wanty

it’s a state of mind. or at least, it’s my state of mind at the moment. i don’t want to shop very much anymore (especially with this current love of ’80’s fashion–having suffered through it once i have no desire to repeat the experience) and indeed i’m generally disheartened by how out-of-control manufacturing has become. environmental issues, labor issues, moral issues–it’s more than enough to make me put my card back in my pocket and hunker down at my sewing machine instead. (we’re not going to discuss where my fabric came from at the moment, or those really cute ballerina crocs in orange that some woman was sporting the other day.)

every now and then, though, i have these episodes where i’m really keen to get something. there’s the gocco printer, which will have to wait because i just don’t have the **** room and i can’t bear another unopened, unfinished project haunting me. and there’s this:

WANTY. how dorky-cute would it be to have this teapot and jug set? even the color is goofy and retro and perfect for my butter-yellow and red kitchen that i shall have someday.  err . . . not that we have milk in a jug ever . . . but we do use a teapot on the weekends. and if i have the jug, maybe i will use it, right? Right?

how do you get them? well, you could just BUY them, but that’s no fun. because you can also save your tokens from your tea boxes and send them in. it’ s like cereal toys for grownups. i knew i should have been saving the tokens all these years! the teapot is 36, the milk jug is 12 . . . and i have two so far. i suspect i might crumble after achieving the jug and just splash out for the pot, but right now i’m a woman with a mission.

 

bits and pieces

this has been the scene every morning. the summer fog has arrived; i’m wearing a turtleneck today. however, if you drive about 8 miles over the hills, it’s in the 90s and sunny and gets hotter the further inland you go. and, per the morning news, still (still!) burning in a few places.

i’m thinking this should be a regular feature of this blog: My Marvelous Parking Skills. two turns and i was in. look at how snug! even the dogs in the yard behind the volvo couldn’t believe it. (that’s one of my favorite houses ’round here, btw–they have a lovely front yard and two sweet labs that hang out there.) straight as you like and never touched a bumper.

meet the porsche, seen here parked by the benicia marina. obviously this is the lifestyle it was meant for: rolling around california, parking up to watch the yachts sail in and out of the yacht club just around the bend. all we need now is a picnic blanket, a nice greek salad, and a cold bottle of chardonnay.

apparently we were not alone in such thinking–it seems to be a commonplace activity in benicia on a sunday: visit your friends by the water, bring a picnic, or go to one of the restaurants along first street, preferably driving your favorite vehicle. have a nice lunch outside with fresh salads and lots of wine. enjoy the quiet, as the loudest noises are the perpetual breeze, the faint sound of jazz from the bar up the block, and your conversation.

benicia, looking back from the pier towards the city.

and looking from the marina out towards the pier and the martinez hills beyond. not visible is the refinery, which you can see by craning your neck around and peering to the left. no one looks that way; it’s the one blight on an otherwise pristine view.

 

this is not bread pudding

though that’s a very good guess as that was the recipe i was using as a guideline. but this is breakfast. it’s more like a baked french toast. the primary ingredient: one extremely stale whole baguette because someone at the supermarket got antsy and said “oh, just buy both” when i couldn’t decide between the baguette and the italian bread. add in milk, eggs, mango and peach chunks, coconut, a sprinkling of flax just for that fiber thing, cinnamon for flavor, and less than a quarter of the sugar the recipe called for. the result is hopefully something that will travel well in a tupperware, as i intend it for my work breakfasts. it sure tastes good nibbled out of the pan–that photo is no longer accurate, and it’s only been out of the oven for an hour or so.

 

serge this!

so i bought needles, and they didn’t fit, and then saturday the ever-patient mr. j drove me back up to my work neighborhood and waited on a sunny bench while i talked to the kindly babylock/bernina dealer about what my serger needed. and in doing so went through the whole story of babylock lady’s recent illness and her family medical history and the upcoming bernina conference and, well, it’s one of those california things i never quite know how to handle–how easily everyone will tell you their life story while you stand there, your little paper bag of sewing needles in hand and ever-patient adj waiting and waiting. not that i don’t care that babylock lady was ill–she is a sweetheart, i’ve bought thread from her before–it’s just that such things never really happened in nyc. at work, too, it seems to be par for the course that you will go from office to office telling each person individually the story of your weekend and asking for theirs. sometimes you just want to get on with things, you know?

