La plume de ma tante

“La plume de ma tante” (my aunt’s pen) is what most people remember from their early French lessons. Is that like “run, Spot, run”? Maybe.

I began learning French when I was in 6th grade, back in the Middle Ages. In the first week, my clever teacher taught us a small “play”, in which I was to go into a forest, searching for flowers to bring to my mother. I still remember how excited I was, walking home, picking some wildflowers, and giving them to my mother with a flourish and a French phrase!

Now this little life tidbit will come into play later in this post, so tuck it away in your memory, and read on!

If you’ve been reading about the sad state of my winter wardrobe, you’ll know that I’ve been working on updating my sweater collection. I found an old black hooded sweatshirt, and thought, hmmmmmmm. Blank canvas!

I found a vintage black floral pillowcase, some black floral yardage in my stash, and some butterfly yardage. I did some collage work on the front and back of the sweatshirt, covering the various stains that magically appear on sweatshirts. It seemed ok, but it wasn’t speaking to me…

Until one morning, when my turn on the French stage popped into my head! Aha!

I finished collaging with more of a plan, including pulling off the bottom ribbing, replacing it with the striped fabric.

Pour moi, the piece de resistance is the lettering I added, which has made this one of my more satisfying and personal re-models:

Je voudrais bien aller dans le foret pour chercher des jolie fleurs (I would like to go to the forest to look for some pretty flowers)

C’est mignon, n’est-ce pas?!!

My birthday gift

Yesterday, Lynn let the cat out of the bag when she commented on my RAK bag– indeed, yesterday was my birthday, or what I jokingly refer to as the anniversary of my 29th birthday. I am now officially older than dirt, even tho I feel younger than springtime– usually.

But, enough about me. This post is really about DS2.

He is totally ga-ga over machines (duh, he’s a boy). So, last week, when DS1 was still threatening to participate in the Holiday Craft Bazaar at school (note: yippee! he got his contract in too late– which translated into English means that it’s still sitting on his dresser–so I’m off the hook for creating items which cost $6 to make, but which he sells for 50cents) Anyway, as I was saying: so, last week, both boys were introduced to the art of the sewing machine. (Machine, machine, it’s a machine. Can we play with it? NO!! Use it gently and wisely. Break it, and you won’t see the light of day until you’re 21. Ahem. ) They were sewing away, under proper adult supervision, last week.

This week, DS2 bugged me every night to sew again. Now, before you chide me for saying no, please take under advisement that he was bugging me at 9pm, which is official bedtime for the Italo boys. Or the official start of “even tho I hate my brother’s guts all day long, I have soooooo much to tell him when Mommy turns out the lights” time. Depends upon your status in the house. So I said no and no, and no again. Until he wised up and asked to use the sewing machine at 8pm. And lo and behold, the answer was yes!

He was very diligent in his sewing, and wouldn’t let me see what he was working on. When he finished, he put it under his shirt, and crab legged it out to the house.

The next day (the anniversary of my 29th birthday…), this is what he gave me:

This is a felt eye patch– you know, the thing you put around your head, and it keeps the light out while you sleep. It is very colorful, put together with many strips of felt, and decorated with a fireball.

Kaboom! Fire on your eye! Very restful.

What warms my heart the most? Note all the decorative thread painting!

DS2 figured out how to engage the needle up/down function, and how to switch between straight stitching and zig zag stitching! Clever child. Now, I’m going to go ask him to teach me how to thread my new serger…

RAK (random acts of kindness)

A while ago, I posted about meeting a woman at an ice cream shop. She had the most beautiful felted bag, and so of course, I had to chat with her!

We have become friends via emails, and today, we met for coffee, and I was gifted with the other most beautiful felted bag!

I wish you could see this in person– it’s purples and greens, with smudges of peach, and lime, and some gold flecks. It looks as if you are looking at a lavender field on a misty morning. It is so very soft, and I love it! Thank you again, Linda!

I didn’t attend our get-together empty handed. Here is what I made for her:

The front panel is a variation on my embellished silk fusion…however this panel comes from humble stock. Can you guess what it is?

Well…. I do have a large warehouse of fabric (some people call it a stash. Mine got bigger than that.) And all that fabric needs to be washed before I use it in my quilting. So, you know how when you take yardage out of the washer, and there’s some awful stringy things hanging off the raw edge? (Aside: yes, yes, I know, you’re supposed to clip the corners to prevent this. I’ve tried it– it doesn’t work for me, and now I actually WANT those stringys!) Anyhoodle, I started saving those stringy thingy’s- because I was nervous about having a clear space in the remote corner of a drawer, and I needed a baggy of stringy thingy’s to fill it up.

