I love Whimseybox!

and…I bought the gold scissors from them…makes blogging SO much better!

Ok, no actual sewing took place today but I made sewing progress by reading the June/July issue of Threads.  This was my first time buying the mag, and I it did seem more technical than other sewing magazines I’ve picked up before.  At the same time a lot of the info was accessible and actually really helpful.  I will consider getting a subscription as my sewing journey continues.

It was a lovely day…eventually…in Monterey so I got to peruse my magazine while getting some sun in the yard, of course with Mr. Cody running around.

It might be lame but every so often I LOVE to enjoy my city as a tourist.  The weather was perfect today and here’s how my day went down:

• From downtown took the historic rail to the Ferry Building

• Cappuccino at Blue Bottle, enjoyed outside with a view of the Bay Bridge

• Checked out Book Passage, not sure how long this book store has been in the building because I’d never been in it before.  It was delightful I bought “The Artist’s Eye” and a Moleskine for my dad

• Bought a ring, pictured above, at the Art Market on my way back to the cable car

• Read my new book in front of the waterfall at Yerba Buena Gardens

• Off to Japantown where I got lunch, did mandatory shopping at Daiso, and got some pens also for my dad (his birthday’s coming up and it’s conveniently close to Father’s Day)

et voila! That’s how you enjoy a summer day in SF.

My favorite Sew Sunday yet!  The lining of this bag (about a year old now) was some thin woven thing that had been ripping for a many a month.  I tore it out and relined it with some indoor/outdoor fabric I had lying around.  The lining is just a simple folded rectangle, sewn up the sides and hemmed before attaching right under the zipper.  I absolutely LOVE the result, and it was easy…maybe I can do this sewing thing after all.

Watercolor wednesday exercise two: wet on dry.  The project is to start with neutral mixes of colors, making adjacent squares and rectangles, starting in the middle of the page.  Once that layer is dry you make more vibrant mixes of colors and overlay them, still making square and rectangle shapes.  I actually did not strictly follow the directions and used much more vibrant colors than prescribed in both layers, but the gist is the same.  The purpose is to see how overlaying layers on dry layers can be another way of creating color mixes rather than always mixing on the palette.

I took my painting out of the house this week.  Got breakfast at Java Beach at the Zoo, then parked by the water and rolled down the windows.  Listened to the surf and spread out my supplies in the car and got to work.  Before I knew it I had been at for an hour an a half!

Welcome to Watercolor Wednesday! Couldn’t resist, aliteration is one of my most things.  Moving on.  I’ve been wanting to learn/practice watercolor painting and being the diy enthusiast that I am I’m gonna try…well, doing it by myself.

I’ll be doing one project from Water Paper Paint each Wednesday, ideally I won’t skip any and will do them in order.  I’ve read through the whole book already but didn’t attempt any projects right away but I DID really enjoy the book, beautiful photos, clear directions, great layout and style.

So without further ado, project one “wet into wet” circles (don’t mind the awful photo, in real life it looks lovely):

]]> http://popelephant.com/?feed=rss2&p=974 0 http://popelephant.com/?p=968 http://popelephant.com/?p=968#comments Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:25 +0000 popElephant http://popelephant.com/?p=968 I have decided to give myself a kick about doing more sewing, so I am introducing Sew Sunday…Sewn Sunday? Sewnday?  What exactly should it be called?  We’ll figure it out.

Since I’m the midst of a ton of other projects I dug up some straightforward sewing that needed to be done.  A pair of jeans had lost it’s button, another was brand new and unworn due to lack of pockets.  Why are more and more inexpensive pants being made without pockets??? I mean, obviously cost is a factor…but seriously, what kind of brand/manufacturer thinks it’s ok to make regular pants without pockets? They aren’t skinny jeans or, god forbid, jeggings.  Perplexing.  At any rate that lemon is now delicious, adorable pocket-ed lemonade.

PS: I am also instituting Watercolor Wednesday, so look forward to that in a few days!

