noisy stuff

mama don't live here no more

2008-10-08T11:55:00.001-07:00

I'VE MOVED! If you are interested in reading new blog posts, go here: PenguinBot Blog.

I figured I should make a more prominent post stating that. =)

P.S. I've even been updating the blog fairly regularly! How exciting.

It's here!

2008-09-30T22:27:00.001-07:00

Hey. You there. CLICK HERE.

Lorne and I first started talking about a website where I made and sold things awhile back. The day after our wedding, to be exact. We were sitting in a bar in Victoria, drinking fancy drinks, and Lorne brought it up. Then I started making things, playing with designs, giving them to friends for birthdays and Christmases and such. Then I got some positive feedback, then more, and then I sold some to friends who wanted to give gifts to friends, then to their friends, to my internet friends. (Yes, I have internet friends. They're pretty awesome.) (I AM A NERD.)

Now there's a shop. My fabric stash and sewing table have taken over the dining room, I have a dresser full of yarn and knit bags, and a coat rack covered in totes. I'm so very excited about the shop. Lorne did an amazing job with it. Aside from being an awesome web designer, he is the best person ever.

We also want to thank Kyle and Grant for their input on the website design and name, and Colin for suggesting how Lorne build it, and Mike for all his hosting help, and everyone who has ever bought something from me and told me they liked it and encouraged me to do more. You guys rule.

Enough out of me. Go poke around the website.

Oh, one more thing - I'll be blogging there from now on, so update your bookmarks and RSS feeds to http://www.penguinbot.com/blog. At some point we might migrate this blog over there, but not yet.

Small Tote Preview!

2008-09-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

There will be a bunch of small totes available in the PenguinBot shop. Before our little monster was born, I went on a bit of a fabric buying binge and got excited about all the color combinations and just started cutting away.

The Pink Lady

Cherry Blossoms & Birdies

Black Damask

Geometric Goodness

Dotty in Blue

Dotty in Brown

Speaking of the monster, some of these were finished the night before I was induced. Isn't it fun to imagine me making these, my 9+ months pregnant belly making it hard to reach my sewing machine from the chair? I can't believe he's over 3 months old. Here he is on his 3 month birthday. Where does the time go? Soon he's going to be off to preschool, then kindergarten, and before you know it I'll be sobbing at his high school graduation. STOP GROWING UP SO FAST WILL.

Will, with his ugly doll beard.

Anyway, back to the bags. Do you want to see the innards? Do you!? DO YOU!!?! Well too bad. You're going to have to go to PenguinBot on October 1st to see them. There will also be more small tote bags for you to check out!

October 1st is only a week and a half away. HOLY CRAP.

it's coming, it's coming, it's coming

2008-09-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

Warning: Excessive Capitalization and Overuse of Punctuation Ahead. Use Extreme Caution.

The planned opening of the PenguinBot shop is October 1st. October! Holy crap, that's soon. I'm finishing up some more lovely bags, Lorney is finishing the website, we're taking pictures, we're talking to the government. Holy crap! October 1st is soon.

Would you like to see a few things that are going to be in the shop? Would you? WOULD YOU?!!?! While these are not pictures that will go on the website, these are pictures of REAL items that will be in the NON-IMAGINARY PenguinBot shop of October 1st! Over the next few weeks I'll put up a few other items for you to preview, if you are so inclined.

Anyway, here are a few things that will be for sale in the new shop. October 1st. Mark your calendars people.

Here is a large tote bag that will be for sale. It has pretty red roses and black vinyl. The innards are red dots of various sizes with black dots of one size on a lovely white background.

I'm sure for the past 11,000 years you've been saying, "Alright Laurel, ENOUGH with Washington. Give us something else, some other state." Here you go! That's Oregon. NOT Washington. SO SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE. The innards of this lovely little coin purse are white dots on a black background.

This is one of my favorite bags ever. I kind of want to keep it for myself, but that sort of defeats the purpose of building a shop, doesn't it?

ALSO! Be on the watch for a new contest! A contest in which you can win fabulous, lovely handmade items (handmade by me! I MAKE ALL THIS STUFF!)! A contest to celebrate the opening of PenguinBot! WOOOOO!!!!!

OCTOBER 1ST!

he'll save children, but not the British children

2008-07-31T00:24:00.000-07:00

I mentioned back in this post that I needed to make a diaper bag for ourselves. I finally got around to it over the last few days. The plan was to make something with the Dodgers flying baseball thingy on it, but I was out of dark blue vinyl and the place I usually buy it has it on backorder. Instead of being patient and waiting for more vinyl to come in, I came up with a different plan.

I had a big roll of green vinyl that I'd yet to do anything with. A roll of green vinyl that was roughly the color of Washington State highway signs. Hmm.

As you have seen in other posts (here and here and here), I have a faux-fondness for George Washington. Mainly I like this video. Seriously, have you watched it yet? You should. It's funny.

I had my Washington stencil file from the other projects I'd done with it. I'd just need to enlarge it and print it off. Less work than coming up with something new, and I'm quite interested in less work these days. Hmm.

Thus, the George Washington diaper bag was born. We can tell Will that we're all patriotic or something, not that his mom was inspired by a cartoon full of lies about our first president.

He made love like an eagle falling out of the sky.

The fabric I used on the lining was given to me by Nate and Miranda for my birthday a few years ago. I want to use it to make an apron and a few other things, but well...I just haven't gotten around to it yet. But I liked it for the diaper bag. I like George Washington and I also like birds.

Also, I like sleep. I'm going to go get some now.

He'll kick you apart.

NY Times Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-07-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Nate, my brother-in-law, shared an article from the New York Times about the quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie on his Google Reader. A recipe adapted from one of the pastry chefs they interviewed is linked to the article. A few of the baking blogs I read discussed the recipe, and I was craving sweets (as usual), so I decided to try them out.

I only used all purpose flour, as I didn't own and was too lazy/cheap to go buy the two different types of flour listed. Lorne picked up 62% cacao chocolate chips for the recipe. We didn't feel like spending the time (or more money) searching out the fancy disk things used in the recipe either. The most interesting thing about the recipe (and the article) is that they recommend chilling your cookie dough for at least 24 hours, preferably 36. I'm impatient so I started baking as soon as the 24 hours was up. My intention was to bake them all at once, but Will interfered after 12 cookies were done. I didn't get around to baking the rest until it had been almost 72 hours.

I'm terrible at estimation, so when it said to make the cookies the size of "a generous golf ball" I had to get out a golf ball for comparison. The cookie dough tasted amazing. I've eaten a lot of cookie dough and I can honestly say is probably my favorite dough of the chocolate chip variety. I had high hopes when the first six went into the oven.

Unfortunately, I didn't love the first 12 I baked. I mean, they were good, but far from the best chocolate chip cookies I'd ever had. First, they were crispy. Crispy is a good attribute in fried chicken, but I prefer my cookies more on the chewy side. The article and recipe talk about how they'd have three rings - crispy with a chewy interior ring, leading to a soft center - but they were crispy all through. Boo. Second, they were, dare I say, too chocolaty. The dark chocolate is very good, yes, but that's all I could taste. It overpowered the cookie flavor completely.

The good news is that knowing that the first 12 were too crispy for my tastes, when I went to bake the last of the dough a few days later, I turned the oven down a tiny bit and took them out a minute and a half earlier than I had before. The texture on these (the ones I remembered to photograph) was much better. A little crispy on the outside, nice and chewy elsewhere. I also picked some of the excess chocolate chips out of the second 12 cookies as well so I'd be able to taste the cookie better. And the cookie itself was fantastic. So next time I make these I'll probably only use 2/3 the recommended chocolate chips and bake them less time. Also, the salt on the top was yummy.

The recipe: (original recipe is here)

3 2/3 cups minus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract

1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate chips, at least 60 percent cacao content

Sea salt.

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes (I did a little less than 18). Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

The stars at night

2008-07-24T00:15:00.000-07:00

Are big and bright
clap clap clap clap
Deep in the heart of Texas!

Lisa wins a coin purse for being in tune with my uterus.

This is Lisa's prize for her freakishly accurate prediction of when Will would be born (seriously, she was off by ten minutes). She and her husband moved to San Diego from Texas a few years before Lorne and I came here, and we met when she befriended me at my last job. Lisa regularly threatens to disembowel anyone that might think about being a jerk to me and is 40 different types of awesome.

An off-center picture of the innards.

I associate Texas with Lisa, then with this clip from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. I've trained myself to disassociate it with our current president.

more nursery stuff

2008-07-23T02:05:00.001-07:00

Lorne and I bought this rocking chair from an Etsy seller. In keeping with the loose theme of Will's nursery - sports and teams that Lorne and I like - we decided to make it a Husky rocking chair.

Lorne drew the University of Washington's logo W on the seat, and I painted it. Well, I still need to paint the bottom of this and go over the edges of the W so they're more smooth, but who knows when I'll get around to that. =) The purple is a little more purpley and a little less blue looking in real life.

While we both went to UW for our bachelor's degrees, we won't force Will to go there. We'll just force him to watch the Huskies play football for the next 18 years. Hopefully they won't be as terrible as they have been for the last few years.

look what I made

2008-06-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

Well, Lorne helped.

William Logan arrived at 3:50 AM on Friday the 13th. This means that the winner of our little contest is our friend Lisa, who guessed 4 AM on Friday the 13th. He's a little bit gigantic and awfully cute. We're pretty happy. I have some of Lisa's prize completed, but things have been a little hectic since Will arrived (who knew babies took up so much time?), so I'll finish it up and post pictures at a later date.

Will was 11 lbs, 5 ounces at birth. He's lost a little weight since then, but I'm pretty sure he's storing at least four or five pounds in his cheeks. It gets tiring carrying all of that adorableness around, so we're going to go take a nap.

June is a busy birthday month.

2008-06-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

Aside from our little dude showing up in June, my grandma, my mom, Lorne's mom and dad, and my friend Tammy all have birthdays in June. I'm probably forgetting someone else I know. Anyway, last week I was making all these bags to put up on the PenguinBot website (I swear, there will be shop there at some point - Lorne is just working out some bugs). When I finished this one, I realized that it just screamed Tammy. Hot pink + polka dots = Tammy.

As Tammy not only has a birthday this month, but will also be finishing up her Master's in Social Work, I figured I owed her a present. And for once, it was finished early. Unlike Margie's present. Or Katie's present. Or Miranda's. Or...well, just about everyone else this year. I've been slow.

A few weeks ago a fabric website sent me an email saying they had some of Amy Butler's newest line on sale, so I bought some for my stash. This is one of them. The dots remind me of olives. While I don't particularly care for the taste of olives, I like the way they look when they're stuffed with something. They look fun. This fabric looks fun. Tammy is fun!

Even Gracie likes it, and as you can see here and here and here, Gracie doesn't like much.

Did you know that Lorne is awesome?

2008-06-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

Consider the following:

Fact: Lorne has made dinner every night for the last I don't know how many months.
Fact: Lorne tells me to sit down and relax while he does things like clean and do dishes.
Fact: Lorne painted this awesome toy box for our son.

Fact: We found the unfinished wood box at Michael's. We were about to buy it when Lorne found a 50% off coupon near one of the registers that went into effect the following day, so we came back the next day and got it for half off.