After a few years of marinating in that dark corner, the bag was retrieved, and lo and behold! It’s really nifty to work with!

I placed it between some dissolvable film, add chunks of fabric and yarns and ribbons and what-all, and sew away. Ta da!

The rest of the bag is made from a pin-tucked moleskin, with a cotton print interior. I chose this particular print because Linda and I met at an ice cream place called “Dippin’ Dots” and this print reminds me of the crazy ice cream pellets on order at DD.

I will carry this bag always mindful of the value of friendship. If you see a fellow artist out in the world, do take a moment to smile and introduce yourself– you never know when a friend is just waiting to be discovered!

Holiday Crafts

My oldest son participates in his school Holiday Bazaar, which means I have to think up some appropriate craft to make and he sells it for 50cents. Last year, I spent $25 on craft supplies, and he made $8.

I doubt he will rock the business world anytime soon.

This year, I decided that I, er, I mean HE was going to make a craft using supplies from my prodigious supply warehouse (the fam calls it a studio, but it could be opened to the public, all major credit cards accepted).

I tried making some prototype stuffed monster dolls, which are so darned cute. Since the school says no item can retail over $5, I thought smaller might be more cost-efficient. I’m pretty sure he won’t get rich on this Bazaar, but I don’t want to be out too much cash!

These are my prototypes– I love them!! But…

The small size means that they were a bit challenging, even for me. And, since I am a professional cutter/sewer, and he’s 10, it’s back to the drawing board.

I have been diligently working on my wool felt quilt blocks, so of course, there are piles of chopped up wool sweaters everywhere in the warehouse. Darn– I mean, studio. The boys followed me into the studio last night (I try to take a different route every day, but they find me anyway.)

Anyway, the boys started playing with colors of felt, and soon had coerced me into letting them sew with my machine. My fancy, pricey machine with a needle sharp enough to pierce a finger, thus allowing us to further support the local hospital’s retirement fund. Fortunately, by the end of the evening, the machine was unharmed (the boys were fine, too.)

Here’s the result of our play time: a nice warm hat (in case the temperature dips below 80 degrees–brrrrrr!) DS1 figured out the fit and construction all by himself:

It is made entirely of cut off cuffs, with the top part made from a shrunken cowl neck ribbing. The words say “yo what now” which is apparently some kind of surfer-dude speak. I wouldn’t know, I’m old. And the ear flaps– what an insouciant touch!

And so– we are still working on ideas for the craft bazaar. I am hoping to be “working on ideas” well after the bazaar– having experience in this area, I can tell you that my role as Little Helper suddenly expands to MomYouDoIt when a group of his friends strolls by…

What now, yo?

How to make a duct tape dress form for sewing and quilting clothing

Most people go shopping the day after Thanksgiving– the retail industry refers to this day as “Black Friday”.

My new-found cousin (who joined us for Thanksgiving, introducing us to “Tofurkey” and it’s accompanying amino acid, Tofurkifan) and I made a duct tape dressform on the day after Thanksgiving– giving birth to a new holiday, “Silver Friday”.

I love to create wearable art, especially Wild Onion Jackets or even altered sweatshirts! I was given a dressform by a friend who moved away. It was a wonderful gift, but it wasn’t really my shape. After learning about this method to re-create your own body shape using old tee-shirts and duct tape (link) I decided that this was the perfect way to introduce this new-found relative to the craziness that is my family. (Please, if you meet relatives via the internet, be sure to vet them carefully before meeting them in person, or you too could be sucked into a bizarre situation like dressmaking dummies! Fortunately for me, Michelle didn’t vet my family!!)

So, without further ado, here is a tutorial on how to make a duct tape dress form, complete with the day’s photos!

First step, choose an old tee shirt that kind of fits. You will be cutting it up, so don’t choose a shirt you love! We cut up the back so that we could then re-tape the shirt to make it tight. You want to avoid excess fabric which creates wrinkles, which creates added inches on the finished dress form.

We re-taped the shirt to fit my figure a bit more snugly.

We (and I really mean Michelle– I just stood there, absorbing the humiliation!) criss-crossed my breasts with tape…oh, look! a Playtex living bra!

Continue wrapping your breast area using diagonal strips of tape. Make sure you don’t squish yourself!

Here you see the finished first layer– wrapped vertically from neck to micro mini. (***IMPORTANT NOTE!!! Do not– NOT– think that it’s a good idea to wear a pair of leggings for your bottom layer! It is NOT a good idea– how the heck do you think you’re going to get yourself out of this outfit at the end???!!! Please know that here I am serving as a horrible warning, not a good example! Wrap a plastic bag or another piece of old tee shirt in a skirt form. Muuuuuch better idea.)