anyway. needles, check. better thread, check. scraps to work with, check. manual read in its entirety, check. built by wendy guide to serging, at hand and with pattern copied out. and we were up and running:

so, onto project number 1. i had a big t-shirt that i had bought some time ago before i realized sewing knits on a regular machine was incredibly time-consuming and fiddly. it was xl or xxl, i can’t remember which, but otherwise brand new:

i was going to use the rolled hem version of the t-shirt in the built by wendy book, but the scoop that she advised for the neck was too deep, it would have cut into the nice flower on the chest. so i went sort of halfway between the regular crewneck and the scoop neck, and this was the result:

it’s a little too boxy for my taste, but i’ve seen in other blogs that the patterns in this book are kind of big all around. i’ve got an ottobre magazine with a nice set of knit patterns in it–a tank top, a couple variations on a t-shirt, a long sleeve scoopneck–and i think i’ll try one of those for the next t-shirt reconstruction. still, though, it’s functional and not a tent, in fact it’s pretty gosh darn comfortable, with properly sealed seams and a little rolled hem all around. so of course where was i at 10:30 last night? poring over knit patterns, with a pile of thrifted knit fabrics, big t-shirts, and tape measures all around me, and with half an eye on that bbc adaptation of pride and prejudice. a perfect evening. (i do think it’s one of the best literary adaptations ever, and not just because it has colin firth as mr. darcy. no, that has nothing to do with it. really. i swear.)

 

babylock eclipse sx

it came today.

there is always that touch of strangeness that comes with getting something from ebay–the smells of someone else’s house, the foreign concept of what someone thinks is good packing, the little bits of another life sticking to the cutting blade or written on a scrap of paper in the case.

first of all, i must say that you can keep the jet air threading and the extra $ it costs. i had this puppy threaded in thirty seconds; it was as easy as threading a sewing machine. no offense to the babylock imagine owners out there, of course, but tugging a wire versus pumping an air jet seems like it’s 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. can’t really see how balancing the tension is going to be that difficult either, it’s a pretty solid little machine.

and here is where i should show you my first stitches with it . . . except i, ah, i got a little carried away. it was so easy getting it threaded that i read through the start guide, stuck some fabric in and went for it. which probably would have worked if the machine had been right out of the box. but it wasn’t right out of the box, it was straight from someone else’s project, and there were about four different things that conspired against me . . . i got about six inches down before it bunched to hell and i broke both needles. yes, BOTH needles. i know, i know.

(sneaking a peek at her rude bits

so here are some scenarios that you might want to reflect on before you shove that random scrap of t-shirt under the presser foot and “go for it.”

1) remember when you were playing with the lever on the side, thinking it opened the front case? that was the differential feed, and it should be down at Normal, not up at 2 aka Extreme.

2) there’s a chance, just a chance mind you, that the previous owner might have been doing something fancy and have two very different needles in there, and said needles might be dull or even bent from said owner’s not-so-expert packing.

3) it’s 8 o’clock at night and you only have three thread cones? might be a good idea to remove one of the needles since you haven’t threaded it–otherwise it’s just whacking uselessly into your rapidly tangling seam.

4) it’s probably not a good idea to keep fiddling with the knob labelled “LOCK” while you impatiently flip through the manual, as this could lock the blade down on the side of your test scrap. yes, that is what it does. it says so about two pages past where you left off to “go for it”.

5) oh, and if you have five days before your new baby arrives, take an hour out and buy some spare needles, just in case, you never know, worst case scenario, etc. no, sergers do not take the same needles as your sewing machine. and no, no one sells flat-sided serger needles at 9 o’clock at night, except possibly in Manhattan. (hey, maybe they have 24-hour needle delivery in Manhattan? goodness knows you can get everything else brought to your door . . .)

so if you’ll excuse me, i have to go now and figure out the absolute fastest way to get from my san francisco meeting to the nearest sewing store . . . no spare needles! i’m kicking myself! all that time watching the ups tracking like a hawk, and no needles! what was i thinking?

 

mi pueblo

when it’s warm out, and it’s time to grill . . . or really anytime our shopping list consists of fruit, vegetables, cheap beer, and meat . . . we head over the bridge to mi pueblo.

mi pueblo is a supermarket chain. it’s not the only latino supermarket near us (our neighbors go to another one closer to the bart station) but it’s always had everything i need with easy parking besides. and who doesn’t love bright yellow bags in bright red shopping carts? between that and the bouncy music you just end up smiling the whole time.

you can’t read them in this picture, but the signs over the aisles are in spanish and english, as are most of the signs around the supermarket–a fun way to practice your spanish. they have a butcher counter, a bakery, two counters of fresh salsas, a fish stand, a place where you can get very good tacos and burritos to go (we brought dr. g here) . . . really all you could ever want. look at all those tortillas! and behind them rows of beans and sauces! yes please!

is $4.29 a good price for pickled pigs’ ears? i don’t know. i do know that the produce prices are very good, and overall everything is cheaper than the supermarkets in alameda. also, everything is fresh fresh fresh–not that eat-me-now-or-else that you have at the chinese markets, but still ready to go.

the wall o’ chorizo.