Fact: Lorne drew the Twins logo and the baseball on to the box.

Did you know that Lorne is awesome?! WERE YOU AWARE OF IT?!!?!

yellow cake with butterscotch frosting and apples

2008-06-02T21:38:00.000-07:00

I think my nesting instinct is coming out in a desire to bake and sew. Last week I made some chocolate chip cookies to give to my co-workers, I've been doing a lot of sewing, and tomorrow I plan to work on some knit gifts I've been putting off for far too long. On Saturday I really wanted cake. Lorne and I have pretty similar tastes when it comes to non-dessert food, but our dessert leanings are pretty opposite. He likes pie, I like cake. He likes lighter, fruity things, I like rich, chocolaty things. This cake was me trying to come up with something we'd both want to eat - I don't think being pregnant is enough of a reason for me to justify eating an entire cake by myself.

I turned to a few recipes I'd used before (I made cupcakes with the yellow cake recipe once, and the apples are from the caramel apple toffee cheesecake I made for Valentine's Day earlier this year) and one I hadn't (I really like butterscotch, so I just found a recipe for the frosting that looked good).

partially eaten cake

Yellow Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour, stirred before measuring
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
PREPARATION:
Mix flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Cream sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add half of the flour mixture then half of the milk.
Add vanilla. Mix until blended; add remaining flour and milk and beat until smooth. Fill 4 greased and floured layer cake pans(4 1/2 inch diameter) with the batter. Bake at 375° for 25 to 35 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly touched near center.
Frost as desired.

Source: About.com Southern US Cuisine section

Apple Topping

4 green apples
4 TBSP butter
1/4 cup sugar

Peel and core the apples, then slice them thinly. In a heavy saucepan melt 4 TBSP butter. Stir in sugar and cook until the sugar starts to caramelize. Add the apples and cook them until they are tender. Cool.

Source: Culinary Concoctions by Peabody (I added another apple and a little more butter than her recipe.)

Butterscotch Frosting

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons milk
2 cups powdered sugar

Melt butter in saucepan. Add brown sugar; bring to a boil over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in milk; bring to boil, stirring constantly. Cool to lukewarm. Gradually add powdered sugar. Beat until thick enough to spread.

Source: CDKitchen.com

cake guts

Though I bake cupcakes fairly often, I don't think I've made a regular cake since I was 13 or something. My lack of cake experience led to some mistakes, but luckily, none of them were fatal.

Mistake 1: The only cake pan I have is a 9" silicone one. Greasing and flouring it didn't go very well, and then when I tried to take the cake out of the pan it was still a little warm and a lot of cake bottom stuck to the silicone thing. Whoops.

Mistake 2: I was planning on putting the apple topping stuff on top of the frosting. Even as I told Lorne of my plan for topping and frosting the cake, I started putting the apples on the unfrosted cake. I blame pregnancy brain. I ended up slathering the frosting on top of the apples, which worked okay, but the cake ended up a little less pretty and a little more lumpy than I'd planned.

lumpy frosting
Despite the mistakes, it's pretty much the most delicious cake ever, and we both really like it. Hooray!

baby contest!

2008-05-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned a million times here that I'm pregnant, and a few weeks ago posted a picture of my gigantic belly, so you might have guessed that I'm due soon. Lorne and I decided to copy Nate and Miranda's baby contest* idea. Lorne and I will get a child**, and one*** lucky guesser will win a fabulous prize!

Here is how it works: guess the day and time of Will's arrival. The closest to his actual debut will receive a fabulous prize (to be named later). Also guess a weight to serve as a tie-breaker. We'll stop taking entries on Friday at 4:30 (when my maternity leave starts!) or until labor begins (whichever comes first), and keep all guesses secret until then. Doesn't that sound like fun?

So, if you'd like a shot at a fabulous prize...
Send an e-mail to whenwillwillarrive@gmail.com (not a comment on this post) containing:
- Your guess at the date and time (to the nearest hour)
- Your guess at Will's weight (for tie-breaking purposes)

Here are some details to level the playing field:
- Will's due date is 6/8
- He's technically "full term" now, so if I went into labor now, they would not try to stop me
- If he doesn't arrive by two-weeks post-due date (6/22), they'll probably start to think seriously about inducing labor
- Will looked like this about 18 weeks ago, if that helps you somehow:

*If you already received an email from Lorney, this is the same contest.
**The prize is not a baby, unless there is a hidden twin in there.
***There is only one fabulous prize! GET OFF OUR BACKS, WE AREN'T MADE OF MONEY.

too pregnant and lazy to write much

2008-05-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

Just a short post. This is for JoAnn, who I made wait for awhile to get a bag. I thank her for her patience. Here are some pictures of her large tote bag. =)

I'll try to post something more interesting soon. Lorne painted a toy box with the Twins logo and I painted a rocking chair with the Washington W.

Eight is Great

2008-05-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

I made Lori a knit clutch almost a year ago (which you can see here, just in case you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything I've ever made). She emailed me a few months ago to find out if I'd be able to make some of the smaller tote bags for her. Seven for her bridesmaids and one for her. I feel that this blog entry will be super picture-heavy.

I finished up with the last two bags today, and here they all are, lounging on the chaise in the baby's room. Lori gave me free reign to do pretty much whatever I wanted, though she did ask if I could make a few that were similar to ones she'd seen on the blog already (if you read the blog often, you may see some familiar-looking faces in the group shot above).

Here are closer-up shots of all the outers:

Blue/black dot tote and brown/teal flowery tote.

Blueish/greenish/orangeish paisley bag and light blue/brown dot bag.

Pink and black swirly bag and pink/brown geometric bag.

Rose bag and brown/cream flowery bag.

And here are some shots that show some of the innards:

Innards of the light blue w/brown dots bag and blueish/greenish paisley looking bag.

Innards of the pink/brown geometric bag and the brown flowery bag.

Innards of the brown/teal bag and the blue/black dot bag.

Innards of the pink swirly bag and the rose bag.

I hope Lori and her bridesmaids like them all!

Happy Birthday Margie!

2008-05-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

My little sister turned 19 yesterday. I failed to finish her present in time to send it up to arrive on her birthday. In fact, I failed to finish it until today. Anyway, I made her a little tote bag that looks suspiciously similar to the green tote I made myself a few months back.

Lorney took these pictures after I finished up with the sewing so I could go sit in a cold bathtub for awhile - it's been ridiculously hot here the last few days. The tote is on the chaise lounge thingy we stuck in the baby's room. The stripes on the chaise are dark blue, but the bag is dark purple. Just in case you were confused.

Margie is in her first year of college at UW. I mentioned how smart she is last year when I made her this pillow for her graduation. Well last quarter she 4.0'd all her classes. So she's still a nerd, and I'm super proud of her.

If my remembory serves me right, Margie is a fan of polka dots. I used purple vinyl because (1) I liked how it looked and (2) it's one of her school colors. Go Dawgs.

Margie rules, and I hope she had a really great birthday yesterday.

wall letters

2008-05-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend Lorne and I finished painting the wood letters we bought to put on the wall of William's room. We went to Michael's a few weeks ago and picked the letters out and bought some paint. Lorne and I don't consider ourselves to be particularly good at drawing or painting, so we're really happy with how they turned out.

(Edited to add: now that I've published the blog, I realize that the picture Lorne sent me is too big to fit in the stupid blog window, so here's a link: wall letters.)

I think my favorite letter is the L with the giraffe, which Lorney drew and painted. He's a happy little giraffe. So cute. =) We also got a new camera a few days ago, which allowed Lorne to take the nice picture above in the poor lighting conditions of our apartment. Fancy new camera accurately depicts the colors of the letters.

New camera also took this picture, me on our deck, 36 weeks pregnant:

And this picture of George:

And this picture of Gracie (who still hates you):

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

2008-05-05T14:26:00.001-07:00

We had a potluck at work today to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I offered to make some sort of dessert, then remembered it was supposed to be Mexican-themed, then frantically went searching for some sort of Mexican dessert to make. Flan is the only thing I could think of, but I'm not a big flan fan, so I poked through my trusty friend Google and found this recipe for Mexican almond cookies. The recipe is from some Frida Kahlo cookbook, so I figured it was authentic enough to bring for a work party.

Basically, it's egg, butter, sugar, cornmeal, flour, and mushed up almonds. I like all those things, so I figured I'd try it out.

The cookies flattened out a lot in the oven and looked kind of like corn cakes. They tasted pretty good though. The outer edges were nice and crispy. The recipe has an option of adding meringue topping, though it says nothing about cooking the meringue after you add it. This bothered me a little bit. I actually like my co-workers and would rather not poison them all with salmonella. So I pulled out my kitchen torch!

Okay, I'll be honest with you. As soon as I saw that this recipe had meringue that I could torch at the end, I decided to make it - I didn't just randomly think last night, "Oh hey, maybe I should use my torch." It was all a set up for me to use the torch.

The cookies were pretty good - they tasted kind of like cornmeal shortbread - but once I topped them with the meringue and let them sit overnight, they became a little mushy. Everyone at the potluck liked them, they just had to eat them with a knife and fork.

productive weekend

2008-05-04T22:42:00.000-07:00

Aside from the diaper bag and the large tote I'll talk about in just a moment, this weekend I also made homemade strawberry ice cream with Lorney, baked some cookies for a Cinco de Mayo potluck at work tomorrow, and sewed up a billion straps and the outers of a bunch of small and large totes. Lots of new vinyl colors and fabrics for the outers! Fun times. I'll post some pictures later this week.

On to today's tote bag!

Mary was looking for something to drag all her stuff around over the weekend of her July wedding and asked if I could make her a large tote. One of her wedding colors is turquoise. I found that the color turquoise is interpreted differently by pretty much everyone that makes fabric in the color turquoise. For example, both the vinyl and the fabric for Mary's tote are called turquoise, though they're obviously different colors.

Here are the innards. I liked the light blue stripe (or maybe that's also turquoise?) and brown with the outer fabric. I didn't have anything in my stash that really went with the outer fabric in either of her other wedding colors (dark purple, kelly green).

Another picture of the outside of the bag. The first picture was taken from our deck during the day, then the batteries on the camera died. After they'd sufficiently recharged, this is what it looked like inside. What a difference lighting makes, eh?

and now for something completely different

2008-05-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, I lied. It's just a little bit different. I made a knit clutch for Nicole oh so long ago, and she contacted me a little while ago asking if I could come up with a diaper bag she could give to her pregnant friend. Seeing as how I am also pregnant, and would also need such a bag, I said yes. I had some ideas.

This is the front.

As you can see, it's about the same size as the large tote bags I've been making. I dropped the amount of vinyl down on the front because Nicole's friend was excited about the paisley fabric - I wanted to make sure you could actually see a significant amount of it.

This is the back.

I added an outside pocket to the standard tote bag pattern. That big tall chunk of vinyl going up the back is a nice sturdy flap with a magnetic snap. I imagine it being used to hold a changing pad and one of those little flat packs of diaper wipes...or something. Though, I don't dictate what all the pockets are for - Nicole's friend can use it however she wants.

The open outside pocket.

