Saturday, July 03, 2010

Almost forgot: June took some candid photos for me on my camera while I was still working on my This at Paint This! after she and Jan were all finished. Here are a few of my favs: 1) Painting (I was such a paint hog, I used two paint trays (the tray on the left in this photo was Jan's, though). My This has 7 colors: the background color, 4 different star colors (but since I kept confusing them, I also mixed the colors together to add variation and make sure I wouldn't accidentally have the same color next to itself... not sure if that will be a good or bad thing... the Paint This! lady didn't say anything about mixing colors), and 2 different brittle star colors (a darker green center and lighter green arms). They will look totally different (much brighter and more opaque, like the finished pieces on the table) when the This is glazed and fired, so you just have to use your imagination when painting it. 2) You can see the sample colors on the wall behind me in this photo. (But not my colors, other than the greens... they were up higher.) I had very involved looks on my face in almost all the pictures. 3) I love this cool overhead shot of Jan offering me advice as I tried to make out the brittle star's pencil lines through my base color. You can (partially) see my second paint tray on the left, behind the water mug, with all my extremely confusing similar star colors. 4) Jan pointing out where I had originally drawn a larger star in the section of the design where I was completely unable to see my pencil lines. I painted it in after this photo was taken, and also went over all the lines with a second coat. I took a photo of the finished This, but you'll have to wait to see the completed design when they finish glazing/firing it and UPS it to me.

Posted at 11:45:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Uh... I just noticed that ALB says yesterday was Thursday, July 2nd, and two days before that was Thursday, June 30th. Neither of them was actually Thursday. I think I'm going to just leave it like that. It is Anti-Linear Brain, after all. I'm tired and every time I look up at the ceiling I see stars. Not "see stars" like I got knocked over the head, but imaginary star shapes in the bumpy texture of the white ceiling. I guess it's kind of like feeling the motion of the sea at night after being on a dive boat, only instead it's stars ingrained in my brain because of all the stars I drew/painted at Paint This! this afternoon in Old Town Alexandria with Jan and June. I really liked doing my ceramic painting, and I hope it turns out good! I have never painted anything before. I liked how the paint soooooaaaaked into the object so you didn't have to be that precise. I kept getting super confused though because I was using four different colors which look different after they are fired and glazed or whatever the heck it is they do with your object behind the scenes after you leave, but which looked extremely similar in the paint dish and on the object. I was trying to not have the same color too close to itself but that was ultra hard because I kept losing track of which color was which and which color I'd just used two seconds ago. Also, I tried to give all my paint a couple of coats but I kept losing track of which parts of the design I'd already gone over and which parts I hadn't. It was pretty fun though and I like my design. I drew it with pencil first and then painted over it with the background color, but it then it was pretty difficult to see some of my pencil marks, even though the base color was light. I managed, in any case, and my end product was fairly similar to what I originally drew, I think. I took about five times as long as Jan and June to do mine, so they were hanging about forever while I finished, but we were talking so hopefully they weren't too bored.

First we went to Grape + Bean and had delicious sandwiches and Clover machine coffee; Jan and I both had Herbazu from Costa Rica. There was a coffee menu with crazy descriptions like on a wine menu, so you could pick what you wanted Clovered up. I had no idea what to pick so I told the lady what kind of coffee I like (rich and intense, but not bitter) and that was the one she recommended. Me, explaining what I meant, "I like Kona coffee." Her, "So do I!!!" The description said, "Caramel and buttercup flower aromas support flavors of apricot, lemon tart and Meyer lemon in this cup with both the taste and sensation of honey." It was good, but did I taste any of that? Nooooooooo, I did not. I love those wacky descriptions! There was a photo of the store goat near our seats at the counter, and it was born in 2002 so I started wondering if that was old for a goat. Jan asked June how long goats live and she guessed about ten years, then asked the store lady too.

June: How long do goats live?
Grape & Bean lady: Don't they live forever? How do you kill them? They're already dead.

Uh, yes. Goats, not ghosts. (We did not set her straight.) Anyway, June was correct, because we looked it up online.

It was cool riding on the Metro with Jan. She's such a getting-around expert! The Metro kind of feels like a boat. It was nice out again, too. Hotter than yesterday, but not bad at all, and not humid. I got Jan to go with me to the Red Mango tart frozen yogurt place after we got back to Arlington. It was good, but not quite as good as Robeks! They have a Robeks here, too (right near our hotel) but she said I should try a new kind for a contest since I was on vacation and she was right. Dean and I had dinner at a Lebanese place, Me Jana (also two inches from our hotel, right next to Robeks), and it was really good! We ordered a million different small dishes and shared all of them except my lamb bread and my salmon. Even the dessert was good! We went for a big walk around after dinner to try to get ideas for what to do tomorrow after we check out, since we aren't supposed to be at David's until 3:00-3:30. (We decided to check out tomorrow morning instead of Monday and fly home in the cool of night after the fireworks, since it's supposed to be 99 degrees out on Monday!)