laundry detergent, anyone? i’m not a big fan of powdered detergent myself, but for some reason the way they look on the shelves is very pleasing visually. i always take a look at it (and i’ve snapped a few pictures before. yes, my computer is full of things like pictures of detergent.)

pretty jalapenos! of course we always have to stop here.

many varieties of the genus musa (i learned that this morning). plantains are hecka yummy.

papayas as big as my head. yes, really. i did a comparison–on the sly, of course, otherwise the weekend would have been one long papaya-head joke.

limes, including those supersweet little ones from mexico (they’re at the very left there). pinatas anyone?

there are also flowers, so a lucky lady who smiles winsomely can have some pretty strawflowers for her fourth of july table.

and look! our happy cart with its happy yellow bags. there’s mangoes and limes and peaches in there, three different kinds of salsa, avocados, bread, tortilla chips, and of course the ubiquitous tecate, summer drink of choice when it’s your turn to bring the beer to the soccer game. i heart mi pueblo!

 

holiday things

i was in a bit of a funk earlier this week, so i brought some work home with me–a mental health break. which as it turned out was a wise thing to do, because many good things happened. for one, my camera came back, finally! and only then did i realize how much i had missed it. the olympus is a good camera, but it’s heavy and slow, it doesn’t allow for that sort of stick-it-in-your-pocket just-in-case picture taking. the lumix is just so easy. small and lightweight and quick on the draw, and i’m still using the battery it came with and getting a week out of each charge. brilliant.

i also won this puppy on ebay. babylock eclipse sx:

it is not the super-duper jet-air threading one, but those were running $800 and up on ebay. i saw the uber-fancy evolve go for $1800, yikes! this i got at a fraction of the price, and it is the next best thing. perhaps even better, as i’ve heard a few stories about the jet-air not always working as it should. not many but a few. and since i’ve never actually used a serger before, it seemed better to start a little low and work my way up. no more stretchy knit hems and trying to steam them back into shape! no more jagged seam finishes or fiddling with french seams! i’m very excited.

and there were other things too, like people visiting and gardens and stuff. more on that in a bit.

 

psychic network / 38 cents

great minds think alike–the better to cheer each other on. thank you, dad. you can call me anytime. xx j

 

swirls and eddies

by now i’m sure most people know of our sacramento disappointment.  i think i am the one more upset–i was already planning my new writing/working schedule in my head–and i still feel like i’m reeling from the blow.  right now it seems like all roads lead to extremities of compromise and status quo, and it’s bringing me down.

which of course means that it’s the perfect time to be reminded about all the projects i could be doing while freelancing from our fabulous sacramento condo:

my writing group decided this weekend to resurrect itself.

i sold a bag and received a nice letter about how great my work is and when will i have more to show/sell?

i received an invitation to participate in an arts fair.

i received not one, not two, but eight calls for writing from magazines that i could plausibly be published in.

i’m bidding on a serger, one of those babylock sweeties that start at $1100 apiece, and so far i’m winning it at the remarkable price of $300.

and of course, what downer isn’t complete without retail therapy? waiting for me in the mailbox sunday night were two delicious treats: one of those ubiquitous 20% off coupons for fabric at stonemountain and daughter, and a notice for yet another addison endpapers sale.  because of course i need more fabric, the better to overwhelm myself with the number of projects i would be doing if yadda yadda yadda.  and if sacramento was a go i would have had to stock up on at least the basics–the good fabric shops seem to stop at the edge of north berkeley.  so the 20% coupon would have been right on time.  sigh.

as for addison . . . oh addison endpapers.  i always go to the sale, i always go over my budget for the sale, i always get my dander up about the people and the ridiculous preciousness of it all, i always storm off swearing never again! and then, of course, i go right on back.

if anyone has ever been to the studio sale in oakland, they know how downright weird it is, how you can be scoring something worth the $ in one hand while holding something completely c**p in the other, and yet they’re both priced the same and fit seamlessly into that Addison Aesthetic.  i’ll have to see if i can take pictures, at least of the morning line to get into the place.  if i can get up early enough on saturday, and get permission from the bank account to have a feedsack-buying episode like i did last time.

(i think addison makes me crabby mostly because it gives me hardcore house envy: i know that vintage 1920s paper bunting is useless and overpriced, i know it’s pathetic that eight women are crowding around it and one of them will snatch it up, and yet if i had a house how awesome would it be to have it hanging, say, over a nice creamy window in my kitchen? that’s the kind of feeling addison brings out in me.)

 

museum publishing seminar

the table, in it’s third? fourth? incarnation.  we brought too many books so i kept rotating them.  lots of thoughts about these few days–i always come away with ideas, big and little, about this publishing niche and how i fit into it.  never very conclusive though.