I lined the outside pocket with the same paisley fabric. I liked how that looked. I would have been done with this last Sunday, except that I couldn't get the straps to turn right-side-out. I spent two hours on one and got maybe an inch turned before my hand cramped up painfully, then I quit. Lorne usually does the strap-turning for me, and he was out of town until last Wednesday night. So I tried again on Monday and Tuesday and failed miserably both days. Then I gave up. My trusty husband turned them (and about 16 other straps) on Thursday night. Lorney rules.

Innards, part the first.

I'm not a parent just yet, but I will be soon. I've spent a fair amount of time around parents - at my mom's daycare, my brother, my brother- and sister-in-law, other relatives - and my observation is that babies come with a lot of crap, and they need a lot of crap to come with them wherever they go. There are lots of little toys and extra socks and bottles and pacifiers that are needed to keep babies happy. So I made a strip of pockets to hold some of the stuff - a few little enclosed pockets, and then two pouches that can hold bottles upright.

Innards, part the second.

Then I included the pockets I usually put in the big tote bags. Perhaps Nicole's friend would like to not carry around a purse and a diaper bag, and wants a place set aside for her wallet, keys, and cell phone. Or perhaps her baby will just have a whole lot of stuff and more pockets will help her stay more organized. Whatever, as I said earlier, I'm not a pocket nazi.

The side of the bag...because I always have some sort of angled picture.

I still need to make a bag for Lorne and me to use. I'm thinking I might make one pretty much like this, except all vinyl on the outside, with a cut out of some sort of baseball-related thingy. Lorne and I just have to fight out* whether the cut out will be Twin-, Mariner-, or Dodger-related.

*By "fight out" I mean with brass knuckles, sticks, and partner cats. I call dibs on Gracie - she may be smaller, but she's meaner.

Gracie hates you.

deja vu all over again

2008-04-22T23:39:00.000-07:00

Melissa (a different Melissa than the one from this post) emailed me awhile ago and asked if I could make her a smaller version of the big birdie tote I made for myself awhile ago.

The original plan for this was to make it pretty much exactly the same as my bag, but you know, smaller. Unfortunately, the birds on the fabric are a little too big to use for a cut out on the smaller bag, so I cut out a smaller bird.

I like the red and pink together on the fabric, and I liked the idea of using red vinyl to bring out the red on the fabric. So that's what I did.

The innards are the same as my bag (minus my overly floppy pocket).

I have to say, while I love the color of this vinyl, I absolutely hate working with it. It's the same brand and weight as a few of the other colors I use, and yet all the other colors are much easier to work with. This one is just a pain in the butt. It sticks when I try to sew it, it sticks when Dr. Lorney turns the straps right-side-out (have I mentioned that Lorne turns all my straps for me? Lorne rules), and my pins get stuck in it. I've injured myself working on it multiple times, I break sewing needles on it...it's just bad news. This bag (and another I finished tonight) signifies the end of my supply of this vinyl. I found another brand in a similar color, and I'm hoping it doesn't give me nearly as much trouble. Fare thee well evil vinyl. You are pretty, but cursed - much like Jean Grey in X-Men 3.

brown and orange bird tote

2008-04-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I've made a blog post - things have been really busy, starting the second to last weekend in March we've left San Diego every single weekend. First to Phoenix, then to Seattle, then to L.A., then to Denver. We'd planned on staying home last weekend, but we ended up driving up to Anaheim yesterday to watch the Mariners beat the Angels. So four trips of two or three days, followed by a day-long outing, on top of work and pregnancy, means no posts. But I have been working.

This tote bag is for Susan. She was looking for something to carry her laptop around in and decided on this fabric with birds and I think cherry blossoms (even though they're orange). The brown vinyl is the same I used in Flann's tote bag (though these terrible pictures make it look darker).

Susan's only request for the innards was that I use a fabric that was "not too orange." Seeing as how I have made multiple mentions of my love of using orange fabric and yarn on this blog, it was probably wise of her to mention. I avoided orange entirely, and went with a rosey pink/gold/brown/cream striped fabric. There's one big pocket and one smaller one; the big one probably isn't big enough for her laptop (unless she has one of those tiny little Macbook Air thingies), but she bought a cute laptop sleeve to put it in, so it will be nice and protected in the main bag area.

Aside from Susan's tote, I've got a bunch of things cut out that I just need to sew up. I think I got kind of excited about the beginning of baseball season, so I spent a lot of my work time cutting things out and getting them ready while watching the Mariners, Dodgers, and Twins. Now I just have to sew them all up, which takes a lot less time than cutting. I need to get over my fear of using my rotary cutter. It would probably save me a lot of time. I've also been having some lovely hand cramps when cutting and sewing, and that's slowed me up some. My right hand likes to curl into a cramped up claw sometimes. Apparently pregnancy can give you temporary carpal tunnel syndrome! Vomiting and heartburn and gall stones...oh pregnancy, is there anything you can't do?!

Susan is also the winner of the giveaway tote bag. She was kind and told me to just ship them together, so that's what I shall do.

cupcake time

2008-04-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

My brother and my niece visited us for a week and a half. I thought it would be fun to bake something with my niece, so I asked her if she'd like to make cookies or cupcakes. She chose cupcakes. I asked her what kind of cupcake and frosting, and she chose chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. We used this cupcake recipe, but left out the filling and left the mint out of the frosting (and also halved it). I also used vanilla paste instead of mint extract in the frosting, and made it purple.

Putting the melted chocolate under the mixer

Emma adds the sugar

Emma cracks her first egg

I showed her how to crack the first one, then helped her crack the second egg. After she cracked the egg, she freaked out a little - she got some on her hand, it was cold and slimy, and she didn't really know what to do. She asked to not crack anymore eggs, so I did the others and we washed our hands.

"Just turn it off, okay?"

Even though she was okay with the mixer when we added the sugar, after the trauma of the egg cracking, she decided she didn't really like it anymore. Also, I look kind of evil. Maybe that was traumatizing too.

The best part of baking

Mmm, beater

Emma was very serious about adding sprinkles

I frosted the cupcakes (it was late, I just used a knife...no pretty swirls this time), then Emma decorated them.

Emma licked all the frosting off first, then ate the cake.

She did the same thing with this cupcake the next day. I think she inherited her sweet tooth from her aunt.

and the winner is....

2008-03-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

Commenter #18, Susan!

Susan said...

1. I love the tote bags, and the little knit clutches

2. I am digging the green/brown combo. I also like fabric with birds on it.

March 19, 2008 8:00 PM

Susan, send me an email with your address and I'll send the bag out to you! laurel (at) penguinbot (dot) com

Thank you everyone for all the comments! Stay tuned, we'll have another contest in a few months, hopefully to celebrate the opening of the Penguinbot store. =)

win this tote bag!

2008-03-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

Blog posts will be few and far between this week, as my big brother and my niece are visiting us. I've promised my niece that I will spend lots of time with her digging in the sand at the beach, and as such, I will not be making many bags. To tide you over, I give you the gift of anticipation! The anticipation of possibly winning a free tote bag! As mentioned in a few other posts, I made a wee mistake on this tote bag:

It was supposed to have straps of the same color vinyl as the bottom. In my first ever mistake at sewing (what? you don't believe me?) I grabbed the wrong set of straps and sewed them in, not realizing what I'd done until I turned the bag right-side out and finished the topstitching at the top. As I proudly showed it to Lorne (as I do with every single thing I make, even if I've just made two of the exact same item), I saw my error. This must be the price I pay for "mass-production." (I've started cutting fabric out for multiple bags at once and sewing things in stages, not just one bag at a time. It's probably as mass-produced as anything made by one woman sitting at one sewing machine could ever be.) Anyway, it's not a horrible mistake, as you can see - it's not like the black straps clash horribly with the bag - so instead of ripping the whole thing out, I left it as is.

It has lovely pink, black, white, and orangeish innards. Do you like it? Do you want a chance to make it yours?

All you have to do is this: post a comment in response to this post that answers either a) or b) below before Wednesday, March 26.

Questions (answer one...or both!):
a) What have you seen on this blog that appeals to you the most?
b) What is your favorite color pairing?

That's all. Then, next Wednesday (March 26) I'll use a magical random number generator to pick the lucky winner. Lucky winner will then have to email me his/her address, and I'll drop it in the mail post haste.

P.S. This is a small tote bag. I forgot to measure it last night, but I'll post dimensions when I get home. I just wanted to get that out there so that in a week and a half the winner doesn't get all up in my grill about the bag being smaller than what they expected.

***update***
Tote bag size: 10.5" tall, 10" wide, 3" deep

Also, to answer Miranda's question - relatives can definitely enter the contest, seeing as how random number generator is doing the picking for me. Also, it's my contest. I'll do what I want.

tote bag insanity, part the first

2008-03-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

I have a bazillion (literally!) totes to make in the coming months. Here is the first one, a small tote bag for Joanne. Her only guidelines were blues and greens, so this is what I came up with:

I took this on my favorite chair. We got it for free from our last landlord in Seattle...she went through a messy breakup with her fiance and wanted none of the furniture they shared (they left a bunch of it in the house we rented). It's so comfy, and incidentally, it's a pretty good background for pictures not taken with daylight.

Here's sort of a close up of the fabric so you can see the colors better. If it looks familiar, it's because it's the same as the fabric I used for Flannery's tote, but in a different color. Also, it seems to pretty much perfectly match the color scheme I have for this blog.

Here are the innards.

And here is another picture that's pretty much the same as the first, except one of the straps is hanging down. Ooooooh.

P.S. The contest will begin tomorrow! WOOOOO!

my fancy scissors

2008-03-16T01:26:00.000-07:00

For Christmas my brother- and sister-in-law, Nate and Miranda, got me these awesome scissors.

They're hand-forged carbonized steel with brass handles. They were made in India by a woman named Parveen, who is a part of a family that's been making scissors forever. And they're fair trade! How do I know that Parveen made them?

She signed them, as you can see here (sort of, thanks to my crappy picture). I didn't realize how crappy my other scissors were until I used these for the first time. My crappy scissors that came with my Learn to Sew kit have been relegated to snipping thread, until tonight.

I've been using the fancy scissors so much that the screw thingy that holds them together is starting to stick (I'm sure it can be fixed with a little oil, which I'll try tomorrow). So tonight when I was cutting up some fabric for Totebag Insanity 2008 I had to switch back to the old scissors. Oh my god. They're terrible. They take longer, they feel weird in my hand now, and they just don't cut well. Really though, how could my crappy scissors from my crappy several years old Learn to Sew kit even dream of competing with scissors that have been hand-forged? Just the word "forged" probably makes them shiver a little bit, kind of how you shiver a little when you hear the story of the One Ring being forged in the fires of Mordor.

Oh...that's just me? Sorry, I'll go back to my nerd closet now.

Bethany's Wedding Clutch

2008-03-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

Bethany is getting married two weeks from Saturday! Bethany is hilarious and fabulous, and the day before she leaves for her wedding, we're meeting up with her in Phoenix to watch some Spring Training baseball and go to the fun bar where you grill your own meat outside. When we see her, I'll give her her little wedding clutch.

She asked for an envelope clutch, and there it is. It's more shiny looking in real life.