We initially thought we’d make a short-sleeved dressform, so we (again, with the “we”. Michelle did all the work, and I just stood there.) If you think you’ll make a short-sleeved dressform, cut up your sleeve and re-tape it to snug up against your arm. We ended up cutting off the sleeve for the final dressform, but who knew?

I’m pointing to the beginnings of the horizontal wrapping layer. You need to pull the waist tight– don’t add pounds to your figure, unless it’s with chocolate. Chocolate is much more fun than duct tape. You can see how much excess we got with that first vertical layer– see the gathers at my waist? Cinch it in, Miss Scarlett!

Hooray– we’re almost finished! See how much, um, curvier I am compared to the dressform? At that point, I felt like I was in a full length girdle. Thank goodness we don’t wear corsets anymore– this is not comfortable!

Okey dokey. Now we’re done with the duct tape…and it’s time to cut me out. This is where we had that sinking feeling….how do we cut me out of the PANTS??? No one’s been near me down south with a sharp instrument since I had my c-sections. How well do I know Michelle? Is she trust-worthy? Shoot– I didn’t vet her, either. Deep breath, close eyes, CUT!!

TA DA!! Here we are– Susan and Suzette. We re-taped the duct tape dress form over the original dress form, adding stuffing as needed to pad the duct tape form. We are currently exhausted from all our hard work, but when we recover, we (meaning I– poor Michelle will have escaped by then) will take measurements. By the way, how do you gain 3 pounds from one little Thanksgiving meal??? Oh, I digress.

I had never seen a duct tape dress form put on top of an existing dress form, so I thought it might prove helpful to post a how-to for those of you with an existing dress form which didn’t fit your personal body stats! If you don’t have a dress form, there are other ways to “stuff” the duct tape form: expanding insulation foam, craft batting/stuffing/foam bits, etc. You will also need something to use as a center post stand: I wonder if you could salvage an old table lamp? Try it and let me know!

I can’t wait to use the new dress form to help me out when I make my altered wearable art, or better yet, my Wild Onion Jackets. I think it will prove invaluable to learn where NOT to place certain appliques, how best to accentuate my better figure attributes, etc.  The dress form will come in handy when I make all the new Wild Onion Jackets to show during the classes I will be teaching at Quilting with Machines!

So, statistics: about 3 rolls of duct tape, one old tee shirt, one pair leggings (but you’ll be wiser than that), one unsuspecting relative, one digital camera, one afternoon, one bottle of wine. Two good senses of humor. One blog.

Addendum: I went out to measure me/my dressform. The dressform is about 1 to 1.5″ bigger than I am– I will try to re-wrap her, cinching her in a bit. Either that, or I need to start eating more to gain the extra inch on my body so we match…

Rated SU (super ugly!)

This is a photo of the unfortunate comforter I insist on placing on our marital bed each winter: (PLEASE– if you have a sensitive stomach, scroll on by– it’s REALLY REALLY ugly!!)

Why do I subject myself and my family to such ugliness? Because it is the perfect weight comforter– not too hot, not too cold. However, it is homely, falling apart, and makes me shudder every morning when I make the bed.

Which leads me to today’s ridiculous turn at the longarm.  For those of you new to my blog, a longarm machine is a sewing machine on steroids.  Mine is about the size of a 12 year old child, resting on a table that is 12′ x 4′– it takes up my 2 car garage-turned-studio.

Ok, so.  Instead of buying new, I decided in my recycling/thrifty zeal to recover the  oogly (or should I say, ooglier?!)  side of the comforter.   I have an enormous, expensive sewing machine, and it could be put to use saving the world from the effects of over-consuming.

So, I bought some yardage on sale (yup– I consumed.  I did warn that this was a ridiculous idea!)  I sewed 2 lengths together to get a piece of fabric approximately the same size as the comforter.  I then pinned the comforter onto my longarm machine, and laid the nice new fabric on top of the comforter.

After gulping some Pepto-Bismol to quiet my stomach (which was turning from such close proximity to the ugliness), I proceeded to sew some straight lines which would hold the fabric to the comforter, re-covering the ugly.  And for those of you smarter than me who are wondering:  I didn’t make a “duvet cover” because I hate the way the comforter always slips and bunches inside one.

Okay, if this were a tutorial I’d say:

see, here

I’m pointing out where the old stitching was, and I’m going to re-stitch the new fabric along those lines.

And see, here I am showing you how I measured and marked with chalk so that I could stitch along the line.  I have a handy “channel lock” which allows me to sew a straight line without any effort at all.  (I do love my machine.  Her name is Phoebe).