Ok…these aren’t pictures of my home.  I really wish they were.  Inspired by SO many pictures like these I started cleaning my place.  Cleaning isn’t really the word, purging is more like the word.  It’s day five, about two dozen bags of “stuff” has left my home (for the record my home is a one bedroom apartment).  I can’t even understand where that much stuff came from.  And I still have more to go through.  Half of the stuff under the bed, a large box of who-knows-what-sentimental-JUNK in the back corner of the closet, the hall closet, the suitcases (I almost never pack anything empty, that’s like storing air…not logical).

I was able to toss, recycle, or donate a huge…I mean IMPOSSIBLY huge amount of things that I had kept because they had ‘sentimental value’.  Going back through them I noticed some of those things had negative sentimental value, failed Physics GRE anyone?  Others were associated with events and memories I remember on a regular basis and so have no need for an object to prompt them, others were pleasantly surprising; I had forgotten that I did very well in quantum mechanics class in my second year of undergrad and that I used to write decent prose.  I now commit those facts to memory…well to the collective memory of the internet.  I was able to let go of most of the physical junk that thus far served as my only memory of those events (every shred of coursework from college, a journal I kept in the last year of high school re: college prep).

I also tossed zip disks…anyone remember those? CD-RW’s…photos of basically nothing, all dark, distorted and not even depicting anything discernible.  Why oh why had I saved these things in the first place???  I know that I did so, because there were the old photos and CDs and papers and arcade coins and dozens of movie ticket stubs and and and.

I can’t name ONE specific thing that brought about a violent desire to purge myself of STUFF, but I am grateful, if a bit discouraged by a lack of obvious progress.  Many things have inspired in the last year…year and a half…three years.  Books.  Doing a 365 art project.  More books.  Blogs.  In my recent past I’ve been able to confront and make peace with not only my past memories, good and bad, but also with my process of dealing with them.  The boxes full of movie ticket stubs and blurry dark pictures were a manifestation of my world view: my past was important, but difficult to unpack, process, and keep tidy.  Now by reliving a lot of my past I can experience memories in a controlled, productive way.  Letting go of the bad, cherishing the good, and not feeling any need to keep junk (but distinguishing junk from treasures and things I want to pass on), and yes, keeping some of those movie ticket stubs to put in my collages.

What mementos do you hoard? How do you store them? When do you toss them, if ever?

First off, how cute is my snail friend? Is this the most artistic shot? No, but it does remind me of the herd of snails that live on the side wall of my apartment complex’s garage.  Depending on the weather and time of day I go to the car there are varying sizes, locations, and amounts of snails.  Some are rather large, some teeny tiny.  Sometimes they’re very high up, sometimes in the middle, sometimes low on the wall.  But they persist no matter what, unaffected by external judgements.  Ok, those are all very positive and inspiring things, but the reason my snail friend is up there is just because snails make me happy and seem epically care free and I want to share with you now MY carefree, recently formed habits that help keep the house tidy.  Ready?

small easy habits that make a happier house:

• If you’re in the kitchen waiting on the microwave or oven or something else, do some dishes, empty the dishwasher, or wipe that one spot of jam on the counter…otherwise you’d be just standing there doing nothing.  I find I can usually empty or reload the entire dishwasher while waiting on the electric kettle for instance.

• If you subscribe to magazines take out the little fliers in there while walking back from the mailbox, then they won’t fall out or annoy you later when you’re actually reading your magazine.

• If you’re going from one room to another, take something with you that belongs where you’re going and not where you are (ex: if I’m going from the living room to the bedroom I take with me the sweater I left on the couch to put in the closet)

• Hack yourself in every possible way;  Set reminders on your phone, put items where they are used instead of where they are traditionally put (ex: I keep nail clippers and floss in the living room because I know I’ll get hang nails and I know if I have floss at hand EVERYwhere I am more likely to use it), use smaller dishes to eat less, etc. etc. etc.

What little strategies do you use to keep your home and mind tidy?

Last month I finished an old UFO, and 6 baby hats of varying sizes, very satisfying.  This month…I guess more baby hats.  Also I’m attempting to design a yoga tank, let’s see if I can get it made this month, fingers crossed.