My original plan was to use little magnetic snaps for the closure, but the magnets I got were ridiculously strong and the fabric is really light, and I got concerned about it ripping when Bethany tried to open it. The only other thing I had that would work was velcro, so I tried that. It does the job in holding the bag closed, but it doesn't look as nice as the snaps would have. Why were the tiny magnets so freakishly strong?!

I really like how it looks closed though.

administrative note

2008-03-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I've come to the realization that I need to put a moratorium on bag orders for the time being. My brother and niece are coming to town next week for a week and a half, then after they head home Lorne and I will be going out of town three weekends in a row, so my time will be a little squeezed for the next month.

Aside from that, I'm a bit backlogged right now, and on top of finishing up the custom orders I already have, I'd like to have inventory ready to put in the Penguinbot store before I go about birthin' the baby in June. You may have noticed that there is currently no store on the site right now - but there will be! Dr. Lorney is working hard making things like fancy shopping carts, and we're hoping to have everything all functional in May. The store will have lots of bags similar to ones I've shown here, except they will be available for you to purchase immediately! No wait time! (Well, except for the time you need to wait for the store to be open. And then the time you need to wait for the mailman to bring you whatever you ordered.) I just need to take the time to expel them from my imagination through my sewing machine (the process is less disgusting than I made it sound just then).

I really, truly appreciate all the interest that's come from people reading the blog - it's still very exciting every time someone tells me how much they like something I've made for them. Also, keep an eye out for the exciting contest to win a pretty bag. I'll be posting it sometime next week. Here is a terrible picture of the bag that will be given away to the lucky winner:

I won't even make the winner pay shipping and handling, the way your crappy credit card company probably does when it says it'd like to give you a free gift.

P.S. Just to clear up any possible confusion that may stem from this post - for everyone that has already emailed me about a custom order - don't worry, this doesn't apply to you - you're included in the backlog of things I need to finish up. =)

a short break from totes

2008-03-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

Andria is getting married at the end of the month and thought the knit clutches I make would be a nice gift for her bridesmaids. I took a break from all the tote bags I've been making recently to knit these up for her.

The pink one seems to change color depending on the light. I took this picture last night as soon as I'd attached all the handles.

And then took this one (and all the others that come after this one) this afternoon when I stopped at home to pick up the bags I was shipping out tonight. Interesting.

I like the lining for this one. It's cherry blossoms with little birdies on them, though I think the way this one turned out, there's only one bird showing (and not in this pictures).

Here's the red one. I like the way the stripes turned out on it.

And the innards for the red one.

And the green one. I guess this one looks different in the daylight as well.

And the lining for the green one.

It was nice to take a break from all the sewing - the way our living room is set up, my sewing area is perpendicular to the television so I can't really watch anything while I work, but when I knit I can sit in front of the TV while I work. These were made while watching lots of Law & Order, Deadwood, and the Jason Bourne trilogy. It's fun to be a productive couch potato.

The cats have a new fun game to play. It's called run in front of the camera every time I'm about to take a picture. I think this is George.

geometric goodness

2008-03-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

I've posted a lot of pictures of totebags in the last billion months, but there will be a short reprieve, probably tomorrow. I made three knit clutches over the weekend, but I haven't attached the handles yet. While I was waiting for the finish on the handles to dry, however, I did finish sewing up this tote bag for Melissa. I know her from the internets, where her screen name is melissainabq. For months I misread her name as melissainabbq, until it was pointed out to me that her name was a reference to where she's from (Albuquerque), not some bizarre inside joke about being trapped inside a barbeque, as I had thought.

Anyway, Melissa is getting married in April and wanted to give a tote bag to her maid-of-honor. She told me a little about her maid-of-honor's style, and I sent her some pictures of fabric, and she picked out this lovely geometric number. This is my favorite fabric right now. It's just so...mod. Or something. I wish I'd bought more of it when it went on sale in December. I didn't realize how much I'd like it when I found it on the internets.

And the innards. I also am a big fan of this stripey fabric on the inside.

P.S. As much as I hate turning the clock forward for daylight savings time, at least it will help me take more pictures that don't suck.

fetch!

2008-03-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

I made a post the week before going to Boston mentioning that I was making a pair of fingerless gloves. I finished before going to Boston, and wore them there when my fingers were cold, and then failed to take a picture of them. And now that I've taken a picture of them, it's officially too warm to wear them in San Diego. (Really, there's only like a five week window of "winter" where knitwear is necessary, and it's only necessary if you've lived here long enough to acclimate to the climate. "Winter" here is very much like late spring in Seattle.)

Anyway, here is a picture that proves how unnecessary they are right now.

That's my hand. In front of a blooming cherry blossom tree. It's been like 70 here for the past week.

So if you look at the original pattern, you can see that there are three twisty cables around the model's wrist. If you take a look at the picture above, you can see (sort of) that I only have two twisty cables around my wrists. I apparently forgot to do the third set when I was knitting the first glove, and I didn't realize it until I got to the second, so I just made both with two cables instead so they'd match. They still were long enough to make it up into my coat sleeve, so they served their purpose.

ALSO! Stay tuned this month, I made a (small) mistake in sewing a (small) tote bag a few weeks ago (I used black straps instead of teal). When I finish my totebag making extravaganza, I'll have some sort of giveaway of the mistake bag. I also need to figure out how to run a contest through the blog, since I haven't done that before.

The giveaway will not be this bag (which I have been using for myself for the last week), but it will be similar to this bag:

As you can see here, they are good for holding paperback books and all other sorts of crap:

surprise!

2008-02-24T23:18:00.000-08:00

It's another tote bag. This is one of the big ones, and it's for Flannery of Mediacrity.

Front:

Innards:

Angled view that I seem to like:

Sorry for the ridiculously short post, but it's late and I'm sleepy. I did manage to take pictures of this before we headed out to run some errands this afternoon before having dinner with Ian and Lisa (read: before it got dark, so the pictures aren't as terrible as they usually are).

Also, I realize that the last sentence was poorly constructed, but I am too lazy to edit it.

some things I baked

2008-02-20T17:13:00.000-08:00

Lorne and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day with big gifts or fancy dinners or anything. This year he had an abstract for a conference due the next day, so we ended up celebrating (in our minimal way) on the 15th. Lorne made gigantic T-bone steaks encrusted with blue cheese and port wine sauce, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Encrusted meats are delicious.

I made dessert.

This is a cheesecake with toffee bits (still in the springform pan). I found the recipe at Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. I haven't made a cheesecake since I was 16 because I've never had a springform pan before (I made the one when I was 16 in a pan borrowed from my friend's family, then gave them the cheesecake). We got this for our wedding and I figured it was high time to break it in.

I was quite pleased with how easily the cheesecake came out of the pan.

Here are the apples that went on top. They were the most delicious part of the cheesecake. Apples + butter + sugar = yum.

And here's the caramel I made for the top. I cooked it a little longer than I should have - the sugar mixture went from clear to caramel colored pretty quickly. It tasted a wee bit burnt, but not so much that we couldn't eat it. I failed to take a picture of everything all put together, so just imagine that the beautiful picture on Peabody's blog is what ours looked like.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, especially seeing as how I completely messed up Lorne's lemon meringue birthday pie the previous week.

It looks normal here, doesn't it? But then Lorne cut it open, and this was what was hiding under the pretty meringue:

Lemon meringue soup. I missed the step in the recipe that said to pre-bake the crust, so the crust was all mushy and the lemon goo got all goopy and gross. Blagh. In my defense, I've only made two pies before in my entire life, and both of those were many years ago. I'm more of a cake person.

Emily Jo's bag

2008-02-18T23:46:00.000-08:00

Emily Jo emailed me and told me she liked the bag I made for Megan and asked if I could make one in pink and black. I apologize for the short post, but it's late and I spent most of the day cutting things out and sewing them in an attempt to 1) build stock for PenguinBot and 2) update my blog more often. As a result, I am tired.

Also, because it is late and I have no natural daylight, the pictures aren't great. I didn't want to wait though, because after work tomorrow we're going to see Greg Mortenson (author of Three Cups of Tea), and by the time that's done, there will again be no daylight.

I originally bought the polka dot fabric to make a sun dress for myself, but seeing as how I'm pregnant and have no idea when I'll be back down to a size where I'd be interested in wearing a sun dress (let alone making one), I decided to make bags out of it. There are more bags using it forthcoming. I can always buy more fabric when I get around to making a dress.

Emily Jo said she didn't care what shade of pink I used, she just asked that the fabric not be too busy. Considering my history of using busy fabrics, I was glad she let me know. I probably would have used something with crazy flowers and polka dots and stripes all combined. I hope she likes it.

there will be real posts soon

2008-02-13T22:51:00.000-08:00

I'd like to say that I've been really busy in the last week and a half, but I'd be lying to you. If I start lying to you now about little things like being busy, soon I'll start lying to you about larger things, like where I spent last weekend, or how old I am, or who makes all the crap I post in my blog. Anyway, I finished my fingerless gloves before going to Boston, but then failed to take a picture of me wearing them in Boston. As soon as I find them I'll put up a picture of the finished goods. In the interest of proving to you that I wasn't lying about Boston, here is a picture of me with a Bostonian statue:

Actually, I am wearing the gloves in this picture, but the sleeves of Lorne's coat are long enough that they went past my knuckles.

After getting home from Boston, I slept a lot. I attempted to start knitting some legwarmers, but after three rows they bored me. I finished sewing one coin purse out of the five I have cut out. And I sat around a lot. And slept. I blame this guy:

Then, my sister-in-law had a baby! Of course, she lives in Denver, and I won't get to meet the little munchkin for at least a few months, but this exciting news distracted me from getting any work done for at least two days, waiting for news and pictures and to find out her name (which I still don't know, but it sounds like her nickname will be Zaley). She's adorable and I wish we could go to Denver now.

fetching

2008-01-30T22:39:00.001-08:00

I've been planning on making fingerless gloves for awhile. Long ago, before I could knit in the round, I worked in an office in Seattle. They moved my team to the top floor, which had gone uninhabited for several years. We moved in the winter and the heat never really got going, but the air conditioner worked well enough in the spring and summer that I used a fleece blanket year-round at my desk. When I wasn't typing, I stuck my non-mouse-using hand inside the blanket. I refused to buy fingerless gloves for typing because I could, in theory, make them if I took the time to teach myself knitting in the round. But alas, I was lazy.

Last year I saw this pattern on Knitty. I'd started to knit my first project in the round (which I should make a post about another day...it went horribly, horribly wrong) and I had some pretty alpaca yarn from Churchmouse (an awesome yarn and tea store on Bainbridge Island, in Washington) that I'd bought purely because it was pretty and soft, but I got distracted. Then it was too warm out to think of needing fingerless gloves.

I've only really attempted cables once before, a few years ago when I thought about knitting a cabled scarf for my sister. I decided I hated the yarn I was using though (it wasn't soft enough and it made a weird noise on my needles) and bound off after a few inches, making a weird cuff thing which I then used to torment my cat.

Poor Gracie.

So this is my first real attempt at cables and my first real attempt at gloves. As strange as this may sound, I don't usually knit things for myself. I have a big orange purse, a pink scarf, and a purple hat, but that's about it. But my hands have been cold at work lately and I'm going to Boston this weekend, so I figured I'd use my pretty blue alpaca yarn and finally attempt the Fetching pattern from Knitty.