Alas, this is NOT a tutorial.  For when I got to the bottom of the comforter/new fabric, I realized that there was no way on this earth I was going to be able to shove that puppy under my machine to stitch on a binding.

Plus, it’s still really ugly.

So, heed my tale of woe.  Not every great idea is a great idea.  Sometimes, ugly just gotta get gone.  I have been avoiding my studio for the past 2 days, because I just don’t want to face the awfulness waiting for me on my machine.  But I will square up my shoulders,  go out there, rip out the stitching (to save the new fabric for another project), and take the ugly comforter to the thrift shop.

Maybe one of you, dear readers, would like to try your hand at re-covering?!!

My to-do list, with a recipe

Oof! It’s almost 11:00 am and here I still sit, trying to get up some energy. My energy level isn’t usually a problem, and today of all days, I need to get going!!

I am participating in an art quilt show at the Elverhoj museum, and I must get my artist statement written. In addition, I need to get to the lumber yard for some lathe to insert into my quilts’ hanging sleeves (note to non-quilters– on the top edge of the back side of a quilt meant for hanging, you will find a fabric tube–called a sleeve– that gets a wooden slat insert. The slat has an eye hook on each side for wire or wall mounted nails. This is a common way to hang a quilt on a wall.) I have to get to the library. I have some artwork on my machine that needs finishing before Saturday.

And here I sit!

Well, now that I’ve subjected you to my grocery list of errands, I’ll leave you with a recipe for a quick, healthy, yummy dinner.

Susan’s stir-fry with hidden veggies

• 1 bag broccoli cole-slaw (in the refrigerated producesection with the bags of coleslaw)
• 1 bag cole-slaw (without the dressing)
• various veggies– broccoli, carrots, cauliflower (you won’t need a lot, since you have the sneaky broccoli cole-slaw, and cabbage cole-slaw!)
• frozen edamame (shelled!!!)
• 2 small onions, chopped into large-ish chunks
• 3-4 green onions, cut into 2″ pieces, and sliced the long way
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• left-over meat– chicken, pork, steak (or fresh meat, if you don’t have left-overs!) cut into small pieces
• 4 cups cooked rice (I use Cal-Rose rice since it seems to cook up kind of sticky!)
• seasoned rice vinegar, sesame oil (in the Asian section near the soy sauces) and soy sauce (I use Bragg’s Liquid Amino from the health food store. Jamie Wallen turned me onto this a few years ago; altho it sounds odd, it is really only unfermented soy sauce and has very very little sodium– good for me and my high blood pressure!)

OK! Start your rice.

Saute the chopped up veggies, and toss in a handful of the frozen edamame to thaw. Add the broccoli slaw, a generous squirt of sesame oil, and about 1/4 cup of soy sauce. When the broccoli slaw starts to wilt, add the cabbage slaw. Add some more sesame oil and soy sauce. Saute until all the slaws are wilted. Take off heat.

In a different pan, saute the onion (and fresh meat) and garlic. Warm up the cooked meat by adding to the onion pan for a few minutes.

By now, the rice should be finished cooking, and you should be hungry.

Add a generous pour of seasoned rice vinegar to the rice. Stir.

Put some rice into dinner bowls. Top with cooked veggies/slaw mixture. Add onions and meat on top. Garnish with sliced green onions.

This makes enough for 6 people…or 4 with leftovers!

I’m back!

Hi!  I’m home!
We got in late last night– we were up for 27 hours– OY!

We had a super wonderful trip, and I gained 4 pounds.  Hey, guess what?  true to form, and as illogical as it has always been, I drank 2-3 cups of espresso every day and never got wacky from it!  I cannot figure out why European caffeine doesn’t affect me the way American caffeine does. We brought home some Italian coffee to experiment with (just call me Frankensusan).

The food was spectacular.  I drank wine every lunch and dinner (hi Gina)!  The first week, while DH ran/worked out/had meetings, I took the boys to the beach.  We had lunch at a trattoria on the sand, and I drank wine while they frolicked.  It was very civilized!  Since the boys eat Italian food almost every day at home, they didn’t miss American food at all, but they did say that the only thing they did miss was eating pizza with their hands (you have to use a knife and fork in Europe.  We are barbarians here, you know!!)  The ice cream was everything I had touted, so they were quite pleased to learn some Italian words for ice cream flavours.
DS1 (now known as la machina di mangiare– or, the eating machine) was fearless in speaking Italian– he did quite well!  DS2 veered betw/ saying Grazie and Gracias, but charmed the Italians with his smile anyway.

