Koalas on Parade

Day 11. Something fun.

Ok, I don't know who has or hasn't seen these but if you live anywhere near an Asian market, I bet you've had these.  These are like the Hello Panda cookies but these feature cute little koalas getting into all kinds of mischief.  Snacking is ridiculously fun when I have these to munch on.  I think my favorite of this bag is the Pharaoh Koala (bottom left) and Mermaid Koala (bottom, 2nd from left). 

Lights Out

 Well, now I know how bored I am during a massive blackout.  Yes, that's right, on Thursday afternoon at 3:38pm, a problem with some transmitter lines between California and Arizona knocked out power to all of San Diego County and affected parts of Southern Orange County, Riverside County, Mexi-Cali, and Yuma, Arizona.

We lost power while I was at work, so we had to stay for a while to make sure critical freezers got plugged into backup generator power and non-critical machines and equipments got unplugged to save them from any power surges.  After that, it was uncertain how long power would be out.  SDG&E was estimating that the power might be back Friday, maybe by the afternoon.

We went home and sat around reading until the sun went down.  We had a couple of small flashlights, but nothing really powerful enough to light up a whole room.  Funny how no power gets people out of their houses and walking around talking to neighbors.  It was almost nice to be "unplugged" even if it was not our intention.

We were debating whether it would be best to leave the refrigerator/freezer closed since the insulation is supposed to hold for about 12 hours before all the food spoils or whether we should just open it and start eating our perishables.  We voted for leaving it closed and hoping the power would come back sooner than 12 hours (even though we later found out that 4 hours is really the max time limit for dairy products in an unplugged fridge).  We ended up sitting around chatting and drinking homemade amaretto :]  I guess it's never not a good time to drink.

 I attempted to crochet in the dark.  By feel and by the flickers of candlelight, I got a few rows of a new hat started, we'll see if it's all wonky later, haha.

And, because it is Saturday, here's something really weird from my sketchbook.  It's a grasshoppper-type insect with an ice cream sundae coming out of his antenna.  I imagine kind of like how a snail's eye stalk unfolds from inside, I imagine that the ice cream sundae is literally oozing out of his antenna, glass and all. 

I'm not entirely sure what my mind was trying to tell me when I had a dream about this.

((Lights Out by Breaking Benjamin))

Yarnplay

 Day 10. Something I made.

Yes, this does look like insanity on a key ring.  It's actually something really nifty that I made that simultaneously pleases my need for order and is useful (unlike most orderly things I make).  Originally I was trying to keep the yarn labels on my skeins, but once I used up enough of the yarn, it was too skinny, and the label fell off a lot.  So then I kept all the labels and just clipped them all together.  Then it occurred to me that I needed a way to keep track of all my colors and this was created!

The idea is that I have a sample of all my yarns in one place with wash information, content, gauge, and dye lot numbers.  This way I can tell what colors I have at a glance and can match or pick without pulling the whole skein out of my precarious pile of yarns.  Or, I can get more yarn of the right color :]

I use a lot of Red Heart for Amigurumi but I do have a couple other brands like this Lion Brand Yarn "Rose Mist" that I taped the wash information and other relevant information on the back of the tag. 

And her nose stuck in a book!

Day 9. Faceless self portrait.

I'm currently about half done with A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.  It's riveting.  It's touching.  It's real.  I can't recommend it enough, and I'm only half way through.  Plus, I suppose it helps that I basically stole this book.  It was only 5 cents!  And it's in fairly decent condition too.  FYI, the book store had written 5c in Sharpie on the cover of the book, but it came off nice and easy with a little bit of rubbing alcohol.  I only recommend doing that with books with a laminated cover like this.  Paperback books will be very upset with you if you try that.

((Belle from Beauty and the Beast))

St. Kitts

It was a pretty stormy when we were in St. Kitts.  It pretty much dumped rain on us the entire time we were there with a few short periods where it was windy but no rain.

 This was a really beautiful old cathedral just across from Independence Square Park. You can tell how much history there is just by looking at it.

Back in my day..

Day 8. Technology.

This is the coolest (technological) thing that I've seen recently that just blows my mind and kind of reminds me how old I'm getting.  I'm starting to sound like an old person who says, "Back in my day, we didn't have fancy gadgets like that.."

If you have no idea what the heck this is, it's a QWERTY remote.  Yeah, that's right.  It's a remote control for the TV.  It goes with the new Samsung Smart TV.  You can web browse right on the TV now.  It's kind of insane.

If it hurts, kiss it better/ You wear skirts, I write nice letters

All I want to do is to wear skirts all the time.  But my job says I can't, or I'll DIE.  I kid, but it is for my own safety that I do wear long pants when I'm at work.  However, this doesn't stop me from ogling at and making dreamy skirts and dresses.

When I made my skirt, I kept a lot of different points from each of these tutorials in mind, and just kind of winged it!

 via Freshly Picked

Seriously.  How easy is this tutorial for an uber comfy skirt (with pockets!)?

 via DIY Couture via Etsy

Also super simple and less of a flare than the Freshly Picked tutorial.

via Noodlehead

Covered elastic waistband versus an exposed elastic.  With an option for freezer paper stenciling!

via Adventures in Dressmaking

I like this one because it has a nice waistband with zipper rather than elastic so you don't get the scrunchy look of an elastic waistband.

via MADE

For a super swingy skirt with not as much bunching at the waistline.

(After going through my bookmarks and posting all the ones pertaining to skirt making, I realized I am super insane.  They're practically all the same tutorial!)

((Post title from Jefferson Airplane by Relient K))