Tomato Cage Tree

I'm a bit late for Christmas, but I'll be ready for next year!! I've been intrigued by this tree ever since I saw it. So I finally forked over 3 bucks for a tomato cage, and voila!

Decoupage

Don't ask me why, but on a whim I decided to decoupage the litter tub. Doesn't everyone do that? Tidy cats just doesn't go with every decor, and what better use for that old subway map I had. Looks pretty good.

Gingerbread House

I had a fun night last night at a gingerbread house party. I decided to go with a red and green theme this year. It so much fun to make!!

Fabric Bolt Challenge

I didn't really pay attention to the fabric bolt challenge issued by Stitch Lab. I took a class on Saturday and one of the clerks encouraged us to do it. So I picked up a couple of the bolts. When I got home, I realized one could make a fun holiday card holder, or even just a fun holiday decoration!

Then I started thinking it would be fun to arrange a few of them into some cool shape and make a collage out of it, and maybe even have it be a reminder to be creative! Here's what I came up with.

Chicken bag

This fabric is just adorable. I bought the fabric before I made this bag, so unfortunately I didn't have enough fabric, but I was able to piece things together to make it work. So an interesting exercise for me. I hope to use my fancy buttonhole attachment to make the buttonhole on the tab of the bag. I just need a glass of wine and a bit of patience. Maybe I'll tackle that later in the week, or I'll just use a snap. :-D

Christmas Bags

Oh the fabric at Stitch Lab is so hard to resist!! I bought 5 fat quarters of Christmas fabric. I thought I could make some little gift bags. I love the little lunch bag; I need to sew a button on him, but too cute. These were my two easy projects on Sunday.

Coin Purse

I checked out an Amy Butler pattern book from the library. Her bags are just so cute. I had enough scraps from my frog bag (also an Amy Butler pattern) to make a coin purse. It took me about 4 hours to make this little thing! It's misshapen, and bit crazy, but it's functional. I did learn some more about zippers. I love the new zipper foot on my machine. Don't cut the excess zipper until you've either tacked or secured the zipper in some way. A coin purse does not need a pocket.

Ribbon Flowers

Another fun class at Stitch Lab. We learned how to make two kinds of roses, a 5 petal flower, a pansy, a bell flower (like a daffodil) and some leaves. I'm a little bummed because I think I've lost one of the roses, but I guess that means I just need to practice making more!! Perhaps I will stop hoarding ribbon and make more flowers out of it now. :-D

Butterfly Bag

I'm still happy with my machine. :-D If I keep this up I'll be up to my ears in bags!! I'm pleased with how this one turned out.

New machine and a new bag

I bought a new machine today...a Janome Magnolia 7330. It's lovely. It was easy to setup, sewed like butter, and not once went wrong. Good tools make all the difference. I'm super happy, and whipped this bag together in about an hour (I'd cut everything out this weekend.)

Skirt!!

Whew!! It's done. It took me 6 tries to get the invisible zipper in (and notice in the photo how marvelously invisible it is!), but I did it. I had some major tension battles with my machine along the way and had to rip out a few seams and redo them. I going to start looking for a new machine. In the meantime, I will bask in the success of my cute new skirt, and try to remember the sewing police will not pull me over and issue me a citation for not redoing a couple of sloppy seams due to my tension problems. And I think I did a pretty darn good job on the topstitching too.

Maya Tulum

I just got back from 5 nights at Maya Tulum resort. It was idyllic paradise, a haven, an escape...do I need to go on? It was relaxing, so very relaxing. For 5 days my brain was quiet. I spent hours just staring out at the blue Caribbean sea, and really not thinking of anything. My days consisted of some variation of yoga, walking, eating, napping, reading, staring at the sea, eating, lounging, swimming, walking, napping, eating, reading, knitting, staring at the moon and the sea, and sleeping.

The good:
A gorgeous room with a spectacular view, wonderful food, great staff. Soft sand. Going barefoot the entire week--I didn't have to wear shoes to go in to the restaurant! Laying on my bed with the windows open, enjoying the view. Laying on lounge chair under a beach cabana, enjoying the view. Enjoying the view while eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. No sunburn! Swimming in delightfully warm water. I can touch my toes without bending my knees. No TV, no shopping, limited internet, no phones. LOVED the technology fast.

The not so good:
Yoga was way more advanced that I expected. The beginner's yoga flow class (Tuesday) had us doing the dolphin pose into an inversion, and some serious twist/lunge thing that makes my shoulder twinge just thinking about it. Sadly I didn't listen to my body well for that first class, so I could barely move for the next day or so. Thank goodness for massage! The moon salutation class (Thursday) that was suppose to be all levels had us doing the wild thing (which I did!) and the twisted trunk pose. I did a better job not pushing myself, and the instructor was a little more helpful in how to adapt the poses,  so I did some way bendier things than I thought I could.

Over a dozen bug bites, 3 bruises from the concrete floor in the yoga hall, sore muscles (but a good sore).

It was a little jarring coming home. The Cancun airport was loud and busy, and after 6 days in blissful paradise it was unpleasant.

The interesting:
A cat welcomed me to the resort after dinner my first night. I think he really wanted to sleep in my cabana, but I wouldn't let him in. I really must have sucker in blazing neon on me!! He got a good ear scratching out of me.

Geckos hanging out on the ceiling of my room. One managed to poop on one of my books (sorry library!).

Sleeping under a mosquito net is cool and dreamy, and eliminates any worry about gecko poop!

