as did my friend Sarah, to whom I gave it.  She has metal sensitivities, and so the shrink plastic lets her wear rings without getting all itchy.  Bonus!

These designs still need some work.  Sarah broke her band while playing with it nervously.  While I could easily tell people not to pull out on the band, I'd also like them to be a bit more sturdy.  At any rate, I still think they're kind of amazing, and will be cooking up more ideas for these soon.  What do you think?

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New Painting and Table Runner

Little Nova, by Kaitlin Deering - 2009

This is mine and DS's first real art purchase.  The painting is titled Little Nova, and is by our friend Kaitlin Deering.  I adore it.  The rainbow colors, the little flecks of white in the black background.  It's magical and wondrous and makes me feel like I'm witnessing some miracle of space or the northern lights or something.

Felt Leaf Table Runner by Sleep Goblin Crafts - 2011

Also new, this table runner.  I finished it last night.  It's just felt cut in leaf shapes with some running stitches for veins, all connected together.  I wanted something that was very fall, and cheap and easy to make.

Felt Leaf Table Runner by Sleep Goblin Crafts - 2011

Now we just need a few more chairs, and this table will be ready for a dinner party.

Behind the Scenes of a Mobile Commission

Last November, a friend commissioned me to make a custom hanging mobile for their yet-to-be-born child's room.  I was given a photo of the crib set, which was "jungle" themed (with the exception of a giraffe).  Other than that, I was given free reign.

The thing with the giraffe is that I have problems with these themed sets that like to combine animals that don't really make sense.  I'd be fine with it if they didn't say it was a jungle theme.  Giraffes live in the savannah.  But this eventually got me thinking that I had an opportunity to make the mobile both awesome to display and educational.

I was told the child was expected in May, so I had "plenty of time."  However, inspiration was slow.  Very slow.  A whole year slow.  I worked on it in spurts, creating an animal here and there with months in between as I struggled with what to make next.  I probably could have worked much faster if someone had said, "I really love X, please make me something with these items in it."  Coming up with it on my own, I just have to wait until it feels right.

So it's about 5 months late, but in the end, I am glad I waited until I had something worth sending.  I decided to stick with the jungle theme, but make sure that all animals included would be something actually found in a tropical, wooded climate.  Not all of the animals would have to be from the same jungle, just so long as they had similar habitats.  I also wanted them to be animals you'd be likely to encounter at a zoo, but not necessarily the most famous ones.  And I wanted the animals to be removable for some kind of interaction.  My thought was that they could be used in story time, or something along those lines, with the idea being that the child would get to know the names of these animals and what they looked like.  Then visits to the zoo would be more exciting, and hopefully with less mindless screaming and banging on enclosure glass...

I ended up making the three larger animals first, and they were also the most spaced out.  Hand-embroidering the tiger stripes was probably not my best idea in terms of feasibility.  The final structure came recently, when I decided to hang the bigger animals as if they were walking around the base of a tree, with smaller animals hung higher as if they were in the canopy.  This idea was what finally triggered the creative juices, and it was mostly downhill from there.  I believe the last three animals and the tree all came together in about 5 days.

Each animal is roughly to scale with the others; the elephant is a tad small, but I made it as big as my single sheet of felt would allow.  They are all made of felt, hand-sewn and embroidered.  The smaller ones have a touch of marker for shading, since the stitches were pulling through the felt once the pieces passed a certain size.  There are wires in the leaves of the three, with loops for hanging.  To keep it light, the tree trunk is made of straws that are wired together, wrapped in paper, and then covered in felt.  I've never done anything like this before, so I just sort of made it up as I went along.

Because it was so late, and we hadn't talked about it in so long, I packaged everything up and quietly sent it along for my friend's birthday.  I included a little packet that said how to put it together, as the tree is actually two pieces, and the animals can be hung from various points depending on what looks good.  The packet also gave mini-bios, with pictures of live animals, for each of the animals included.

Now that the package is safely delivered, I can share the photos with you.  Soon I should have photos of it hung in the baby's room, but for now, here are the ones I took before shipping.

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I'm With The Band

Today was a busy day.  I'm having a lot of those lately.  A good portion of this is because I've been playing with the band Designer, based in Philly.  I came along as they were finishing up recording their first CD, so I don't have a huge part yet.  They needed a second pianist for one of their songs when it's performed live, and luckily for me, piano is one of the instruments I play.

Being one of the only band members without a full time job (something I'm working on, more details on that if it pans out), I've started doing a lot of background stuff to help out.  The major thing was designing the website.  Website design is not something I have any training in, and I rely heavily on templates followed by back-end editing of html, css, and xml for those things templates won't let me do.  Thank goodness for Google.

Other things include imparting my (limited) knowledge about things like Square Up and business finances, and helping out with creating band merchandise like this poster.

Copyright 2011 Dan Bellotti, for Designer

No, I didn't design it, Dan, the drummer, did.  All I did was use my ink-free hands to move finished posters around during the screen printing process and then make sure they were dry with a blow dryer so they wouldn't smear.  The posters are going to be on sale at the CD release show on June 17th at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia.  I'll be on the piano, and perhaps the flute.  We'll see about that last one.  I've been noodling around on the songs during practice, but I'm not sure anything I've done yet is worth playing at a show.

Check out some of the band's songs here (some will hopefully be on the website soon), and if you like them, pre-order the CD so we can afford to make another I'll actually be on!

What else have I been up to?  Practicing my mandolin, flute, and piano playing nearly every day.  Working out, which has actually been showing progress!  Sewing up a mobile for my friend Lisa's baby.  Lots of for real cooking;  I'm as shocked as you are.  Tonight I made DS a lentil soup from scratch for him to take in his lunches.  Of course, I've been doing the usual things, like cleaning the house, gardening, reading, etc.