Posted at 11:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, July 02, 2010

Arlington is pretty nice! It's kind of like a more city-ish/bigger version of West Hartford. The drive here from Tipton wasn't too bad, either... it was about an hour, with slow traffic in spots, but nothing insane; plus, it was kind of interesting. After we checked into our hotel, which is right near Jan's place (I think we drove by her building on the way), we walked to the Starbucks in the interior court near our hotel (where there are tons of restaurants, a movie theatre, and a Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings), and I got a tall dry cappuccino with actual good foam. I was impressed.

A little later, we walked to dinner at Eventide, which was really good. Excellent OpenTable pick by me. Nice quiet and Bed-like atmosphere, and I really liked everything I ordered. It was kind of like a Portland restaurant, but bigger. I had Crab and Melon (Jumbo lump Maryland crab, three kinds of summer melons, buttermilk/lime dressing, pickled melon rind, chili salt) and Grilled Wild Salmon (pea shoots, dandelion greens, grilled baby carrots, truffle/porcini vinaigrette, soybean puree) and we shared a Vanilla Mascarpone Cheesecake (with espresso granita, chocolate-covered espresso beans, dark chocolate caramel, milk chocolate crema) for dessert. It had a great creamcheesey texture, with a nice little sour bite to it. Also, we got sparkling water and it was Voss! :-) And instead of bread, they had biscuits! My lump & melon meal had the best salt, and it was arranged on the plate like a smiley face. And my salmon was nice and tender and moisty-orange. Yum. Everything was nice and light, too, not all heavy and filling.

Walking back, we went to this little British convenience & cigar store that had all different kinds of British import foods and candies (didn't buy any, but it was fun looking!), and The Container Store. So many different kinds of containers!!! We actually bought a few, too, and some woodgrain wrapping paper (not woodgrain contact paper). I'm sleeeepy now, for some reason. Fun day planned for tomorrow with Jan and June in Old Alexandria! Jan is going to meet me here and then we'll take the Metro.

Beautiful blue skies and fluffy clouds on the flight here, which was bumpy almost the whole way (at 4,000 feet) but super-speedy. When we landed at Tipton I noticed the skies here are much less blue and clear than at home, but the weather is still pretty nice. It was the absolute perfect temperature for walking around! It's going to get hotter, but today was splendid.

Posted at 10:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, June 30, 2010

My new skirt passed its test-drive today with flying colors! It even appears to be fairly wrinkle resistant. It was really hard to figure out what goes with it (I always have this problem... it comes from having a penchant for wacky-patterned and brightly colored clothes), and I'm not sure I totally succeeded, but that's okay. Here are the photos, taken in an Ann Taylor dressing room in Glastonbury that I went to (on the way to Whole) solely so I could take mirror photos of the skirt. It had a dumb sign bolted to the wall right behind the mirror, so I had to hang that top over it to cover it up. So inferior to the Anthropologie dressing room!

1) I really like the skirt, even though I kind of look like a peppermint stick ice cream cone in this outfit. (What do you think... stars + stripes = a good 4th of July look??) B) Side view. (Deer in headlights look.) 3) Sitting-down view. My hairdresser cut my hair too short and it's kind of funny-looking right now, but it looks decent in profile! 4) Sitting-down view with feet, and my hair sticking up in crazy spirals. Skirt looks good, though. BTW, that thing hanging up on the back of the dressing-room door is the beet bag I made in 2006.

Posted at 7:01:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Finished the skirt, and I LOVE it! I can't wait to wear it tomorrow. (I hope I can figure out what goes with it...) It has the exact same kind of shirred waist as the first one, made with six rows of elastic thread (so easy! I love it!), but I folded it over and stitched it down this time. I also finished off all the raw edges. All! No pocket on this one, but instead there's the ruffle. Both fabrics are ones I bought in Hawaii at that great quilting fabric store at the King Kamehameha strip mall in Kona. I think they are both Robert Kaufman prints (the geometic one definitely is; not sure about the sea starry batik!). The stars are actually yellow; the photo makes them look slightly more greenish than they really are. I love the way it fits, and it was very easy to make. I'll try to take a photo of it on, soon!

Posted at 1:34:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

It's hard to capture with a camera, but the sun was bright pink. [Edit: Wow, this matches the ALB stripe!]

Posted at 8:31:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Our electricity is out, so we came to Jaff! It's nice and cool here. I hope the power is back when we get home because I want to finish my skirt!!! (And because I hate being without electricity.)

Posted at 7:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I redid the ruffle! Even though I was really careful and used lots of pins, the ruffle's side seams and skirt's side seams don't line up perfectly, but other than that it's nice and even and I am pleased. This skirt is super cute!!! I just have to finish off the underneath of the part where the ruffle connects to the skirt, and it will be done. I decided I don't need a lining in this one, after all. REALLY SHOULD go out now, so I'll have to finish the very end later. Too bad I am insanely stiff from working on this. Aaaah!