Here's what I have so far.

I'm about halfway done with the left one. My pictures suck, as usual, but I seem to only do well with natural light and it's almost 11, so whatever. You can sort of see the cables. They look pretty nice in person, all twisty and even and such. I think the yarn is Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk, but I'm too lazy to go into the other room and read the label on the other skein. It's quite soft and nice to knit with. I'm excited about wearing them.

If you've never heard of an alpaca, here is a picture.

They're like super hairy llamas.

blog friend!

2008-01-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Grant just started a new blog. I think Grant is hilarious and, dear readers, I would not want to deprive you of hilarity. Grant's blog features lists of things he ate, a crockpot score card, and funny stories. New features are probably being added AS I TYPE THIS.

Bac-Log, The most important blog in the history of time, a tribute to food (also known as "one of the requirements of survival") by someone who will eat almost anything. WARNING: May be heavy on bacon-related posts.

Grant will eat almost anything. Last year at Spring Training he ate nachos off the ground.

cherry limeade cupcakes

2008-01-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

I made these on Thursday/Friday. I love them. It took all of my willpower to not eat all of the leftovers on Saturday.

As you may have noticed, I like cupcakes. I like them so much that I read a blog every day that is dedicated to nothing but pictures of cupcakes and interviews with owners of cupcake cafes and things of that sort (Cupcakes Take the Cake). A few days ago they put a picture up from Ooh, You Tasty Little Things. It was of cherry limeade cupcakes. I've been drinking a lot of limeade lately, so I knew I had to have them.

We had people over for dinner on Friday, so I figured it was a good excuse to make them - I couldn't eat them all myself.

I like swirly frosting, and Lorne used our lime for gin & tonics, so I omitted the lime wedge from the decorations. You can also see our pretty gold countertop here. =)

I put some green sprinkles on the top. Green = lime, right? I'm also pretty proud of these pictures. As you know, I'm a terrible photographer, and these are pretty decent.

a smaller tote

2008-01-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

Well, not smaller than the Big Ben tote or the cupcake tote, but smaller than the larger totes I've been making in this style (like Heidi's bag and Tia's bag). Megan emailed me and asked if I could make her a vinyl-bottomed tote, but she didn't really need it to be as gigantic as the ones I've been making. Sometimes it doesn't occur to me that people might not want to put everything they own in their bag and carry it around with them all day. So here's what I came up with:

I played with sizing a little bit until I found the fabric-to-vinyl ratio I liked on the larger totes.

This one still holds a fair amount of stuff - you could easily fit a paperback book on top of your wallet, keys, phone, etc. Megan emailed me a few days ago to make sure I'd put a pocket in for her train pass and her cell phone. I also have cell phone stuck in the bottom of the bag issues, so of course I complied.

My sewing machine decided it didn't want to sew the straps for this one. I'm not quite sure why - I didn't do anything differently for these straps than I did for the straps on Big Ben. I ended up having to throw one strap out and start over again, after I broke three needles on it and snapped the thread three or four times. I also bled on it a little bit after stabbing my finger. I figured Megan wouldn't appreciate that so much. It all worked out in the end though.

And one more picture, because I'm happy with how the pictures turned out:

baking

2008-01-25T23:10:00.000-08:00

I got a KitchenAid Mixer for Christmas (from my fabulous mommy). As a result, I've been baking more than I used to. (I used to have my mom's old Mixmaster that she got from her first wedding...about 32 years ago - it shook and rattled, and if I used it too much, it smoked.) I decided that baking falls into the realm of this blog, so I will put pictures of things I bake in here, starting with some cupcakes I made last week. I'll put the cupcakes I made last night up a little later. (This was also in my myspace blog, but my myspace is private...so I'm putting it here too.)

I made cupcakes to take to an MSTP party. The cupcakes were vanilla with cherry filling and a meringue frosting. I don't have any pictures of the rest of the cupcake making process because it wasn't very interesting, but we documented the frosting completion.

These are the cupcakes after frosting, before torching. The recipe said to "use your finger to make the frosting look interesting."

As you can see, I'm very excited. Also, you can see our lovely orangey-gold countertop. The retro-70s look is in, right?

Here I am, setting the first cupcake on fire. Also, I kind of look like a linebacker. I blame the baby.

Torching up close.

I feel that the torch will become useful on marshmallows in the future. I have a recipe for smores cupcakes that I've been dying to try, this would be awesome for the frosting.

Torches are a good way to involve your husband with baking. He enjoyed setting cupcakes on fire as much as I did.

Lorne torches a cupcake while some finished cupcakes look on.

I really enjoyed using the kitchen torch. Way more than I probably should have. The torch also came with some little creme brulee dishes, so perhaps I'll make that soon. And also the smores cupcakes. I'm going to get really fat....but at least I can use the baby as an excuse until June.

I see London, I see...

2008-01-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

Well, just London. Lisa of Homesick Wanderlust is an anglophile and an avid traveler. When she's not traveling, she's planning her next trip. Several months ago she took a weekend trip. To London. I was so jealous. Lisa shares my love for all things British, especially London. She asked if I could make a Big Ben bag, so I did (four months after she asked...but I digress).

This picture came from Wikipedia. I tried to find a good picture of Big Ben from my trips to London, but mine are all crap. Surprise, surprise.

Just in case you haven't heard of Big Ben, it's a big clock tower attached to Parliament in London. Actually, it's not even the clock - the clock is just The Clock Tower (how clever). Fact: Big Ben is actually the bell housed within The Clock Tower. Fact: Big Ben can climb trees faster than it can run. (Okay, not really. That's bears, according to Dwight Schrute.)

Here we see the Big Ben bag on the lovely brownish carpet that covers our new apartment floor. Sadly, new apartment does not mean new and improved picture taking skills. Though, to be fair to me, I intended to take pictures this afternoon when maybe there would still be some natural light coming in to our living room. But my ultrasound lasted much longer than I expected, then we had to pick up the Subaru, and then it was dark and rainy.

Lisa was interested in a lining fabric that would exude Britishness. Something reminiscent of Burberry plaid. Burberry is a British "luxury fashion house," their tan/black/red plaid is widely copied everywhere. PLEASE NOTE: this fabric is NOT Burberry plaid (which isn't even called plaid, they call it "Burberry Check"), I am not trying to pass it off as Burberry anything, I have no association with Burberry. Please don't sue me Burberry. It's just a plaid fabric in similar colors.

Anyway, my original plan was to use red vinyl under the cut out of Big Ben, ahem, I mean The Clock Tower, but I liked the way the plaid (NOT Burberry plaid) fabric looked underneath, so I used that instead. Dr. Pants suggested I use a button for the face of the clock after he saw me struggling with the placement of a circle of black vinyl. I had a red button, it looked cute, so I used it. Hooray Dr. Pants!

Here's another attempt at a decent picture. George kept getting in the way though. I think he thinks he matched the (NOT Burberry) plaid.

rubber ducky, you're the one

2008-01-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

Daria likes pink, rubber ducks, and purses that aren't too big.

She also has a hunting knife she carries around with her most of the time, so I tried to make a pocket to accommodate that. Hopefully it will work - she sent me the measurements, and I stuck a sideways pocket in that should fit it. If it doesn't maybe she can stick pens in there or something. =)

There are two small metal snaps to close the bag, off center to make room for the diagonal pocket.

Again with the terrible photography. The hospital didn't cure me of that.

coin purses, part 1

2008-01-19T22:17:00.000-08:00

I mentioned back in this post that I was going to put my nose to the grindstone and try to churn out some stuff to build inventory for the PenguinBot website. Well, I made a few coin purses, but then I went to Berkeley and got stuck there for six weeks. Here are the first five coin purses from the gone awry coin purse week of October.

From the top, clockwise: birdy, Ohio, Washington (state), Washington (president), California.

Here they are all arranged pretty-like. The second five will be finished sometime this weekend (barring any unforeseen hospital visits).

good news and bad news

2007-12-01T18:41:00.001-08:00

The good news - I got accepted into Bust's Holiday Craftacular! Bust is a magazine I've subscribed to for about five years. For the last three years, they've thrown a huge holiday craft fair in New York City. Thousands of vendors apply and they accept about 200. I'm pretty proud of myself.

The bad news - I've been in the hospital for a month and couldn't possibly make it to New York next week. I don't even know if I'll be out of the hospital next week. I think most of the folks that read my blog have already heard about the hospital stay, but just in case - we're stuck in Berkeley. I've got pancreatitis and had my gall bladder removed on Wednesday. Good times. Perhaps I'll post a longer update later, but there's some hospital-made chicken pot pie waiting for me now.

more Japanesey goodness

2007-10-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

My friend Caleb saw the birdy tote I made and complimented me on it. Lorne told him I made it, and he asked if I could make something similar for his girlfriend Swati. We emailed back and forth, and eventually settled on the colors and fabric for the bag.

If this looks familiar, it's because I used the red/blue/gold version of this fabric on Heidi's tote. I'm becoming a superfan of the Japanese fabric. Tia's rose tote fabric is from the same designer. The colors are really nice, it holds its shape well. It's lovely.

Yet another pocket design...but I'm settling. Soon. Before tote bag mass production week. I swear.

Also, I spazzed out while making this. I completely forgot to do a little cutout on the vinyl, one of the things Caleb really liked on my bag and specifically asked for on Swati's. So I showed him the pictures above and he said, so very politely, "So, is it still possible to do a cutout?" Then I slapped my forehead. I told him of course, and then sat down to figure out if I should rip the entire bag apart, remake it, or try to cut on to the finished bag.

I opted for cutting the finished bag. After I did this, I freaked out. What was I thinking? There's no way I'll be able to hold the fabric in place under the vinyl, and how will I get a needle in there without sewing the lining to the back of the vinyl? HOW WILL I DO THIS??? Upon me freaking out and throwing things, Lorne suggested I get an upholstery needle. WHAT THE HELL IS AN UPHOLSTERY NEEDLE LORNE?!!?!?!

As you can see, it's curved. So I could stick the needle in the front and poke it back out the front without it ever going through the lining. Thank you Lorney for saving the day (and thank you for putting up with your hormonal, mood-swinging wife). Once I got going with this, it worked pretty well. Not as well as making the cutout before the bag is assembled, but better than taking the entire thing apart and starting over.

Caleb liked it when he came to pick it up a few days ago (enough to model it for us...I'll upload those pictures later and share), but more importantly, Swati likes it. She sent me an excited text message after she got it. Hooray!

short update

2007-10-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

Before I mailed Tia's tote out, I took a much better picture of it than the ones below. Hooray daylight!

blue peonies tote

2007-10-16T08:45:00.001-07:00

This is one of the first non-ordered bags I've had the chance to complete in a little while. I'm not usually a pretty flowers and pastels sort of girl - I like bold, bright colors - but I really liked this fabric. The flowers are large enough that they don't really work well as an inner lining, so I decided to use it on a tote bag.

hanging from our curtain rod

I'm still experimenting with the pockets for these bags. I'll settle on one actual design in the next few weeks. This one has one large pocket and one smaller, rectangular pocket. As you can see, the stripes on the pockets are horizontal, while the rest of the lining is vertical. I feel this will help you dig through the pockets with more ease. Or maybe I just liked how it looked.

innards

I have a pink version of this fabric, which I will make into a pink peonies tote soon. The parts that are gray on the blue one are brown on the pink one, so I'm waiting for the chocolate brown vinyl I ordered to arrive before I start it.

