Crafting in the field

Yesterday I crafted.

Now, before you get all excited, wondering “How on earth does that Mara have time to complete field work AND craft?!” please be aware that I have seamlessly combined the two activities.

You see, I am working on these little guys

Which includes putting up little cameras to spy on their every move. These cameras are powered by big ass batteries that require superior strength to transport and set-up.

The batteries are changed about every four days, so in the meantime are in great danger of battery predators: namely, curious cattle.



Sometimes the cows feel like chewing on the cords, other times they like nothing better than giving the battery system a good kick. Basically, they enjoy creating holes in our data set.
We do have some beautiful cattle guards waiting around for me to pick up, but until that happens, I created the below masterpiece by lugging around various logs and sticks and placing them in pokey positions.

TaDa!




Ain’t she a beaut? I like to think so.

Delusional

I have an affliction.

Every time I am almost done a simple sewing project, I always decide to make it "better" (a.k.a. complicated beyond words). This usually translates to a disastrous end product.

I blame patterns.  I get near the end of the pattern, the finished project within 2 seams of being done, and I think to myself, "Wow, that was so easy.  This looks so good.  I should probably make my life a complete disaster now by doing something really hard." I swear that those exact words pulse through my brain.

Case in point: This past weekend I decided to make a lunch bag. I found this free and cute pattern: http://thelongthread.com/?p=6217

I duly read the instructions and all the comments.  I noted that Ellen said "zipper...great idea....some sort of suggestion [along the lines of 'don't use this pattern if you want to have a zipper']...would make zipper easier"

Fast forward 2 hours. Outer layer sewn. Lining sewn. Just need to stitch the tops together.

Kim decides to add a zipper.

Kim immediately forgets that it was suggested that this design would be difficult to add a zipper.  Kim goes for it.

Kim spends the next 4 hours ripping, sewing, turning inside out, ripping, sewing, ripping, sewing, flipping, and swearing. Of course, the entire time I was thinking to myself: I could just take out this zipper and go back to the original plan. But I really wanted a zipper!

I ended up having to rip off the metal piece that prevents the zipper from falling off:

The zipper fell off many times.  Often when the bag was guts out.

Speaking of guts out...my bag herniated. A lot.

I almost herniated. A lot. Especially when this happened:

In the end, I finally completed her. It wasn't pretty, but I manage to suture up this puppy after a number of botched surgeries.

I do adore the bag. I love that it is lined with waterproof fabric and that the zipper can either be fully zippable or semi-unzippable,  and I even love that I wish that I had put a pocket in it.

Also, it now has a dual purpose: it's a lunch bag AND a daily reminder that I am delusional at best when it comes to improvisational sewing.

at home work attire

It's been a good week of posts on Offbeat home - here's one that totally applies to the grad student types - what do you wear when you work from home??

http://offbeathome.com/2011/05/a-freelancers-wardrobe

I'm a jeans (only those that are already on their way out) or carhartts with a t-shirt, hoody (or some other large and comfy sweater) and often a tuque (not always because i'm cold...sometimes i just like wearing a tuque) kindof girl.

What do you think...does dressing up increase at-home work productivity? Or do pajamas keep you comfy and therefore productive?

a.

Love Letter Quilt, check.

Rain over May Long certainly helped me be productive... on my hobbies. I finished my second quilt! It measure 87" by 84". I was thinking I may have to ship it out to be quilted, but I had a hard time swallowing the cost. Fear Not!! I pushed that sucker through the sewing machine. The quilting isn't amazing, but it works.

I definitely had a lot of assistance from the blond girl who tends to be very helpful. Here she is helping me pin fabric together.

My red-headed step child is less helpful. He just makes himself quite comfortable on any project I am working on.

I can't believe I didn't take more photos of the creative ways I tried to hold up the quilt while sewing various parts. Here is a picture of how it was positioned while sewing on the binding. I need a bigger table.

Here she be! The brown is really not that dark. I am not quite sure what happened in this photo.

A view of the back.

Here it is on my bed. I am now in desperate need of pillows. Lots and Lots of pillows. Beautifying the rest of my room will have to wait until I own a house. 

So, who is up for a summer project that is still around Edmonton? I am reupholstering a chair and really have no idea what to do. I am going to rely on online tutorials and perhaps buy a book. If anyone wants to help or wants to have a "reupholster old furniture" weekend, stop on by.

Home ownership...

Hey friends,

I just read this post on offbeat home: http://offbeathome.com/2011/05/what-to-know-buying-a-house

it's got a few good tips on things to think about for all of you who are venturing into the world of home ownership. I don't pretend to be an expert...but i thought she made some good points.

Also - for all of you who have bought fabric online, but haven't responded to my post about fabric shopping...tut tut tut. If you do so soon, I will no longer name one of our meat chickens after you...and we all know what happens to meat chickens...

upon answering my post, I will return to Dustin's name suggestion for the meat birds of "Delicious".

A post about "how to buy chicks before the chicken coop is done and your life turns into a whirlwind of chaos, so I left to go to Prince George for a committee meeting to let Mark deal with the disaster, and stink-eye (the sick) chick died, and that made me sad" to follow....

A.

Fabric shopping...

Alright. So in case you guys don't know, I live in a pretty small town, that although beautiful in so many ways, lacks in the funky fabric department (read: wolf howling at moon and fish jumping). There is one local online fabric store from a nearby town (which is awesome: Fishskin fabrics - have I mentioned she's a former fisheries biologist who has taken on this new career...hint hint...any one of us can quit science at any time to make beautiful things fulltime...well - in theory!), but so far she hasn't been stocking a lot of the fabrics I'm into.

Basically, wedding season is about to begin, I have a new niece and a home to make things for, so I need some fabric shopping advice that won't put me in the poor house. To date, I've ordered from Sew Mama Sew, Hawthorne Threads and the Purl Bee, depending on who's got a sale on or who on any given day, for whatever reason stocks the exact same fabric, at a totally different price from the other sites!!!! wtf my friends. That's right...wtf - I said it.

Here's my questions to you:

1. Where do you most often buy your fabric online?
2. Have you found any one site that consistently has better prices?
3. What about shipping?...they all seem to vary in how much they charge to ship to the great white north
4. Are there any awesome sites I'm missing out on?

Many thanks in advance for helping me out with this hugely important, internationally significant issue.

a.

For the mamas (and all the to be mamas) amongst us...

... love all of the biologists amongst us... :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osWuWjbeO-Y&feature=share