Day 3 - The Hustle and Bustle

Public transportation.  Bart.  The every day hustle and bustle.  You'd hope with all the money you spend and increases in fare that they would keep the place a little nicer.  Just a hope...

Day 2 - You Gotta Do This!!!

Sign to let the people know they need to spend $29 to zip line above Justin Herman Plaza.  Last year it was free thus the long lines at all hours of the day - this year not so free and of course no lines. ; )

Zip Liners - Wish my phone had a better focus feature

Window Washer at the Building next to me

Oh the joys of working in a high-rise Building in San Francisco - seeing people crazy enough to work in a window washing rig 20 flights above ground.

Another project complete!

Yay!!!  It has been about 3 weeks since my last blog and since I started the tablecloth.  Now it wasn't a hard project, but as you know life can get in the way, so a project that should only take me a couple days at most, took a little longer than expected.

French fabric with beautiful colors

Like I previously mentioned, I found the beautiful fabric at my grandma's house.  I think she must have purchased it on one of her four trips to France.  The fabric has a variety of vibrant yellows, blues and greens.  Since its a lightweight fabric you can pretty much see through it.  To add a little thickness and to make it look "finished" I added another layer of fabric to the back.  The bottom fabric is again something that I found at my grandma's place (I have vowed not to buy any fabric for a while - I've decided that I would use as much as I can from my grandma's stash and that should last me a while).  Its a light blue fabric that matches one of the colors on the French cloth.

I also found a ton of great binding at my grandma's place, but unfortunately the one's I brought home with me wouldn't work.  They just weren't the right color and I also wouldn't have had enough to finish the project.  So last week I bought a pack of yet another blue binding from Beverly's Fabrics and Crafts in Alameda.  I brought it home and what do I realize as I'm starting to pin it to my tablecloth??  Its not long enough!!!  Ah, I guess I should have measured the tablecloth before I left - but I wasn't thinking.

Finally, on Sunday I made my way back to Alameda and bought another package of binding.  And while Faustino was out with his brother, I put the finishing touches on my first - yes that's right first - tablecloth. 

And three weeks after I started (okay maybe four now), I finished another project.  Now, I might not be going as fast as I would like to go, but I'm chugging along and I'm happy with the results.  And now I'm getting prepared to start my next sewing project.  This will be a little more difficult so it might take me a little while longer to blog about it.  In the meantime, I still work on taking photos and maybe even making a journal.

First time binding!  And it doesn't look too bad. :)

As always, stay tuned...

Starting where she left off...

My grandmother, well she was... a great seamstress.  She had a ton of energy and she was the most creative person I knew.  She was always busy sewing, cooking, baking, sketching, painting, traveling, tending to her garden or working with one of us on any one of the projects above.  I spent a lot of time with her until her death in 2004.  So its no wonder she rubbed off on me in some way or another. 

I realize I'm not a great seamstress, actually I'm really just a beginner (though I've sewn a bit here and there).  Around 2000-2001 my grandmother gave me her sewing machine but I wasn't ready to do anything on my own...or even take it home with me. At that time in my life I was too preoccupied with sports and hanging out with friends. But last summer I finally brought the 1970s Singer to my apartment. And slowly, I've been using it for my projects. Anyhow, I feel with practice, dedication and concentration that maybe, just maybe, one day I could be a good one.


As I've mentioned in a previous post, my grandma started many projects that she never finished (another thing that rubbed off on me).  And now 7 years after her passing, my mom and I are finding these unfinished projects as we clean out and organize her craft room.  One such project that I found was some gorgeous fabric (purchased on one of her trips to France) that she was turning into a tablecloth.

The beautiful fabric that someday soon will cover my table

It looks like she sewed a few pieces together to make it long and wide enough to fit a small table (which is perfect because it should fit mine).  Now, all I have to do is finish it - which I hope to do in the next week.  I know it won't be as fancy as hers would have been if she finished it, but I know it will make her proud.  And I know she'll be happy to know I'm starting where she left off...

Cupcakes are everywhere...

I love community education and Chabot College offers a variety of great classes.  On Saturday, Faustino and I had the opportunity to take Cupcake Decorating I.  When I say, opportunity, I mean I wanted to take the class and I convinced Faustino into taking the class with me.

In order to prepare for Saturday's class as we had to take 12 cupcakes each, thus I made 24 lemon cupcakes on Friday night.  I finally took the last 6 out of the oven around 11:15 and went to bed.  Saturday came, after my short run and a shower, we were on our way to Hayward.  We arrived just on time, signed in and gave our $20 each for materials.

During the class, which was only 2 hours long, we learned how to do simple decorations on cupcakes.  And if I do say so myself, I thought mine turned out pretty good.

2 hours, $59/per person, 12 plain lemon cupcakes, materials bag, frosting and accessories and the following is what you get:

The first set of 3 cupcakes decorated were summer themed: a watermelon, a summer sun and a sunflower.

Watermelon, Sun & Sunflower

The next set of 3 were Spring cupcakes and consisted of an Easter Bunny, an Easter basket and a flower. 



Easter Bunny, Easter basket & Flower

The third set of 3 were the "Novelty" cupcakes: Graduation, Pinwheel & a Puppy.


Graduation Cap

Pinwheel & Puppy

And for the final set of 3 we used fondant to make flowery decorated cupcakes. 

 

Pink fondant used to decorate

I have to say the 2 hours was well spent.  The cupcakes were yummy and pretty.  I learned a few decorating tricks.  Hey who knows maybe I'll start my own decorating business (probably not, they didn't come out that great, ha!).  I will be decorating again though...and as always stay tuned for more.

Year of the Rabbit...

...the bunny rabbit that is.


Bunny #1 right after I completed her

As I mentioned earlier in the month, I had goals for February.  Unfortunately moving to Jack London (by the way...its only been two weeks since we moved and I absolutely love it here, but that's another blog post) got in the way of many of those goals.  But goals are merely intentions, they aren't meant to tie you down.  They are there to guide.  Thus, I'm not sad I didn't finish everything I planned.  Because though we plan, life tends to get in the way.  ;)  March will hopefully bring the completion of the February goals...

But enough about that, on to the bunny rabbit.  Last Tuesday the stuffing for my bunny rabbits was delivered to my office.  Since one rabbit still needs to be sewed together, only one rabbit was ready to be stuffed and so as soon as I got home, I sat on the futon and ripped open the stuffing.  I was so excited it finally arrived!  For the next 1.5 hours I stuffed and I stuffed and then I mended and sewed.  And finally around 9:00PM I finished making my first stuffed animal ever!  Though its not perfect, well actually at first I thought it was pretty ugly, its another completed project and something my niece will hopefully enjoy.  Right now it has some thread tied around its neck and I'm still trying to decide whether or not to actually put ribbon instead.  For now, I'll enjoy it just the way it is.



Bunny #1 with her scarf visiting the Tour Eiffel in the background. ;)

And tomorrow...I'll work on finishing the second bunny.  My nephew's bunny has been cut and its just patiently awaiting my return...   Now that I have a clue ;) and more of an idea of what I'm supposed to do, I plan to insert the eyes, sew it together and get it to the stuffing point.  If all goes well (and I buy more stuffing) the second rabbit will be completed by Friday.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed but at the same time won't fret over it.