Also, I'm putting my nose to the grindstone and building inventory up for Penguinbot over the next few weeks. This week is coin purse week, next week is knit bag week, and the following week is tote bag week. Knit bag week might go quickly, since I have most everything knit up and cut out already...it may turn into vinyl clutch week halfway through. Though I still need to carve out the handles for the knit clutches, so maybe it won't. I'll keep you posted.

hanging out on the storage dresser

P.S. I applied to be a vendor in a rather large craft fair last night, and the fabulous Dr. Lorney put up a gallery on the Penguinbot website so the craft fair people could look at things I've done. If you'd like to poke around Penguinbot to see what there is to see, feel free. Penguinbot.com The mailing list feature doesn't work yet, so don't spend hours trying to sign up. YOU CAN'T YET. When there is more inventory in my finished projects drawer, we'll likely launch the site and the gallery will turn into the shop.

kid stuff

2007-10-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

My niece, Emma, turns three at the end of the month, and she's outgrown her crib. She already has a big girl bed at home, but now she's getting one at my mom's house too. My mom let me know that the room will have Sesame Street sheets (and maybe bedding, I can't remember). So I went on a search for some Sesame Street fabric. The only place I found it was on Ebay.

Sesame Street pillow

I can't really handle Elmo...he drives me up the wall. (I prefer Grover, who sadly isn't on this fabric. Poor Grover.) And even worse is Zoe, the orange thing with the little bows - she just whines all the time. But at least I didn't have to listen to Elmo or Zoe while sewing this.

Elmo purse

I didn't see me using this fabric for much else after Emma's birthday, and I had some more Sesame Street fabric after I cut out the pillow pieces, so I made Emma an Elmo purse.

Elmo purse innards

I didn't get too fancy with the lining on this. I doubt Emma is going to miss extras like pockets. She's 3, what could she possibly have to carry? But I did add a little snap so the bag will stay closed if she puts something heavy in it that makes it lose its shape.

world's worst photographer strikes again

2007-10-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

I think my problem might be that I take all my pictures when I finish sewing something, later at night, when there is only weird artificial apartment light. I finished Tia's tote bag last night and was really happy with how it turned out. Then I looked at the pictures. It looks so much darker than it does in person.

The red roses are really much brighter than they look...as is the vinyl.

This one is a little better at showing the roses.

The lining picture did turn out well though, and you can see the vinyl color better on that inch of strap. One out of three isn't bad is it? Oh wait, yes it is. I need to not work during the day so I can take better pictures.

chianti clutch

2007-10-07T22:06:00.001-07:00

Alishan asked if I could make a clutch similar to the one I made for Nicole, but a little darker.

So the yarn color on this one is called chianti. Oh wine. I'm going to miss you for the next nine months.

Somehow when I was cutting out the fabric for the innards, I cut two of them. Why? I have no idea. I've been making this bag/variations on this bag for about year now, but this is the first time I've done something so off. At least I just have an extra and didn't cut it half-sized or something instead. I'm going to blame little Hobo for sucking the smart out of my brains. (Hobo is our embryo...our friends are planning on teaching it the hobo ways, and I've eaten a lot of beef stew since finding out I was pregnant.)

I really need to learn about taking better pictures. These look sad compared to Kyle's pictures below.

I'm sorry if this blog seems a little disjointed. Again, I blame Hobo.

two things

2007-10-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Thing the First: Kyle took some awesome pictures today and sent them to me. I thought I'd pimp them out here, because I'm amazed at how much better his pictures make my things look. He does have a photography degree and all.

Heidi's bag

Heidis' bag detail

blue arrow bag

blue arrow bag with fancy background

green clutch

green clutch detail

Thing the Second: Upon finding out that I'm pregnant, I immediately bought a pregnancy encyclopedia thing, and this:

Aside from the cute knit bear on the front, it has some good nursery and sweater patterns, including a cupcake hat and scarf and knit cupcakes. As soon as I saw those I knew this book was meant to be mine.

hey there, cupcake

2007-10-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Bethany and I are kindred spirits. She crochets, I knit, she wants a sewing machine, I was obsessed with getting one until I got mine, we both like baseball, she used to drive a dark blue New Beetle and I currently drive a dark blue New Beetle, we love beer...we both like soup...

cupcake bag!

Most importantly, however, we both love cupcakes. When she asked for a red bag I didn't think at all about how that would affect my plan to use a bit of red vinyl for a cherry at the top...until I had everything cut out. Red vinyl cherry on red vinyl bag = cherry disappears. So I found a red button. Viola!

cupcake bag innards

Bethany and I both like talking, and not talking. We could not talk for hours, and still find things to not talk about.

cupcake close-up

Maybe I shouldn't have told you about the button/cherry not being planned. Maybe now you'll realize that I just sort of make this up as I go. Well, I made that all up...it was totally intentional. I planned it from the start.

green clutch

2007-09-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

I took a brief break from orders to finish up some bags I'm going to attempt to submit to a purse book. Eep! Kyle, my awesome photographer friend, is going to take some pictures for me so that my horrifyingly awful photography doesn't immediately disqualify my submission.

I really like this yarn color and I was ridiculously pleased with how this one turned out. At various stages of its creation I would hold it in front of Lorne's face to demand praise.

I was running out of yarn when I attached the handles. The deadline for book submission is mid-October, but I'm sending the bags up to Kyle in Seattle for photograhy, so I didn't really have a lot of time to spare. And I'm pretty sure this is one of the colors I had to order from the internets, not available in my local yarn stores (LYS, for the knitting nerds). I finished with three little scraps to spare. I was freaking out when attaching the last part of the second handle, I was afraid it'd be an inch short. But it wasn't. Phew.

P.S. The blue vinyl strips the clutch is sitting on are straps from a forthcoming tote bag. I was too lazy to move them.

I think I'm turning Japanese.

2007-09-27T23:48:00.000-07:00

I really think so.

My friend Heidi, who is super awesome, really liked the big half vinyl bags I've been making and asked me to make one for her. Heidi is into Japanese art and found this fabric from Japanese fabric designer Mame-Yakko.

one side of Heidi's bag

I really like the little mushroom looking things. I have no idea what they are, but I find their shape to be pleasing. They remind me of the goombas in Super Mario Brothers.

the innards

You may have guessed from the linings of other things I've made that I like stripes. And I do like stripes. But my first love is polka dots. And this amazing fabric manages to combine both stripes AND polka dots, all in one place. It's busy and kind of funky, but so is Heidi. I mean funky in a good way, not in a "Heidi doesn't shower enough" kind of way. Heidi smells quite good. She shares my obsession with Lush.

the innards' innards

You may notice that both pockets are a little off center. However, I did that on purpose. No, seriously, I did. No real reason, I just thought it looked neat.

the other side of Heidi's bag

P.S. I thought briefly about using this other Japanese fabric for the lining, so that Heidi would feel like she was on an acid trip every time she tried to get her keys out.

another wedding purse

2007-09-19T18:26:00.001-07:00

Beth liked the look of Andie's purse and asked me to make something similar for her. She said her dress was taupey/silvery satin, covered in ivory lace.

I made hers a little different than Andie's. No reason...just for the hell of it. The fabric store had all the taupey stuff I used under the lace hiding away from all the other satiny fabric, so I spent a half hour wandering through the fabric section trying to find it. I knew I'd seen the color when I was buying fabric for Andie's purse. Finally, an elderly woman that didn't even work at the store, asked what I was looking for. Apparently I'd passed by her with an angry look in my face one too many times. When I told her, she led me (by the elbow) to a little display at the end of one of the sections of quilting fabric. Why would you put it away from the rest of the special occaisons fabric? Why?

Anyway, Beth's wedding is in October, with fall colors. She suggested brown, gold, burnt orange, or amber for the lining. Orange! She said the magic word. Like I would have used anything other than orange after being given the green light...or, orange light, I guess I could say.

Look! I took a good close-up picture of the lacy stuff! I'm improving! Or maybe I just got lucky with the lighting.

washington...again

2007-09-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

After this post and this post and the post you are currently reading, you might think that I have some sort of George Washington obsession. I don't, really.

Here comes George, in control.

I am pleased to come from the state named after him, as it's a pretty awesome place, and I'm sure he was a pretty awesome dude. But I don't really know a lot about him, other than the lies told to me in the Brad Neely video (have you watched it yet? come on, this is your third chance), whatever was said in the letters from him in 1776 and that he didn't really chop down a cherry tree. Oh, and he was our first president. I know that.

Women dig his snuff and his gallant stroll.

It's just that he has a really distinct profile. He's on two denominations of our currency (the dollar and the quarter, in case you don't come from America or you're very forgetful). I showed the cutout on the coin purse to several people and asked if they could tell who it was, and they all said yes. It seemed like a good profile to use.

Ate opponents brains...invented cocaine...

Anyway, this clutch is for Kedrin, who will be getting married (or maybe just having her rehearsal dinner) in George Washington's hometown, which the internets tells me is Alexandria, Virginia (see, I'm not obsessed, I had to look it up). She has promised me pictures of the George purse visiting George's hometown. I'm sure this will only fuel my obsession. I mean, pique my curiousity.

maroon tote

2007-09-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

Michelle saw the birdie bag I made for myself and saw two things she liked: the bag style, and the innards. She asked if I could make her something similar, but with the maroonish innards on the outside, and with black vinyl.

Ask and ye shall receive.

She also gave me free reign on the lining, which excited me ever so much. I love this fabric and have been wanting to use it on someone for awhile, so when I pulled it out and some of the maroonish colors matched up with the fabric for the outside of the bag, I was thrilled.

I made the larger inside pocket a little bit shorter than in the version of this bag I made for myself, and reinforced it so it's not quite as floppy as it is in my bag. This means I didn't accidentally sew it to the top of the bag in doing the topstitching, so I swore a lot less than I did with mine. Less swearing means I'm more likely to make more of these.

Action shot!

andie's purse - update!

2007-09-12T12:18:00.001-07:00

Andie just sent me a picture of her wedding purse with the brooch she's adding to the front, so I thought I would share the finished product here.

She says it's more silver than it looks in this picture. I'm a little glad that I'm not the only one that has issues with photographing things correctly (I really should learn), but I think Andie's picture of the bag is better than most of the ones I took. The shame, the shame.

apple cozy

2007-09-11T23:03:00.000-07:00

You may find it hard to believe, but I've never made any sort of knitted cozy before. Unless you want to call hats head cozies or baby blankets baby cozies. But I don't, because that would be weird. Anyway, Kristen saw a picture of an apple cozy and asked if I could make one. I'm willing to try anything (craft-wise, that is), so I said sure.

objects may be less blurry than they appear

Once again, please excuse my horribly bad photography. This was knitted in the round, on five small double pointed needles. Every time I start something on dpns (that's the knitting community's way of saying "double pointed needles") I get really frustrated. I drop things like needles and stitches, both of which are important for knitting in the round. I stab my fingers and lap and eyes. I swear a lot. But once I get going I actually really like it. (I'm writing that down mainly so that next time I start a project on dpns and I'm angry and swearing, I can read that to remind myself that it gets better.)