Throwing your toilet paper in the trash instead of in the toilet takes some getting used to.

The resort's shampoo and conditioner have honey in them. I really like smelling honey all day. :-D

Eating avocado and fish every day rocks.

Drinking out of a coconut also rocks. And it's fun to see your waiter use a machete to hack a hole in the top of the coconut so you can drink it! I think the machete is underutilized.

Nothing dries! My clothes, my hair, etc all pretty much stayed damp the entire time I was there.

Kundalini meditation....some breathing with different sounds which vibrated in different areas of the body, and some chanting. Apparently serious practitioners wear a turban to keep their skull from flying apart. Thankfully I didn't experience that, but it was kind of wild feeling vibrations in your chest, throat, and forehead and top of the head.

Snorkeling in Yal-Ku lagoon in Akumal. OK, so I did one thing while I was there. This was the only time I left the resort. It's a man-made lagoon about 30 minutes from the resort; I found it to be a bit of a tourist trap, but snorkeling is snorkeling!

We got a pretty good storm front in Wednesday night that stayed the rest of my trip. I actually didn't mind the rain, although I did worry that first night with the thatched roof, which did fine. Water seeped in through the doors and windows though so I had good size puddles in my room. In fact I think there was more water in my room over two days than we've had rain here at home!!

Little Witch

She's a cute little pin. I painted her today at the Heart of Texas Tolers meeting. It's a Rosemary West design.

Flower Hat

I saw this today in the Red Heart newsletter, and just spent the last couple of hours making it. It is too cute. I think I want to be a flower fairy for Halloween.

Frogs and Snails purse

I bought a British sewing magazine awhile back and they had this cute purse. I've been dying for an excuse to buy the frog paisley and snail paisley fabrics I saw at Stitch Lab and this seemed perfect. I didn't realize a piece of the pattern was folded under until after I cut the first panel, but it just has a flatter bottom instead. It was super easy, and I think for the first time doing something on my own (as opposed to a class), I didn't have to rip anything out!!

Final Encaustic Painting Class

This has been a fun class to experiment. I really, really like working with the wax. I wish it weren't so expensive. I'm trying to talk myself out of buying the rest of what I need to do this at home, which is cheap compared to staying stocked in wax!

Anyway--I did some sea scenes tonight and am quite pleased with how they turned out. I used tea, pearl-ex powder for some sparkle, and some different stencils. I'm super happy with how they turned out!

Encaustic Painting week 4

So our assignment last night was to make a triptych. I really had no idea what I was going to do, but I'm so pleased with where it went! I used some mulberry paper, butterfly and bird images for transfers, and imprinted a leaf. I think I could have played all night.

Encaustic Painting

I missed the second painting class due to work, but was able to play with stencils anyway on Thursday, and then we also learned how to do image transfers. Too much fun. Not sure yet how I'm going to finish either of these.

Embroidery

I embroidered a couple of designs on some drawstring bags I had sewn a while back. The kokeshi doll is a little blobby, but the tree turned out cute!

Encaustic Painting

I'm taking a 5 week encaustic painting class at the AMOA. It's painting with wax. It's going to be pretty interesting playing around with it. Here's my first creation, and boy did I get a lot of texture out of the wax.

It's a 5x7 clayboard, and aside from the yellow strip in oils, it's all wax.

New Hat!!

I think I should stand out in a crowd with this hat!! It's going to come in handy for a big work event with 1000 or more people. It will hopefully make me easy to find, and how fun to turn an orange play traffic cone into a lovely little hat!!

It is ridiculously fun to turn something kind of crazy into a hat. :-D

Lavender

I love how the new leaves on my lovely lavender plant are the gorgeous coils.

Hard cheesemaking

The cheesemaking was easy, but the cheese has to age quite a while to become hard. :-D We partnered up and made chipotle cheddar, colby jack, parmesan, pepper jack, and caraway gouda. Yum!! I got to see a cheese factory, and a big ole cheese cave. We tasted another big plate of cheeses: blueberry havarti, eden (brie with an ash layer), cheddar, gouda, and I don't know what all else!

I brought home some colby jack, caraway gouda and chipotle cheddar. I think I'm officially cheesed out, for at least a day or two.

Soft cheese making

Today I took a soft cheese making class, and I don't know that I've ever eaten so much cheese in one day!! It's amazing how a recipe can have the same ingredients and yield such different flavors. Mozzarella was the only cheese we all got to make, and then we helped or watch the instructor demo a very long list of cheese and other milk products: We made butter, cultured buttermilk, sour cream, cream cheese, yogurt, labneh, cottage cheese, feta, two kinds of ricotta, mozzarella, creme fraiche, herbed cheese log, and a whey smoothie. Many of the cheeses needed to drain or sit overnight, so things were prepped for us to see different stages. I left with a ball of mozzarella, an herbed cheese log, a jar of marinated feta, and a jar of marinated labneh (yogurt cheese). Just amazing!! I can't wait to get home and try some of this out.

Breadmaking

My day making bread at Heritage Farms exceeded my expectations. I thought we'd make a couple of loaves of bread. We made two loaves of whole wheat bread, a dozen flour tortillas, a dozen crescent rolls, AND a dozen cinnamon rolls. They grind their own flour in a gristmill there on the property. The bread and tortillas were made with the red wheat, and the crescent and cinnamon rolls with the white wheat. It was just awesome. I can't wait for cheese tomorrow!!

Personal style...hmmm

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