DH’s meet was great and impressive.  His leg held up, by which I mean that the muscle didn’t tear off the bone, as it could have….He ran the third leg of the 4 by 400 relay, and they took 3rd!  In the world!!  So now we have a bronze medal in the house.  A very very nice souvenir, indeed.

I took tons of photos (I’ll post some when I get them off the camera), got inspired for a new series, and figured out my piece for the show I’m in in Jan.  On the plane over there, while I was “sleeping”, I got some much needed inspiration for a couple of upcoming wearable challenges.  I was awake enuf to jot down my ideas, thank goodness!  In all,  it was an artistically satisfying trip.

The second week, we spent a few days visiting friends who live an hour north of Rome.  They live in an ancient town (apparently, “ancient” is the technical term for the time 1,000 AD) and I tried to impress a sense of the history on my heathens.  They were most impressed with the castle (a fortress castle, no wizards) b/c there were holes in the floor thru which to pour boiling oil upon enemies. 

My GF introduced me to an artist friend of hers.  The woman’s apartment is so amazing, and ancient.  The woman’s husband had pulled off some plaster in their bedroom while doing some renov.  and decided to leave the ancient stone wall exposed.  Can you imagine waking up to look at a wall that’s 1,000 years old?  I couldn’t (can’t) get over the fact that I was touching/walking on walls/roads that were touched/travelled by women my age over 1,000 years ago…

To end the trip, we went farther south, to a town called Sperlongo where Julius Cesar and his cronies used to vacation.  Dude!  It was a magical white stucco town, with glimpses of the Mediterranean around every turn.  The kids have now splashed in 4 major bodies of water, so they feel quite worldly.

I’m now working on laundry, email, and jet lag.  I promise some interesting photos in my next post!

when life (or a neighbor) gives you tomatoes…

…make camping salad!

My across-the-street neighbor has a couple of very green thumbs, and he is extremely generous in sharing the bounty of his summer garden.  Recently, he knocked on my door with these gorgeous, warm, ripe tomatoes and cucumbers.

Here’s a yummy recipe that I made up years ago while camping with DH in South Dakota.  We call it  Camping Salad, but feel free to enjoy it anywhere– even in a city!

Camping Salad

3 ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks

1 cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks

diced sweet onion– an amount about the size of a  handful

crumbled feta cheese

~~sprinkle everything with 1/2 packet of Italian Dressing seasoning (what you would usually add to oil and vinegar to make a salad dressing.  Here we use the dry spices sprinkled over the veggies.)

The salad dressing spices will draw out the tomatoes’  juices and create a “dressing”.  Toss before serving.

I doubt there’s many calories in this salad!  Leftovers taste just as good for lunch the next day.  Enjoy!

The center of my universe

About 8 years ago, I moved from the city (Chicago) to a small town in Southern California. How small? Well, altho my friend Suzanne tells me it’s not on the small scale, compared to where I used to live, it’s an eyeblink big. It’s only twice the population of my high school. Two-horse town small.

I adore it!

Anyway, you’d think that living in a metropolis like Chicago, you’d always be running into folks you know, kids you grew up with, people from work. And that just never happens.

Here, in SoCal, where I am a complete transplant, I bump into people I know all the time. My mother has a saying about this– she tells me that sooner or later, everyone I’ve ever known will pass thru Ojai. It is, as she says, the center of my universe.

Examples, you ask? (Clever readers– I do tend to exaggerate. Just a wee bit.) Well, one of my (now)dearest friends (who I re-met by stalking her Illinois-plated car in the school parking lot), went to high school with me. We didn’t know each other back then, except by sight, but our high school boyfriends were on the swim team together, so we all used to go to parties together. And now, she lives here!

And another friend? I was eyeing her at the park a few years ago– she just looked so familiar. I’d only been in town for a year, so I knew I didn’t know her from CA. Nope! We worked together at Glamour magazine in New York City, in the early ’80′s.

See! The center of my universe.

This is all on my mind this morning as I peruse my email. Yesterday, I was dragging DS1 and DS2 around on errands. Taking pity on them at the end of the day, I stopped into an ice cream store. Actually, I was driving out of the grocery parking lot, when the store caught my eye, and I returned to the parking lot and did the nice mommy thing. As we walked around the side of the store to eat our ice cream in the shade, I noticed a lovely woman with a girl about DS2′s age. The woman had the most beautiful felted bag, and altho I don’t as a rule talk to strangers (oh, yes, I know, you don’t believe that), I had just blogged about opening the door to opportunity. So I complimented her on her bag, we started talking…and now I have a new friend!

And just so you are convinced that this is all relevant– her SIL grew up 2 blocks away from me. See. The center of my universe.