I like the orange button.

When Kristen asked me to make this I'd never heard of such a thing before. I'm still not entirely sure what its function is, other than to make your apple cuter. But preliminary research has indicated that this cozy makes your apple 379% cuter than a naked apple. That's a lot of cute to resist. I might have to make one for myself.

In other news, today I ran to the craft store to get some green yarn to make the leaf. I had a hard time finding anything that actually looked leafy, and not like a neon light vomited in yarn form. The only color I found that actually looked okay was this brand:

Yes. That's Vanna White, of Wheel of Fortune fame. Yes, Vanna White has her own line of yarn. It's 100% acrylic, just like her.

P.S.

risque apple, flashing some stem

wedding purse

2007-09-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

This bag is pretty much the complete opposite of the Washington bag in my last post. From vinyl and guns to satin and lace. Anyway, Andie is getting married in October. She has a gorgeous ivory lace Jim Hjelm dress with a black sash.

Andie's beautiful dress.

She asked me to make a round, ivory lace bag to go along with it, with some sort of bright color for the lining.

My craft dresser is just as glamorous as the Jim Hjelm fashion show. Yes?

I haven't actually worked with lace before. Or satin. Or whatever the ivory stuff was that I put under the lace. But I had enough that if I made a horrible mistake, I would be able to start over without making another trip to the fabric store, so I dove in.

A terrible picture.

I tried to take a closer picture of the lace here. You can see more of the lacy detail here, but the color is washed out. I've been doing much better in my picture taking lately, but obviously I still don't really know what I'm doing. (Kyle gave us instructions over the weekend, but I forgot how to set the camera the right way...so I just took pictures instead of bothering Lorne or calling Kyle. I'm kind of lazy.)

This picture is also not the best, but you can see the underside of the handles here.

Purse innards with little snap.

I love the color of the lining. As you can see, it's a really bright blue. I used a small magnetic snap at the top so the purse will stay closed; the snap is pretty tiny, but the magnets on those babies are fairly powerful. I was afraid that if I used a larger size the fabric would rip when she tried to open it.

I was actually a little terrified to make a wedding purse. Andie seems pretty laid back and cool, but some of the most normal people can go kind of insane during wedding planning, especially if something isn't exactly what they envisioned. I sent her the pictures before I put the blog up, just in case it turned out to be not at all what she wanted. But she liked it. Phew.

Six Foot Twenty

2007-09-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before that I love Brad Neely's Washington, Washington video. All of my friends love it as well. So I made this bag for my BFF Alison's birthday.

Ali's birthday is actually in April, but I forgot to take pictures of the bag before I gave it to her. And she lives in Seattle, so I haven't actually seen it since April. She brought it with her to Lake Tahoe this weekend though, so I took the opportunity to document it for posterity.

Here is a close up of George. This image was taken from the line in the video, "Six foot twenty fuckin' killing for fun." If you haven't watched it (why haven't you watched it? I gave you a link to the video TWICE), this is just one of the many facts you will learn about George. He also invented cocaine, was made of radiation, and saves the children (but not the British children).

Here is the inside of Ali's bag. As you can see, it holds a notebook and some eyedrops with plenty of room to spare.

By the time I was finished with it, I kind of wanted to keep it. I wasn't sure the George jigsaw vinyl applique was going to work, but it did. I was quite pleased with myself. But I am a generous soul, so George and I parted ways. Alison treats George very well. He was in as good of condition this weekend as he was in April.

Besides, I already have one George in my life.

Two might just be too much.

Alison likes birds.

2007-08-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

Ali (from Jersey, not Ali from Seattle) liked the little blue birdie bag I showed here. She asked if I could make her a clutch version. Sure, I said, I can do that. She asked if I could make it green. Sure. I aim to please. She wanted a zipper, and a thinner little handle. Ali is extremely demanding. I kid, I kid. I love Ali. So here is the limey green clutch, with an orange cut-out bird and an orange zipper.

The inside has a little patch pocket, in case Ali likes to keep whatever form of lip goo she uses separated from the rest of her purse innards (like I do).

The zipper is orange, not pink like it looks in this picture.

I had trouble with the handle on this one. I broke three needles on my sewing machine while trying to sew the many layers in. After the end of needle #3 disappeared into the dark, uncharted nether regions of my sewing machine, I decided to reinforce the seam by hand.

And, like the handles on the gigantic tote bag I just finished, I managed to injure myself while working on them. This time I didn’t give myself blisters. Oh no, this time I stabbed myself three times...with the back of a hand sewing needle. Not the sharp part, the blunt end where the thread goes through. Having a blunt needle end go through the base of your finger is kind of unpleasant, much like stabbing yourself with a butter knife but doing it hard enough to break the skin. I had to take a few breaks to wait for the bleeding to stop so I didn’t bleed all over Ali’s bag. Thank goodness I just had a tetanus shot last week. Also, I can’t find my fingernail clippers, so when I used the thimble to push the needle through all the layers of vinyl, I also bent my too-long-to-be-inside-a-thimble thumbnail backwards. (I didn't think anyone would want to see a picture of my backwards thumbnail, so I chose not to document that for posterity in the blog.)

Sewing is always an adventure. Well...it is for me.

I like birds.

2007-08-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

Nate and Miranda gave me some really awesome fabric for my birthday. I absolutely love it - so much so that I couldn't imagine using it just for the lining of a bag. I wanted it to be on the outside. The center of attention. I thought for awhile about what I wanted to make, and last week I came up with the idea for this. I finished sewing it all together tonight.

It's a gigantic tote bag. I've been carrying two bags to work every day: my orange knit purse, with all normal purse things - my wallet, my keys, my iPod, some lip goo, my deck of cards - and my green Natalie Dee "will knit for tattoos" tote bag (like this, but a tote, not a t-shirt), which I fill with my lunch, a pair of shoes to change into at work (I walk a few miles into campus each day), some lotion, a book, etc. It seemed silly to me to carry two bags every day.

I wanted it to have a sturdy bottom, so I used some teal vinyl for the bottom half. I think this will also help it look cleaner too. The fabric is mostly white, so I was worried that if I made a bag with the entire outside the pretty bird fabric it'd look dirty as soon as I sat it down somewhere.

I went a little bit more muted with the lining fabric than I usually do, just because there was so much going on on the outside. I bought the lining about ten months ago when I was just getting into sewing. It was on sale, so I got a few yards. Then I found other, more interesting fabric for linings and such, and I forgot that I had it. I was pretty pleased with how well it matched the darker pinkish color in the bird fabric.

I also decided to experiment with pockets. I've only really done a little patch pocket before. I wanted to figure out how to do something bigger. Since this is for me, I don't mind experimenting around, ripping things out, redoing, etc. I put in a bigger flap pocket (as well as a patch pocket - I need somewhere for my phone and lip goo). I like it, but I think next time I'll use something to make it a little sturdier, less floppy, and I'll insert it a little lower in the lining. This came up high enough that it got in the way of my topstitching. Multiple times. I sewed parts of the pocket closed three times. This made me swear.

It really is gigantic. I love it. And I have more birdy fabric in blue from Nate and Miranda. I'm already cooking up some ideas for it!

Also....I've got blisters on my fingers! I'm like Ringo Starr.

The straps for this are a little thinner than the ones I've made before. In turning them right-side-out for topstitching, the vinyl stuck more than usual and I couldn't turn it with my fingers alone. So I used a little wood dowel. It worked okay, but the vinyl still stuck. It took me about an hour and a half to turn both straps right-side-out, and by the time I was done I had a nice blister on my thumb, the bottom of my middle finger, and in my palm. It occurred to me, after the damage was done, that I should have just recut wider straps and saved myself an hour. Whoops.

what's this?

2007-08-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

Another purse? What a surprise. Lori from the Knot asked for a black knit purse. She said she liked stripes. Why, I also like stripes! So much so that I have a bunch of striped fabric all stockpiled for future purses and skirts and the like. Would you say that I have a plethora of striped fabrics? Yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora of striped fabrics. Anyway. She picked out the lining and away I went.

For the outside, I went with diagonal stripes. You know...to tie it all together or something.

And the inside. The lining fabric reminds me of a Mexican serape (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here or here). Which is why I started quoting the Three Amigos above. I'm not insane, really.

JCrew stole my skirt

2007-08-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

I was poking through JCrew's sale items on their website and saw this.

Which looks quite similar to this, which I made about a year ago. I'm such a trendsetter.

A side-by-side comparison:

I'm never buying a skirt again.

quick update

2007-08-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

I'm sleepy and my legs ache, but today was productive and I would like to share some of the fruits of my labor.

Outside of the fuschia bag.

A girl I know from the Knot saw my blog and asked me to make a bag for her upcoming vow renewal. Nicole picked out the outer color, then I sent her pictures of fabrics that would compliment it. It turns out that one of the colors she's using is kind of a burnt orange, and I had a lining that would go well.

Some people say I could be a hand model.

She's going to add on some beaded handles herself, so my part is done. Hopefully she'll share a picture of what the end result is.

yarn!

2007-07-24T17:43:00.000-07:00

I got a few more orders for knitted bags from the lovely ladies of The Knot. I made two unsuccessful trips to yarn stores in San Diego last week in search of my yarn. One store claimed to carry my yarn, then didn't (after I rushed through traffic up to Encinitas before they closed at six), the other didn't have any of the colors I wanted - including black. How do you not have black? Anyway, I found an internet store with what I needed, then found out that they offered free shipping on orders of $50 or more. So....

I bought a pile of yarn. But I have to say, I was super impressed with the store. It arrived two days after I ordered it, which is pretty freaking awesome since I didn't have to pay for shipping (or gas). It was also cheaper than in the yarn stores that closed too early or didn't have the right colors. Hooray!

I'm about halfway done knitting up the first bag. However...I probably won't have time to sew it up till late next week, as I will be spending the next seven days with my family from Seattle, half of that over on Catalina hanging out on the beach. So no bloggy update for awhile.

zigzag pillow

2007-07-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

This is my little sister, Margie.

She graduated from high school a few weeks ago, in the top ten percent of her class - notice the little medal around her neck? What a nerd. I flew up to Seattle to see her graduate. My intent was to have her graduation present completed in time to give it to her then, but the woman on the airplane next to me was not terribly happy about my knitting needles, so I stuck them back in my bag and read a book instead. I probably wouldn't have finished it anyway, as it turned out to be more knitting than I thought it would be and I was around 5/8 done when I got on the plane.

Anyway, in the fall she'll be moving into the dorms. She picked this out as her bedding for her dorm room.

With my keen, orange-obsessed eye, I immediately spotted the tiny little orange stripes on the comforter. I decided to make this pillow for her dorm room.

In my head the pillow form I got wasn't much larger than some of the purses I've made lately, but in reality it was about twice the size.

I like the color a lot. It reminds me of construction signs and sunsets and Cheetos and orange juice, all things that are wonderful. Except maybe the construction signs.