Posted at 1:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I made most-of-a-skirt and a clafoutis last night! I really like the skirt. It sort of looks like something a circus poodle would wear. I just sewed on the ruffle experimentally (with long stitches) and it looks good but I think I'm going to redo it more carefully. I used my elastic thread to get it to ruffle up before I sewed it on, instead of doing the stitches that you pull on thing. It was so much easier! (Not that I have ever done the stitches that you pull on thing, but it seems like it would be frought with potential Suders, whereas my elastic thread is a cinch.) I was good and actually finished off all the edges on the inside of the skirt this time. Ha! Anyway, nearly done; just want to put the ruffle on again and be extra-careful about the lining up-ness, even though it actually looks good as-is. Oh yeah, and my clafoutis is blueberry! It was very blubby while baking, and juicy blueberryness went everywhere (confined to the pie plate, but everywhere within the range of the clafoutis). Dean helped me eat over half of it last night! I think he's coming around to the allure of the clafoutis. Time for me to go eat the rest of it now.

Posted at 11:29:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, June 28, 2010

I ran out to the fabric store to get muslin for lining material! See, that fabric wasn't around solely as a background for my bruised arm, I really am doing something with it. BTW, this fabric is some of the material I bought at that quilt store in Kona. ♥ I hope it turns out OK; it's a little heavier weight than the Madras stuff I used previously.

Posted at 9:04:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Got my first Suder berries (rasp and blue!) of the year, AND a Cold Spring Brook Farm reusable shopping bag! So great. It's bright green with yellow printing and a picture of a big tractor on it. :-)

My watch is running crazily fast lately. Does that mean I'm extra hummingbirded? I don't feel like it... Also, I have this mysterious dark bruise on the back of my forearm. It's been developing over the past few days. I have no idea how I got it, but I'm extremely fond of it. It looks exactly like someone grabbed me by the arm really hard! It hurts, too (if I touch it). Fortunately, I don't have any matching rope marks on my wrists. ;-)

[Edit: I took a picture of my arm bruise. Isn't it fantastic? Okay, yes, I know I'm weird. This picture is actually of the matching fabric, which I am planning to make a skirt out of. Yeah, that's the ticket. My arm just happened to be there for perspective. (BTW, I also have an extreme fondness for sticky-outy veins, which mine are demonstrating quite nicely in this picture. Heh.)]

Posted at 5:13:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, June 26, 2010

We hounded to the Even Keel yesterday in Nantucket (I had a grilled sea bass sandwich... is that the same thing as a striper???), and then went to a store in the town before we continued on our ride! It was the something-or-other-Toggery, and Dean wanted to go there. Totally great that we did, because he found a fantastic new hounding hat! It's like that skirt I made, with squares of a million different kinds of Madras plaid all sewn together. The store had ten thousand different products with that style fabric--skirts, dresses, men's shorts, pants, shirts, and hats. It's such a Nantucket thing. The hat looks totally cute on Dean and highly houndy. I took a picture of him wearing it later while we were hounding, after it had started getting all foggy on the way back from the Kerry beach.

Speaking of the Kerry beach (called that [by us] because Senator Kerry has a house there), someone or someones had decorated the classic leany beach fence with a million whelk shells. It was cool! As usual, I got all sandy at the beach and Dean didn't. Heeheehee. Dean thinks I'm a sand magnet. We had our classic watermelon juice and homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream in a warm hand-rolled waffle cone from The Juice Bar, after we arrived back in town using a cool sneaky alt route. Dean asked me if I was surprised when we turned the corner and suddenly there was The Juice Bar, and I said no, because I smelled The Juice Bar first! But I was surprised when I smelled it. :-) Waffle cone scent wafting = mmmmmmm. It wasn't that foggy in town, but it was super foggy at the airport! As soon as we crossed the road and pedaled toward those statues of the kids playing, fog city. Here's Tango out in the grass field, foggyfogfogged.

Much slackier hound ride this week than last. Cat stats: Total distance - 15.14 miles; Average speed - 9.5 mph; Max speed - 25.1 mph (fast!! fun!!); Total time - 1:34'45. Oh, and we have now hounded for more than 500 miles! Wow!

After we got back to the hangar, Dean talked me into letting him do an oil change while the oil was still hot. It took about two hours, so we didn't leave until after midnight. Meanwhile, I: 1) listened to the Rockin' Ron all-request Saturday night show on my radio station, using the hangar radio, 2) played Solitaire on Dean's iPad, 3) helped. I poured all the new bottles of oil into the funnel for Tango! Toward the beginning of the time, I e-mailed in a request using my Treo:

Hi Rockin' Ron,
We're hangin' out at the hangar at Brainard (along with the blimp from the GHO!), doing an oil change while listening to DRC. Could you play "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers for us? Thanks! Love your show!
- Laura & Dean

Posted at 7:55:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.