What's keeping you busy?

Philadelphia, I think I love you

Last weekend, DS and I visited Philadelphia to see if I could live there.  As you noticed in the earlier post, I had strong reservations about moving to a big city.  Therefore you may be surprised to learn that I had decided we were moving there on Friday night after just arriving on Thursday.  From the moment I got there, it reminded me of living in Louisville, which I loved.  The city was lacking the crowded, dirty feel I associate with most cities of this size.  I think this has something to do with the decision to not build higher than City Hall until the late 80's, meaning there have only recently been skyscrapers.  That left a lower density, and less of a need to raze entire blocks for building new structures.  As you'll see in the photos, this left the city with lots of trees, and what seemed like entire neighborhoods intact from the Colonial Period.  It was charming, and felt a lot like walking through old villages in Europe.

We arrived on Thursday and walked around the neighborhood just to the west of the University of Pennsylvania.  Then we had dinner at sushi place called Pod, which was very mod.  There were actual "pods" with a single table for 8 or so where diners can change the color of the lights inside.  Behind the conveyor belt sushi bar there was a flat screen tv built into the wall that kept playing a cartoon about a white lion.  As far as I could tell, since there was no sound, the entire show was about the little lion cup running around with other wild animals....  We ended up spending a small fortune on sushi and dessert, but it was so delicious that I don't even care if its not reimbursed.  And as a bonus, it happened to be some sort of charity night, so 30% of our bill was donated helping people who are living with AIDS and HIV.

On Friday, DS spent most of the day in meetings with various faculty members.  I slept in, then strolled around campus a bit taking photographs.  I also discovered that the UPenn Bookstore is really just a Barnes and Noble with Penn paraphernalia, which was nice in that I was finally able to pick up a light for my nook!  (Have I mentioned I got a nook?  Because I LOVE IT!)  We were able to relax a bit, and then were picked up by a faculty member who drove us around the inner city, showing us some of the nicer places to live.  Then we had dinner with him and his wife at Alma de Cuba, a Cuban place that was so much better than I expected.  It turns out Cuban food is actually delicious when you have the resources to do it right.  Poor Cuba...

The first half of Saturday was spent with the Chair of the department, as she lives in the suburbs and was able to give us that tour.  Then we walked from the hotel on the Penn campus all the way to the Delaware River.  We were able to see the Liberty Bell, if only through the window.  Dinner was at some fancy place that was way overpriced for the quality of the food.  By this point we had probably walked several miles, so we took a taxi back.  It was at this point that I convinced DS that we were definitely moving here, so we hiked back over to the UPenn Bookstore and got ourselves some official gear to celebrate!

On Sunday it was so hot and humid that we ditched our original idea to visit the zoo, and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art instead.  This is honestly one of the best museums I've visited in terms of shear size.  We didn't get to see all of it, but luckily we got there on a free admission day.  It was also the last day of their special exhibition on Picasso, which was interesting, though apparently Cubism is not DS's thing.  I particularly loved the Impressionists galleries, as well as the period rooms, though we had to move quickly through those areas.  I'll definitely have to visit again once we move.  And everyone is welcome to visit us once we get there, which we think should be late July.  So yeah!  My husband will be a Professor at UPenn this fall!!

Photos from the City

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Photos from the Museum

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UofL Scarf Finished!

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I finished my brother's scarf! I feel safe posting it here, because I can't imagine he's ever been here. I doubt he would even know where to find me. Regardless, it's late, so I guess it doesn't hurt if he does see it here first.

Happy 25th Birthday Brother!

Weaving Experimentation - Soumak Weave

I'm working on a belated birthday/Christmas present for my brother, whose birthday is the day after Christmas. I'm attempting to weave designs into the fabric in support of his favorite team, the University of Louisville cardinals. After planning out the lettering on some grid paper (well, homemade grid paper... I really should buy some of that stuff; making your own grids is needlessly time consuming) similar to a cross stitch pattern, I went about weaving them into the fabric using what's known as a soumak weave. For you embroiderers, this is basically a stem stitch. Which I realized after painstakingly weaving this in between each plain weave row. I think for the image part, I will just embroider the design.

At any rate, I'm pretty pleased with how the UofL part came out. Very simple, striking, and not too fancy looking for a dude to wear even though making it feels very fancy. I should have photos once the whole thing is done.

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

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wonderful Things

1. Several of my work friends have a tradition of "trashing" a co-worker's office on their birthday. Plans are made in secret, and all work is done after the co-worker has left so they'll be surprised the morning of their birthday. This week was Jim's birthday, and he came in to 3 feet of balloons. Check out that static*! 286 balloons are good for that.

2. I have a large marker board in my office. When it's not full of ideas for work projects, people draw on it. This image started with the sailboat, then came the guy falling off and a shark eating his leg. A few days later, a turtle was eating a shark, and then a whale was eating the turtle. Then Jonah appeared, and then an alien "fishing" for the whale. What I love most is that I never asked any of these people to add to the drawing, it just happened. Often when I wasn't in the room.

3. It's snowing. Hard. And the winter storm warning doesn't even start for several more hours. I love winter!!

4. We put up our Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving as usual while we watched Christmas Vacation. This year I bought extra plug timers so I don't have to turn on or off any of my lights. They're on when I get home from work, and go off some time after I fall asleep. Aside from the fact that we can't keep Winston from chewing on the tree (that crazy cat likes to chew on plastic.. makes me almost wish we'd gotten a real tree), I'd say our new apartment is a decorating success! Also, Winston would like to start the countdown to Christmas!


* Image may require enlarging to see static effects.