Pillow propped up against sewing/knitting library.

washington, washington

2007-07-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things ever is Brad Neely's George Washington video. I found this video to be incredibly informative and enlightening. I feel that if you watch it you will probably feel the same way. My love of this video combined with my love of my home state, which also happens to be Washington, inspired me to create this coin purse.

George Washington's profile is on all state highway signs in Washington. When I was little my family used to drive from Seattle down to the Oregon coast during the summer. The last highway sign before the really long bridge across the Columbia river to Oregon had been defaced. At age six, I was convinced that this was the height of comedy.

This isn't the sign we saw, that one has since been cleaned up or replaced. This sign has been modified with the amazing power of Paint.

Handlebar moustaches are still funny to me. I didn't give him one on the coin purse though. Maybe next time.

sewing area

2007-07-14T14:59:00.001-07:00

I posted pretty much this same blog on my myspace blog, but since it directly relates to the making of stuff, I will also post it here.

While I was up in LA last Saturday visiting my friend Tammy, Lorne's plan for the day was to get new tires for my car. Imagine my surprise when I came home around 11 and saw this:

!!!

A few months ago, on my birthday, Lorne rearranged our dining room to turn it into my sewing area. The kitchen table became my sewing table, all my supplies were all organized, my books were lined up under the window. And last night Lorne bought and assembled this dresser to surprise me when I got back.

He also cleaned up my table, which was a huge mess. Oh, and see that awesome green lamp? He bought that too.

Lamp:

Sewing and knitting library on top of the dresser:

The yarn drawer:

The fabric drawer:

The work-in-progress and finished item drawer:

And the whole area in the daytime:

Lorne rules. I am super lucky.

Also, I failed to mention in the other blog, but the orange bag up on top of the dresser is one I made for myself. It looks pretty much like the bag made for Heidi (a few posts below), but it's orange. I love orange.

long time no blog

2007-07-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

I failed to update my blog for a long time, mainly because I am lazy. Anyway, Lorne is working on building a website for me to sell various vinyl and knit bags and pouches and other items. I'm working on stockpiling items so there will be inventory to sell on the website.

But in the meantime, I made my first sale! I made a red clutch for my friend Tiffani for her birthday last year. Since then she's been getting a lot of compliments on it, so she asked me to make one for a friend of hers. Her only request was that it be kind of lavenderish. So this is what I came up with:

After I finished knitting it, it reminded me of rock formations in caves, so I'm calling it the stalactites and stalagmites bag.

I shipped it off to Tiffani this morning. I hope her friend likes it.

pursey goodness

2006-11-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted pictures of things for awhile, but not for lack of making things. Well, I didn't make much after getting back from Seattle on Monday night. I started a scarf on the airplane with some really pretty Jo Sharp yarn I got at Churchmouse on Bainbridge, and I worked on nothing but that all week, only to find on Saturday that I hadn't bought enough yarn for how wide a scarf I wanted. This is why I need to plan projects out before I just go buying pretty yarn willy nilly. Now I have to scour San Diego for Jo Sharp yarn.

Anyway, here are some new things:

tealy blue vinyl purse with birdy cut out
I enjoyed working with the vinyl. Vinyl is fun. But I used a normal needle on this and normal thread, and I suspect I should have used a leather needle and upholstery thread. I have purchased those items for my next adventure with vinyl. I'll keep you posted.

innards of birdy purse (the pocket is a little high)

red clutch for Tiffani

innards of red clutch (I haven't attached handles yet)

blue parallelogram purse

and the innards

finished big red (Heidi's birthday present)

the wood is not so glaringly white in real life

and the innards

green purse with pink ribbon thing

better image of pink ribbon thing

innards of green purse with pink ribbon thing (this one still needs handles too)

this will be pretty much like the big red one, but orange

and pretty much like the teal one, but green and with different stripey lining

Also:
Living in a one bedroom apartment and using that one bedroom to sleep in and store things like clothing and a bed means that the dining area has become my sewing area. And it's become a rather messy sewing area. All the fabric I buy tends to stay in the bag it came in on the dining room table or on one of the dining room chairs. I have a big brown bag of yarn in a closet (with a tear that is ever-increasing in size) and another plastic bag of yarn on the shelf above the brown bag. My ribbons sit in a pile on the table, finished or half-finished projects are usually on the ironing board, and all my little supplies, like my pin cushion and lint brush I use to clean the sewing machine are wherever I sat them after using them last. Thread and bobbins are in a drawer in the living room (when I leave them out the cats like to eat the string). After finding Gracie fast asleep in my swath of interfacing on Saturday, I decided that I need to organize things.

Much of Sunday was spent hobbling (thanks to my messed up ankle) around the cavernous innards of Target and Home Depot for organizing and making supplies. We got some big plastic bins (one for yarn and one for fabric) and a little plastic drawer thing at Target (along with lots of various other non-craft-related crap), and some wood, sand paper, and varnish stuff at Home Depot (after spending about a half hour trying to find the dowels) for purse handles. I also got a utility knife. Yay!

Perhaps I will post before and after pictures of the clean up effort. Perhaps not.

wow

2006-10-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have not blogged in almost a month. Don't worry, I have a lot of new stuff made. I will post pictures of it when we get home from Seattle. Seattle is so awesome.

knit-o-rama

2006-10-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

I've been a knitting fiend since my last post. I made a little baby hat for Eden (Lorne's cousin's daughter, who just turned one and is adorable) but I failed to take a picture of it before giving it to her for her birthday. Here are some other things I've been working on though.

Big Red:
I finally have a better picture of the big red purse. You can see the knit pattern a little better in this one.

Outside of purse.

Purse innards.

I love the fabric I found for the lining. I want to make more things that are red and orange just so I can use more of it. Anyway, all that's left for this one is to attach some handles and some sort of closure for the top (if it needs it).

Less Big Blue:
I knit a chunk of fabric up in this pretty blue/teal color with some parallelograms on it. Guess what it will be? Surprise, another purse. I can't decide whether to line it with stripey pink fabric or stripey blue fabric. I also made this one a little smaller than the red one.

Beginnings of blue parallelogram purse.

Baby Blanket:

I have the border completed! And a few rows of the center.

Close up of blanket.

I still can't get a good picture of the yarn color. It's a really soft buttery yellow...pretty much nothing like what it looks like in the pictures.

Cleaves:
Sleeve one is almost complete!

Lying flat.

Up close.

On a weird looking lady.

I hear the pointy-sticks-coming-out-of-your-arm look is in this fall.

cleaves and other things

2006-10-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

I finally started working on Cleaves, the project from Knitty that I told Lisa I would make for her for her birthday. In February. This is what the finished item will look like. I, however, only have part of one sleeve.

Here is sleeve #1. No, that is not my hairy arm holding it up, that is Dr. Lorney's hairy arm.

Part of the reason I waited so long to start it was the whole wedding thing...planning a wedding obsessively took away from a lot of knitting time. But mainly I was afraid of knitting in the round. The tutorial I read about knitting in the round (ie, knitting with five short pointy sticks instead of two long ones) said that at first, it felt a lot like "knitting with an unruly hedgehog in your lap," but that after that you got used to it. Well, they were right about the first part. It totally felt like knitting with an unruly hedgehog in my lap. They lied about the whole "it gets better" thing. I'm going faster, but I still stab myself with the needles I'm not using repeatedly. It wasn't anything to be afraid of though. I'm considering trying to make a pair of socks after I'm done with this.

This, however, is my hairy arm.

I also decided that knitting some purses would be neat. I saw a bunch of cable knit purses on Craftster and thought they looked neat, but I'm not a huge fan of cables. So I knit up the fabric for a purse in this funky pattern.

The beginnings of a purse.

However, because I am a terrible photographer, you can't really see how neat the pattern is. This is what it looks like in real life:

I need to get something interesting to line it with and attach some handles, but it knit up pretty quickly and that pleases me. Both this and the thing for Lisa are knit with Lamb's Pride Bulky. I love Lamb's Pride Bulky. It's easy to knit with, it looks pretty, it's soft, it comes in millions of colors (okay, not millions, more like 30, but whatever), and it's readily available. Well, it was in Seattle. Only one store in San Diego sells it (Needlecraft Cottage, the only store worth visiting in Pacific Beach), which annoyed me, but two stores in Encinitas supposedly have it, which makes moving up there a little more attractive to me. But anyway, back to the crafting.

Lastly, here is a picture of the finished purse from the last post.

As you can see, I have attached the second handle and filled it with my junk. It fits my giant wallet, keys, checkbook, cell phone, requisite deck of cards, various lip moisturizers and colorants, and compact pretty well. I give myself two thumbs up.

things I am working on

2006-09-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

Thing 1:
Our friends Michael and Megan are going to have a baby. Well, Megan will give birth to the baby, but they will both be in possession of the baby after it is born. I like Michael and Megan a lot and I suspect I will like their baby a lot as well, so I am making them a baby blanket. Specifically, I am making the "Big Bad Baby Blanket" from the Stitch N Bitch book. They don't know the sex of the baby and I am too slow a knitter to wait around for that sort of information, so I chose a neutral buttery yellow colored yarn. Here are some poor quality pictures for you!

Here are the first 10 rows or so. I have more than that now, but I am too lazy to take another picture.

Here is the ball of yarn I am making it from. As you can see, it is bigger than my head!

Thing 2:
This is the first purse I have attempted to make. I made up a shape I thought would look neat and drew a "pattern" on some wax paper I had in the kitchen, cut it out, and went at it. I put a layer of felt between the outer and inner fabric because the interfacing I had didn't feel sturdy enough. I still need to attach the other handle, but after that it will be done.

This is the front of the purse (or the back...they're identical). I sewed the ribbon on there and attached the handle with the ribbon as well.

This is the inside of the purse. I found the awesome old-timey map fabric remnant at Joann Fabrics for $2.

I may have been a little ambitious for my first purse...not using a pattern...attaching the handles with weird pieces of ribbon...and many other things that resulted in my ripping out a lot of seams and re-sewing them, but I learned a lot (I think) and it actually looks pretty cool (I think...if you don't think so, please keep your opinions to yourself so I can continue thinking that I am awesome).

my first skirt

2006-09-27T21:16:00.001-07:00

I am the laziest blogger known to man.

A-Line Skirt
My friend Katie and I signed up for a beginner's sewing class at Stitches in Seattle about a year and a half ago. It was a two night class; on the first night we cut out all the pieces according to the pattern. On the second night I had bronchitis and did not go, so I was left with a pile of unassembled skirt parts and no idea what to do with them. I had an unhealthy fear of my own sewing machine, so I stuffed the skirt parts into a bag and pretended they did not exist.

Finally, last month, I pulled out my sewing machine and winged it to put them together, and surprise, it fits! It even has a zipper that works!

Front view.

Side view.

Me demonstrating the A-liney qualities of the skirt.

I love this skirt. I also love that it didn't fall apart when I washed it.

this is my blog

2006-09-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

Hello. I have decided to make stuff. After it is made, I will post pictures of that stuff on the internet. Original? No. But neither is making babies, and people do that all the time. I don't have anything up here yet, but I have some stuff at home that I have made recently and some things I will be starting soon, so do not fret. There will be pictures. Oh yes, there will be pictures.